Introduction to Linguistics

This course is the basic theory class for graduate students majoring in language, explaining how to understand language phenomenon and the patterns of language. The main content includes: what is language, language concepts and properties; what is the object of studying linguistics, the function of language in social interaction and the connection between language and thought; the variation of language across regions and societies; the connection between language and phonetics , the relationship between spoken and written language; linguistic structure and classification; the systematic nature of phonetics, semantics and grammar and related issues.