Record details

• ISBN: 1598034774
• ISBN: 9781598034776
• Physical Description: 6 videodiscs (approximately 1080 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in. + 1 course guidebook (iv, 205 pages ; 22 cm).
• Edition: Standard format.
• Publisher: Chantilly, VA : Teaching Co., �2008.

Content descriptions

General Note:

Collective title, part numbers & lecture titles from disc menus. Disc numeration from disc labels.

Course guidebook includes an outline for each lecture, a timeline, a glossary, biographical notes, and a bibliography.

Formatted Contents Note:

Part one: disc 1. What is linguistics? -- The sounds of language : consonants -- The other sounds : vowels -- In the head versus on the lips -- How to make a word -- The Chomskyan Revolution -- disc 2. Deep structure and surface structure -- The on-off switches of grammar -- Shades of meaning and semantic roles -- From sentence to storytelling -- Language on its way to becoming a new one -- Recovering languages of the past.

Part two: disc 3. Where grammar comes from -- Language change from old English to now -- What is an impossible language? -- How children learn to speak -- How we learn language as adults -- How you talk and how they talk -- disc 4. How class defines speech -- Speaking differently, changing the language -- Language and gender -- Languages sharing the world : bilingualism -- Languages sharing a sentence : code-switching -- The rules of conversation.

Part three: disc 5. What is this thing called language? -- Speech as action -- Uses of talk from culture to culture -- Does language channel thought? : the evidence -- Does language channel thought? : new findings -- Is language going to the dogs? -- disc 6. Why languages are never perfect -- The evolution of writing -- Writing systems -- Doing linguistics : with a head start -- Doing linguistics : from the ground up -- The evolution of language.

Creation/Production Credits Note:

Editor, Rich Bernett.

Participant or Performer Note:

Taught by John McWhorter.

System Details Note:

DVD.

Language Note:

In English.

Search for related items by subject

Subject:

Linguistics.
Language and languages.

Genre:

Instructional films.
Feature films.
Filmed lectures.
Nonfiction films.

Search for related items by series

• Great courses
• Great courses (DVD). Social sciences.