LING 20
Introduction to Linguistic Analysis
Description: Lecture, four hours; discussion, one hour (when scheduled). Introduction to theory and methods of linguistics: universal properties of human language; phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic structures and analysis; nature and form of grammar. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 5.0
Units: 5.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - TL;DR - I really enjoyed this class and highly recommend it to those who are interested in linguistics or want to major in it or something related (like one of the ling & ______ dual majors). If you aren't interested, you'll probably find this class tedious and boring. Prof. Schutze is extremely thorough (sometimes a little unnecessarily so) in his explanations of course material and answers to students' questions, as well as corrections to the textbook content and study guide answers. He also sticks to the syllabus schedule very closely. The TAs are also very organized and welcoming of questions. I found that whatever was confusing to me during lecture was always cleared up for me in discussion section through asking questions and doing practice exercise, so it's extremely valuable and worthwhile to go to discussion every week, ESPECIALLY because it helps a lot on the homework too (which is worth nearly half your grade). Make sure you do your homework thoroughly and ask classmates/friends for help (or even if you're sure of your answers, just double-check with them so you can maximize your points)! Do the psych pool EC experiments early on in the quarter (I finished all of mine by Week 5)!
Winter 2019 - TL;DR - I really enjoyed this class and highly recommend it to those who are interested in linguistics or want to major in it or something related (like one of the ling & ______ dual majors). If you aren't interested, you'll probably find this class tedious and boring. Prof. Schutze is extremely thorough (sometimes a little unnecessarily so) in his explanations of course material and answers to students' questions, as well as corrections to the textbook content and study guide answers. He also sticks to the syllabus schedule very closely. The TAs are also very organized and welcoming of questions. I found that whatever was confusing to me during lecture was always cleared up for me in discussion section through asking questions and doing practice exercise, so it's extremely valuable and worthwhile to go to discussion every week, ESPECIALLY because it helps a lot on the homework too (which is worth nearly half your grade). Make sure you do your homework thoroughly and ask classmates/friends for help (or even if you're sure of your answers, just double-check with them so you can maximize your points)! Do the psych pool EC experiments early on in the quarter (I finished all of mine by Week 5)!
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2019 - Giuseppina is fantastic! I took her LING 20 class on the side of two heavier STEM classes and found the subject to be an interesting look at language more than half of the time. It can get a little technical with grammaticality, sentence structure, and phonological rules (language sounds). While the required homework (30% of your grade, graded pretty leniently) was usually short, it could be tricky- but the TAs would always be happy to help you through it and check your rationale before you turned it in. The midterm (35%) wasn't so hard, but the material got a decent amount trickier by the final (35%), which would require you spend some more time learning everything and getting support from her and the TAs. She offered 2% extra credit, and her lectures came straight out of the textbook, which is a free pdf another professor on campus wrote very well and with clear explanations of each topic. Though I didn't do as well as I'd have liked because I didn't allot enough time to studying for the final, I'd definitely take more classes with her. She's really sweet and always brought a positive energy to each lecture. Get feedback on your practice from the TAs and you'll do great.
Fall 2019 - Giuseppina is fantastic! I took her LING 20 class on the side of two heavier STEM classes and found the subject to be an interesting look at language more than half of the time. It can get a little technical with grammaticality, sentence structure, and phonological rules (language sounds). While the required homework (30% of your grade, graded pretty leniently) was usually short, it could be tricky- but the TAs would always be happy to help you through it and check your rationale before you turned it in. The midterm (35%) wasn't so hard, but the material got a decent amount trickier by the final (35%), which would require you spend some more time learning everything and getting support from her and the TAs. She offered 2% extra credit, and her lectures came straight out of the textbook, which is a free pdf another professor on campus wrote very well and with clear explanations of each topic. Though I didn't do as well as I'd have liked because I didn't allot enough time to studying for the final, I'd definitely take more classes with her. She's really sweet and always brought a positive energy to each lecture. Get feedback on your practice from the TAs and you'll do great.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - Honestly didn't expect to like Professor Smith as much as I did—initially, he makes it seem like the class will be extremely difficult and that he'll be a stickler about everything, but that isn't the case. He's really friendly, has a great sense of humor and sarcasm (not everyone gets it, but he's a funny guy), and really seems to care that we learn the material. A lot of the teaching can seem hand-wavy in the first half the class because this is just an intro class, but he does his best to explain things without getting overly complicated. The class does cover a *lot* of material, but Professor Smith did a good job of connecting back to old material when relevant. Really enjoyed the class and I hope to take another linguistics class with the professor. Weekly homework + quizzes in discussion (and the occasional lecture quiz), but only the top 10 quizzes count. Homework is sometimes difficult but not unmanageable; same with quizzes. He makes the class sound a lot harder than it will be (just check the grade distribution!) Also high recommendation for Adeline as your TA if she's an option!
Winter 2016 - Honestly didn't expect to like Professor Smith as much as I did—initially, he makes it seem like the class will be extremely difficult and that he'll be a stickler about everything, but that isn't the case. He's really friendly, has a great sense of humor and sarcasm (not everyone gets it, but he's a funny guy), and really seems to care that we learn the material. A lot of the teaching can seem hand-wavy in the first half the class because this is just an intro class, but he does his best to explain things without getting overly complicated. The class does cover a *lot* of material, but Professor Smith did a good job of connecting back to old material when relevant. Really enjoyed the class and I hope to take another linguistics class with the professor. Weekly homework + quizzes in discussion (and the occasional lecture quiz), but only the top 10 quizzes count. Homework is sometimes difficult but not unmanageable; same with quizzes. He makes the class sound a lot harder than it will be (just check the grade distribution!) Also high recommendation for Adeline as your TA if she's an option!