For this Friday 9/7, please read the following article, which can be downloaded from the “Readings” section of this website. (Note that the “Readings” section is password-protected; you can find the password on the first page of the course syllabus.)

Fromkin, Victoria A. 2001. Linguistics: The scientific study of human language. In Linguistics: An Introduction to Linguistic Theory, 3-21. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

The Fromkin article provides a birds-eye view of the discipline of linguistics:  its various subfields, its guiding questions and concerns, and its methods of investigation.  During the course of this semester, we will take a closer look at many of the issues that Fromkin touches upon.