Your final reading assignment for the semester is the following article, which can be found in the Readings section of this website.  Please read it for Monday, May 2nd: Pullum, Geoffrey K. 2010. The land of the free and The Elements of Style. English Today 102: 34-44.
In today’s class, I distributed some possible topics for your fourth (and final) paper, which will be due on Wednesday, May 11. Â In case you missed class today, here are those topics: Topics for Paper #4 (due W 5/11 by email or to my office)
Since we’re running a bit behind, and since you guys have recently completed both a paper and a quiz, there will be no reading assignment for this Wednesday (4/27). Â On Wednesday, we’ll finish up our discussion of the grammar of AAVE. For this Friday (4/29), please complete the following reading assignments: 1. Chapters 1 and …
On Thursday and Friday of this week, we will discuss the Oakland Ebonics controversy.  For Thursday, you should read the following articles, each of which is quite short (no more than a few pages apiece): Primary documents on Ebonics (excerpt). 1998. Journal of English Linguistics 26: 170-179. Raspberry, William. 1996, December 26. To throw in a …
Continue reading ‘Readings for Th 4/21 and F 4/22 on Oakland Ebonics controversy’ »
For next Wednesday 4/20, please complete the following two readings, both of which can be downloaded from the Readings section of our course website: Nunberg, Geoffrey. 1983, December. The decline of grammar. The Atlantic Monthly. Simon, John. 1980b. Destroying Good Words.  (Excerpted from Paradigms Lost: Reflections on Literacy and its Decline. New York: Penguin.)
For this Wednesday 4/13 and Friday 4/15, please read the following book chapters, which can be downloaded from the “Readings” section of this website: Milroy, James and Lesley Milroy. 1999. Authority in Language: Investigating Standard English, Chap. 1 (‘Prescription and Standardisation’) and Chap. 2 (‘Standard English and the Complaint Tradition’). London: Routledge.
For next Monday (4/11), please complete the following reading assignments: 1. Simon, John. 1980a. ‘The Corruption of English’. In L. Michaels and C. Ricks (eds), The State of the Language, 35-42. Berkeley: University of California Press. Â (Available as a PDF from the “Readings” section of this website.) 2. Chapters 8 and 12 of your Language …
Continue reading ‘Reading for M 4/11: Simon (1980a); Language Myths 8, 12’ »
Due to an unforeseen family circumstance, I will have to cancel our class meeting for this Wednesday, April 6. This means that our next class meeting will not be until Friday, April 8. For then, please read Chap. 3 (‘ “Consensual” Searches’) of the Solan & Tiersma book Speaking of Crime, which was assigned for …
As mentioned in today’s class, your third paper is now due on Friday, April 15 (not Wednesday, April 13, as was originally stated–I’d like to make sure that you have a full two weeks to work on this assignment): Topics for Paper #3 (now due F 4/15 in class)
For next Monday 4/4 and Wednesday 4/6, please read the following book chapter, which can be downloaded from the “Readings” section of this website. Solan, Lawrence M. & Peter M. Tiersma. 2005. Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice, Chap. 3 (‘ “Consensual” Searches ‘). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.