Assignment 1

The goal of this assignment is:

• To find out a little about you, to know about your background and why you are taking this course.
• To give you the opportunity to familiarize yourself with sending email and finding course information on this Web site.
• To review some of the concepts covered in the first class and in Chapter 1 of the textbook.

Although it will normally be ok to submit your assignment either in hard copy or electronically, this assignment must be sent by email to the leader of your discussion section (not sure who, or what his email address is: consult the "Instructors" page by clicking on the navigation bar on the left). The email should be received by class time on Tuesday September 9th.

A. Please let us know the following things about yourself

1. Name
2. Year (freshman, sophomore etc.)
3. Major (known or expected)
4. Why are you taking this course, and what would you like to get out of a course in linguistics?
5. What is/are your native language(s)? Would you say that you (sometimes) use a regional dialect or have a regional accent (e.g. Texan, British, Caribbean Spanish).
6. Have you studied any other languages in the past? Which languages? How confident are you in speaking or understanding these languages?

B. Now some questions about you and computers - these will be very useful to us in organizing the course:

1. Do you mostly work with a computer in your home/dorm or with a computer at one of the university computing sites?
2. If you mostly use a computer in your home/dorm, do you have network access?
3. What platform(s) are you familiar with (e.g. Mac, Windows95, Unix)
4. What is your email address?
5. Are you an experienced/regular email user, or are you a relative newcomer?
6. Are you an experienced/regular user of the World Wide Web, or are you a relative newcomer?

C. Now for some linguistics! Please complete the following:

1. Read Chapter 1 of the textbook
2. Answer exercises 2, 7, 9 (just the first part: don't write the short essay part)

We will discuss your answers to exercise 7 in discussion section 2, after watching the film "Secret of a Wild Child".