General information
| Course type | AMUPIE |
| Module title | General linguistics |
| Language | English |
| Module lecturer | prof. UAM dr hab. Karolina Krawczak-Glynn |
| Lecturer's email | krawczak@amu.edu.pl |
| Lecturer position | University professor |
| Faculty | Faculty of English |
| Semester | 2026/2027 (winter) |
| Duration | 30 |
| ECTS | 3 |
| USOS code | 15-GL-AMU-PIE-11 |
Timetable
Module aim (aims)
This lecture introduces the basic notions, schools of thought, areas of research in linguistics. It raises the students’ awareness and understanding of such topics as language structure; features of language; language in relation to cognition, culture, and reality; levels of analysis in linguistics; language variation; language acquisition; language evolution, language families etc.
Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)
Syllabus
The topics covered in the course are listed below. After each topic, students can take a short “test for fun” on the Moodle platform to check their understanding of the material. Immediate feedback is provided there.
1. INTRODUCTION: Linguistics, Language, Communication
2. SEMIOTICS: Sign theory
3. MORPHOLOGY: Building blocks of grammar
4. LEXICOLOGY: Words & lexical relations
5. SEMANTICS: Patterns of meaning
6. PRAGMATICS: Language in context
7. FORMAL & FUNCTIONAL SYNTAX: Sentence formation, structure representation, form to meaning relation
8. SOCIOLINGUISTICS: Language variation and society
9. LANGUAGE EVOLUTION & LANGUAGE FAMILIES: Theories on language evolution and relations btw. languages
10: PSYCHOLINGUISTICS: Language acquisition
Reading list
Selected references (not obligatory reading)
Aitchison, Jean. 2008. The articulate mammal. Cambridge: Routledge.
Aitchison, J. 2010. Aitchison's Linguistics: A practical introduction to contemporary linguistics. Hachette UK.
Aronoff, Mark & Janie Rees-Miller (eds.) 2000. The handbook of linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Crystal, David. 1995. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language. Cambridge: CUP.
Crystal, David. 1997. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Cambridge: CUP.
McGregor, W. B. 2024. Linguistics: An introduction. Bloomsbury Academic.
O’Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff & Janie Rees-Miller. 2017. Contemporary linguistics. An introduction. Boston: Bedford.
Trask, R.L. 1995. Language. The basics. London: Routledge.
Trask, R.L. 1997. A student's dictionary of language and linguistics. London: Routledge.
Trask, R.L. 1998. Key concepts in language and linguistics. London: Routledge.
Yule, G. 2006. The study of language. Cambridge: CUP.