Ling 460 Web Links
Prescriptive rules
This is a terrific site about the kinds of prescriptive rules that it's worth knowing about, and following, especially in writing . It mostly deals with incorrect usage of words and phrase (like 'affect' and 'effect' for example) and he exactly the right take on why you might want to follow these rules even if they are not always logical -- see his answer to "What is an error". He also has a good list of "Non-errors" which covers many of the rules I've tried to debunk in class
The American Heritage Dictionary has a panel that it polls about controversial word usage, and they report the actual percentages of responses. Here you can see all the dictionary entries that contain this kind of information.
Here are the rules about 'shall' and 'will'.
The full website on singular use of 'their' that is excerpted in your packet.
Etymology
This is a good site about the history and derivation of words. Most of the exciting stories you hear about word origins are just folklore - this site gives the real stories.
Language and Thought
Here's a list of possible words for snow in Yupik by an expert on Eskimo languages.
(If that's not working the same material should be here and here in a less attractive format)
Temple Grandin's writings on life with autism: thought without language here
American English Dialects
Hear examples of the Boston dialect r-insertion and r-deletion here - see the first link under 'Background Information'.
Tons more stuff than we'll do in class here, including regional differences in vocabulary and syntax
Practice phonetic transcription here
Foreign Accents
Listen to samples here
Listen to sounds that we don't have in English here
Listen to Hindi stops discussed in the handout
Bilingual Education
James Crawford's website on bilingual education and language policy
Essays on Language by Geoffreys
Diverse linguistic amusements
Animal sounds of the world's languages
The Klingon Language Institute
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