ATS2681: Structure of English

10%: Weekly exercises
30%: Assignment 1
30%: Assignment 2
30%: End of year examination

Firstly, I'd like to point out that I took this unit at third year level, but I have labelled it as a second year unit. This is because the unit was meant to only cater for second years, and this will be the case hereafter. My understanding is that it is now a compulsory cornerstone or capstone or somethingstone unit in Linguistics, but all of that terminology doesn't apply to me. Frankly, I find it intimidating and scary. But the point is, this unit will only be available at second year level in the future.

As I mentioned in the textbook section above, I appreciated the structure of this unit. Each week was based on a chapter of the textbook, and followed a logical progression. The unit caters for all, regardless of linguistic background or ability, and Kate and Izzy are well aware that such backgrounds will be diverse. The weeks progressed as follows (I have bastardised the names for sake of simplicity):

• Week 1: Standard English
• Week 2: Constituency
• Week 3: Words
• Week 4: Grammatical relations and functions
• Week 5: Negation
• Week 6: Types of sentences
• Week 7: Nouns and verbs
• Week 8: Clauses
• Week 9: Discourse structure
• Week 10: Variation in grammar
• Week 11: Variation in dialects
• Week 12: Future of English

Now, if you happened to do EngLang 3/4, some of these topics may seem familiar. But I did EngLang, too, and I certainly learned many new things every week (I especially liked Kate's tangential historical linguistics lessons). Despite my majoring in Linguistics, I was still confused about some fairly basic concepts. Thus, I was able to a) consolidate things that I always thought that I should probably know, and b) learn entirely new concepts.

Tutorials were engaging. I would have actually liked them to run weekly, which is particularly deviant from my usual attitude regarding tutes. Kate is a stupendously encouraging tutor; and, whilst I never experienced her tutes, I have also heard great things about Izzy's teaching style. You can't really go wrong, I don't think.

I will now take this opportunity to run through the assessment tasks, because I think I have made my general views on the unit fairly apparent.

Weekly exercises:
The exercises come from the end of each chapter of the textbook (actually, I guess that this means that the textbook is needed a little more than I made out in earlier sections of this review). Typically, we were required to answer 3-4 questions, some with many (many) parts. The answers to these exercises were actually provided right at the start of the semester. As such, should you be that way inclined, you could easily just look at the answers and not really have to do the exercises at all. But I strongly recommend against this, because they are fantastic revision and in a very similar structure to both the assignments and the exam. Each weekly exercise is worth 1%, for a total of 10%.

Assignment 1:
Both assignments adopted the same kind of structure: short answer with a couple of longer responses thrown in. But, like a lot of Linguistics assignments, I found myself spending longer thinking about each question than (metaphorically) putting pen to paper. The first assignment encompassed questions on word class analysis and constituency analysis (both in various forms). Whilst I did have to think quite a lot about some of the questions, it was a fairly gentle assignment. This would especially have been the case had I completed the weekly exercises in their relevant weeks, rather than leaving them until the end of semester.

Assignment 2:
Assignment 2 had questions on basic clauses and their functions, discourse strategies, subordinate clauses, verb forms, and a longer question on grammar of a particular variety of English. I think the general consensus was that this assignment was easier than the first one, but I actually found it more difficult. I guess it's subjective and depends on your strengths and weaknesses, like most assessment tasks. Feedback for both Assignment 1 and Assignment 2 was fair, helpful and encouraged further thought.

End of year examination:
This was my first exam, and also the one that I studied most for (I was progressively ill throughout the exam period, so it just worked out that way). There was nothing particularly unexpected; however, I felt that the vast majority of content from during the year remained unexamined. I would have preferred a greater range of topics in the exam, but I understand that they were looking for depth of understanding rather than breadth of understanding. I guess the point to take home, though, is to know each topic well, for you may come across a fairly weighted question on any topic.

tl;dr: Radical unit. Take it.
... Did I mention that Kate is great?

• Prof. Kate Burridge:

I have insufficient abilities to explain how terrifically fantastic Kate is. She is easily the best lecturer I've ever had, and probably the best teacher. My respect for her is just so ridiculously high. Kate is probably the only lecturer who would render me tempted to attend extra classes. I made sure that one of my units next year is run by Kate. Her knowledge in Linguistics is unparalleled, she understands how to explain that knowledge, she is very patient, she wants her students to learn, she is clearly passionate about her area. To summarise: Kate is great, and it's worth doing this unit just to experience her lectures.

• Izzy Burke:

Izzy is also a good lecturer. I think we had her for two weeks throughout the semester - one lecture on negation was of particular interest. I didn't enjoy her lectures as much as Kate's, but that is certainly not a knock on Izzy; I haven't enjoyed anybody's lectures as much as Kate's.

Not sure, but a 'sample exam' was provided.

5 out of 5

Yes. Izzy used slides; Kate did not. I'm not sure if there was screen cap or not, but I would highly recommend actually attending the lectures.

Introducing English Grammar by Kersti Börjars and Kate Burridge. I guess the textbook isn't crucial; it is nicely summarised in the unit booklet that is provided in Week 1. However, it does go into much more depth and provides more examples, so I recommend finding yourself a copy. Further, because this is the kind of book that I would read in my spare time, I had no problem in buying it. The textbook is well written, with clear headings and sub-headings, which were helpful. An advantage of having one of the co-authors as the unit co-ordinator is that the unit is essentially based on the book: each week is based on a particular chapter, making navigation easy and efficient.

1x two hour seminar per week
1x one hour tutorial per fortnight

Semester 2, 2014.

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