School Of Humanities And Communication ArtsContrastive LinguisticsWestern Sydney University Unit Code: 100918.2
Discipline: LINGUISTICS
Student Contribution Band: 1
Level: 7
Credit Points: 10
Assumed Knowledge
Students of Contrastive Linguistics need to have some knowledge of a language other than English, although a high degree of fluency is not necessarily required. However, students do need to be able to call on bilingual knowledge to do many of the activities and exercises and the major project. For example, an older student with long-neglected high school French should be prepared to refresh their knowledge of the language in the early weeks of the unit. Students may also find it useful to draw on the knowledge of bilingual friends and relatives. Previous study of linguistics will be of advantage for this unit, but it is not a pre-requisite. Solid work on the readings will give the postgraduate student a good grounding in some of the broad themes of linguistics. However, students who have never studied linguistics before may feel more secure if they independently read a standard undergraduate course book.
Equivalent Units
A7443 - Contrastive Linguistics
About this Unit
Contrastive Linguistics is fundamentally about learning to describe and discuss the differences and similarities between languages, and in doing so to better understand the complexity of cross-linguistic work. The unit is not designed to produce narrow specialists in any of the braches of linguistics; but the successful student will be able to engage with the broad mass of linguistics literature and thus be able to enrich their knowledge, develop specialised interests, and be able to use linguistic theory to enhance their professional work.