32.2947, Review: Applied Linguistics; General Linguistics: Punske, Sanders, Fountain (2020)
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Subject: 32.2947, Review: Applied Linguistics; General Linguistics: Punske, Sanders, Fountain (2020)
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Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2021 00:22:55
From: Asmaa Shehata [rasmenia1 at gmail.com]
Subject: Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/31/31-3163.html
EDITOR: Jeffrey Punske
EDITOR: Nathan Sanders
EDITOR: Amy V Fountain
TITLE: Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2020
REVIEWER: Asmaa Shehata, University of Mississippi
SUMMARY
The edited volume, “Language Invention in Linguistics Pedagogy”, is a
collection of fifteen articles in which the authors describe the academic and
pedagogical role of language construction. The main purpose of the book is to
depict how con(structed)lang(uage)s are used in informal and formal
educational settings including schools, colleges, and universities. In the
introductory chapter, Jeffrey Punske, Nathan Sanders, and Amy Fountain briefly
introduce the importance of constructed languages in the classroom and provide
a brief overview of each article in the book. The chapter also displays the
benefits of using conlangs, such as easy access to a wide range of learners
and helping them develop their language and analytical skills.
Following this introduction by the editors, Chapter 2, “A Primer on
Constructed Language” by Nathan Sanders, demonstrates a brief history of
conlangs. The chapter begins with a description of the early notions of
language construction and how it evolved. Then, it provides many examples of
conlangs from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In the following sections,
the author describes how conlangs are used for different purposes in the
modern era, including education, entertainment, arts, religion, and
philosophy. The chapter concludes with a brief summary of key terms and
concepts relevant to constructed language, such as relexification and
crypto(lect).
In Chapter 3, “Budding Linguists and How to Find Them” (pp. 32-48), Anika
Okrent briefly sketches, on the one hand, the kind of learners who are likely
to be interested in conlangs and, on the other hand, the content they are
interested in learning.
Chapter 4, “The Linguistics of Arrival” by Jessica Coon, describes her
linguistic fieldwork in the Ch’ol-speaking Mayan village in Mexico where she
learned the Ch’ol language. The author first explains the positive role of
Universal Grammar in acquiring the structure of the Ch’ol language. Then the
author compares the two different languages of Heptapods (Heptapod A and
Heptapod B) and presents the linguistic fieldwork conducted with the Heptapod
language.
Chapter 5, “Three conlang projects at three educational levels” (pp. 49-68),
by David Adger and Coppe van Urk, presents a project using constructed
languages that includes three different educational groups: young children,
teenage children, and final year undergraduates. The project is based on
Adger’s design of the Warig and Mere languages for a television series
entitled “Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands”. The goal is to help students
apply language invention skills and linguistic concepts in teaching
linguistics in different contexts. In addition to introducing the project’s
procedures, the authors provide detailed descriptions of different approaches
to teaching sounds and grammar.
In Chapter 6, “The design(ing) of language” (pp. 69-85), Grant Goodall
presents an undergrad course that examines the linguistics of invented
languages. Goodall introduces three case studies that deal with three
different aspects of language: the lexicon, inflectional morphology, and
phonemic inventories. Goodall concludes with a discussion of the benefits of
such courses in that they enable students to better comprehend the nature and
design of human language.
In Chapter 7, “Using language invention to teach typology and cross-linguistic
universals” (pp. 86-106), Matt Pearson introduces a linguistics class project
that students use to create a constructed language typology. The goal is to
help students understand the presence of predicted patterns in natural
languages. After presenting a brief overview of the project that describes
when and where the idea for the project originated, Pearson introduces the
project’s sources that teachers can use to create questions and topics such as
the World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Then the project’s parameters,
including syntax, phonology, and morphology, are described. The chapter
concludes with some examples of Nattiki conlang.
In Chapter 8, “Teaching invented languages to the undergraduate major” (pp.
107-124), Angela Carpenter presents an undergraduate capstone course in which
students invent their own new language. Carpenter describes the design of the
course in detail, providing more information about its content that includes
the history of invented languages along with various grammatical features to
be adapted. More information is also provided about the homework assignments
and other features of the course, including translation assignments, guest
speakers, and samples of students’ comments. Interestingly, the course also
draws students’ attention to language change in a cultural context and to
sociological factors that stimulate dialectal variation in their own invented
language.
In Chapter 9, “Teaching invented languages as an introductory course” (pp.
125-136), James Berry reports on his invented languages course for English
majors at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. The course was first
introduced in fall 2016 and only included 10 students. After presenting
background information about the course and its main goals, Berry introduces
the language project and its four sections: the world of the language, the
sound system, the morphosyntax, and the lexicon, semantics, and pragmatics.
Berry concludes with a discussion of the positive results of the course and
his intention to teach it again.
In Chapter 10, “Bringing language construction from the classroom to the
community” (pp. 137-168), Carrie Gillon, Edward Delmonico, Randi Martinez, and
Spencer Morrell present another constructed language course that was taught at
the University of Arizona State University in 2016. The chapter is co-authored
by the professor and three students who were enrolled in the course. Gillon
and colleagues start with a brief overview of the reasons for creating the
course, followed by a description of the course structure including its
format, students’ presentations, and rough drafts. Then the authors reflect on
the course, listing its advantages and disadvantages. Interestingly, the
chapter concludes with a brief description of three different examples of
constructed languages that students create in the course.
In Chapter 11, “The interdisciplinarity of conlangs: Moving beyond
linguistics'' (pp. 169-185), Nathan Sanders and Christine Schreyer examine how
conlangs underline the links between linguistics and other fields such as
biology, physics, and anthropology. To this end, the chapter reports on
students’ projects from two different classes. While Sanders provides two case
studies from his linguistics classes, Schreyer describes projects in her two
different anthropology courses. In their conclusion, the authors present the
benefits of such projects from the perspective of students and instructors
alike, asserting the benefits of interdisciplinarity in linguistics teaching.
In Chapter 12, “Teaching Proto-Indo-European as a constructed language” (pp.
186-207), Brenna Reinhart Byrd and Andrew Miles Byrd explore
Proto-Indo-European using constructed languages. The aim is to present a novel
technique for teaching historical linguistics courses using invented
languages. The authors begin by describing the traditional approach to
teaching Indo-European Studies (IES). Then they propose a new approach for
teaching Proto-Indo-European (PIE) as a conlang using a fable translation
exercise. Next the authors describe their contribution in a collaborative
video game project called Far Cry Primal, in which they designed two conlang
versions of PIE, Wenja and Izila, and taught them to the actors who appeared
in the video game.
The objective of Chapter 13, “Learning about language through language
invention” (pp. 208-238), by Skye Anderson, Shannon Bischoff, Jeffery Punske,
and Amy Fountain, is to describe how to use conlangs in undergraduate courses
outside linguistics classes. The chapter is based on a project taught in
various classes over twelve years at three different institutions: University
of Arizona, Purdue University-Fort Wayne, and Southern Illinois University. To
complete the language invention project, the students in these courses were
required to submit sample vocabulary, sound inventories including consonants
and vowels, grammatical paradigms, and examples of questions as well as
sentences of their languages, using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
After each of the main four steps of the project, students got feedback and
revised their materials before submitting their work as the final field
report. The authors share the students’ reflections on the project and how it
helped them in their later academic decisions.
In Chapter 14, “Extraterrestrial message construction: Guidelines for the use
of xenolinguistics in the classroom” (pp. 239-250), Sheri Wells-Jensen and
Kimberly Spallinger provide a group of exercises that aim to engage students
with an invented language. The chapter further discusses the advantages of
using the suggested exercises in both undergraduate and graduate courses. The
authors also suggest adapting their exercises to different levels of
linguistics courses and to introductory mathematics courses as well.
In Chapter 15, “Artistry in language invention: Conlang pedagogy and the
instructor as authority” (pp. 251-281), David Peterson describes a conlang
course that integrates the artistic features of language. His course was
taught in 2014 at the University of California-Berkeley. The chapter
introduces the main project and assignments presented in the course, and also
depicts a sample evaluation assignment as well as some theoretical issues in
relation to phonemes, morphemes, and syntax.
EVALUATION
This book (302 pages including the index) presents a very interesting set of
articles that give a good overview of constructed languages. As the editors
explain in Chapter 1, the articles give the reader an overview of current
empirical investigations that employ constructed languages. All the
contributions are not only interesting reads; many of them, in particular
Chapter 13, are very important to language invention in linguistics pedagogy.
They cover various topic areas, providing a complete, authoritative, and
up-to-date overview of the field. The chapters are mostly stand-alone
contributions that examine the use of constructed languages in introductory
undergraduate courses in post-secondary institutions. Thus, the chapters can
be read in any order. This book is ideal for students of applied linguistics,
sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, and language acquisition, in
addition to teachers, and researchers wishing to learn about invented
languages. Overall, this book is a valuable source that provides frameworks
for understanding the use of language invention in linguistics pedagogy.
Researchers can consult this volume for directions of current constructed
language research and readers do not need to have any familiarity with
conlangs before reading the book.
REFERENCES
Everett, D. (2017). “The story of humanity’s greatest invention”. New York:
Liveright Publishing.
Gobbo, F. (2013). Learning linguistics by doing: The secret virtues of
language constructed in the classroom. “Journal of Universal Language”, 14,
113-135.
Sanders, N. (2016). Constructed languages in the classroom. “Language”, 92,
e192-e204.
Van, H. Gerard. (2017). The very big class project: Collaborative language
research in large undergraduate classes. “American Speech”, 83(2), 222-256.
White, T. H. (2003). Extraterrestrial DX. Circa 1924: Will we talk to Mars in
August. “SearchLites”, 9(3), 3-4.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Asmaa Shehata, is a faculty at the University of Mississippi, Department of
Modern Languages. Her research interests include second language phonology
with a particular focus on cross-language speech perception and production.
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