Q: course ideas - Lg & Culture, Lgs of the World

[David_Tuggy at SIL.ORG]

     On 4/9/97 Noel Rude wrote:

        'A number of years ago I helped develop an intro-level undergrad course
titled "Languages of the World".  The course sprang from the observation
that in our obsession with scientific principles most of our students
were terribly ignorant of basic facts.  It seemed good that they should
know something about Bantu.  In all our other courses we teach
principles, methodology, how to DO linguistics, and this is good.  But
we were old fashioned.  We thought students ought to know some specific
facts too.  ...  I may sound cynical, but I still think the effort is
worthwhile.'

     Too much of the linguistics that I have seen taught didn't even deal
     with how to DO linguistics, but rather with the history of
     linguistics, the philosophies involved in this or that model, etc.
     Instead of using linguistics to look at language (much less any
     particular language) it is easy to take linguistics as the object of
     study. I agree that knowing and having to deal with some specific
     facts is a much-needed antidote.

     --David Tuggy