Overview

• The Study of grammar - e.g. prescriptive vs descriptive approaches, the grammar of non-standard dialects, First Language Acquisition and Language Disorders contexts.
• How to describe and label the morphemes of a word.
• Aspects of English word morphology including e.g. affixation, inflection and derivation and compounding
• Major word categories and parts of speech in English (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs)
• Minor word categories and parts of speech in English (determiners, prepositions and conjunctions)
• Some features of the English grammar of children
• Some examples of grammatical errors made by learners of different languages
• Aspects of assessing and testing English proficiency

Assessment Strategy

-threshold -D: Student has achieved the minimum acceptable standard of understanding and/or knowledge in all the learning outcomes. Student can demonstrate a minimum level of understanding of the basic concepts and be able to apply them to data with some degree of accuracy.

-good -B: Student has achieved a better-than-average standard of understanding and/or knowledge in all learning outcomes, and has a clear and accurate understanding of concepts; ability to apply concepts to data critically and thoughtfully; evidence of wide reading and clear and accurate reference to source materials; free from misunderstanding and errors of content; free from irrelevant material.

-excellent -A: Student has achieved a thorough standard of understanding and/or knowledge in all learning outcomes; or student has demonstrated an exceptional level of achievement in one or more learning outcomes together with a good overall standard: student has achieved a thorough understanding of the subject, both in terms of content and theory; student is able to apply concepts clearly and accurately; substantial evidence of critical and original thought and analysis; clear, logical argument; high level of communicative competence; free from irrelevant material and errors of spelling and punctuation; evidence of extensive reading beyond basic texts and clear and accurate references to source material.

Learning Outcomes

• Be able to analyse some aspects of basic morphological data in English.

• Gain an overview of some of the core issues involved faced by people learning English morphology.

• Have basic knowledge of some of the key literature and theoretical approaches relating to morphology and English grammar.

• Know the basic terminology and concepts used to describe word morphology in English.