Late Assignment Submission

• Late submissions without an extension will receive a penalty of 3% of the total mark available for the assessment task per day including weekend days (i.e. this is 3% of the total marks possible for the task – NOT 3% of the marks the student received. For example, if the assessment task is worth 100 marks and the student is two days late their mark for the task is reduced by 6 marks.)
• Late submission of an assessment task without an extension will not be accepted at all after the date on which marked assessment tasks have been released to the rest of the class. Any student with unsubmitted work at this date will receive a mark of 0 for the assessment task.
• Extensions will only be given in special circumstances, and can be requested by completing the Special Consideration request at ask.mq.edu.au and providing the requisite supporting documentation.
• Extensions that will result in submissions after the assessment task has been returned to the class will require a separate assessment task to be completed at the unit convenor's discretion.
• For more information on Special Consideration, see the university website https://students.mq.edu.au/study/my-study-program/special-consideration\
• If a student fails the unit due to non-submission of an assignment or non-attendance at an exam, an FA grade will be applied in accordance with the University's Assessment Policy.
• Unit convenors have the discretion to determine whether or not students should fail a unit on the basis of lateness penalties alone if other learning outcomes of the unit have been met.

Moderation of assessment

With the exception of automatically marked online quizzes, all assessment is marked by tutors and is moderated using pre-marking forms of standardisation such as the use of marking rubrics, and post-marking moderation such as sample checking and statistical analysis of the spread of marks to ensure fairness and consistency across the unit. Final marks are subject to ratification at the Faculty of Human Sciences exam meeting at the end of semester.

LING121 is taught by 2 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week. There are no lectures or tutorials in Week 13.

Lectures

Lectures begin week 1, and are on Monday at 2pm and Wednesday at 10am.

All lectures are recorded and live-streamed using Echo360 and will be available to view on iLearn. However, the recordings are not a substitute for attending the lectures as they will not capture discussions or question and answer sessions fully. You should use the recordings as a revision and study aid, not as a substitute for class attendance. Bear in mind that we have lectures on topics such as sign language and gesture, which do not get adequately captured by lecture recordings.

Tutorials

Tutorials begin week 1.

Each tutorial is based around a key skill that is linked to the assessment tasks or extend the topic from the lectures in the previous week. You will usually be asked to do some sort of preparation for each tutorial, and it is expected that you have accessed the content of the previous week's lectures prior to attending the tutorial.

Tutorials are your opportunity to ask questions about topics you haven’t fully understood, or want to know more about. If you have questions, you should ask them!

Attendance at tutorials is required and attendance will be monitored by tutors.

Reading

We will aim to provide alternative texts to help with your independent study of linguistics, and these may be in the form of podcasts and videos, but we will specify specific readings on occasion. Leganto is the access point for all readings. You will find a link to this on iLearn.

There is no required text for this unit, however you may find the following useful:

Bauer, Laurie, Holmes, Janet, and Warren, Paul. (2006) Language Matters. Basingstoke: Palgrave. (BHW)

Bauer, Laurie, and Trudgill, Peter. (1998) Language Myths. London: Penguin. (B & T)

*Kaplan, Abby. (2016) Women Talk More than Men … And Other Myths about Language Explained.  Cambridge: CUP.

*Napoli, Donna Jo, and Schoenfeld, Vera-Lee. (2010) Language Matters. (2^nd Ed) Oxford: OUP. (N & S)

You should also familiarise yourself with the range of introductory books on linguistics that the library holds.

Those marked with a * are available as e-books from the library.

Topics will be structured around the following blocks (a full lecture by lecture schedule will be posted on iLearn):

• Myths: Folk-linguistics and Prescriptivism
• Realities: Modes of communication
• Myths and Realities: Historical Linguistics and Language Evolution
• Multiple realities: Linguistic Debates about Language Acquisition/Development
• Myth or Reality? The future of language
• Myths and Realities: What do Linguists do?

Fewer assessments with a change in the weighting of marks (change approved by FSQC)