Bachelor of Arts (BA) - The University of Hong Kong

The undergraduate programme in Linguistics permits students to combine in a single field a variety ofArts and Social Science subjects and to develop their analytic skills in depth. Students are encouragedto explore with members of staff the many relationships of linguistics with other fields in order todiscover the programme that best suits their individual goals and interests.245The Linguistics MajorsThe following B.A. majors and programmes are offered in the department or in conjunction with otherdepartments as indicated below:Major in LinguisticsMajor in Human Language TechnologyProgramme in Linguistics and PhilosophyThe Department also contributes to the teaching of the B.Cognitive Science Programme. For details,please refer to the B.Cognitive Science syllabuses.(1) Major in LinguisticsIn addition to passing the first-year course, 'Introduction to Linguistics', majors in linguistics must passat least eight second- and third-year courses (or the equivalent) including LING2049. Linguistics fieldtrip. Students may take more than this minimum number of linguistics courses, and are encouraged todo so, but should also try to achieve a balance in their Arts curriculum as well.First-year CoursesThe first-year courses are one-semester courses open to all students who have fulfilled the University’sentrance requirements.'Introduction to linguistics' (LING1001) is prerequisite for all courses taught in the Department ofLinguistics. 'Language.com' (LING1002) is also offered as a University broadening course.LING1001.Introduction to linguistics (6 credits)(This course is also offered to non-BA students for inter-Faculty broadening purposes.)This course is an introduction to the basic topics of linguistics: speech sounds and sound patterns, wordformation, sentence structure, the study of meaning and language change. It aims to show how linguistsinvestigate their subject matter, which will include such interesting topics as children's language, animalcommunication compared with human language, why there are different dialects in languages, writingsystems and language and the brain.Students will learn about the general structure that underlies all language as well as the great variety ofexisting human languages. The course gives plenty of practice in solving problems, analysinglanguages, including Chinese and English, and dealing with data.Assessment: 100% coursework.