This course is designed to teach you to approach English words in an analytical and historically-oriented way. This material provides the background for increasing your vocabulary, as well as improving spelling. More importantly, the techniques taught in our course can be used to efficiently increase your vocabulary for the rest of your life.
By the end of this course, you should
- be able to look at an English word that you have never seen before and have some idea of what it could mean;
- have the skills necessary for coping with the technical vocabulary in fields such as medicine, biology, geology, psychology, neurology, chemistry, anthropology, etc.;
- have a strong background for preparing for the vocabulary portions of standardized tests required for graduate school, law school, and so on. Our method of building vocabulary is similar to that taught in some GRE preparation manuals.
More specifically, at the end of this course you should
- know a large number of word roots from classical languages and be able to identify these roots in unfamiliar English words. These roots occur frequently in many English words, especially those words used in academic and technical vocabulary.
- understand the history of English and how these historical changes have affected the modern lexicon;
- understand the basic principles of language change, such as sound change and meaning change.
Prerequisites:
You do not need any previous linguistics courses. You must be fluent in English at the level required for regular admittance by the University of Oregon. Please see the current catalog for specific requirements.