Jonathon is an excellent lecturer and found a way to answer student questions during the lecture without disrupting the pace at which he covered content. There were lecture notes provided for each lecture—these were really comprehensive and a lifesaver when revising the subject content during swotvac. You get to bring a double sided A4 page of notes into the mid-semester test and final exam. My tutor Josh was excellent and always happy to answer questions and made me feel really supported. I found the subject content really interesting and different to the style of other arts subjects. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like a logic puzzle. Most of the assessments involved us being given a dataset which we then had to solve using the concepts from the course. Almost like how math problems work (but with words instead and more fun in my opinion as someone who doesn’t like math). I scored an H1 and 10/10 would recommend!!

Learnt a lot, but found it boring and the exam marking was harsh.

Grade: 88 This was my favourite subject at Uni so far, which is unexpected because I actually completed it as a breadth. You learn about a range of linguistic branches: morphology, syntax, pragmatics, phonetics, phonology, neurolinguistics, FLA and SLA, sociolinguistics and finally historical linguistics. It does help if you've learnt or are currently learning another language, but don't stress if you haven't because Jonathan (the lecturer) does a great job of introducing all the ideas. Also, don't worry about learning IPA beforehand since there were multiple tutorials/external resources provided and you also get the IPA chart for the exam. I found the assignments very intuitive and a lot of the students, including myself, were really happy with the exam as it was a fair assessment of what we've learned throughout the semester. You could also bring in a double sided cheat sheet! As long as you attend each tutorial and are confident with the exercises, then this subject will be great. For any fellow Science or Biomed students who are interested in this subject as a breadth, I would highly recommend it! I'm really happy I chose a subject that I'm passionate about and was really interested in studying instead of a bludge subject that probably would have been a waste of money (this subject only costs $555 as well!). Furthermore, it's the most 'science-y' of all the Arts subjects because the answers are very objective (eg, what is the manner of articulation of this phone?) and requires you to logically problem solve application questions. Shoutout to my tutor, Caanan, for being super helpful and giving us really useful tips for phonology :)

Score: 90. As a ling major this subject was a no-brainer for me. I'd say it's a great intro for those wanting to study linguistics in future, but it's not something I'd say would make you fall in love with linguistics as a discipline. The lectures weren't super engaging, just about learning content. Having said that, I found the subject overall very enjoyable and easy to do well in. If you are willing to put in a bit of effort and have an interest in linguistics, it's very easy to do well. I also had a great tutor (shout out Josh!).

A very interesting subject and a great introduction to the field of linguistics. Pretty much you just work through all the basic areas of linguistics, such as phonetics and syntax. There isn't much opportunity to go deep into any of the areas, so it's a great surface-level introduction to help you figure out what areas (if any) you're interested in. Rachel was a great lecturer and Tula was a great tutor! If you watch all the lectures you should have no trouble <3

Extremely interesting subject which served as a passable introduction for linguistics. Highly recommended for those who are interested in pursuing linguistics as a major, since it covers topics like phonetics and syntax which are second year core subjects for the major. Sadly, in my experience the lectures weren’t too engaging (actually they were rather bland) and at times difficult to follow since certain aspects of linguistics like syntax and phonology require problem-solving and aren’t merely ‘discussed’. This was unfortunate since the assessments and exams require similar problem solving strategies. However, if you’re willing to put in /a lot/ of work, solve the exercises given for each topic, and engage in tutorials it’s possible to get a high mark.

I found the subject quite difficult having never done linguistics before. It did not help that the lectures were very dry and the lecture slides were disorganised and concepts were not explained properly. I relied heavily on the workbook and basically self-taught myself. Not a great subject to do online either as there is a lot of group work in class

This subject has some great reviews but I don't know what happened in 2021. The lecturer (Brett) was very boring and couldn't explain things. My tutor, Rikke, was ok at explaining things but not very engaging and clearly didn't want to be there. I've generally only heard good things about it but I guess it depends on the year.

Brilliant subject! Peter is passionate and engaging, and so was my tutor, Nick. The topics can be challenging at times, but finally understanding them is so rewarding. Gives you a good overview of the different areas of linguistics if you are planning to major in it!

I took this subject as breadth in my first year, and it was my favourite subject! It's very well organised, you get a taste of lots of different aspects of linguistics but it doesn't feel rushed. Some topics are harder than others, especially the more applied ones (e.g. phonology and historical linguistics) but as long as you've paid attention to the earlier topics (especially phonetics!) it's manageable and very interesting. I had Peter as both lecturer and tutor and he was amazing, he really helped us to engage with the content and his genuine love for the subject was infectious! The assessment was always clear and straight-forward, and the question formats were consistent between tutes, assignments and the exam. The assessment feels like word puzzles, and there's no essays which was a plus for me. The tutorial document also has notes with all of the information from the lectures so you don't even have to take your own notes. I didn't take notes or do any of the readings, but still felt like I understood the concepts really well from the practice you get in tutorials. Overall, it's an easy H1 if you pay attention in the lectures and do the tutorial questions. Highly recommend!!