This is a good subject to do if you liked Phonetics. The subject covers a lot of different areas - classical phonemic analysis, feature theory, the morphology-phonology interface, tonal phonology, metrical theory, stress, and optimality theory. The lectures were not very interesting in my opinion but Janet explained things well. This subject was particularly orientated around practical problems, which were fun to do yourself but meant that a lot of the lectures were just Janet explaining examples from the textbook and were therefore not very interesting to listen to. The tutorials were also a bit dry. The first half of this subject was really boring in my opinion, most of it was revision from phonetics or feature theory, but the second half was a lot more interesting, especially autosegmental phonology and optimality theory. There are two problem-solving assessments, which were quite tricky, and a final exam. There aren't any listening tests (unlike phonetics), it's all purely analysis. Overall, I would say this is a more challenging and somewhat dry subject, but would recommend it to anyone interested in phonetics/phonology or in language documentation more generally.

Anonymous, Semester 2, 2022

No idea what was going on half the time but somehow managed to pull through. 3 stars for the content being somewhat interesting regardless of whether you actually understand it or not. At least the lecturer is nice..

Anonymous, Semester 1, 2020

Finding this subject tough- I'm in Week 1- but this is also considering the fact I got H1 in Phonetics. Looking for other reviews as to whether I should continue this subject- I don't want a repeat of Syntax- HILP!!!

Anonymous, Semester 2, 2018