MODE OF DELIVERY: ONLINE, ASYNCHRONOUS
This course is an introduction to the sentence structure of English and to the use of grammar in various communication situations differing in register, dialect or mode. A characteristic of English grammar is that it is flexible – users can and do adapt grammatical structures according to their communicative requirements. This is true of spoken language ranging from, for instance, everyday informal conversation to formal presentations and in written language from informal uses in notes or text messages to formal papers. The dialect of the speaker or writer affects the grammar, too. By studying numerous examples across more than one regional dialect of contemporary (present-day) English usage, the course explores some of the prominent uses to which grammar can be put.
Grammar is often defined as a set of rules for the use of language. The approach followed in the course is descriptive. This implies that the course teaches how grammar is used in real situations, rather than how some or other authority (like a professor of English language, an institution for the regulation of language, or a prescriptive textbook) prescribes that it should be used. This does not mean that there are no rules in this course; rather that the rules reflect how language users actually tend to use the language.
The English 321 course begins by identifying types of grammatical units, describing their internal structure and relating them to larger structures and determining their meaning in the context in which they occur. The grammatical units are presented as a hierarchy in which each unit is composed of one or more of the units below it in the hierarchy. Words consist of one or more morphemes, phrases consist of one or more words and clauses consist of one or more phrases. The course systematically describes the following levels of grammar: morphology, word classes (or parts of speech), phrase classes and the structure of clauses.
Full description available at https://distancelearning.ubc.ca/courses-and-programs/distance-learning-courses/courses/engl/engl321/