Lecture 1. The foundations of language: brain, development, acquisition
Lecture 2. Signs and meanings: semantics
Lecture 3. Sounds of language: phonetics
Lecture 4. Sound and meaning: phonology
Lecture 5. Sound shifts and history
Lecture 6. The rules: syntax
Lecture 7. Words, words, words
Lecture 8. The history of the English language
Lecture 9. From Germanic to Old English
Lecture 10. Borrowing and influence: Romans, Celts, Danes (Latin, Celtic, Scandinavian)
Lecture 11. The Norman Conquest, the influence of French, and the development of Middle English
Lecture 12. To Modern English: the Great Vowel Shift
Lecture 13: You say soda, I say pop: dialect, variants, and the development of American English
Lecture 14. A global language: the present and future of English.