Definition of language; properties and design features of language; definition of linguistics; scope of linguistics; some important distinctions in linguistics: traditional vs modern linguistics; descriptive vs prescriptive grammar; langue vs parole; competence vs performance; synchronic vs diachronic linguistics; speech vs writing; functions of language(s).
2. Phonetics and Phonology
Definition of phonetics; organs of speech; place and manners of articulation; broad and narrow transcriptions; classification of English vowels and consonants; definition of phonology; phone, phoneme, and allophone; phonemic contrast, complementary distribution, distinctive features; minimal pair and sets; some rules in phonology like sequential rules, assimilation rules, and deletion rules; suprasegmental features.
3. Morphology
Definition of morphology; free and bound morphemes; derivational vs and inflectional morphones; morphological rules; morphs and allomorphs; ways of word-formation.
4. Syntax
Word classes; paradigmatic relation and syntagmatic relation; immediate constituent analysis; endocentric construction and exocentric construction; transformational generative grammar; systemic functional grammar; labeled and bracketed sentences; syntactic movement and movement rules; general principles and parameters of Universal Grammar; deep and surface structure; recursiveness; labeled tree diagrams.
5. Semantics
Definition of semantics; some views concerning the study of meaning; semantic triangle; sense and reference; seven types of meaning; semantic field; major sense relations of words; major sense relations of sentences; componential analysis; predication analysis.
6. Pragmatics
Definition of pragmatics; context; sentence meaning versus utterance meaning; speech act theory; principles of conversation; cooperative principle and its maxims; conversational implicatures; politeness principle; deixis; conversational analysis.
7. Socio-linguistics / Language and Society
Speech community and speech variety; regional and social dialects; idiolect; register; standard and non-standard language; lingua franca, pidgins, and creoles; diglossia and bilingualism; slang, linguistic taboo, and euphemism; code switching.
8. Language and Culture
Relationship of language and culture; Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; understanding the relationship between language and thought.
9. Historical Linguistics
The purpose and significance of historical linguistics; the nature and causes of language change; major periods in the history of English; linguistic change of English; language family
10. First and Second Language Acquisition
Language learning and language acquisition; the stages of first language acquisition; language transfer; interlanguage and fossilization; contrastive analysis, error analysis; comprehensive input; critical period hypothesis; individual learner factors