Language Acquisition Part III (1 credit hour)

This course is a supervised study of the language and culture of the Comanche Nation in Oklahoma. The student applies all his linguistic training to learning as much of the Comanche language as he can in a few days.

During this study, all the principles of Phonetics, Phonemics, Morphology, Syntax, Language Learning, and Ethnology are applied in a real life situation. Native speakers of the Comanche language are employed as teachers of their language and culture. Each student writes a phonetic chart of the sounds, a tentative phonemic alphabet, and a tentative analysis of the word and sentence structure of Comanche.

The student also asks the Comanche speakers to help him construct dialogues, which the student memorizes and acts out with the supervision of the Comanche speaker as a guide to pronunciation and actions. This dialogue gives the student an opportunity to try out what he has learned in the linguistic and language learning courses. It also teaches him how to work courteously and effectively with a native speaker of a non-western type language and culture.