General Linguistics is not taught in the school and therefore it aims at providing the learner with the methodological and operational skills to analyze the linguistic behavior of speakers of a language (this behavior is attested in written or oral data), and to predict that part of the their linguistic behavior which is not yet attested in available data: in short, general linguistics teaches how to construct what is traditionally called "GRAMMAR" of a language. The scientific grammar of a language can be represented as a set of predictions, i.e., rules which - if correctly formulated - allow the construction of expressions (sentences, oral or written texts) deemed "acceptable" by the speakers of that language. These predictive rules generally refer to the grammatical components called phonetics-phonology, lexicon, morphology, syntax and pragmatic. Each of these components requires learning specific operational analysis techniques. Therefore, normative grammar will not be taught, writing/speaking in Italian or other languages will not be taught, Italian or other language spelling will not be taught, but students will be taught to observe the behavior of speakers (regardless of whether it is respectful or not of normative grammar), to build a linguistic database and to use it to construct a grammar, in a scientific, non-normative sense. In addition to the Italian language, the linguistic data will also be extracted from other European and non-European languages, depending on the skills of the learners. Likewise, data from fictitious languages will be used, on which to practice extracting the grammatical rules, without the need - for obvious reasons - for the learner to have a previous knowledge of the language in question. In summary: The objectives of the lecture are: knowledge of methods of phonetics, phonology, morphology and syntax, the ability to transcribe phonetically and analyze phonologically, morphologically and syntactically a sentence in Italian and in a language of the student's choice.
In compliance with the so-called "Dublin indicators" – as better detailed in the "Evaluation" field – the objectives will be aimed at achieving:
1) Knowledge and comprehension skills: ability to extract linguistic data from a sample of speakers
2) Applied knowledge and understanding: ability to produce a minimum scientific grammar from a set of linguistic data produced by a sample of speakers
3) Making judgments: ability to compare and evaluate comparatively different grammars that account in a different and competing way for the same set of linguistic data produced by a sample of speakers
4) Communication skills: ability to communicate the reasons for the comparative judgment referred to in point 3)
5) Learning skills: ability to orient oneself in the relevant scientific bibliography.