Elson can be funny but his lectures are dry. There are some funny moments (mainly the beginning of class when he complains about things happening in the world). NO CELL PHONES! Not even on vibrate/silent. You can kiss your grade goodbye if you have it on and it goes off during lecture. This is not an easy class (problem sets are not clear and make you frustrated); if you are not a linguistics/cog sci major don't take this class.

This class does not go like an intro course. Elson is funny and I respect his old-fashioned attitude, but it got old. The thing is, the info is weirdly presented and so dull that I was lost half the time--and I have experience in linguistics! Do not take this if you have no experience in linguistics. There are few assignments and almost no reading, so you can feel a little at sea sometimes. Also, it is not about historical linguistics, so (for me) it is pretty uninteresting.

Elson loves what he does and it makes you excited as well. If you're not into linguistics you might find yourself questioning, "who cares?" but you'll enjoy it as time goes on. Also, remember to turn your phone off or on silent when you walk in to class, because if your phone goes off he will flip.

AVOID AVOID AVOID. I thought I wanted to major in Linguistics and thought this would be an interesting class. It was a nightmare. Elson is a nice guy, but the class is hard to follow /confusing and boring. Let's be honest. There are some students who sit in the front and live in Brown and all think Elson is a God. But unless that describes you, AVOID THIS CLASS.

The class is interesting and necessary for linguistics majors, but probably not for others. Elson is a very good professor, but a little persnickity (sp?), and very particular about the way things are done. The class is very helpful for those that are linguistics majors (obviously, it's a requirement), and it was not particularly difficult. I was doing really well in the class but did not do as well on the final so I ended up with an A- instead of the A that I think I deserved.

Never thought about so many abstract concepts pertaining to language. He definitely knows his stuff. This isn't really a practical class unless you are planning to go into linguistic field research, but it helps you think about language on an abstract plane. Erin is a HUGE help because she makes sure you understand the material.

Not my cup of tea exactly, but somewhat interesting. MAKE SURE TO TURN YOUR CELL PHONES OFF BECAUSE HE WILL DROP YOU LETTER GRADES. Sit up front, go to his office hours, and take notes. He repeats everything many times. Corpi might look simple but are hard, BE DETAILED AND CAREFUL

Oh my god, what a nightmare of a course. Whatever you go into thinking the course will be about, it will likely be wrong. Probably one of the most confusing courses I have ever taken. Read the packet of handouts- it has some really good things in there. There was a page in there that suggested what to do on a homework assignment and that saved my butt. The homework assignments are few and far between so make sure to work hard on them and do well. The final counts as a a total of -six- assignments as each of the three sections is counted twice, so study hard and do well on that too. I would not recommend taking this course unless you already know some concepts in linguistics (ironic, considering it is an introductory course).

Despite his tough cell phone policy and intimidating attitude, Elson is actually quite funny. He is extremely nit-picky with words and paying rapt attention to how people use them, but I suppose that's something normal for a Linguistics professor. His lectures were generally easy for me to understand, but the material was sometimes difficult to analyze on your own. The TA, Blake Galbreath, was also very helpful since he's pretty approachable. However, if you don't really care about writing on comparing phonemes and morphemes and phonetic segments, you probably shouldn't take this class...you find yourself just kinda b.s.ing your explanations.

I really enjoyed this class. Professor Elson is kind of crazy and would bring examples of errors in newspaper articles to show us before class, but it was a good kind of crazy and he obviously cares about this approach to linguistics. The assignments were challenging but not impossible and the grading was fair. Blake was great!