The best way to characterize Professor Elson is that he is very old-fashioned. All that means is that he expects you to respect his strict rules, and he will respect you in return. The strict rules, however, are only created to create a positive learning environment and he is extremely helpful and responsive to questions. He also tells hilarious stories, and it is clear that he truly cares about his students. All in all, very good introduction to analytical linguistics--but like somebody else said, maybe take another linguistics class first before you take this one.

Not recommended at at for non-majors!

Elson is a very redundant lecturer. I'm a linguistics major, and I still had to get motivated to go to lecture. Don't make this your first linguistics course: instead look for something in the Anthropology department first and then move into this. It'll make linguistics more interesting and more fun.

Prof. Elson is much nicer and much more helpful in person, so if you need help, definitely go see him outside of class. He comes across as very severe when he lectures and is very picky, but he is willing to help. The class overall was much harder than I expected, so be prepared.

A prerequisite for any major. I personally enjoyed the class. The subject material is interesting and the class isn't too hard if you pay attention and participate in class. I disagree with other reviews in that this class is a waste of time.

Don't bother. You'll work hard just to do well on the assignments and then the final will be nothing like what you've done. If you're not a major, AVOID THIS CLASS!

Don't do it! There are WAY better intro linguistics classes.

The trifling minutia you learn in this class is almost worthless to the curious layman. I do not recommend this class.