Transcribe the following excerpt from Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as it would be pronounced in Standard American English.  The lines describe how Pope thinks a poem's sound should complement its meaning:

Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.

After transcribing the lines into the IPA, write a short paper (4-5 pages) in which you analyze the sounds in the excerpt.  Are there interesting patterns of consonant sounds?  Are there interesting patterns of vowel sounds?  What sounds and patterns of sound in the lines make some lines easy to read aloud and others difficult?  Why do some lines read quickly and others slowly?  How do the sounds in the excerpt reflect the meaning of the lines?  How do they contribute to the poem's overall effect?  Pope writes elsewhere in the poem that "[t]he sound must seem an echo to the sense."  Do the sounds of these lines "seem an echo" to their sense?

Remember to talk about sounds -- not spelling.

I recommend to all students working on papers that you use the resources available through the WRITE Site at http://owl.department.tcnj.edu/.  The WRITE Site offers online assistance with questions about writing and includes a link for making appointments with writing tutors at the Tutoring and Academic Enhancement Center on campus.

Use the Oxford English Dictionary and/or other sources to research the history and linguistic properties of a single English word.  Where and when did the word originate?  From where did English originally take it?  When did it come into English usage?  How has it evolved over the centuries?  What words have been derived from it and when?  In about 5 pages, trace your word's semantic, phonological, orthographic, and morphological changes from its origins (as far back as we know) to the present.

Choose a word that you like, but look for a word with an interesting and/or long history, such as a word with Indo-European roots or a word that has changed radically in usage over time.

Click here to go to the online Oxford English Dictionary.  If you're interested in slang or ethnic words, you might want to take a look at a web project that is being created right here at TCNJ -- the Interactive Dictionary of Racial Language.  You might even want to submit your finished paper for possible inclusion in the Dictionary.

I recommend to all students working on papers that you use the resources available through the WRITE Site at http://owl.department.tcnj.edu/.  The WRITE Site offers online assistance with questions about writing and includes a link for making appointments with writing tutors at the Tutoring and Academic Enhancement Center on campus.