Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 February 2026
In this chapter we argue that formal linguistic analysis is an important part of the language teacher’s formation and, given the right approach, can provide a unifying view of cross-linguistic patterns. We describe an undergraduate course taught at a college in New York City which sought to compare phonological, morphological, and syntactic patterns in a wide variety of languages. Seeing both differences and similarities across these often typologically diverse languages through an analytic lens also helps students overcome biases and preconceived ideas about the status of a language while at the same time leading prospective language teachers to a better understanding of minoritized languages spoken in their own homes.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.