Episode Description: Provides an introduction to the series, LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS. Discusses the importance of language. Points out common misconceptions concerning language. Tells what language really is. Explains how the words we use and the way we use them affect the way we think and see the world. Develops the relationship between language, paralanguage, and kinesics. (Description from NET Film Service Catalog 1960)

Episode Description: Dr. Henry Lee Smith, Jr., discusses the importance of language. He tells what language really is and how the worlds we use and the ways we use them affect the way we think and the way we see the world. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)

Series Description: Dr. Henry Lee Smith, Jr., of the University of Buffalo, presents an introduction to linguistics covering the nature of language, its structure and development. He conducts a comprehensive survey of what language really is, considering how it forms a basis for all human interaction. Dr. Smith shows the relation of linguistic science to teaching a foreign language, teaching reading and the analysis of the psychiatric interview. Dr. Henry Lee Smith, Jr., was a Professor of Linguistics and English and Chairman of the Department of Anthropology and Linguistics at the University of Buffalo. Dr. Smith graduated from Princeton in 1935 and received his Master of Arts degree in 1937. He completed the work for his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1938 and became a lecturer at Barnard College, Columbia that year. Between 1939 and 1941, he conducted the radio program Where Are You From?, and in 1940 joined the Brown University staff as an instructor of English. During World War II, as a Major in the U.S. Army, he was in charge of the Language section, and following the war he became director of the Language Department at the Army School Center. From here, he went to work for the Department of State as Dean of the School of Languages, Foreign Service Institute. In 1956, he joined the University of Buffalo faculty. He co-authored two books with George L. Trager: An Outline of English Structure and Linguistic Science and the Teaching of English.
Production Organization: University of Buffalo.
Production Agency: META New York.
The 13 episodes that comprise this series each run about 30 minute. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)

Broadcast Date: 1958