05.008.200 Seminar: English Linguistics - Texting: Designing Teaching Materials for the EFL Classroom

Lehrende/r: PD Dr. habil. Martina Lampert

Veranstaltungsart: Seminar

Anzeige im Stundenplan: S: Eng.Linguistics

Semesterwochenstunden: 2

Unterrichtssprache: Englisch

Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 30

Anmeldegruppe: Seminar: English Linguistics

Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie zzgl. Bevorzugung höherer Fachsemester
Zulassung gemäß Richtlinie über den Zugang zu teilnahmebeschränkten Lehrveranstaltungen vom 07. März 2007.

Nähere Informationen hierzu entnehmen Sie bitte www.info.jogustine.uni-mainz.de/senatsrichtlinie

Über die Senatsrichtlinie hinaus werden bei der Platzvergabe für diese Veranstaltung Studierende höherer Fachsemester bevorzugt berücksichtigt.

Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches:
Details of organization and additional information will be available during the first meeting; study material will be available for individual download in pdf format.

Inhalt:
While laypeople’s comments on electronic communication range from acknowledging it as the Digital Revolution to considering it a major risk to humanity, linguists may probably agree that if the Internet is a revolution, it is likely to be a linguistic revolution. In this class, we will take a closer look at one specific form of electronic communication, texting or SMS, from a register perspective, that is, as a situationally specified variety of the English language.
Starting out from a survey of basic differences between (spoken) discourse and (written) text, this class will zero in on the situational conditions and the medial constraints typical of electronic ‘messages,’ comparing them to a cross-section from ‘traditional’ spoken and written communication, e.g., conversations or academic prose. This analysis will reveal recurrent determinants of texting’s unique linguistic ‘profile,’ distinguishing it from both print and talk.
Students are expected to carry out (group) analyses of text samples, adopting a ‘learning by doing’ method to empirical research, which will have to be presented in class and serve as a basis for their term papers; as this course’s special focus and main concern, these findings are collected to collaboratively design a model unit that may be offered in an English as a Foreign Language classroom project.