Lehrende/r: Kristin Weil
Veranstaltungsart: Proseminar
Anzeige im Stundenplan: PS Eng Ling
Semesterwochenstunden: 2
Unterrichtssprache: Englisch
Min. | Max. Teilnehmerzahl: - | 45
Anmeldegruppe: Proseminar English Linguistics
Prioritätsschema: Senatsrichtlinie 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
Inhalt: This course will focus on the internal structure of words and on the elements and processes used in composing new lexical items. In the first sessions, basic concepts such as morpheme, affix, inflection and derivation will be introduced in order to provide students with the conventional linguistic terminology before we approach the main topic of the course, i.e. word-formation. The difference between inflectional and derivational morphological processes may be illustrated with the following examples: the polyfunctional grammatical morpheme {–s} in she sleeps (3rd pers. sing.) and cats (pl.) in contrast to the derivational affixes {un-} and {-ity} to combine with {able} and produce unable and ability. The class will deal with strategies of how existing words and ‘parts’ of words may be used to create new words, and it will be concerned with ‘productivity’, a concept that is to account for the fact that some word-formation processes do in fact more frequently occur in the creation of new words than others. Different types or patterns of word-formation like compounds (e.g. compound: Énglish teacher ‘teacher of the English language’ vs. phrase: English téacher ‘an English person who is a teacher’), blends (e.g. smog = smoke + fog), acronyms (e.g. NATO = North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) and alphabetisms (e.g. BBC, USA) will be discussed, and it will become apparent that the English language exploits the possibilities of word-formation like no other European language. The course will not only be relevant for students of linguistics but also for future teachers of English who are supposed to have a sound knowledge of the basic patterns used in the formation of complex words in English.
