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Instructors: Prof. Dr. Günther Lampert
Event type:
online: Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.866.312
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 45
Registration group: Engl. Ling. 312
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
Note that the proseminar contains a Modulprüfung in Module 4 of the BEd Course. To obtain crdit (4 CPS, workload about 120 hours), you must actively participate and write a term paper of about 2500 words.
Contents:
This on-line class will survey the history and present state of English in North America.
Cast in the frameworks of recent research on Postcolonial Englishes and Language and Identity, its special concern will be topics such as
— the emergence of English in America;
— (re-)definitions of its identity;
— its nativization and indigenization,
— the development of new and not-so-new (regionally and ethnically-based) varieties such as Canadian English, African-American Language, Latino Englishes, etc.,
— differences between Standard British and American English,
— issues of language conflict in the U.S. such as racialization, political correctness, and hate speech.
Recommended reading list:
A good on-line introduction to the topic of the class is still the PBS production Do You Speak American?, which can be found under http://www.pbs.org/speak/
A very compact introduction to the topic is the final chapter of Edgar Schneider (2007), Postcolonial English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (available on-line at the central library).
The best book on the topic is Walt Wolfram & Natalie Schilling (2016), American English: Dialects and Variation. Third edition. New York: Wiley (availabe on-line at the central library).
Digital teaching:
Since the class will be entirely digital and a-synchronous, it will place an additional focus on academic writing skills.
So, the class may be suitable for those of you who see this form of teaching more as an asset than as something which must be endured for want of alternatives.
I plan to be available for (e-mail) office hours each Tuesday from 10:30-12:00 at lampert@uni-mainz.de, starting on October 19, 2021.
The learning platform for this class will be LMS, to the accessed at https://lms.uni-mainz.de
All the material you will need for this class will be available as pdfs etc. on that platform. Once you are registered for the proseminar, you automatically get access.
To be granted active participation you will be expected to hand in some written tasks during the semester.
A preliminary plan is going to follow right here:
The class will begin on October 19 and continue on October 26 with a Power Point + Script introduction by the instructor. These introductions will be available as uploads on LMS by the beginning of the semester.
From November 2, you may watch a recent scientific video on Talking Black in America, to be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QFpVgPl9tQ&t=19s
On November 16 you will have to hand in answers to some study questions referring to the Introduction and the video. (Task 1 for Active Participation)
Between November 17 and November 30, you will have time for independent study of two research articles you may select from a pool of articles you will find on LMS. On December 7, you are expected to send in a reading report (details to follow) on the articles you selected. (Task 2 for Active Participation)
Next, you will choose a further article from another text pool and hand in an abstract (details to follow) of that article on January 4. (Task 3 for Active Participation)
Then you will have to prepare a scientific poster on a fourth self-selected article from a third text pool. The poster will have to be handed in on January 25. (Task 4 for Active Participation).
Of these four tasks you may fail in one, but you have to hand in all tasks.
You will receive information on the different writing skills (reading report, abstract, poster, term paper) at the beginning of November.
At the end, you will have to prepare and write a term paper of about 2500 words that is supposed to connect to the topics covered in the text pools. I have no fixed date yet of when to hand in your paper. We will see how everything works.
Please note that this outline is preliminary and may be subject to change
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