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Instructors: Andreas Bünger
Event type:
Practice class
Displayed in timetable as:
06.880.0924
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
3,0
Language of instruction:
Mehrsprachig
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 45
Requirements / organisational issues:
This course is part of a four-part ISSK module for advanced English competence.
Contents:
This course will take a linguistic approach to a cultural phenomenon rooted in the United States, which has gradually been exported to global culture. The central artefact under discussion is the tendency for educated English speakers to avoid high-circulation words for minority groups due to the linguistic phenomenon known as pejoration, that is, the tendency for words to take on increasingly negative connotations with time. A striking example is the rough progression of terms for Americans with African ancestry, in which the old ones, especially “colored,” become derogatory. Many languages have examples related to the names for women (Magd and Weib were neutral terms in Old High German). Even the standard term “Jew” is tainted with the weight of anti-Semitism—the adjective “Jewish” sounds less accusatory. And like all matters of semantics, these changes and preferences only make sense in the thick of social context.
The perceived linguistic policing around identity strikes many contemporary speakers as excessively prescriptive and hypersensitive such that almost every word to describe this form of politeness or sensitivity has suffered rapid pejoration as soon as it became widely used: consider the terms identity politics, political correctness, wokeness, and cancel culture—all of which have taken on primarily negative connotations across discourses.
Course readings will include synchronic and diachronic linguistic analyses, historical studies on American language and society, translation history, and examples from everyday use. Assignments will consist of readings for discussion along with short responses, structured discussion, and short presentations.
Digital teaching:
While it will be possible to schedule in-person office hours, the course is currently planned to be held entirely online (as of Sept. 2, 2021).
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