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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: ELing 312
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
Due to the special cirumstances of university teaching in Covid-19 times, the class will be entirely digital and place an additional focus on academic writing skills.
I plan to be available for e-mail office hours each Tudesday from 10:30-12;30 at lampert@uni-mainz.de (alternatively via Teams), starting on November 2, 2020.
Since I do not know yet which software I will use for the class (either Microsoft Teams or the new LMS-software of JGU; see https://lms.uni-mainz.de) I will here provide only some preliminary information on what you will be going to expect in terms of requirements.
First of all: All the material you will need will be available as pdfs etc. on either of these two tools.
Please note that the proseminar is a Modulprüfung in Module 4 of the BEd Course. To obtain credit (4 CPs; workload about 120 hours), you must actively participate and write a term paper of about 2500 words.
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-line on November 3 and continue on November 10 with an introduction (ppt or script provided by the instructor).
On November 17 you will have to hand in answers to some study questions referring to the Introduction. (Task 1)
Between November 17 and December 1, you will have time for independent study of a research article you may select from the pool of articles you will find in the reader(s) mentioned above. On December 8, you are expected to send in a reading report (details to follow) on the article you selected. (Task 2)
Next, you will choose a second article and hand in an abstract (details to follow) of that article on January 5. (Task 3)
Then you will have to prepare a scientific poster on a self-selected third article on a similar topic as article two. The poster will have to be handed in on January 26. (Task 4) .
You will receive information on the different writing skills (reading report, abstract, poster) before November 17.
On February 2, I will give some necessary information on term paper skills.
February 9 is reserved for final questions and a wrap-up of the course.
Finally you will have to prepare and write a term paper that is supposed to connect the results of articles two and three (actually, an outspelled version of the poster). I have no fixed date yet of when to hand in your paper. We will see how the Corona regulations will develop.
Please note that this outline is preliminary and may be subject to change.
I am looking forward to connect with you from November 2 onwards. I you have any questions or queries in advance, please feel free to write an e-mail to lampert@uni-mainz.de
Any further or more up-to-date information before the semester starts can be found on my website at https://sites.google.com/site/lampertg118/home
Contents:
This 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 American English,
— (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 British and American English,
— issues of language conflict such as racialiazation, 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).
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