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Instructors: Prof. Dr. Günther Lampert
Event type:
online: Seminar
Displayed in timetable as:
05.008.200
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
8,0
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | 30
Registration group: Engl. Ling. 200
Priority scheme: Senatsrichtlinie
Requirements / organisational issues:
Due to the special circumstances of university teaching in Covid-19 times, this class will (again) be entirely digital and, accordingly, place a special focus on academic writing skills.
To get connected to participants, I plan to be available for e-mail office hours each Tuesday from 10:30-12:00 at lampert@uni-mainz.de, starting on April 6, 2021.
The learning platform to be used for this class will be LMS, found at https://lms.uni-mainz.de. You will automatically find all relevant information (newsletters, texts, videos, etc.) for the class on that platform once you have registered.
Please note that the seminar counts as a Modulprüfung in Module 5 of the B.Ed. Course. To obtain credit (5 CPs; workload about 150 hours), you must actively participate and write a term paper of about 3000-3500 words.
To be granted active participation, you will be expected to hand in three written tasks during the semester. A preliminary plan of the class' organization is going to follow right here:
The class will begin on-line on April 13 and continue on April 20 with an Introduction (ppt + video) by the instructor. Note that the class has been devised as an a-synchronous course. So you might study the material any time you like.
On April 27 you will have to hand in answers to some study questions referring to the Introduction. (Task 1)
Between April 27 and May 18, you will have time for independent study of two research articles you will select from the pool of articles you will find on the platform mentioned above. On May 18, you are expected to send in a reading report (details to follow) on the article you selected. (Task 2)
Then you will have to prepare a scientific poster on a self-selected third text on a similar topic as texts 1-2. The poster will have to be handed in as a pdf by June 8. (Task 3) .
You will find information on the different writing skills to be applied in the class (reading report, poster, term paper) before the end of April.
The four weeks between June 8 and July 6 are reserved for independent study to prepare your term paper. An outline of the paper has to be handed in by July 8 via e-mail attachment to lampert@uni-mainz.de.More information on what I expect of seminar papers (content, formal matters, language) will be found on the lms-platform in due time.
Finally then, to be granted credit, you will have to write a term paper of 3000-350 words (including an abstract) that is supposed to connect the results of your research (this may in fact be an outspelled version of the poster). I have no fixed date yet of when to hand in your paper. We will see how the CoVid 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 April 6 onwards. I you have any questions or queries in advance, please feel free to write an e-mail to lampert@uni-mainz.de
Contents:
Language has sometimes been called a 'loaded weapon', for it contains a large number of words and expressions that should not be used because they may be considered offensive and cause harm. The use of language is thus never a matter of ‘mere words’, but it has profound influences on thought and behavior.
To cite just two recent examples from the US: One of the editors of the New York Times was fired because he mentioned (not used) the famous ‘N-word’; on the other hand, the movies of the famous director Quentin Tarantino have been found to contain the ‘F-word’ over 900 times, while its use is banned from public American tv.
The problem underlying this seminar is not new; it has been voiced in a very generalized form already about a hundred years ago by the Russian thinker Valentin Voloshinov: “Every sign is subject to the criteria of ideological evaluation … Wherever a sign is present, ideology is present, too.”
This class, then, is to provide some insight into different linguistic sectors and situations connected to this topic.
To this end, we will cover such areas as taboo language, impolite and rude speech, swearing and insults, euphemisms and dysphemisms, politically (in-)correct speech, racist and other slurs, ‘woke’ and cancel culture; but we will also treat issues of (institutional) censorship that has tried to prevent the use of such words.
Recommended reading list:
All texts will be found on lms.uni-mainz.de
A good introduction is Keith Allan & Kate Burridge (2005), Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, which available on-line at our central library.
Digital teaching:
The platform used for this class is lms.uni-mainz.
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