English Varieties - Einzelansicht

With standard British and American varieties of English being the targets of foreign language teaching, the fact that 'English' is a highly diversified language is easily obscured. The degree to which varieties of English across the world differ from each other is remarkable. The first part of the semimar will deal with the history and the sound structure of selected major varieties, most likely including Scottish, Irish, South African, Australian and New Zealand English. In the second part of the course we will analyse and explain patterns and limits of variation for a selection of grammatical phenomena (e.g. tense and aspect marking, modal verbs, negation and pronominal gender) and compare them to other languages, in this way identifying universal and language-specific aspects of variation. Students will be expected to give a short presentation or design a poster.

Main textbook:

Siemund, Peter (2013). Varieties of English: A typological approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Further relevant reading:

Bauer, Laurie (2002). An introduction to international varieties of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Schneider, Edgar (2020). English around the world: An introduction, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Trudgill, Peter & Jean Hannah (2017). International English: A guide to the varieties of Standard English, 6th ed. London/New York: Arnold.

Method of assessment: Written test ('Klausur') or term paper (your choice),

Written test dates: 2 July, 12-14 (1st attempt), 10 September, 12-14 (2nd attempt)

Term paper submission deadlines: 2 September (1st attempt), 14 October (2nd attempt)

Staatsexamen [not relevant to MA students]: Please ask me for manual admission if you want attend this course as a Vorbereitungsmodul. Register via the module catalogue and choose the "Belegweg" LG.AA.SE.1 or LG.AA.SE.2 before you select the name of the module, and then write me an email! The number of places is limited. Registration is only possible via manual admission before the start of the lecture period, and only if you are not at the same time enrolled for another linguistic Vorbereitungsmodul. The strategy of registering for a number of potential modules and making a decision later in the semester will not be possible here.

Lehramt Gymnasium: Im aktuellen Flyer (erhältlich auf Moodle: "The Hub" > "Infos zum Studium") finden Sie die Festlegung der Themengebiete für die Zweitthemen, schriftliche und für die mündliche Prüfung, im Bereich Sprachwissenschaft.

Lehramt Regelschule: Im aktuellen Flyer (erhältlich auf Moodle: "The Hub" > "Infos zum Studium") finden Sie weitere Informationen zur Prüfung. Beachten Sie, dass der zweite sprachwissenschaftliche Themenbereich in der schriftlichen Prüfung "Phonetics" und in der mündlichen Prüfung "Phonetics" oder auf Wunsch "Introduction to Linguistics I" ist.