English 6160 Introduction
to Language Fall 2007 Tues
5.30-8.15, Fretwell 302
Boyd Davis http://www.english.uncc.edu/bdavis 704.687.4209 bdavis@uncc.edu OH: T
4-5.30 & by appt
Required Texts:
Aitchison, Jean. Words in the mind. Oxford:
Blackwell, paper (2nd or 3rd edn, whichever the
bookstores rec’d)
Biber,
Douglas, Susan Conrad & Geoffrey Leech. Longman
student grammar of spoken and written English. NY: Pearson ESL, 2002.
Bradwell,
P. & S. Jones. 2007. As you like it:
catching up in an age of global English. www.demos.co.uk/publications/asyoulikeitpamphlet
Crystal,
David. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language, 2nd Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997
Jaworski,
Alan & Nikolas Coupland. The
Discourse reader. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
You will need an inexpensive computer
microphone and either earphones or speakers for several CENTRA sessions.
Policies:
1) Regular Attendance. Obviously, each absence hurts in a class that
meets only once a week. Except in
extreme circumstances, I will not assign you a passing grade if you miss more
than 2 class meetings. (If you have
serious problems that cause absences, please see me as soon as possible about
your options)
2) Academic Integrity. The UNCC Academic Integrity Code will
be strictly adhered to
3) Multicultural Policy. Students will be made familiar with
Department's Policy
Goals:
·
With
the advent of new technologies, expectations are changing for how people in
English Studies might do their work, but the basic goals– the analysis and
interpretation of texts, which includes an understanding of grammar, lexis and
style— have not changed.
·
In
this core course for the MA in English Studies, we will look at basic
principles of the analysis of language as a system, using corpus-based
approaches to grammar and lexicon. We will use features of conversation and
discourse analysis to look at larger chunks of text, from utterance to genre:
these approaches overlap with literary criticism and rhetorical analysis.
·
As a
focus for our analysis, we will apply terms/techniques to the transcription of about
45 min apiece of oral interviews for Atkins Library’s Special Collections. They
have just won a prestigious grant to work with interviews and manuscripts about
education/civil rights movements in Charlotte; your ‘field work’ will be with
some of their new oral interviews. You
will each be credited as one of the transcribers for the project, the focus of
the library’s National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar for teachers in
Summer 08.
·
In
line with the kinds of work involved with creative writing as well as technical
editing, we will use our transcriptions for successive linguistic analyses, for
practice with the modes of biography and autobiography, and for minimal work
with creating a web page to contextualize with links to manuscripts,
photographs, maps, etc., aided by Dr Morgan’s Technical and Professional
Writing class.
Grades:
80% 12 labs: these will either be sections of
your transcript (thereby giving you credit for the act of transcription, which
requires a number of language-based choices and analytic techniques) or
assignments using techniques keyed to our readings
20% Final project: transcript linked in your
individual webpage with links to audio&material in our Library to provide the
introduction: start browsing ‘special sites’ for ideas such as http://www.emilydickinson.org/ or http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aaohtml/exhibit/aopart8b.html
English 6160 Fall 2007
Calendar of Expectations
|
Date |
Focus |
Lab |
Readings |
|
Aug 21 |
Overview:Lang/Gram/Dict/Disc/Corpus And NC-Echo for final
project |
StudGram
Ch 1, intro to corpus & concor-dancing; Dictionaries exercise, ENCY 18 |
We’ll read together:
Hutchby (handout) & Ency 18; see ppt; visit library/reference |
|
Aug 28 |
COMPUTER LAB: Fret 215 1
hr 5.30-6.30; Concordancing exercises, download ANT if you haven’t already |
2-p Language autobiography
(include history of one letter in your monogram) (Transcribe 1st
15 min) |
Aitchison Ch 1-6, StudGram2
(morphology) |
|
Sep 4 |
Morphology and phonology |
Bring transcript of 1st
15 min [in class we’ll analyze morphology in yr text] |
Aitchison Ch 7-12, Ency27-30:
sounds |
|
Sep 11 |
COMP LAB Conversation: Antaki,
Goodwin sites |
Transcribe & bring 2nd
15 min [for class work with turns,
overlaps, positioning] |
Aitchison Ch 13-17 Ency
38-40: child language |
|
Sep 18 |
Models for grammar (see
Biber handout) |
2 p: ‘create quiz’ on Ch
7; list 5 questions keyed to Ch 13 |
Stud Gram 7, 13; Ency 16
(syntax) and 41 (acquisition of grammar); |
|
Sep 25 |
COMP LAB Story grammars Pear Stories, CENTRA
practice; link to older forms in history of English |
2 p: corpus-based analysis of transcript so far: impact of 1 type of adj or 1 type of adv or
1 feedback |
Stud Gram 3,5,6, Phrase
& clause structures, phrasal, modal verbs; tense, aspect; diagramming |
|
Oct 2 |
Discourse: above the
single utterance COMP LAB as needed |
2 p:‘Column’ with examples of problems with any 2 grammatical
issues in 8, 11 |
Stud Gram 8, 11, clause
grammar, ellipsis, independent/dependent cl, adverbials |
|
Oct 9 |
Fall Break |
-- |
-- |
|
Oct 16 |
Narrative and discourse
analysis: structures and models for how people construct story-in-interaction |
Finish transcription;
highlight what seem to be narrative abstracts & evaluations for in-class
narrative analysis |
Ency: Language &
Identity 6-8 Disc: Labov,
Schegloff-Sacks, Schiffrin, Grice (and a ppt on Labov & Hymes) |
|
Oct 23 |
COMP LAB Stylistic analysis Metaphor and metonymy |
2 p: identify &
interpret impact of 5 metaphors (or metonymy) in transcript |
Ency: Language &
Identity 9-12 Ethnic, social, contextual, stylistic |
|
Oct 30 |
Interrogating the text: pragmatics
and politeness |
Highlight & explain
(2p) areas of transcript that warrant bio/biblio links to materials |
Ency: Discourse 18, Pragmatics
21 Disc: Goffman, Holmes, Tannen-Wallat |
|
Nov 6 |
COMP LAB Ideologies and power |
Exchange transcripts and
edit each other’s; 2 p Letter to editing partner on changes |
Disc: Caldas-Coulthard,
van Dijk, Giddens, Cicourel |
|
Nov 13 |
Multiple Englishes; EIL,
EFL, ESP |
[your final project] |
Global Englishes pdf; Ency 59 world lgs |
|
Nov 20 |
Thanksgiving |
-- |
-- |
|
Nov 27 |
CENTRA—web
pages for feedback |
Rough draft of webpage |
Bakhtin, Tannen |
|
Dec 4 |
Lab
week |
[Web page w/Contextual
Intro, transcript] |
[your final project] |
|
Dec 11 |
Final
Exam Seminar |
Forum abstract; Reflection |
TBA; present final
projects to NSV |
Files to transcribe, edit, contextualize: Bush,
64; Coutourier, 78/2 people; Crumbley, 116/3 people; Dula, 81/2 people; Ford,
101/2 people; Foxx-Simmons 46; Haywood 42; Ngongang 87/2 people; Merritt 140/3
people. Katie McCormick, Atkins Library