English in use

Aims

Aims

This is a topics-based module that may change year on year. The main purpose is to allow the students to review and practice what they learned in Structure of English (E01C), through investigations of real language data. Students will be introduced to both quantitative and qualitative styles of analysis.

Course objectives

In this module you will have the opportunity to:

• Develop analytic skills through intensive data analysis
• Review linguistic concepts from E01C and apply them to English as used in text and conversation
• Compare grammatical, phonological and/or sequential structures used in English across different modes of communication

Learning outcomes

In this module you will develop your competence in the following discipline-specific skills:

• Recognizing and investigating complex patterns in linguistic data
• Forming generalizations and develop arguments
• Expressing linguistic concepts clearly and concisely
• Summarizing and presenting findings in a useful way
• Writing in an appropriate academic style

Transferrable skills

In this module you will be given opportunities to:

• Develop teamwork skills through working in groups
• Increase your ability to present yourself and your ideas with confidence through class discussions and presentations
• Develop your ability to work independently and apply knowledge and skills to new problems through formative exercises

This module will be capped at 90.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites

Students must have successfully completed the following:

• E01C Structure of English (LAN00001C)
  

Programme

Programme

Contact hours

One lecture hour and two practical/discussion hours per week.

Teaching programme

The aim of the module is to investigate the use of grammatical features in different varieties of English, such as face-to-face (or telephone) conversation, real and imagined dialogue, newspaper styles, broadcast media, expository prose/academic writing, gendered language, digital language (email/txt/blogs etc), etc. Both speech and written forms will be investigated and contrasted. The list is neither exhaustive nor inclusive.

The emphasis throughout is on descriptive adequacy, argumentation, data collection (corpus based), data analysis, and written and oral presentation skills.

Teaching materials

TBC

Suggestions for reading before the module starts

These readings are suggested for background and interest, to get you thinking about the kind of topics we may address. They are not required texts.

Mode: Speech vs Writing

• Akinnaso, F.N. 1982. On the differences between spoken and written language. Language and Speech 25: 97-125.
• Baron, N.S. 1998. Letters by phone or speech by other means: The linguistics of email. Language and Communication 18: 133-170.
• Biber, D. 1988. Variation across speech and writing. Cambridge: CUP.
• Halliday, M.A.K. 1985. Spoken and written language. Oxford: OUP.
• Chafe, W. & Danielewicz, J. 1986. Properties of spoken and written language. In R. Horowitz & S. J. Samuels, eds. Comprehending oral and written language, New York: Academic Press.

Stance

• Conrad, S., and D. Biber. 2000. Adverbial marking of stance in speech and writing.  In S. Hunston and G. Thompson, eds. Evaluation in text. Oxford: OUP, pp. 56-73.
• Fox, B. 2001. Evidentiality: authority, responsibility, and entitlement in English conversation. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 11: 167-192.
• Englebretson, R. ed. 2007. Stance-taking in discourse.  Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Heritage, J. and Raymond, G. 2006. The epistemics of social relationships: owning grandchildren, Language in Society 35: 677-705.
• Hyland, K. 2005. Stance and engagement: a model of interaction in academic discourse. Discourse Studies 7:  173-191.
• Hunston, S. 2007. Using a corpus to investigate stance quantitatively and qualitatively. In R. Englebretson, ed. Stance-taking in Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 27–48.

Gender vs. Genre

• Coates, J. 1998. Language and gender: a reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Coates, J. 2004. Women, men and language (3rd edition). Harlow: Pearson Education.
• Herring, S. & Paolillo, J. 2006. Gender and genre variation in weblogs. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10: 439-459.
• Koppel, M., Argamon, S. & Shimoni, A.R. 2002. Automatically categorizing written texts by author gender. Literary and Linguistic Computing 17: 401-412. [Don't worry about the maths in this one, just read for the idea.]

Assessment and feedback

Assessment and feedback

Formative work and feedback

• Weekly formative exercises carried out individually and in groups 
• Written feedback on submitted exercises; oral feedback during discussion sessions

Summative assessment and feedback

• Group presentation during Autumn term 
  • Weight: 10%
• Examination Part 1: Open exam due Spring term, Week 1
  • Weight: 45%
• Examination Part 2: 90-minute closed exam Spring term Week 1 
  • Weight: 45%