English in use

Aims

Aims

This is a topics-based module that may change year on year. The main purpose of the module is to introduce students to the analysis and presentation of data through investigations of real language. Through weekly group exercises, students will practice carrying out and writing up both quantitative and qualitative styles of analysis. A major focus of the module will be on developing linguistics essay writing skills.

The topics for 2013-14 are

• Modes of communication: Speech vs writing
• Stance: Displaying authority, evaluation, and affect
• Language and gender

Note that almost all of the formative work for this module, both analysis and writing, is done in groups.

By the end of this module, you will have had the opportunity to:

• Develop analytic skills through intensive data analysis
• Compare grammatical, phonological and/or sequential structures used in English across different modes of communication
• Develop teamwork skills through working in groups
• Increase your ability to present yourself and your ideas with confidence through weekly writing exercises
• Recognize and investigate complex patterns in linguistic data
• Form generalizations and develop arguments
• Express linguistic concepts clearly and concisely
• Summarize and present findings in a useful way
• Develop your ability to apply knowledge and skills to new problems

This module will be capped at 45.

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

Weekly readings will be made available on the VLE module site.

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 in groups 
• 500 word formative essay (submitted end of Week 6)
• Written feedback on submitted exercises; oral feedback during discussion sessions

Summative assessment and feedback

• Essay
  • Due: Week 10, Autumn term
  • Length: 1375 words
  • Weight: 50%
• 2-hour closed examination
  • Week 1, Spring term
  • Weight: 50%