Language and Literature

Credit Points

20

Course Coordinator

Dr M Garner

Pre-requisites

None

Overview

The course covers theories of communication, including the deconstruction of widespread misconceptions about language. It presents broad principles of language patterning and their embeddedness in cultural perspectives, illustrating the relationship between communicative interaction and the construction of the self and society. It demonstrates the contribution that an understanding of language and communication can make to a range of disciplines and focuses on selected contemporary social issues that are principally or partly communicative/linguistics in nature.

Structure

3 one-hour lectures and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (40%); 1 project (may be presented in one or more of a range of media) (40%); tutorial participation (20%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr D Duff

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above, or by permission of the Head of School.

Notes

This course can either be taken separately or in combination with LN 2501 Modes of Reading.

Overview

How does modern literature respond to world-historical events and shape our understanding of them? What role does literature play in modern intellectual and political history? This innovative introduction to modern literary thought explores these questions by focussing on the constellation of events, ideas and writings on six key dates: 1848, 1917, 1936, 1945, 1968 and 9/11/2001. Besides works of literature and film, the course studies various kinds of theoretical and polemical writing.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); continuous assessment: 1 course essay of 1,200-1,500 words (40%), tutorial assessment (10%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr N Kiwan

Pre-requisites

None.

Notes

This course will not be running in 2008/09.

Overview

This course is tailored to the needs of language learners, in preparation for residence, either abroad or in a different cultural environment. The course will first concentrate on an introduction to some of the concepts of social anthropology and sociolinguistics (eg non-verbal communication and social space; shared cultural knowledge; families and households; local-level politics; gender relations and gender identities; national and ethnic identities). It will then focus on ethnographic methods to be applied by students in a 'home ethnography' project, ie participant observation, ethnographic interviewing, data analysis, writing up an ethnographic project.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 book review (30%), 1 home project (70%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr D Duff

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 2 or above, or by permission of the Head of School.

Notes

This course can be taken separately or in combination with LN 2001 Literature, History and Thoughts: 1848 to 9/11.

Overview

Poets are banned from Plato's Republic, Dante damns lovers of literature to hell. Like modern counterparts, from Sigmund Freud to Hélène Cixous, they acknowledge the dangerous pleasures elicited by reading and affirm literature's ability to form self and world. Examining how literary works engage readers --to train moral imagination, cultivate sympathy, uncover subconscious fears, or solicit transgressive desires -- this course studies texts by fundamental literary thinkers alongside works of world-renown. The course considers the nature of literary representations, introducing concepts such as mimesis, poesis and catharsis, realism, performance and fictionally, thereby preparing students for more advanced courses in literary thought.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 one-hour tutorial per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: 1 two-hour written examination (50%); continuous assessment: 1 course essay of 1,200-1,500 words (40%), tutorial assessment (10%).

Resit: 1 two-hour examination (100%).

Credit Points

15

Course Coordinator

Dr J King

Pre-requisites

Available only to students in Programme Year 3 or above or by permission of the Head of School.

Co-requisites

At least one of LN 2001 / LN 2501.

Overview

Looking at a range of texts by both male and female writers from different national cultures, this course will consider the role of twentieth-century literary texts in deconstructing traditional gender roles, and examine the concept of gendered writing. Since definitions of sexual identity are central to the course, texts which question the stability of that identity will be central to the course. A variety of critical approaches will be used, including Elaine Showalter's concept of the 'wild zone', Judith Butler's view of gender as 'performative' and the French feminist concept of écriture feminine.

Structure

1 one-hour lecture and 1 two-hour seminar per week.

Assessment

1st Attempt: Continuous assessment: 1 essay 2,000-2,500 words (80%); seminar assessment (10%); oral presentation (10%).

Resit: 1 two-hour written examination (100%).