SoSe 24  
 Philosophie und...  
 Kernfach Englis...  
 Lehrveranstaltung

Institut für Englische Philologie (WE 6)

Kernfach Englische Philologie (SPO gültig ab WS 23/24))

0042f_k90

  • Sociolinguistics and Varieties of English

    0042fB3.1
    • 17365 Übung
      Ü-Sociolinguistics and Varieties: Introduction to Sociolinguistics (Antje Wilton-Franklin)
      Zeit: Mi 08:00-10:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2024)
      Ort: KL 32/202 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Kommentar

      This lecture will provide an overview over the most important issues, approaches and methodologies in contemporary Sociolinguistics, addressing aspects of social, regional and functional variation, standardization, genre & register, gender, conversation and discourse, and multilingualism. We will put particular emphasis on the English language, investigating variation and change in its use and relevance for speech communities around the world.
    • 17366 Vertiefungsseminar
      S-Sociolinguistics and Varieties: Sociolinguistics and the Law (Antje Wilton-Franklin)
      Zeit: Mi 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 17.04.2024)
      Ort: KL 32/202 Übungsraum (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Kommentar

      This seminar focuses on language use in legal contexts and investigates the ways in which sociolinguistic research can help to shed light on language use in the legal process, and the ways in which sociolinguists can contribute to the process for instance by uncovering issues of linguistic inequality or by acting as expert witnesses in criminal cases. We will focus on both spoken and written language in legal institutional contexts, in particular on emergency calls, police interviews and witness statements, courtroom discourse and authorship analysis.

  • Structure of English

    0042fB3.2

  • Semantics and Pragmatics

    0042fB3.3
    • 17369 Übung
      Ü-Semantics and Pragmatics (Ferdinand von Mengden)
      Zeit: Mo 14:00-16:00 (Erster Termin: 15.04.2024)
      Ort: J 30/109 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Kommentar

      That linguistic expressions (words, utterances) have a meaning seems to be a very natural thing to assume. How else would it be possible to communicate successfully by means of linguistic expressions? But what exactly is meaning? What does it mean for an expression to ‘have’ a meaning? And how do linguistic expressions actually acquire their meaning?


      We can argue that linguistic expressions must have some meaning prior to us speakers using them – otherwise, how could we use them reasonably if we didn’t know what a word can be used for? But this approach doesn’t explain where a word meaning comes from in the first place. We could also argue that we create the meaning of an expression the moment we use it. But how exactly does this work and how do we know which expressions we can or cannot use in a given situation?


      The main aim of this seminar will be to resolve this paradox. A crucial factor in determining the meaning of an expression will be the clues which the context provides in each specific act of communication. In order to study the interaction between conceptual notions and the contribution of context and of speakers’ intentions, ‘semantics’ and ‘pragmatics’ – according to our terminological conventions two separate, albeit related fields in linguistics – will therefore be presented as one large domain of linguistic studies that cannot be reasonably kept apart.


      The requirements for the credits are regular attendance, active participation and reading assignments. Students who are interested in the class but cannot come in the first week, are kindly asked to notify me via email before the start of the lecture period.
    • 17370 Vertiefungsseminar
      VS-Semantics and Pragmatics: The Pragmatics of Space (Antje Wilton-Franklin)
      Zeit: Di 10:00-12:00 (Erster Termin: 16.04.2024)
      Ort: JK 31/228 (Habelschwerdter Allee 45)

      Kommentar

      In this seminar we will investigate the complex relationship between language and (material) space from a pragmatics perspective. Sessions will be based on the handbook on “Pragmatics of Space” (https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110693713/html), comprising various contributions on the linguistic description of space, interaction in different spaces, communicative resources of constructed spaces and cultural differences in the pragmatics of space. We will work closely with a selection of texts from the handbook, which students will be required to read, summarise and discuss. Additionally, we will explore the relationship between language, interaction and space in a practical way by experiencing different spaces and environments interactionally. The course will be linked to a workshop on The Co-Evolution of Language, Interaction and Architecture (https://blogs.fu-berlin.de/interactionlab/workshop-the-co-evolution-of-language-interaction-and-architecture/), where students will be able to participate in and learn from discussion with experts from a variety of different fields.