TYS311 provides an introduction to selected topics in linguistics and literature dealing with the analysis of modern works of literature as well as culturally oriented texts, i.e. texts from the 20th and 21st centuries.

TYS311 is a required part of the Master's degree in German.

Knowledge:

The student

• has good knowledge about modern German-language authors
• has good knowledge of the terminology and expressions that are needed to describe the characteristics of modern German-language texts.

Skills:

The student

• can describe what distinguishes modern texts from ¿older¿ texts linguistically, stylistically, and in terms of content, and analyze them
• has thorough knowledge on selected topics in German linguistics and literary studies
• has good knowledge of the central terminology of these topics
• can discuss central issues within the selected course topic, both orally and in writing

General competence:

The student

• is capably of independently updating and expanding their knowledge about modern German linguistics and German-language literature

has developed the writing skills needed to write their Master¿s thesis

Teaching is given in the form of lectures/seminars. Students are expected to participate actively in the seminars.

4 sessions per week.

12 weeks (in total 12 double sessions in literature and 12 double sessions in linguistics).

If few students register for the course, instruction can be tailored to the number of students. If this is the case, students will be informed of alternate instruction arrangements at the beginning of the semester prior to the registration deadline of Feb 1/Sept 1.

Assessment includes a supervised take home exam and an oral exam (ca. 30 min.). The exam is a supervised take home exam of about 4000 words, excluding list of contents, exam question and bibliography, which is to be written within one week. Students are free to choose between writing on a literary or a linguistic topic. At the oral examination, students must give a presentation of a topic dealt with by the texts on the reading list. The topic is to be selected by the student, but students whose take home exam deal with a literary topic must choose a linguistic topic for the oral examination, and vice versa. Students may be asked questions concerning both the take home exam and the works on the reading list.

Thetake home exam counts towards 50 percent of the final grade whereas the oral examination counts towards 50 percent of the final grade.

The reading list comprises

a) selected linguistic and literary topics (e.g. selected topics on general grammar, textual linguistics and variational linguistics, contrastive analysis, genre studies, text interpretation and text analysis) totalling c. 250-300 pages and

b) literary works and culturally oriented texts (e.g. essays, media coverage, films, etc.) comprising a maximum of 500 pages).