2019/2020

2019/2020

DM270

L-LIN/12 (ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND TRANSLATION)

DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES

LITERATURES OF EUROPE AND THE AMERICAS

PERCORSO COMUNE

1°

1st semester (23/09/2019 - 23/12/2019)

6

36 lesson hours

English

WRITTEN AND ORAL TEST

FREDDI MARIA (titolare) - 6 ECTS

Eligible course participants must be specialising in English with minimum three years of English in the undergraduate degree course, and be enrolled in either one of the two Master’s degrees in Linguistics and Modern Languages and in European and American Literatures

Course objectives: introduce the fundamentals of contemporary corpus linguistic research on the English language and apply it to the study of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP).
Learning outcomes: development of overall corpus proficiency consisting in the ability to: perform advanced searches through state-of-the-art software; have a basic understanding of how to interpret concordance data and frequency information; use and compile corpora to answer questions concerning language variation and specialised communication in English.

The first part of the course is based on the set text Linguistica dei Corpora, Carocci (see bibliography) and introduces the fundamentals of contemporary corpus linguistic research on the English language and its varieties. For this part especially, regular readings are assigned after each class and issues discussed during each next meeting.

In the second part, the use of corpus tools for the analysis of specialised texts are illustrated. For this part, students are expected to choose and present a case-study to acquire further specialisation on one particular field of application of their own choice. Hands-on lab sessions will alternate lectures and students' presentations.

Extra classes on advanced academic communication skills are scheduled throughout the semester and run by Collaboratori ed Esperti Linguistici (dr. Robert Morley, dr. Robert Ponzini).

Seminars, guest lectures, lab activities and hands-on sessions, students' presentations, CELs' classes on spoken academic skills

Maria Freddi, 2014, Linguistica dei corpora. Roma: Carocci

Case-studies and readings available on course webpage at Kiro (idcd.unipv.it)

The exam consists in a written paper in English (short academic essay, max. 2000 words) addressing an original research question concerning corpus use for one of the areas of application covered by the programme. The quality of the essay will be evaluated taking into account contents appropriacy, organisation and language accuracy according to the conventions of academic writing.

Note for outgoing Erasmus students: please make sure you find a course on corpus methods with some applied focus (possibly but not exclusively ESP and EAP) for it to count towards your Learning Agreement.