AJ12054 Introduction to Syntax

Faculty of Arts
Spring 2008
Extent and Intensity
0/2/0. 2 credit(s) (plus 2 credits for an exam). Recommended Type of Completion: zk (examination). Other types of completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
prof. Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
Jeffrey Alan Vanderziel, B.A.
Department of English and American Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: Tomáš Hanzálek
Timetable of Seminar Groups
AJ12054/A: Tue 8:20–9:55 G31, J. Chovanec
AJ12054/B: Tue 10:00–11:35 G31, J. Chovanec
Prerequisites (in Czech)
AJ09999 Qualifying Examination
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is also offered to the students of the fields other than those the course is directly associated with.
The capacity limit for the course is 70 student(s).
Current registration and enrolment status: enrolled: 0/70, only registered: 0/70, only registered with preference (fields directly associated with the programme): 0/70
fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with
there are 13 fields of study the course is directly associated with, display
Course objectives
Brief Description: This course focuses on selected aspects of communicative grammar and the role which grammar and grammatical relations play in texts. Course Outline: The course will mostly be based on new findings in English grammar revealed by corpus linguistics; it will draw on expositions in Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English and essay-style chapters in McCarthy's Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics. We will study the options available in English for expressing personal opinion (stance adverbials and other stance markers), word order and its variations (the passive, the existential there, dislocation, clefting), lexical expressions (collocations and lexical bundles) in speech and writing, the grammar of conversation (dysfluency, errors), constructional principles of spoken grammar, and discourse markers. (LGSWE) We will also explore the ways a text holds together (cohesion and coherence and their central position in textual grammar) and some issues connected with register analysis of English, such as formality, politeness, impersonality (Halliday and Hasan). Throughout the course, we will be analysing extracts of language used in fiction, the media, etc., as well as following the issues on ample examples of actual data (such as transcripts of conversations) provided in the core textbooks.
Syllabus
  • Summary of topics (this is not a week-by-week syllabus as we may require a couple of seminars for some of the issues): 1. prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar; some mistaken views about grammar 2. expressing one's opinion/evaluation 3. word order 4. existential there and the passive 5. spoken vs. written language 6. cohesion and coherence 7. text and its contexts 8. registers - levels of formality 9. grammar and problems of usage, grammar and style 10. basic concepts from functional sentence perspective
Literature
  • Halliday, M.A.K. and Ruqaiya Hasan (1986). Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Cambridge: CUP.
  • Leech, Geoffrey, Margaret Deuchar, and Robert Hoogenraad (1982). English Grammar for Today. A New Introduction. London: Macmillan.
  • Biber, Douglas and Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, Edward Finegan (1999). Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman.
  • McCarthy, Michael (1998). Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.
  • HUDDLESTON, Rodney and Geoffrey K. PULLUM. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Edited by Laurie Bauer. 1st pub. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, xvii, 1842. ISBN 9780521431460. info
Assessment methods (in Czech)
A class presentation and/or a written test.
Language of instruction
English
Further comments (probably available only in Czech)
The course is taught annually.
Teacher's information
http://www.phil.muni.cz/e-learn
The course is also listed under the following terms Spring 2004, Spring 2005, Spring 2006, Spring 2007, Spring 2009, Autumn 2010, Spring 2011, Autumn 2011, Spring 2012, Autumn 2012, Spring 2013, Autumn 2013, Spring 2014, Autumn 2014, Spring 2015, Autumn 2015.
  • Enrolment Statistics (Spring 2008, recent)
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