Annotated courses
Overall view – summer semester 2025
MA-AA1.1.1S
(Schwerpunktmodul Sprachwissenschaft)
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Seminar – [Ling - Lange] - Good Language, Bad Language
- Teacher
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- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Max attendee capacity
- 40
- Enrollment
-
- Enrollment via
- Ab 04.04.2025, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Appointments
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Day of the week Clock time Place Event format Thursday 2nd double period W48/0101/U In-person - Description
- For a linguist, the labels ‘good’ or ‘bad’ cannot meaningfully be applied to language(s), dialects, or specific usages, since they all serve their specific function(s) within their communicative contexts. The general public, however, begs to differ: many people look down upon speakers of nonstandard dialects and ridicule grammar and/or spelling mistakes, some languages are considered more ‘ugly’, ‘harsher’, or ‘sloppier’ than others, there are societies devoted to keeping the language ‘pure`, and children are told off for using slang or swear words. This course will try to close the gap between the linguistic and the everyday evaluation of language(s) and language in use by focussing on ‘bad’ language in its many forms, such as slang, swearing and taboo expressions past and present. We will further investigate the debates around instances of ‘bad’ language such as racist and sexist language, and look at the different legal norms for hate speech and free speech, censorship and freedom of expression. Finally, we will critically examine the notion of ‘purity’ with respect to language.
- Assignments
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- Modular
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- MA-AA1.1.1S – Schwerpunktmodul Sprachwissenschaft
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Seminar – [Ling - Lange] - Pragmatics
- Teacher
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- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Max attendee capacity
- 40
- Enrollment
-
- Enrollment via
- Ab 04.04.2025, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Appointments
-
Day of the week Clock time Place Event format Thursday 4th double period W48/0101/U In-person - Description
- More often than not, there is a gap between what we say and what we mean: we try to be polite; we use irony, sarcasm, humour; we exaggerate or resort to understatement, we speak metaphorically. The discipline of Pragmatics is concerned with studying meaning in context, trying to explain how we manage to recover speakers’ communicative intentions. We will begin by considering several approaches to the study of meaning in language and then zoom in on pragmatic theories which deal with how we create meanings in our everyday communicative interactions. Topics to be covered include politeness and impoliteness, speech acts past and present, irony, humour, intercultural pragmatics and the pragmatics of computer-mediated communication (CMC).
- Assignments
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- Modular
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- MA-AA1.1.1S – Schwerpunktmodul Sprachwissenschaft
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Seminar – [Ling - Lange] - Language Research Lab
- Teacher
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- Prof. Dr. Claudia Lange
- Max attendee capacity
- 40
- Enrollment
-
- Enrollment via
- Ab 04.04.2025, 10 Uhr bei OPAL
- Appointments
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Date Clock time Place Event format to W48/ABS/BSS In-person to W48/ABS/BSS In-person to W48/ABS/BSS In-person to W48/ABS/BSS In-person to W48/ABS/BSS In-person to W48/ABS/BSS In-person - Description
- This course will take you straight into the fascinating world of research on language(s). We will work together to explore different approaches to doing empirical research, among them corpuslinguistic tools and resources, methods for studying language attitudes such as surveys and dialect maps, ideas for investigating language contact phenomena and multilingualism, linguistic landscape research, and other fields that you would like to tackle – bring your ideas and interests along! We will also consider how to come up with a research hypothesis, how to handle empirical data, and how to present your research project in the form of a poster.
- Assignments
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- Modular
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- MA-AA1.1.1S – Schwerpunktmodul Sprachwissenschaft