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GERM-B201

English linguistics II

academic year
2023-2024

Course teacher(s)

Philippe DE BRABANTER (Coordinator)

ECTS credits

5

Language(s) of instruction

english

Course content

The first half of the course initiates a linguistic, therefore descriptive, approach to the study of English grammar. It relies largely on A Student's Introduction to English Grammar (Huddleston, R., Pullum, G. & Reynolds, B. 2021). It should not, therefore, be confused with an English proficiency course, where students learn what should be instead of what is.
The following key elements of English grammar are covered:
- verbs and verb phrases
- complements in clauses
- nouns and determinatives
- adjectives and adverbs
- clause types
- subordinate clauses
- relative constructions (time permitting)
- non-finite clauses (time permitting)

The second half of the course, starting in February, will introduce students to one of the most important empirical research methods in linguistics nowadays, namely corpus studies. It will also continue doing the descriptive work that was begun in the first term.

Objectives (and/or specific learning outcomes)

Students are expected

  • to further familiarise themselves with the descriptive approach to the study of languages
  • to internalise the difference between a precise and rigorous linguistic approach and the looseness of traditional student grammars
  • to form a clear idea of all the key areas of English syntax
  • to learn how to use an online corpus to collect data that is relevant to a research question
  • to be able to analyse corpus data and draw conclusions on the basis of their analysis.

Prerequisites and Corequisites

Required and Corequired knowledge and skills

GERM-B200

CEFRL

Oral production

B1+

Written production

B1+

Listening comprehension

B2

Reading comprehension

B2

Teaching methods and learning activities

Weekly lectures: 2 credits
Weekly exercise sessions and personal corpus research: 2 credits
Weekly online tests (non-compulsory but recommended)
Personal reading: 1 credit

Contribution to the teaching profile

This course makes the following contributions:

1. Training students to think critically (by insisting on preciselfy defined concepts and rigorous analyses)
2. Developing students' command of English
3. Training students to adopt a scientific approach to language phenomena (cf. point 1)
3.1. They learn what a research question is
3.2. They learn to plan a research assignment
3.3. They learn to think independently but also to cooperate with classmates
3.4. They learn to use corpora to collect data and to analyse those data meaningfully.

References, bibliography, and recommended reading

Compulsory reading:
Huddleston, R., Pullum, G. & Reynolds, B. 2021. A Student's Introduction to English Grammar, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press. 

Recommended reading:
Plag, I., Arndt-Lappe, S., Braun, M. & M. Schramm 2015. Introduction to English Linguistics, 3rd revised and enlarged ed., de Gruyter Mouton.

Course notes

  • Université virtuelle

Other information

Contacts

MAIL : Philippe.De.Brabanter@ulb.be
TEL : 02/650.38.12
OFFICE : AZ4.109 Make an appointment via e-mail.

Campus

Solbosch

Evaluation

Method(s) of evaluation

  • written examination

written examination

Mark calculation method (including weighting of intermediary marks)

There are two written exams:

  • January: Huddleston, R., Pullum, G. & Reynolds (2021)
  • May-June: collecting and analysing corpus data
Each exam is worth 50% of the final mark.

Students who didn't obtain the credits for the course in June will have to redo in August all the parts of the evaluation for which they got less than 10.

Language(s) of evaluation

  • english

Programmes