EIU3110

English: language and culture

Lorraine Bullock

8 points - 4 hours per week - First semester - Clayton - Prerequisites: EIU2110 and EIU2120 or permission of the subject convener

Objectives By the end of the subject students should be able to demonstrate in speech and writing significant aspects of the complex relationship between language and culture and how this affects them as second language speakers.

Synopsis In this subject students examine the complex relationship between language and culture. When students from a non-English-speaking background study within the target culture, they are expected to master much more than a body of information expressed in a different language; they meet, in addition, a whole world of cultural presuppositions. In our different cultures we learn to interpret the world differently, to adopt different patterns of thinking and to reflect all of these in our language in a variety of ways. The subject explores how the English language embodies the attitudes and behaviours which reflect its culture, in speech and in writing. As this subject is the study of the interaction of the English language and culture it is of particular importance to second language speakers as they function within the target language culture.

Assessment Written (3000 words): 30% - Examinations (3 hours): 30% - Seminar participation: 5% - Research paper (1000 words): 15% - Seminar paper: 20%

Prescribed texts

Set texts and supplementary references are provided in the course handbook available from the Department of English

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