EIL3130 - English as an international language: Language and power

Leader(s): Dr Farzad Sharifian

Offered

Clayton Second semester 2009 (Day)

Synopsis

The communicative bond between the users of the language has many levels beyond the literal sense of the words and structures. Texts often communicate messages that focus on the world of the sender but they also offer a subtler message that communicates attitudes, feelings, beliefs, values and emotions. These levels of meaning are woven into the message and operate beneath the surface of the content. The unit looks at the way a message is shaped to include the writer's attitudes, beliefs and values and how often this cultural or worldview is hidden beneath the structure and function of the text.

Objectives

At the completion of this unit it is expected that students, as multilingual speakers, will be able to:

1. Explore a variety of functional and creative texts from a range of genres that illustrate the hidden social, cultural and ideological messages of English discourse.
2. Make sense of text within the wider cultural frameworks of the meaning structures of language.
3. Consider the cultural implications for the intertextual associations within the frameworks of meaning.
4. Understand the cultural literacy consequences within various genres, registers and discourses.
5. Understand some of the theories of language use that examine the cultural, social and ideological functions of language.
6. Understand the importance of cohesion, coherence and register as ways in which participants in the language situation signal intentionality and meaning.
7. Create their own texts within a variety of sociocultural frameworks of English functional genre.
8. Engage in critical discourse analysis, particularly focussing on unfamiliar text structures.

Assessment

Written work: 60%
Test: 20%
Oral presentation: 10%
Class participation: 10%

Contact hours

two hours/week

Prerequisites

Faculty of Arts second language entry criteria