Monash University Handbook 2010 Undergraduate - Unit

Synopsis

1: Spoken and written German. Areas covered will be politics, history, social issues, environmental issues, humour, literature and literary figures. Attention will also be given to general aspects of daily life, including colloquial language and proverbs, and to technical language.
2: An examination of the cultural and social history of the German-speaking world through lectures and selected readings, along with an introduction into the basics of text analysis.

Objectives

Upon successful completion of this subject students should have further extended and deepened their knowledge of the German language and German culture; improved their knowledge of the finer points of German grammar; extended their vocabulary as much as possible through wide reading of various types of texts, including television and radio materials; acquired practice in using German in both spoken and written form to discuss topics of current interest, based principally on the reading of a wide range of newspaper articles; become familiar with language containing varying degrees of dialect influence; acquired the ability to translate complicated, non-specialist German texts into idiomatic English, and to translate fairly complicated English texts into German. Students should also have gained a knowledge of the relationship between the German language and its speakers, a knowledge of the differences between dialect and standard German, a knowledge of the phonetics of Modern Standard German and a knowledge of the International Phonetic Alphabet as applied to Modern Standard German. After completion of component 2 students should also have further gained:

1. an overview of some basic aspects of German social and cultural history in its European context;
2. the ability to recognise and analyse a variety of texts in accordance with the categories of their historical origin and context;
3. reading skills necessary to understand intermediate German;
4. basic orientation about essay-writing and academic discussion of aspects of German culture on an advanced level.

Assessment

As for GRN1090

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Heinz Kreutz

Contact hours

One 2-hour seminar (culture) and one 3-hour tutorial (language) per week

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

German studies

Prerequisites

GRN1090 or equivalent

Prohibitions

GRN1020, GRN1040, GRN1060, GRN1080, GRN2040, GRN2060, GRN2080, GRN2100, GRN3060, GRN 3080, GRN3100