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 modern German culture in a socio-historical context through the study of selected texts. This component will familiarise students with the key elements and main stages of the cultural history of the German-speaking region in this period.

Objectives

1: Upon successful completion of this subject and its sequel in semester 2, students should have 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 gained

1. an overview of the main periods, styles, genres, intellectual preoccupations and socio-historical trends in modern German literature;
2. the ability to recognise and analyse a variety of texts in accordance with the categories of genre, style and epoch;
3. reading skills necessary to understand advanced German;
4. essay-writing skills, an ability to engage in informed discussions of literature and culture, using appropriate terminology and applying the range of language skills pertinent to component 1.

Assessment

Written work
exercises: 55%
Exam: 20%
Test and Oral assessment: 25%

Chief examiner(s)

Heinz Kreutz

Contact hours

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

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

German studies

Prerequisites

GRN1080 or equivalent

Prohibitions

GRN1090, GRN2030, GRN2050, GRN2070, GRN3050, GRN3070, GRN3090