We study the English Language in all its manifestations and variants.
Linguistics helps us describe pronunciation, word forms, sentence patterns, meanings and functions of talk and text, and styles of discourse. Here in Saarbrücken we are particularly interested in careful analysis of spoken and written discourse. We look at language use in real, everyday dynamic contexts, focusing on its functions of developing and maintaining relationships and personal identity as well as its role in sense-making, organizing behavior and accomplishing goals of individuals, groups and corporations in society at large.
Consequently, we work with real language data, often in the form of large collections of texts called corpora, which we can investigate on a computer. We have our own corpus here called the Saarbrücken Corpus of Spoken English (SCoSE), which contains examples of conversational storytelling, classroom interaction, and even jokes in American and British English, and we share lots of other corpora with talk and written texts from all varieties of English with colleagues around the world.
News / current events
As Professor Norrick will be absent in the first week of this semester (SS 2012), his lectures and seminars will start in the second week.
SS 2012
- VL Spoken English
- Di 16:00-17:30 (s.t.)
- Hörsaal I, Geb. B3 1
Tutorial with Ian Schwarz- Mo 12:00-12:45 (s.t.)
- Raum 1.28, Geb. C5 2
This lecture offers a general overview of research on conversation and spoken language generally, from early writings up to current trends and schools.
The tutorial with Ian Schwarz offers students an opportunity to further discuss issues raised in the lecture and to develop skills in transcribing and describing spoken English from various theoretical perspectives. In order to obtain course credit, a student must pass a test at the end of the semester.
SS 2012
- HS Stylistics
- Mi 10-12 (c.t.)
- Raum U13, Geb. C5 3
Tutorial with Matthias Heyne- Mi 9-10 (c.t.)
- Raum U 13, Geb. C5 3
Stylistics explores how readers interact with the language of literary texts in order to explain how we understand, and are affected by them as we read. Stylistics grew up in the second half of the twentieth century in interaction between linguistics and literary criticism. It analyzes style in writing as a series of linguistic choices. In this seminar, we will explore textual choice on various linguistic levels in literary texts to get a sense of the relation between linguistic choice and meaning, style and effect.
In order to obtain course credit, a student must pass a short quiz in the third week of the tutorial, give two oral presentations in class and write a 12-15 page term paper. The first presentation is a reading report on a book or a few articles, and the second is on work in progress leading to the term paper. Students (LAG 2007) who choose "Hauptseminar Linguistik ohne Schwerpunkt" need not write a term paper and therefore no second oral presentation is required. More information will be available on the English Linguistics homepage.
The voluntary tutorial with Matthias Heyne offers students an opportunity to explore current research in stylistics and approaches to various types of (literary) texts as well as to gain practice in academic writing and oral presentation. Students who would like to participate in the seminar should register via Clix.
SS 2012
- HS Language Acquisition
- Do 16-18 (c.t.)
- Raum U13, Geb. C5 3
Tutorial with Lucas Hütten- Do 15-16
- C5 2 Sprachlabor 236A
In this seminar we will concentrate on first language acquisition. We will investigate recent research into child language, infant bilingualism, caretaker speech and the influence of input versus the innateness hypothesis.
In order to obtain course credit, a student must pass a short quiz in the third week of the tutorial, give two oral presentations in class and write a 12-15 page term paper. The first presentation is a reading report on a book or a few articles, and the second is on work in progress leading to the term paper. Students (LAG 2007) who choose "Hauptseminar Linguistik ohne Schwerpunkt" need not write a term paper and therefore no second oral presentation is required. More information will be available on the English Linguistics homepage.
The voluntary tutorial with Lucas Hütten offers students an opportunity to explore current research in first language acquisition as well as to gain practice in academic writing and oral presentation. Students who would like to participate in the seminar should register via Clix.
- Research colloquium for exam candidates
- every other Tuesday 18:00-19:30
- building C 5.3 room 120
The colloquium offers writers of theses and dissertations a forum for presentation of their work-in-progress. Special contact hours and sessions for oral-exam candidates will be held during the colloquium as well. All exam candidates are encouraged to attend regularly.
The next colloquium will be on April 24th. It will be a special session for exam candidates.