Professor Norrick's office hours will change to Thursdays this winter semester. More information on his page.

Dr. Spitz will be on maternity leave in the winter semester of 2011/12. The next time her lecture "Introduction to Teaching English as a Foreign Language" will be offered will be in the summer semester of 2012.

Please note the changed opening hours of our main office.

All of the tutorials for Professor Norrick's courses are now optional for all students regardless of their course of study.

More information on Professor Norrick's seminars is available here.

Students now have the option of taking their final exams with PD Dr. Diemer.

VL Semantics
Di 16:00-17:30
Hörsaal I, Geb. B 3.1
Tutorial with Ian Schwarz
Mo 12-13
Raum 1.28, Geb. C 5.2

This lecture introduces the history of linguistic semantics and investigates such traditional semantic topics as the meanings of "meaning," reference, deixis, sense relations such as synonymy, antonymy and polysemy, semantic fields, componential analysis, idiomaticity, modality, metaphor, utterance meaning, presupposition and inference. Exemplary analyses of diverse textual passages will serve to illustrate semantic methods and principles.

The tutorial with Ian Schwarz offers students an opportunity to review the principles of linguistic semantics and to investigate further concrete examples in English. Students who would like to participate in the lecture should register via Clix. No prior registration is necessary for the tutorial.

HS Linguistic Approaches to Humor
Mi 10:15-11:45
Raum U13, Geb. C 5.3
Tutorial with Lucas Hütten
Mi 9 - 10
Raum U 13, Geb. C 5.3

Much of our everyday talk and many of our most revered literary texts thrive on humor: Joking, jokes and anecdote telling play a prominent role in our conversations and entertainments; and much literary production consists of witty sayings, dramatic comedy, and funny narratives. It is the aim of this seminar to review the linguistic literature on humor and to test its methods and conclusions on examples of our own. We will begin with conversational joking and work our way up to literary texts. This seminar should allow literarily minded students to refine their discourse analytic skills, and linguistically minded students to try their hands at literary texts.

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 tutorial with Lucas Hütten offers students an opportunity to explore current research in linguistic humor theory and approaches to various types of humorous discourse 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. No prior registration is necessary for the tutorial.

HS Language and Power
Do 16:15-17:45
Raum U13, Geb. C 5.3
Tutorial with Matthias Heyne
Do 15-16
Raum 1.08, Geb. C 5.2

In this seminar we will investigate the interrelationship of language and power from various linguistic perspectives, including Feminist Linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis, and Interactional Sociolinguistics. We will focus on such topics as language and gender; discourse and ideology; politeness and solidarity; forms of address; group languages; language attitudes; language and aging; and conversational interaction.

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 tutorial with Matthias Heyne offers students an opportunity to explore various types of discourse on the basis of recent linguistic approaches to power, politeness and ideology 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. No prior registration is necessary for the tutorial.