German Linguistics: Linguistic Pragmatics

lgerm2815  2019-2020  Louvain-la-Neuve

German Linguistics: Linguistic Pragmatics
Note from June 29, 2020
Although we do not yet know how long the social distancing related to the Covid-19 pandemic will last, and regardless of the changes that had to be made in the evaluation of the June 2020 session in relation to what is provided for in this learning unit description, new learnig unit evaluation methods may still be adopted by the teachers; details of these methods have been - or will be - communicated to the students by the teachers, as soon as possible.
5 credits
15.0 h
Q1
Teacher(s)
Sabel Joachim;
Language
Deutsch
Prerequisites
Good knowledge of German (bachelor).
Main themes
Study of the use and meaning of utterances in communication and conversation. The role of pragmatic knowledge and (word and sentence) semantic knowledge in understanding language.
Aims

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :

1 At the end of the course, the students should: have developed a knowledge of German linguistics, especially a knowledge of the specific problems of linguistic pragmatics, have developed a knowledge in theoretical and applied linguistics, have acquired the competence in linguistic argumentation, be able to present competently one of the topics of this course.
 

The contribution of this Teaching Unit to the development and command of the skills and learning outcomes of the programme(s) can be accessed at the end of this sheet, in the section entitled “Programmes/courses offering this Teaching Unit”.
Content
We will study speech act theory, especially the theories of J. L. Austin and J. R. Searle.
The topics are: the classification of speech acts, the difference between perfomative and constative utterances, indirect speech acts. Then we will discuss the theory of conversational implicatures (P. Grice), i.e. the cooperation principle and the conversational maxims and Grices' further developed model of conversation in Sperber and Wilson's book "Relevance." Finally, we will look at the role of word and sentence semantics, in contrast to pragmatics, for a theory of meaning in language. All topics will pay special attention to spoken German. The course is a lecture that requires the student's active participation in discussions, in dealing with exercises, and in reading scientific texts. Furthermore, every student has to give a short presentation on one of the discussed topics at the end of the course.
Evaluation methods
Presentation of one of the topics of the course and a written exam.
Other information
Support. 1. Syllabus, 2. scientific articles/chapters in books, 3. a written guideline for " how to present a linguistic work ", 4. to aid the students with the workout of their presentations (content, structuring, ') during office hours.
Faculty or entity
LMOD


Programmes / formations proposant cette unité d'enseignement (UE)

Title of the programme
Sigle
Credits
Prerequisites
Aims
Master [60] in Modern Languages and Literatures : General

Master [120] in Modern Languages and Literatures : German, Dutch and English

Master [60] in Modern Languages and Literatures : German, Dutch and English

Master [120] in Linguistics

Master [120] in Modern Languages and Literatures : General