Final Exams

Linguistics

Recommended Literature:

  • Crystal, D. The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
  • Crystal, D., Davy, D.: Investigating English Style. 1969. Harlow: Longman.
  • Hladký, Josef. An Old English, Middle English, and Early-New English reader. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 1998.
  • Short, Mick. Exploring the language of poems, plays and prose. London: Longman, 1996.
  • Thomas, Jenny. Meaning in interaction :an introduction to pragmatics. Harlow: Longman, 1995.
  • Vachek, Josef. Historický vývoj angličtiny. Edited by Jan Firbas. 8. vyd. Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 1994.
  • Verdonk, Peter. Stylistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
  • Wales, Katie. A dictionary of stylistics. 2nd ed. New York: Longman, 2001.
  • Yule, George. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
  • Yule, George. The study of language. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.

Topics

 

  1. Written vs. spoken English. Formal vs. informal English.
  2. The language of conversation vs. public speaking.
  3. Stylised dialogue. Speech and thought presentation in fiction. Drama dialogue.
  4. The language of administrative texts, written instructions and legal documents.
  5. Scientific prose style. Humanities vs. exact science, academic vs. popular science texts.
  6. The publicity style. Newspaper headlines, advertisements.
  7. The poetic function of language. Literariness. Foregrounding.
  8. Standard and non-standard English. Dialect varieties of English. Representation and functions of dialect in fiction.
  9. Levels of stylistic analysis. Interpreting deviation at different levels of stylistic analysis.
  10. Reader-writer interaction in literary discourse. Point of view.
  11. Narratology and stylistics: Propp’s and Labov’s models of narrative structure.
  12. Deixis, reference and inference.
  13. Presupposition and entailment. Types of presupposition.
  14. The cooperative principle. Conversational and conventional implicatures.
  15. Speech act theory, direct and indirect speech acts.
  16. Politeness and interaction.
  17. Conversation analysis and preference structure.
  18. Proto-Indo-European phonological system and Proto-Germanic changes in consonants (Grimm’s Law).
  19. Characteristic features of Old English (phonology, grammatical system, lexis).
  20. Characteristic features of Middle English (phonology, grammatical system, lexis).
  21. Transformation of English from a synthetic to an analytic language (changes in morphology of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs).
  22. Foreign influences on English (esp. lexical).

Methodology

Final Exam in Methodology: A presentation on a topic on 5 of the following topics (see detailed instructions at: http://moodlinka.ics.muni.cz/course/view.php?id=928).

Topics

  1. Language learner – individual differences, teenage learners
  2. Language teacher – roles, professional development
  3. Learner autonomy and learner training
  4. Planning teaching (lesson planning, syllabus, ŠVP)
  5. Teaching materials at secondary school
  6. Productive skills at secondary school: speaking and writing
  7. Receptive skills at secondary school: listening and reading
  8. Communicative competence and its sub-competences
  9. Teaching pronunciation at secondary school
  10. Teaching vocabulary at secondary school
  11. Teaching grammar at secondary school
  12. Modern approaches to assessment and evaluation
  13. Maturita exam and its reform
  14. ICT in ELT
  15. Literature in ELT

Recommended literature:

  • Ur, P. A Course in Language Teaching : Practice and Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
  • Harmer, J. The Practice of English Language Teaching. 7th Edition. Essex: Longman Group UK Limited, 1994.
  • Harmer, J. How to Teach English. Essex: Longman Group UK Limited, 1998.
  • Scrivener, J. Learning Teaching. Oxford: Macmillan, 2005.

Note that for the final exam (methodology part) every student must study at least one of the recommended titles thoroughly.

Literature

While answering the question, the student shows their knowledge of primary and critical literature linked to the field and their understanding of key themes and intercultural connections.

  1. Postmodernism and after, genre diversification.
  2. American oral literature (white/European American and African American).
  3. The American West in popular literature: Western novels and the hard-boiled school of detective stories.
  4. Young adult literature. Graphic novel.
  5. The modern genre of fantasy fiction.
  6. Post-colonialism. Examples in Australian, South African and South Asian literatures.
  7. Gender, body and literature. Contemporary women‘s literature. Queer literature.
  8. US prose at the turn of the millennium.‘East meets West’ literature. Post 9/11 literature.
  9. British diaspora at the turn of the millennium. New ethnic literatures. Scottish and Irish voices.
  10. “Englishness” in contemporary British literature. Neo-Victorian literature. Space and the city.