Second-year of study M.A. supplementary seminars (2MA SUP) for summer term 2023–2024 (Full-time programmes)

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Introduction to Language Contact

dr Ronald Kim, prof. UAM

Speakers of different languages and dialects have always been in contact, and almost everyone in today’s world is affected by multilingualism and interaction with other speech communities. Yet only in the last few decades have scholars begun to understand the complex ways in which languages can influence one another, and the factors that shape the outcomes of language contact.

This course surveys the current state of knowledge in contact linguistics, including Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and language contact; the role of internal vs. external factors in shaping the outcomes of contact; borrowing and shift and their short- and long-term effects; problematic cases such as so-called “mixed languages”; convergence areas (Sprachbunds); and the most extreme examples of language contact, namely pidgins and creoles: their evolution, typical features, typology, and sociolinguistic aspects. Examples will be drawn from English, Polish, and other European languages where possible, but we will also examine cases of language contact around the world, including Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Requirements

Class requirements include attendance and participation (30%), homework assignments (40%), and a final exam (30%). The exam will contain a multliple-choice section, short definitions, and an essay question.

Fiction and Film in English and Irish Literature and Culture

prof. dr hab. Liliana Sikorska

This supplementary seminar is devoted to the study of a variety of topics related to the multifaceted aspects of contemporary literature and culture. The relationship between Britain and Ireland will be discussed on the basis of the rewritings and appropriations of history and literature. We will discuss both the so called “high” as well as “low” (popular) literature and culture. Based on your individual interests, I will try to incorporate theoretical works which will help you work with the assigned material. The selection of texts for the seminars will cover mainly shorter works augmented by film adaptations and films related to the topics of the classes.

Language in selected (inter-/trans-)disciplinary perspectives

prof. UAM dr hab. Elżbieta Wąsik

During the seminar, the students will broaden and systematize their knowledge about the diversity of approaches to language as an abstract system of arbitrary signs serving as a means of human signification and communication. Starting from recalling the traditionally distinguished aspects of linguistic research as resulting from the theoretical, descriptive, comparative and applied as well as synchronic and diachronic points of view, we will differentiate between the isolationist and integrationist positions in the study of language. Accordingly, we will pay attention to the forms of manifestation and modes of existence of language as an object of study of linguists and a relational property of objects of study of representatives of other disciplines. Understanding why, apart from linguistics, non-linguistic sciences are interested in particular languages in their social environments will be possible by defining language in terms of sets of extra-organismal and intra-organismal properties of its speakers and by recognizing the difference between systemic and non-systemic facts of language. For our discussions, we will introduce the distinction between interdisciplinarity (as the application of one perspective to many investigative objects) and transdisciplinarity (as the study of an investigative object from many disciplinary perspectives) for researching the complexity of language in its environmental conditions.