Registers of Our Daily Life

3 credits · Undergraduate

(3 hrs Lecture) Students are introduced to issues involved in the research being done by linguists, text analysts, discourse analysts, and sociolinguists concerning various types of institutional discourse. They are required to carry out a research project on a register of their choice. Experimental investigation and contemporary research focus on medical, scientific, legal, business, financial, political, classroom, and media discourse. Cross-listed: LING-3101(3), ANTH-3407(3). Restrictions: Students may not hold credit for this course and ANTH-3407| LING-3101. Requisite Courses: LING-2101 or ANTH-2406 or ENGL-2804 [prerequisite(s)]. ENGL-3812 (3 or 6) History of the English Language (3 hrs Lecture) This course offers a concise survey of the English language as a medium of literature from Old to Modern English. It introduces students to the metalanguage used to describe linguistic change and emphasizes the connection between such change and literary expression. Students read excerpts from Beowulf, Chaucer, and Shakespeare, among others, to discover the profound shifts that occurred in the structure and use of English over the last millennium and half. Students also explore the consequences of those shifts for literary practices over the centuries. The course challenges students to enhance their awareness of the time-bound character of both language and literature. Restrictions: Students may not hold credit for this course and ENGL-2811. Requisite Courses: 6 credit hours of First-year English, including ENGL-1001(6) or ENGL-1000(3) or permission of the Department Chair [prerequisite(s)].