The course's aim is to enable students to learn and use critical methodologies for the analysis of literary texts produced in various areas of the Anglophone world (United Kingdom, USA, Australia, Canada, Irlanda, India, Nigeria, South Africa), according to the theories of textual linguistics and stylistics.

Students are invited to reflect on the complexitiy of Anglophone culture and on the social and historical changes that have influenced the forms of the English language.  We explore the so-called New Englishes, that are the standard and non-standard varieties of the English language spoken in the former colonies of the British Empire around the world, and in UK by the Black British population.  Through the reading of literary texts from Victorian times to the postcolonial contemporaneity, we will consider the the stylistic and linguistic aspects that belong to a specific author, together with the strategies belonging to "postcolonial stylistics", for example code-switching and code-mixing. Students will examine the linguistic specificity of a text in relationship to conceptual couples like language and identity, language and power, language and gender.

After a short general presentation of the Anglophone world, of its linguistic and cultural variety, the course develops as follows: 

1) Presentation of the main features of linguistics and textual linguistics.

2) Introduction to stylistics and its various categories of analysis (lexical, grammatical, figures of speech..)

3) Analysis of various literary texts (novels, short stories and poetry), dating from the Victorian period to the contemporary age. In particular, the second part of the course fucuses on the formation of the New Englishes, on Postcolonial Stylistics and their characteristics. 

4) Discussion of the texts in class, students are required to actively participate, in order to better understand the practical application  of the theories and better prepare for the final exam.  

At the end of the course, the students will have acquired analytical abilities and a good working knowledge of textual analysis. They will be asked to apply those abilities and that knowledge to various text genres. They will be expected to be able to form independent judgments in their analyses, and to expound the same both in written and in spoken form. More specifically:

Knowledge and understanding: at the end of the course, the students will be required to show extensive knowledge of the above linguistic theories.

Applying knowledge and understanding: the students must be able to apply their knowledge of these theories to the analysis of various textual genres.

The teaching material prepared by the lecturer in addition to recommended textbooks (such as for instance slides, lecture notes, exercises, bibliography) and communications from the lecturer specific to the course can be found inside the Moodle platform › blended.uniurb.it

See the Moodle blended learning platform.

Teaching

The course includes:

• classroom lectures
• group activities and production of written papers
• oral presentations
• interactive lessons aimed at discussing the papers prepared by the students

Innovative teaching methods

The course is entirely taught in English. In addition to classroom lectures, the course includes exercices and research on specific topics, both in groups and individually. The students can use the University Moodle platform for those activities. Some issues are treated and explored through the “flipped lesson” modality.

Attendance

Attendance is highly recommended, in order to actively participate to discussions and to the text analyses in class.

Course books

Geoffrey Leech and Mick Short, Style in Fiction, Pearson Education Limited, 1981 (chapters 3, 5)

Peter Verdonk, Stylistics, Oxford University Press, 2002, (pp.1-78).

Robert Fraser, Lifting the Sentence. A Poetics of Postcolonial Fiction, Manchester University Press, 2000 (chapters 2, 4, 5).

Assessment

Written test: guided textual analysis of a text. Use of monolingual dictionaries is allowed. The final assessment will be based not only on the validity of the analysis, but also on methodological relevance (references to the course books) and on the student's argumentative abilities in English. In practice, in their written tests, the students will have to demonstrate notions in the field of linguistic theory, to apply these notions to their analysis, to exercise their own judgement in their analytical choices, and to show a good command of written English (at the level required by the course). The students are also required to answer questions on the linguistic and stylistic theory.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.

Teaching

There is no difference between attending and non-attending students. See the course books and the material that the teacher uploads every week on the blended platform.

Course books

Geoffrey Leech and Mick Short, Style in Fiction, Pearson Education Limited, 1981 (chapters 3, 5)

Peter Verdonk, Stylistics, Oxford University Press, 2002, (pp.1-78).

Robert Fraser, Lifting the Sentence. A Poetics of Postcolonial Fiction, Manchester University Press, 2000 (chapters 2, 4, 5).

Assessment

Written test: guided textual analysis of a text. Use of monolingual dictionaries is allowed. The final assessment will be based not only on the validity of the analysis, but also on methodological relevance (references to the course books) and on the student's argumentative abilities in English. In practice, in their written tests, the students will have to demonstrate notions in the field of linguistic theory, to apply these notions to their analysis, to exercise their own judgement in their analytical choices, and to show a good command of written English (at the level required by the course). The students are also required to answer questions on the linguistic and stylistic theory.

Disability and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Students who have registered their disability certification or SLD certification with the Inclusion and Right to Study Office can request to use conceptual maps (for keywords) during exams.

To this end, it is necessary to send the maps, two weeks before the exam date, to the course instructor, who will verify their compliance with the university guidelines and may request modifications.