The course focuses on the study of neologisms in German. The aim of the course is to create a deeper understanding of the nature of neologisms.

The course consists of two parts, a theoretical introduction to the topic and a practical mini-research project.

The theoretical part deals with the definition of neologisms, their location in linguistics and their establishment process, both institutionally, through dictionaries, and mentally, through entrenchment. The role of morphology is also discussed. Furthermore, concrete examples such as current corona neologisms will be dealt with.

In the practical part of the course, various neologisms will be examined in more detail using corpus analyses. The focus is on frequency and co-occurrence analyses.

- Knowledge and understanding: students acquire a basic knowledge of neologisms and learn, with the help of corpora, various analysis procedures. These objectives are primarily pursued through lectures, seminar discussions and analysis tasks in the course, which aims to develop metalinguistic knowledge.

- Applied knowledge and understanding: students will be able to apply the acquired concepts to the description and analysis of German and its varieties. They will know the importance of appropriate grammatical and lexical handling of communication and will be able to assess the relationship between the use of linguistic forms on the one hand and communicative effects on the other. These objectives will be pursued mainly through seminar activities.

- Autonomy of judgement: Students are able to judge the correctness and appropriateness of German language utterances and in particular to assess the impact of grammar on utterances.

- Communication skills: Students are able to communicate in German at an intermediate level. This will be pursued through language exercises.

- Ability to learn: Students acquire the basic tools and concepts for researching grammatical and lexical aspects of the German language. This will be pursued through lectures, classroom discussions and various types of analysis and conversations in German.

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

The course will be supplemented by exercises held by lecturers with German as their native language. These hours will be dedicated to the development of language skills. For further information, see the 'German language - lectures' page.

Teaching

Teacher centred learning

Dialogue lessons
Group or individual work

Course books

During the course we use the following online resources.

DWDS – Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache. Das Wortauskunftssystem zur deutschen Sprache in Geschichte und Gegenwart, hrsg. v. d. Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, , abgerufen am 02.03.2023.

COSMAS I/II (Corpus Search, Management and Analysis System),
http://www.ids-mannheim.de/cosmas2/,
© 1991-2022 Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim

For further reasing on lexicology I recommend: Harm, Volker. 2015. Introduzione alla lessicologia. Darmstadt: WBG.

Assessment

Oral examination.

The assessment criteria are: 

- relevance and effectiveness of the answers in relation to the programme content

- the level of articulation of the answers

- the appropriateness of the disciplinary language used

- the ability to apply knowledge to specific cases

- the ability to critically reflect concepts and processes 

Alternatively.

During the course, students can prepare two case study presentations based on the data analysis carried out in class. The presentations may replace the oral examination.

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.