AMERICAN LANGUAGE

The course is part of the core offering of the MA degree in American, European and Postcolonial languages and Cultures and of the MA degree in Language Sciences. It aims to offer students and advanced knowledge and advanced competences in English. The module focuses on the development of US English and provides students with the necessary tools to master the English language not only as far as interaction and oral productions are concerned but also in writing, as well as theoretical tools to further their reflection on language.

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to
• Show knowledge of the development of US English:
• Show knowledge of language theory and ideas on language by a representative cluster of classic, modern, and contemporary American thinkers, writers, critics and critical
theorists
• Reflect on the link between US English and the intellectual life of the nation;
• Develop an awareness of the power of US English to articulate key ideas of our time across national and geographical borders;
• Gather and process complex theoretical material of relevance to a deeper knowledge of American English and its relation to American and transnational intellectual life;
• Show the ability to respond to the work of the peers, offering productive feedback;
• Participate actively with an oral presentation and lead a post-presentation discussion;
• Carry out a research task of relevance to the course materials;
• Produce a research paper, showing knowledge of the conventions of academic writing.

Level C1 of the Common European Framework of Reference.

Module title: Language and America: from Jonathan Edwards to Judith Butler

The chief aim of the course is to invite students to a sustained meditation on English as the language of the United States of America. Students will gain a knowledge of the historical development of US English and will learn to appreciate its use through the study of written documents by a cluster of thinkers, writers, critics, and critical theorists that are highly representative of intellectual life in America from colonial times to the present. The module champions an informed encounter with US English as an important gateway to further reflection on language in its structural, institutional, psychological and affective dimesions.
The course is articulated in three parts. The first part deals with the nexus of language and faith in early America through the great figure of Jonathan Edwards, and extends to nineteenth-century figures like Ralph W. Emerson, a prolific public lecturer, and Walt Whitman, one of the first voices of a distinctively American English. It also comprised late nineteenth-century figures like William James, who wandered about the relation of human speech to human thought. The central part turns the light on the semiotic turn in the American reflection on language with one of the greatest language theorists of all times, Charles Sanders Peirce. We shall see how, between the end of the nineteenth-century and the beginning of twentieth-century modernity, Peirce came to consider language not so much as a system as a sign process (semiosis) in the context of an incessant interconnection of communication and cognition. The third part is devoted to the American reception of the father of linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure, and considers productive aspects of the dissemination of Sassure in America as well as the post-Saussurean critique with the rise of speech act theory and the increasing attention to the biological dimension of language, with its indelible link to the body and society through factors such as to race, gender, sexuality.
In this module, you will learn more about US English while reading great Americans who reflect on language.

Required texts:
Zoltán Kövecses, American English: An Introduction. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2000.
Robert McCrum, Robert McNeil, and William Cran, The Story of English. London: Penguin, 2002.
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Wade Baskin. Edited by Perry Meisel and Haun Saussy. New York: Columbia, 2011.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition
Course Reader, edited by the Professor and available on Moodle. Selected texts and passages by, among others, the following authors:
Jonathan Edwards
Ralph W. Emerson
Walt Whitman
William James
Charles Sanders Peirce
Henry Louis Mencken
Malcom X
Adrienne Rich
Judith Butler
as well as selected critical readings relating to these authors.
Required texts:
Zoltán Kövecses, American English: An Introduction. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2000.
Robert McCrum, Robert McNeil, and William Cran, The Story of English. London: Penguin, 2002.
Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics. Trans. Wade Baskin. Edited by Perry Meisel and Haun Saussy. New York: Columbia, 2011.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition
Course Reader, edited by the Professor and available on Moodle. Selected texts and passages by, among others, the following authors:
Jonathan Edwards
Ralph W. Emerson
Walt Whitman
William James
Charles Sanders Peirce
Henry Louis Mencken
Malcom X
Adrienne Rich
Judith Butler
as well as selected critical readings relating to these authors.

Active participation,
student presentation,
a final research paper (5 pp) MLA stylesheet.
Written exam.

Lecture
Student presentations
Interactive class discussion

English

Teaching language: English

written and oral