230624 English in the Information Society (S) (SoSe 2007)

The main goal of the class is to provide a basis for investigating the English language and its use in modern Information and Communication Technology contexts, such as the following:

1. the dialog-like language of emails, chat, sms, ...
2. electronic publishing (an area of interdisciplinary cooperation between Applied Text Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, Text Technology and Creative Writing)
3. specific issues like the role of English and of linguistics in the global society such as advertising and product branding.

The main emphasis will be on electronic publishing, and in the course of the class, participants will be required to produce evidence of active participation and achievement in the form of a book publishing project on a topic of their choice, with the following products:

1. a short book (fact or fiction),
2. a slide presentation (PowerPoint, OpenOffice, etc.) about the topic of the book,
3. an advertising poster for the book,
4. an advertising flyer for the book,
5. a CD accompanying the book (data or audio CD).
6. An MA term paper describing the theoretical principles and practical procedures involved in the production of the above products.

Details of the goals, content and methods are open to negotiation. The class is designed for students in their first semester of M.A. (Master) studies. Other advanced and motivated students provided the size of the class does not become too large. Participants are required to create weekly updates to their class portfolios on the internet. Further information will be made available at this address before the class starts:

External comments page

http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/~gibbon/Classes/Classes2007SS/index.html