239346 English in Australia (BS) (WiSe 2011/2012)

This course will concern the distribution, features and socio-historical ramifications of a speech variety spoken by around 20 million speakers in the Southern hemisphere - Australia. We will specify and illustrate the main levels of linguistic description starting with morphosyntactic and phonetic features, investigate particular lexical items that play an important role in the interaction and mateship of Aussie speakers and we will dedicate a major portion of the seminar to a cultural semantics of Australia. A side topic will reflect upon typological aspects of Aboriginal languages in Australia, another side topic will look across the Tasmanian Sea to the English spoken in New Zealand.
All seminar participants are expected to present selected topics in a series of student talks.

Requirements for participation, required level

BaAngBM2 completed!

Bibliography

Journal reference: English in Australia http://www.aate.org.au/journals.php
Blair, D. & Collins, P. (Eds.) (2001). English in Australia. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Burridge, K. & Mulder, J.G. (1999). English in Australia and New Zealand. Oxford: OUP.
Michel, A. (2009). Bloody Beaut' Blue: Die Konzeptualisierung des Australischen Ethos im Australischen Englisch. Saarbrücken: VDM.
Peters, P., Collins, P. & Smith, A. (Eds.). (2009). Comparative studies in Australian and New Zealand English grammar and beyond. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
West-Pavlov, R. (Ed.). (2005). Who's Australia? Whose Australia? Contemporary politics, society and culture in Australia. Trier: WVT Wissenschaftlicher Verlag.