Nowadays, the online video-sharing platform YouTube is responsible for a major share of the world's Internet traffic and, according to YouTube's official statistics, "[o]ver 2 billion logged-in users visit YouTube each month, and every day people watch over a billion hours of video and generate billions of views." (cf. https://www.youtube.com/intl/en-GB/about/press/)
And yet, YouTube data and its platform are virtually absent from (socio-)linguistic research despite the wealth and variety of data provided, e.g. regarding the varieties of World Englishes.
In this seminar, we will take a good look at YouTube from a linguist's point of view by discussing perspectives from media linguistics, computer-mediated communication (CMC), corpus linguistics, and sociolinguistics. We will try to assess whether YouTube is a suitable platform for linguistic research projects and how researchers can navigate YouTube in a meaningful way, before students will develop and conduct their own small-scale research projects on YouTube in the context of variationist sociolinguistic research.
Having completed an introduction to linguistics and sociolinguistics (i.e. the BM3 module (old FsBs) / Basis3 module (new FsBs)) will be necessary to ensure successful course completion.
e.g.
Frequency | Weekday | Time | Format / Place | Period |
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Module | Course | Requirements | |
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23-ANG-AngVM3 Vertiefungsmodul 3: Linguistics | VM 3.3 Language in Use | Study requirement
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Student information |
- | Graded examination | Student information | |
23-ANG-Profil3 Profilmodul 3: Advanced Linguistics | Profil3.3 Language in Use | Study requirement
Graded examination |
Student information |
23-ANG-Profil3_G Profilmodul 3_G: Advanced Linguistics | Profil3.3_G Language in Use | Study requirement
Graded examination |
Student information |
23-ANG-Profil5 Profilmodul 5: Anglophone Cultures around the World | Profil5.3 Linguistics: Varieties of English OR Anglophone Literatures and Cultures | Study requirement
Graded examination |
Student information |
The binding module descriptions contain further information, including specifications on the "types of assignments" students need to complete. In cases where a module description mentions more than one kind of assignment, the respective member of the teaching staff will decide which task(s) they assign the students.
To complete this course, students must submit a number of written assignments and small-scale project work, e.g. via Moodle.