230247 Language and Communication on the Internet (S) (SoSe 2015)

Since the World Wide Web was invented at the beginning of the 1990s, computers have become part of our everyday lives, and especially of our everyday communication. We write e-mails, post status messages on Facebook and participate in a chat-session with friends while we are scanning the news.
This course will look at various forms of computer-mediated communication mainly from a linguistic perspective. Students will discuss theoretical aspects of media-, socio- and text-linguistics and use the theoretical knowledge as analytical toolkit for their own research projects.

This course has a "twin" seminar at Halle University, where Dr. Jörg Wagner teaches "Sprache und Kommunikation im Internet" at the same time. The course work will be organised in mixed groups (members from both universities), which will have to use digital media (e.g. collaborative writing environments such as Google Drive) as a communication tool and reflect on this use. Thereby, we will not only talk about but also experience media and language.

Requirements for participation, required level

This course should definitely not be the first you take after the BM3. Some experience in linguistic description as well as some affinitiy to media linguistic topics is highly recommended. Participants should be willing and motivated to take on the challenge to work on progress with students from Halle university.