230143 Linguistically Relevant Films (S) (WiSe 2025/2026)

If you think that linguistics has nothing to do with 'real life', you might want to participate in this course. Indeed, we are going to see that linguistic issues surround us on a daily basis – even when we spend our leisure time in the cinema. In this class, we will discuss the use of films as data source for linguistic research and encounter an eclectic mix of linguistic topics, such as primate communication, language development, language deprivation, language acquisition, multilingualism (and connected to it code-switching, language contact and interferences), as well as social or regional language variation and the linguistic study of humour in films. The choice of linguistic topics dealt with will very much depend on the choice of films, which will - to some extent - be discussed at the beginning of the seminar.