BA English Language and French
Year of entry: 2020
Course unit details:
The Grammar of English Noun Phrases
Unit code | LELA31001 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 3 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 1 |
Offered by | Linguistics & English Language |
Available as a free choice unit? | Yes |
Overview
What is this course about?
- Taking a different approach to English grammar
- Descriptive rather than theoretical
- Bottom-up rather than top-down
- Usage-based
- Becoming a descriptive linguist
- Look at real-language data (usage) with an open mind
- Read different theories/analyses and evaluate them on the basis of data
- Construct the most accurate model and come up with a revised analysis
- And becoming an expert on English noun phrases!
Pre/co-requisites
Unit title | Unit code | Requirement type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
LELA10041 | Pre-Requisite | Optional | |
LELA10122 | Pre-Requisite | Optional |
Prerequisite: LELA10301 (English Word and Sentence Structure) or LELA10041 (Introducing English Grammar)
Aims
The aims of the unit are:
- To examine one area of English Grammar in greater depth, and work towards fine-grained levels of grammatical description.
- to evaluate existing grammatical descriptions against the variety and flexibility of actual language use.
Syllabus
Introduction to using the British National Corpus (first 5 weeks)
Lecture/seminar topics:
- NPs and NP structure
- Types of nouns
- Types of nouns
- Determiners
- Quantification
- Premodifiers
- Postmodifiers
- Genitives
- Pronouns
- Fused heads
- Intensification
Teaching and learning methods
Total of 33 contract hours divided over
- 11 weekly two-hour block of lecture + seminar
- 5 one-hour tutorials (week 1-5) preparing you for the final project
- 1 presentation 'day' in week 11
Knowledge and understanding
Students will
- acquire a detailed knowledge of the categories involved in the construction of English noun phrases.
- have read grammatical descriptions of various levels of difficulty concerning nominal categories in English and be able to critically evaluate them.
- be able to undertake a basic corpus-based analysis using the British National Corpus.
Intellectual skills
Students will:
- develop skills of problem-solving, building an analysis on the basis of corpus-based data, critically assessing and comparing different descriptions, constructing and refining an argument defending their analysis.
- develop skills in interpreting and synthesising information.
Practical skills
Students will:
- be able to analyze noun phrases and describe nominal categories, using the descriptive methods developed in the course.
- have learned to perform corpus searches and apply basic qualitative and quantitative analyses.
Transferable skills and personal qualities
Students will:
- develop skills of successful self-directed study and learning, with appropriate time management.
- develop their report writing skills.
Assessment methods
Assessment task | Formative or Summative | Length | Weighting within unit (if summative) |
Seminar exercises (for discussion, not handed in) | Formative | 1-2 hrs per week |
|
Exam on lecture/seminar material | Summative | 1 hour 30 minutes | 30% |
Original research project: descriptive corpus-based study of a NP-related phenomenon carried out in groups of up to 3 students or individually, assessed by a: |
|
|
|
presentation (week 11) | Formative and Summative | 15 mins + 5 mins question time | 20% |
final project report (to be submitted in week 12) | Summative | 3000 words | 50% |
Feedback methods
Feedback method | Formative or Summative |
Feedback on weekly seminar exercises available in class. | Formative |
Surgery on individual/group project design and corpus search (week 6) | Formative |
Individual/group project surgeries (week 10) | Formative |
BB feedback on presentation (week 12)
| Summative |
Turnitin feedback on project report (within standard feedback period) | Summative |
Feedback on exam (generic BB feedback, within standard feedback period, on questions with specific answers) | Summative |
Recommended reading
Recommended texts
- Payne, John & Rodney Huddleston. 2002. Nouns and noun phrases. Chapter 5 of Rodney Huddleston & Geoffrey K. Pullum et al. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Bache, Carl. 2000. Essentials of Mastering English: A Concise Grammar. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
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Assessment written exam | 1.5 |
Lectures | 22 |
Practical classes & workshops | 5 |
Seminars | 6 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 165.5 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Tine Breban | Unit coordinator |