BA Linguistics and Japanese / Course details

Much of the language we encounter in our daily lives is mediated, i.e. it is articulated by another element or, in other words, it is brought to us through channels other than spontaneous speech in face-to-face interactions. We can think about written language as mediated through the writing system, but spoken language can also be mediated, for example, by technological ways of transmission such as radio or telephone. In the case of writing, mediation has become so natural for many language users that they forget about it. In addition to that, language practice can involve complex layers of mediation when, for example, a lecture based on a written script and delivered with slides as visual aids for students is recorded and put online to be accessed by students outside the classroom.

The course aims to make you think about general processes of mediation and how they impact on language practices in and across speech communities. To this end, we will read and discuss theory and case studies to develop an understanding of the changing nature of processes of mediation and how they affect language. We will look at ways, in which communication is mediated not just through speech and writing, but through technologies including print, radio, film and computer. Students will learn to rethink their daily language practices in terms of mediality and to apply analytical tools in order to investigate current changes in language and mediality in the digital age.  We will consider a wide range of mono- and multimodal texts during the course, and students will choose their own text to transmediate, reflecting on how different media affect the form and content of communications.

None, however, a working knowledge and/or interest in semiotics and news/other media is useful.

The principal aims of the course unit are as follows:

• To consider processes of mediation and how they impact on language practices in and across speech communities. 
• To explore how communication is mediated not just through the modes of speech, writing and image, but through technologies including print, radio, film and computer and processes such as transcription.
• To understand how new media practices have changed the perception of traditional distinctions between speech and writing.
• To demonstrate, through analysing a transmediate text, the ways in which a change in medium can affect the content, structure, layout and tone of a piece of communication.

Teaching will be done in one two-hour lecture block. Lectures will provide background information, but students are expected to take responsibility for work dynamics by demonstrating leadership in the preparation of class discussions. The seminar hour will be dedicated to data analysis, discussion of the research literature and assignment preparation. Students will be asked to contribute data to the seminars.

• Understand the properties of different processes of mediation (conceptual and technological). 
• Understand how new media are affecting language usages.
• Understand how modes interact in multimodal texts.
• Analyse data in terms of these properties.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Apply their theoretical knowledge to new data.
• Recognise the effect of processes of mediation in everyday language practices.
• Improve their ability to select research questions, and to seek and analyse evidence that bears on the question.

• Improve academic writing.
• Improve reading and discussion skills.
• Engage with texts in alternative media.

• Manage time and locate relevant resources when working independently on a project.
• Take responsibility for course dynamics and class discussions  

RE-SIT ASSESSMENT

Androutsopoulus, Jannis (ed.) (2006): Sociolinguistics and computer-mediated communication. Special Issue: Journal of Sociolinguistics 10 (4).

Crystal, David (2006): Language and the Internet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hutchby, Ian (2001). Conversation and technology: from the telephone to the internet. Cambridge: Polity.

Kress, Gunther and Theo van Leeuwen (2001), Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ochs, E. (1979). Planned and unplanned discourse. In T. Givón (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics, vol. 12: Discourse and Syntax (pp. 51–80). New York: Academic Press.

Ong, Walter (2002). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Routledge.