EL1102 Studying English in Context
Semesters 1 and 2, 2000/01
Lecturers: Drs Peter Tan and Rani Rubdy
Module description and reading list
Prerequisites and conditions for enrolment
This module is available to first-year students in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences who have been allocated English Language as one of their three subjects. It is also available as a non-major module for Arts 2 or Arts 3 students; and as a cross-faculty module for students from other faculties.
Students wanting to enrol in EL1102 should normally have achieved a good pass in the General Paper (at AO level), or have passed the Qualifying English Test and be exempted from modules in English Communication Skills (offered by the Centre for English Language Communication).
Aims
This module invites students to consider the English language as something that interacts dynamically with the context in which it is used. We also invite students to consider if the English language is an instrument of the speakers, or whether language exerts some control over its speakers – or who is to be master, as Humpty Dumpty expresses it in Through the Looking-glass.
This module will also provide some training in the skill of analysing texts purposefully, and of re-writing passages.
Contents
Among the topics considered in the module will be the following:
- Variation and change in the English language
- Variation in structure, vocabulary and pronunciation
- Social variation, especially the contrast between the genres of conversation and academic writing
- Temporal variation and the development of the English language
- Regional variation and the spread of the English language, leading to the development of New Englishes (eg Singaporean English) and English as a global language
The module also moves into more general considerations towards the end and discusses the notion of ‘correct’ English.
Lecturers
Dr Peter Tan (room location: AS5/0619; telephone 874 6038; email: PeterTan@leonis.nus.edu.sg)
Dr Rani Rubdy (room location: AS5/0509; telephone 874 3923; email ellrsr@nus.edu.sg)
Assessment
From the academic year 2000/01, the continuous assessment (CA) component of this module will be 30 per cent (up from 20 per cent in previous years). The CA component will include:
- tutorial participation (5 marks);
- a 1,000-word individual essay on a choice of about 5 topics (15 marks); and
- a group task (10 marks), to be presented orally and submitted in written form.
The final examination will be a conventional (ie non-open-book) two-hour paper, and will make up 70 per cent of the marks for this module. (In previous years, the examination was a three-hour paper, so the requirements and the format will be different in 2000/01.)
General text
Students might also consider obtaining the following text, which covers much of what will be considered in the module:
Reading list
(Note: This is a general reading list. For a list of weekly readings based on the lecture topics, please click here.)
Students may also consult the
following texts. Recommended readings for each topic can be found in the
individual chapters of Encounters with the English Language (Part B).
For general books, you can consult:
- Crystal, David (1995), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
- Crystal, David (1988), The English Language (Harmondsworth: Penguin)
- McArthur, Tom (ed.) (1992), The Oxford Companion to the English Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
For a more detailed introduction to the
history of English, you can consult:
- Barber, Charles (1993), The English Language: A Historical Introduction, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
- Culpeper, Jonathan (1997), History of English (London: Routledge)
- Leith, Dick (1997), A Social History of English, 2nd edn. (London: Routledge)
- Pyles, Thomas and John Algeo (1993), The Origins and Development of the English Language, 4th edn. (Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
For a consideration of variation and
change, you can consult:
- Aitchison, Jean (1991), Language Change: Progress or Decay?, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
- Andersson, Lars-Gunnar and Peter Trudgill (1990), Bad Language (Penguin: Harmondsworth)
- O’Donnell, W R and Loreto Todd (1991), Variety in Contemporary English, 2nd edn. (London: Harper Collins)
For a consideration of regional
Englishes (especially New Englishes like Singaporean English), you can consult:
- Cheshire, Jenny (ed.) (1991), English Around the World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
- Foley, Joseph (ed.) (1988), New Englishes: The Case of Singapore (Singapore: Singapore University Press)
- Gopinathan, S et al. (eds.) (1998), Language, Society and Education in Singapore (Singapore: Times Academic)
- Gupta, Anthea Fraser (1994), The Step-tongue (London: Multilingual)
- McArthur, Tom (1998), The English Languages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
- Pakir, Anne (1993), The English Language in Singapore: Standards and Norms (Singapore: UniPress)
- Tay, Mary W J (1993), The English Language in Singapore (Singapore: UniPress)
Video
You can also watch the programme, The Story of English (BBC, 1986), which comes in 9 episodes. This is available from the Media Resources Section of the Central Library. The more relevant episodes are nos. 1 (‘An English Speaking World’), 2 (‘The Mother Tongue’), 3 (‘A Muse of Fire’), 5 (‘Black on White’), 6 (‘Pioneers! O Pioneers!’) and 9 (‘The New Englishes’). Episode 2 will be screened during one of the lectures; in addition, it should also be available through Video-on-demand from computer clusters and your laptops which are plugged into the system.
There is also a book accompanying the programme. This is:
There is a revised edition (London: Faber, 1992), but this does not have the very attractive colour illustrations and maps found in the 1986 edition. We would therefore recommend the earlier edition.
© P Tan 2000
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