Corpus linguistics is one of the main methodologies in present day linguistic research. By using corpora, or large collections of computer-readable texts, we can analyse vast amounts of data quickly and efficiently, and reach well-informed and empirically based judgments about the linguistic features that interest us. This methodology course will provide you with the tools you’ll need to use corpus linguistic methods in your MA thesis and in your other linguistic work. Although the course requires no prior knowledge of corpus linguistics, we will proceed at a relatively quick pace so basic IT skills will be necessary. Topics to be discussed include the theory and history of corpus linguistics, the principles of corpus compiling, surveys of available corpora, principles and practices of corpus annotation, various methods of retrieval and data management, and basic statistical methods.
Course work will be practically oriented and task-based, with some background reading, plenty of group work, oral presentations and a final research paper.

The last twenty years have witnessed more developments in communication technology than any other period in human history. Instant messaging, social networking and hypertextual linking of texts are just some of the many facets of computer-mediated communication or CMC. For the linguist, these new means of communication raise many questions. For example, how have CMC technologies affected the production and reception of text? Does effortless multimodality affect our need to describe and report our experiences in words? Is email simply a new form of letter writing? Do supranational online communities change the way we look at language contact? What new features of language use have emerged in CMC contexts and are any of them catching on outside CMC? In this course we will look at these question and others from the linguists’ perspective, focusing on exploring the impact of CMC on English and of English on CMC.

Course work will involve background reading, practical exercises, group work and a final essay.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

Spoken language differs from written language both in form and function. For example, grammatical units such as sentences, clauses and phrases are the basic features of written texts but in spoken language their boundaries are often difficult to define. The aim of this course is to consider the peculiarities of spoken English and introduce different approaches to analysing spoken language. We will take a look at the grammar and lexis of spoken English, speech genres, spoken language corpora and various methods of discourse analysis.
 
Course work includes regular attendance and class participation, background reading, oral presentation and a final essay.

(This course is offered again in Spring 2014.)

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The course explores selected clausal argument structure constructions in English, and the idea that they carry particular meanings as constructions. Constructions are viewed as “form-meaning correspondences that exist independently of particular verbs” and in this framework “constructions themselves carry meaning” (Adele Goldberg, 1995, Constructions, p. 1). The course begins with an introduction to basic assumptions and principles in the study of sentential complementation, including the postulation of understood subjects. It then turns to the discussion of selected constructions in English involving sentential complements, with a focus on the matrix verbs selecting them and on the syntactic and semantic properties of the constructions. These include patterns with to infinitives and -ing complements, especially the types of I remembered to mail the letter and I remembered mailing the letter. Authentic data from electronic corpora, including the BNC and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) are made use of in the course. The course is also meant to help participants with thesis projects in the area of the course.
The course is largely a lecture course, with a small number of homework assignments and readings. Course work includes regular attendance, class participation, a brief essay presented in class on an approved topic in the area of the course in the second half of the term, and a final exam.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

 Learning to read literary theoretical texts is an invaluable skill for any student who will be writing their thesis on literature. On this course, we will study some of the most famous classics of modern literary theory from T. S. Eliot onwards, ponder over the problem of why literary theory is necessary in the first place, and find out how to apply in practice this newly learned knowhow in the reading of literary texts. The course is warmly recommended for students in intermediate studies.
 
 Methods of study include some lecturing, but mostly we will proceed in the form of a reading circle and team/pair work. An active role is therefore encouraged. Assessment will be based on class participation and a process writing assignment.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The course aims at exposing some of the many roles that the city, as a specific source of human experience, has played in literature from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. To some extent, the course also explores literature’s influence on how individual cities are seen and understood. Our analysis will make use of a number of viewpoints, some of them solidly rooted in socio-historical conditions and others more clearly based on metaphorical (or metonymical) approaches to the city. In addition to examining several stories set in well-known cities, we will take a look at urban studies as a field and find ways of using its perspectives in readings of literary texts.
During the last few weeks of the course, students will give presentations on a literary or cinematic text not included in course materials.
Assessment: class participation, a group presentation, and a course diary.
Note: If you have taken the Literary Landscapes course in or before 2013, there will be some overlap, as previously that course also touched upon city literature.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course focuses on gender and writing, specifically on women’s writing. We will mainly examine North American writers (novels and short stories), from the end of the 19th century to the present – for example, such writers as Kate Chopin, Pauline Hopkins, Alice Walker and Katherine V. Forrest. Thus, the texts will range from 19th-century ”New Woman” fiction to African American stories about passing to contemporary lesbian detective fiction. Through these texts we will discuss, among other things, the origin of feminist literary criticism, differences between women, sexual politics, women’s roles, power relations, essentialism and desire.

Assessment: essay/course diary and class contribution.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The course aims to introduce students to the use of electronic corpora and databases containing authentic language for a variety of purposes (checking grammar or word choice, regional variation, research). Through practical examples, a number of available corpora will be examined with the perspective of considering language use as a context-dependent issue. The usefulness of methodical analysis of electronic resources is highlighted in the critical approach and assessment of prescriptive, rule-based notions of correct language.
Course work includes regular attendance of weekly sessions, reading of a selection of research articles, practical hands-on study sessions in a computer lab, homework assignments and group discussions, and a final written course report.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This option will present students with an extensive coverage of the different ways in which new words are formed in English. The course will begin by a survey of the basic concepts relating to word-formation and morphology (affix, derivation, root, base, lexeme, opaqueness, transparency etc.). We shall then move on to examine the many different processes by which new words are formed in English (e.g. derivation, compounding, blending, clipping, sound-symbolism). The course ends with two relatively recent ways of putting together new words (cut-down puns and knock-knock words).
Course work includes regular attendance of the weekly sessions, homework assignments (theory handouts and practical exercises relating to various aspects of word-formation), and an end-of-term examination.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course will address the question “What is Scottish Literature?” by examining the works of key authors from the Middle Ages to the present day to identify the social, historical, and cultural contexts and significant themes that have defined the Scottish literary canon. We will explore themes such as religion, duality, fantasy and the supernatural, language, and gender, and investigate the contributions of Scots, Gaelic, and Nordic cultures to identify the diverse influences that have shaped Scottish culture through the centuries. We will also discuss the theoretical controversies and social conflicts that have informed debate over the construction of the Scottish literary canon.

The extra group (group 2) had no enrolment. Students were selected into the group from the waiting list of the original group.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course will examine the development of British drama from the late seventeenth and eighteenth-century. Studying a selection of plays from genres including comedy, tragedy, satire, and ballad-opera, and attending to changes in the staging conventions of the period, we will examine the historical and social contexts of the drama and look at the theatre as a site of political and social debate that engaged with topics such as gender and power, imperialism, British identity, and political corruption.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

In this course we will trace the development of detective fiction from the end of the 19th century to the present. We will specifically examine how detective fiction represents and constructs gender, class and ethnicity. For example, we will analyse how Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective Sherlock Holmes protects the empire against foreign influence, and how African-American writers (e.g. Pauline Hopkins, Barbara Neely, Walter Mosley) discuss race and crime in their fictions. Further, we will examine how the feminist movement has influenced the field of crime writing – how it introduced new themes into the genre, such as child abuse, sexism, and racism.
Assessment: essay and class contribution.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course will provide an overview of superhero comics from the late 1930s to the present, focusing on the historical, theoretical, and critical arguments that have evolved around the genre. We will approach the genre of superhero comics as a historical and cultural phenomenon, and discuss such superhero-related issues as audiences and fandom, the representation of gender, the role of the villain, and the relevance of the superhero in a post- 9/11 world. While the entire genre is discussed, longer textual examples will focus more on superhero comics published from 1980s onwards.
We will be reading theoretical texts on superheroes as well as excerpts from various superhero comics, including Superman, Batman, Captain America, and Watchmen (each student is expected to purchase a copy of Watchmen, other materials will be provided in photocopies). In addition, we will also be viewing one superhero film.
Assessment: group participation, class presentation, final essay of 7-9 pages.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The Indian novel in English became a global phenomenon with the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children in 1981 and since then has come to dominate the field of postcolonial writing in English. This course examines the developments in postcolonial Indian fiction in English from the 1980s to the present. We will discuss the work of some of the key authors, such as Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga, and explore such themes and issues as colonial legacy, postcolonial politics, narrating the nation, caste violence, religious conflicts, treatment of gender and globalisation. The examined novels will be set in their historical, political, social and cultural contexts, which allows us to consider a range of perspectives on contemporary India. We will also discuss the status of the English language in India as well as the position of Indian English novel as literature that is both celebrated – especially in the West, where it is the Indian English literature that is best known and representative of the voice of India – and contested – especially in India, because it is sometimes seen as inauthentic compared to Indian literature written in other Indian languages.

Assessment: class participation, a presentation and final essay

Corpus linguistics is one of the main methodologies in present day linguistic research. By using corpora, or large collections of computer-readable texts, we can analyse vast amounts of data quickly and efficiently, and reach well-informed and empirically based judgments about the linguistic features that interest us. This methodology course will provide you with the tools you’ll need to use corpus linguistic methods in your MA thesis and in your other linguistic work. Although the course requires no prior knowledge of corpus linguistics, we will proceed at a relatively quick pace so basic IT skills will be necessary. Topics to be discussed include the theory and history of corpus linguistics, the principles of corpus compiling, surveys of available corpora, principles and practices of corpus annotation, various methods of retrieval and data management, and basic statistical methods.
Course work will be practically oriented and task-based, with some background reading, plenty of group work, oral presentations and a final research paper.

The last twenty years have witnessed more developments in communication technology than any other period in human history. Instant messaging, social networking and hypertextual linking of texts are just some of the many facets of computer-mediated communication or CMC. For the linguist, these new means of communication raise many questions. For example, how have CMC technologies affected the production and reception of text? Does effortless multimodality affect our need to describe and report our experiences in words? Is email simply a new form of letter writing? Do supranational online communities change the way we look at language contact? What new features of language use have emerged in CMC contexts and are any of them catching on outside CMC? In this course we will look at these question and others from the linguists’ perspective, focusing on exploring the impact of CMC on English and of English on CMC.

Course work will involve background reading, practical exercises, group work and a final essay.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

Spoken language differs from written language both in form and function. For example, grammatical units such as sentences, clauses and phrases are the basic features of written texts but in spoken language their boundaries are often difficult to define. The aim of this course is to consider the peculiarities of spoken English and introduce different approaches to analysing spoken language. We will take a look at the grammar and lexis of spoken English, speech genres, spoken language corpora and various methods of discourse analysis.
 
Course work includes regular attendance and class participation, background reading, oral presentation and a final essay.

(This course is offered again in Spring 2014.)

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The course explores selected clausal argument structure constructions in English, and the idea that they carry particular meanings as constructions. Constructions are viewed as “form-meaning correspondences that exist independently of particular verbs” and in this framework “constructions themselves carry meaning” (Adele Goldberg, 1995, Constructions, p. 1). The course begins with an introduction to basic assumptions and principles in the study of sentential complementation, including the postulation of understood subjects. It then turns to the discussion of selected constructions in English involving sentential complements, with a focus on the matrix verbs selecting them and on the syntactic and semantic properties of the constructions. These include patterns with to infinitives and -ing complements, especially the types of I remembered to mail the letter and I remembered mailing the letter. Authentic data from electronic corpora, including the BNC and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) are made use of in the course. The course is also meant to help participants with thesis projects in the area of the course.
The course is largely a lecture course, with a small number of homework assignments and readings. Course work includes regular attendance, class participation, a brief essay presented in class on an approved topic in the area of the course in the second half of the term, and a final exam.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

 Learning to read literary theoretical texts is an invaluable skill for any student who will be writing their thesis on literature. On this course, we will study some of the most famous classics of modern literary theory from T. S. Eliot onwards, ponder over the problem of why literary theory is necessary in the first place, and find out how to apply in practice this newly learned knowhow in the reading of literary texts. The course is warmly recommended for students in intermediate studies.
 
 Methods of study include some lecturing, but mostly we will proceed in the form of a reading circle and team/pair work. An active role is therefore encouraged. Assessment will be based on class participation and a process writing assignment.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The course aims at exposing some of the many roles that the city, as a specific source of human experience, has played in literature from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century. To some extent, the course also explores literature’s influence on how individual cities are seen and understood. Our analysis will make use of a number of viewpoints, some of them solidly rooted in socio-historical conditions and others more clearly based on metaphorical (or metonymical) approaches to the city. In addition to examining several stories set in well-known cities, we will take a look at urban studies as a field and find ways of using its perspectives in readings of literary texts.
During the last few weeks of the course, students will give presentations on a literary or cinematic text not included in course materials.
Assessment: class participation, a group presentation, and a course diary.
Note: If you have taken the Literary Landscapes course in or before 2013, there will be some overlap, as previously that course also touched upon city literature.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course focuses on gender and writing, specifically on women’s writing. We will mainly examine North American writers (novels and short stories), from the end of the 19th century to the present – for example, such writers as Kate Chopin, Pauline Hopkins, Alice Walker and Katherine V. Forrest. Thus, the texts will range from 19th-century ”New Woman” fiction to African American stories about passing to contemporary lesbian detective fiction. Through these texts we will discuss, among other things, the origin of feminist literary criticism, differences between women, sexual politics, women’s roles, power relations, essentialism and desire.

Assessment: essay/course diary and class contribution.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The course aims to introduce students to the use of electronic corpora and databases containing authentic language for a variety of purposes (checking grammar or word choice, regional variation, research). Through practical examples, a number of available corpora will be examined with the perspective of considering language use as a context-dependent issue. The usefulness of methodical analysis of electronic resources is highlighted in the critical approach and assessment of prescriptive, rule-based notions of correct language.
Course work includes regular attendance of weekly sessions, reading of a selection of research articles, practical hands-on study sessions in a computer lab, homework assignments and group discussions, and a final written course report.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This option will present students with an extensive coverage of the different ways in which new words are formed in English. The course will begin by a survey of the basic concepts relating to word-formation and morphology (affix, derivation, root, base, lexeme, opaqueness, transparency etc.). We shall then move on to examine the many different processes by which new words are formed in English (e.g. derivation, compounding, blending, clipping, sound-symbolism). The course ends with two relatively recent ways of putting together new words (cut-down puns and knock-knock words).
Course work includes regular attendance of the weekly sessions, homework assignments (theory handouts and practical exercises relating to various aspects of word-formation), and an end-of-term examination.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course will address the question “What is Scottish Literature?” by examining the works of key authors from the Middle Ages to the present day to identify the social, historical, and cultural contexts and significant themes that have defined the Scottish literary canon. We will explore themes such as religion, duality, fantasy and the supernatural, language, and gender, and investigate the contributions of Scots, Gaelic, and Nordic cultures to identify the diverse influences that have shaped Scottish culture through the centuries. We will also discuss the theoretical controversies and social conflicts that have informed debate over the construction of the Scottish literary canon.

The extra group (group 2) had no enrolment. Students were selected into the group from the waiting list of the original group.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course will examine the development of British drama from the late seventeenth and eighteenth-century. Studying a selection of plays from genres including comedy, tragedy, satire, and ballad-opera, and attending to changes in the staging conventions of the period, we will examine the historical and social contexts of the drama and look at the theatre as a site of political and social debate that engaged with topics such as gender and power, imperialism, British identity, and political corruption.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

In this course we will trace the development of detective fiction from the end of the 19th century to the present. We will specifically examine how detective fiction represents and constructs gender, class and ethnicity. For example, we will analyse how Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective Sherlock Holmes protects the empire against foreign influence, and how African-American writers (e.g. Pauline Hopkins, Barbara Neely, Walter Mosley) discuss race and crime in their fictions. Further, we will examine how the feminist movement has influenced the field of crime writing – how it introduced new themes into the genre, such as child abuse, sexism, and racism.
Assessment: essay and class contribution.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course will provide an overview of superhero comics from the late 1930s to the present, focusing on the historical, theoretical, and critical arguments that have evolved around the genre. We will approach the genre of superhero comics as a historical and cultural phenomenon, and discuss such superhero-related issues as audiences and fandom, the representation of gender, the role of the villain, and the relevance of the superhero in a post- 9/11 world. While the entire genre is discussed, longer textual examples will focus more on superhero comics published from 1980s onwards.
We will be reading theoretical texts on superheroes as well as excerpts from various superhero comics, including Superman, Batman, Captain America, and Watchmen (each student is expected to purchase a copy of Watchmen, other materials will be provided in photocopies). In addition, we will also be viewing one superhero film.
Assessment: group participation, class presentation, final essay of 7-9 pages.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The Indian novel in English became a global phenomenon with the publication of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight's Children in 1981 and since then has come to dominate the field of postcolonial writing in English. This course examines the developments in postcolonial Indian fiction in English from the 1980s to the present. We will discuss the work of some of the key authors, such as Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga, and explore such themes and issues as colonial legacy, postcolonial politics, narrating the nation, caste violence, religious conflicts, treatment of gender and globalisation. The examined novels will be set in their historical, political, social and cultural contexts, which allows us to consider a range of perspectives on contemporary India. We will also discuss the status of the English language in India as well as the position of Indian English novel as literature that is both celebrated – especially in the West, where it is the Indian English literature that is best known and representative of the voice of India – and contested – especially in India, because it is sometimes seen as inauthentic compared to Indian literature written in other Indian languages.

Assessment: class participation, a presentation and final essay

The course will consist of fortnightly lectures (for all participants) with associated tutorials (2 groups) in the week following the lecture week.
 
 The aim is to learn to read theoretical texts, some of which are highly complex, and discover their line of argumentation. An important part of the effort is to become aware of the historical dialogue in which the theories are engaged, and to understand how one might take part in it.
 
 The course will touch on the fields of New Criticism, structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, the New Historicism, cultural materialism, postcolonial and queer theory, as well as recent developments in ecocriticism and cognitive poetics.
 
 Each student is expected to purchase Hans Bertens: Literary Theory: The Basics (2nd ed., 2008; available at the university bookstore), which will provide preliminary reading for each lecture.
 
 In the tutorials, students will work in teams to apply the methods learned to literary texts and see how readings change according to theoretical position, broadening one's view of the text. Assessment will be based on class participation and a process learning diary.

This course focuses on variation, a crucially important aspect of linguistics. How and why is language different in different contexts? What causes variation, how do we study it, what challenges does it pose and how should we deal with it as language professionals? Following an introduction to the main concepts, we will look at a number of registers in detail. With case studies ranging from academic articles and short stories to political speeches and online newspapers, we will get to know specific contexts of text production and examine the variation they give rise to in language. The course will make moderate use of corpus linguistic methods, but no prior knowledge of corpora is required. Course work includes regular attendance and participation, homework assignments, a presentation in class and a final paper on a related topic.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course reviews linguistic as well as various socio-cultural aspects of English as a global language, paying attention to both theory and practice. The course has three main aims. Firstly, it briefly outlines the development and characteristics of English as a global language – the variation, change and diversification of English in different regions, societies, communities and settings in the world – with specific emphasis on non-native-speaker contexts. Of particular interest here is the role and use of English in Finland. Secondly, the course provides a critical overview of issues around and debates on the impact of the spread of English in the world. Thirdly, it familiarizes students with a range of linguistic and discourse-pragmatic approaches to studying English as a global language, also providing suggestions and support for pro gradu research in this area. Course work includes weekly sessions, background reading, and a mini project, its oral presentation and written report.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course will focus on the social aspects of language variation. The first half of the course will be devoted to a detailed discussion of some of the central issues in so-called Labovian sociolinguistics/microsociolinguistics. During the second half of the course the focus will be on a number of sociolinguistic topics including language and ethnicity, language, sex, and gender, language contact and language change.
A reading list will be provided at the beginning of the course.
Course work includes weekly sessions, background reading, oral presentation in the class, and a final essay.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

Spoken language differs from written language both in form and function. For example, grammatical units such as sentences, clauses and phrases are the basic features of written texts but in spoken language their boundaries are often difficult to define. The aim of this course is to consider the peculiarities of spoken English and introduce different approaches to analysing spoken language. We will take a look at the grammar and lexis of spoken English, speech genres, spoken language corpora and various methods of discourse analysis.
 
Course work includes regular attendance and class participation, background reading, oral presentation and a final essay.

(This course is also offered in Autumn 2013,)

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course traces features of change and continuity in the core grammar of English from the eighteenth century to the present, with data drawn primarily from synchronic and diachronic computer corpora of English. The course focuses on complementation, but there are no formal prerequisites for attending. The option will offer suggestions on how to use computer corpora to write a pro gradu thesis on complementation.
Course-work includes class participation, homework assignments, a brief paper to be presented in class on complementation or another approved aspect of English grammar, and a final exam.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

Since Freud's ventures into literary aesthetics in the early 1900s, psychoanalysis and psychoanalytical criticism has provided plenty of food for thought in the study of literature. Over the years, theorists such as Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Harold Bloom and Slavoj Zizek have applied different approaches to shed light on the unpredictable workings of the human psyche. On this course, we will study important texts written in this tradition to gauge their contemporary relevance.
Methods of study include some lecturing, but mostly we will proceed in the form of a reading circle and team/pair work. An active role is therefore encouraged. Assessment will be based on class participation and a process writing assignment.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

In this course we will examine the question of murder and representation, with a special focus on gender issues. We will concentrate on one type of murder, serial murder, as a cultural narrative from the end of the 19th century to the present. During this course we will analyze the cultural imagery and social contexts of serial killing in Britain and the United States. In particular, we will try to answer this question: how are gender and "normalcy" constructed through murder narratives, deviation, and crime? We will start with the case of Jack the Ripper - the first "modern" serial killer - and his victims and move on to representations of male and female psychopaths and lesbian serial killing. We will explore such different genres as films and documentary programmes as well as texts written by FBI agents, serial killers and psychiatrists. We will also read three novels: Robert Bloch's Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, and Helen Zahavi's Dirty Weekend.

Assessment: essay and class contribution.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course concentrates on the significance of settings in fiction, and on how descriptions of landscape influence the thematic structure of texts. We will be considering the aesthetics of different kinds of landscapes, analyzing their social and psychological effects through their literary depictions. We will also be touching on various theoretical approaches, including ecocriticism, and using some concepts from spatial theory and cultural geography to make sense of the texts. Thematically, the emphasis will often – though not exclusively – fall on the relationship between humanity and nature. The texts will cover a wide range of historical circumstances and geographical locations. The course aims at suggesting, among other things, that descriptions of setting can be just as important in literature as the events narrated.
Assessment: class participation, a short presentation, and a course diary.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

During this course, we will read some of the greatest works of satire in English literature and study theoretical approaches to the subject. We will discuss questions of good and bad taste, the character of the satirist, transgressions of decorum, freedom of expression, and evaluate the critical function of satire as a genre--we will also examine cases where making fun of others is no laughing matter. The course follows a historical timeline from Renaissance theories of satire to contemporary examples, focusing especially on the eighteenth century. Students will learn to distinguish between different kinds of satires (Horatian, Juvenalian, Persian), to place the course texts in their historical contexts, and create their own critical responses through research.
Assessment: class participation, presentation, writing assignment, final essay.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

In this class we will take a look at how cognitive-functional approaches see language and try to unravel the problems in linguistic analysis. It is typical of these approaches to give semantics the topmost priority, whereas in generative frameworks syntax was the supreme ruler in linguistic analysis. Here syntax is seen almost as a mere tool for conveying the meanings in the mind, without any immediate effect on language and how it is used. As the name implies, language is considered from a cognitive perspective i.e. how we conceptualize the world and how this is seen in the form of language, and from a functional perspective i.e. what we are trying to do with language and how this affects the form of language.
Course-work includes weekly readings, both classic and recent, on several different topics (lexical semantics, diachronic change, mental representation, modality, iconicity, etc.) in the cognitive and functional frameworks, a short presentation in class on one of the topics, and a final essay.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The course looks into the major socio-historical developments in the English-speaking world between the Restoration and mid-19th century, and the ways in which the English language and the attitudes towards it changed. Through introductory mini-lectures and homework reading assignments to be discussed in groups in class, we will examine the major historical events which shaped the British Empire, the rising trends in the writing of English grammars and dictionaries, and the ultimate spread of English around the world. The course work will include weekly assignments including background reading and practical exercises examining the changes in English grammar and vocabulary through a number of electronic databases (e.g. The Oxford English Dictionary and different corpora of British and American English). The assessment will be based on an end-of-term exam and a final written course report.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

In 1858, following the Indian Rebellion of the previous year, the British Crown took over from the East India Company and assumed direct control of (most of) the subcontinent. The Raj - Britain’s formal rule of India, “the Jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire - lasted for 90 years, until the Partition and Independence of India in 1947, and was memorably depicted in British literature. The vision of India constructed by British writers remained dominant in the English-speaking West until the international rise of Indian English fiction in the 1980s. During this course we will read and discuss some of the best-known British novels representing and analysing the Raj, including Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling, A Passage to India (1924) by E. M. Forster, The Jewel in the Crown (1966) by Paul Scott and The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) by J. G. Farrell. This course will trace the history of the Raj and provide the historical knowledge needed to contextualize the novels as well as offer critical tools for analyzing British colonial representations of India in the twentieth century. We will identify some of the central themes of Raj fiction and work towards an understanding of the processes of identity formation and the complexities of colonial representations of India.

Assessment: class participation, a presentation and final essay

The course will consist of fortnightly lectures (for all participants) with associated tutorials (2 groups) in the week following the lecture week.
 
 The aim is to learn to read theoretical texts, some of which are highly complex, and discover their line of argumentation. An important part of the effort is to become aware of the historical dialogue in which the theories are engaged, and to understand how one might take part in it.
 
 The course will touch on the fields of New Criticism, structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, the New Historicism, cultural materialism, postcolonial and queer theory, as well as recent developments in ecocriticism and cognitive poetics.
 
 Each student is expected to purchase Hans Bertens: Literary Theory: The Basics (2nd ed., 2008; available at the university bookstore), which will provide preliminary reading for each lecture.
 
 In the tutorials, students will work in teams to apply the methods learned to literary texts and see how readings change according to theoretical position, broadening one's view of the text. Assessment will be based on class participation and a process learning diary.

This course focuses on variation, a crucially important aspect of linguistics. How and why is language different in different contexts? What causes variation, how do we study it, what challenges does it pose and how should we deal with it as language professionals? Following an introduction to the main concepts, we will look at a number of registers in detail. With case studies ranging from academic articles and short stories to political speeches and online newspapers, we will get to know specific contexts of text production and examine the variation they give rise to in language. The course will make moderate use of corpus linguistic methods, but no prior knowledge of corpora is required. Course work includes regular attendance and participation, homework assignments, a presentation in class and a final paper on a related topic.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course reviews linguistic as well as various socio-cultural aspects of English as a global language, paying attention to both theory and practice. The course has three main aims. Firstly, it briefly outlines the development and characteristics of English as a global language – the variation, change and diversification of English in different regions, societies, communities and settings in the world – with specific emphasis on non-native-speaker contexts. Of particular interest here is the role and use of English in Finland. Secondly, the course provides a critical overview of issues around and debates on the impact of the spread of English in the world. Thirdly, it familiarizes students with a range of linguistic and discourse-pragmatic approaches to studying English as a global language, also providing suggestions and support for pro gradu research in this area. Course work includes weekly sessions, background reading, and a mini project, its oral presentation and written report.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course will focus on the social aspects of language variation. The first half of the course will be devoted to a detailed discussion of some of the central issues in so-called Labovian sociolinguistics/microsociolinguistics. During the second half of the course the focus will be on a number of sociolinguistic topics including language and ethnicity, language, sex, and gender, language contact and language change.
A reading list will be provided at the beginning of the course.
Course work includes weekly sessions, background reading, oral presentation in the class, and a final essay.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

Spoken language differs from written language both in form and function. For example, grammatical units such as sentences, clauses and phrases are the basic features of written texts but in spoken language their boundaries are often difficult to define. The aim of this course is to consider the peculiarities of spoken English and introduce different approaches to analysing spoken language. We will take a look at the grammar and lexis of spoken English, speech genres, spoken language corpora and various methods of discourse analysis.
 
Course work includes regular attendance and class participation, background reading, oral presentation and a final essay.

(This course is also offered in Autumn 2013,)

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course traces features of change and continuity in the core grammar of English from the eighteenth century to the present, with data drawn primarily from synchronic and diachronic computer corpora of English. The course focuses on complementation, but there are no formal prerequisites for attending. The option will offer suggestions on how to use computer corpora to write a pro gradu thesis on complementation.
Course-work includes class participation, homework assignments, a brief paper to be presented in class on complementation or another approved aspect of English grammar, and a final exam.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

Since Freud's ventures into literary aesthetics in the early 1900s, psychoanalysis and psychoanalytical criticism has provided plenty of food for thought in the study of literature. Over the years, theorists such as Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Harold Bloom and Slavoj Zizek have applied different approaches to shed light on the unpredictable workings of the human psyche. On this course, we will study important texts written in this tradition to gauge their contemporary relevance.
Methods of study include some lecturing, but mostly we will proceed in the form of a reading circle and team/pair work. An active role is therefore encouraged. Assessment will be based on class participation and a process writing assignment.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

In this course we will examine the question of murder and representation, with a special focus on gender issues. We will concentrate on one type of murder, serial murder, as a cultural narrative from the end of the 19th century to the present. During this course we will analyze the cultural imagery and social contexts of serial killing in Britain and the United States. In particular, we will try to answer this question: how are gender and "normalcy" constructed through murder narratives, deviation, and crime? We will start with the case of Jack the Ripper - the first "modern" serial killer - and his victims and move on to representations of male and female psychopaths and lesbian serial killing. We will explore such different genres as films and documentary programmes as well as texts written by FBI agents, serial killers and psychiatrists. We will also read three novels: Robert Bloch's Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, and Helen Zahavi's Dirty Weekend.

Assessment: essay and class contribution.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

This course concentrates on the significance of settings in fiction, and on how descriptions of landscape influence the thematic structure of texts. We will be considering the aesthetics of different kinds of landscapes, analyzing their social and psychological effects through their literary depictions. We will also be touching on various theoretical approaches, including ecocriticism, and using some concepts from spatial theory and cultural geography to make sense of the texts. Thematically, the emphasis will often – though not exclusively – fall on the relationship between humanity and nature. The texts will cover a wide range of historical circumstances and geographical locations. The course aims at suggesting, among other things, that descriptions of setting can be just as important in literature as the events narrated.
Assessment: class participation, a short presentation, and a course diary.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

During this course, we will read some of the greatest works of satire in English literature and study theoretical approaches to the subject. We will discuss questions of good and bad taste, the character of the satirist, transgressions of decorum, freedom of expression, and evaluate the critical function of satire as a genre--we will also examine cases where making fun of others is no laughing matter. The course follows a historical timeline from Renaissance theories of satire to contemporary examples, focusing especially on the eighteenth century. Students will learn to distinguish between different kinds of satires (Horatian, Juvenalian, Persian), to place the course texts in their historical contexts, and create their own critical responses through research.
Assessment: class participation, presentation, writing assignment, final essay.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

In this class we will take a look at how cognitive-functional approaches see language and try to unravel the problems in linguistic analysis. It is typical of these approaches to give semantics the topmost priority, whereas in generative frameworks syntax was the supreme ruler in linguistic analysis. Here syntax is seen almost as a mere tool for conveying the meanings in the mind, without any immediate effect on language and how it is used. As the name implies, language is considered from a cognitive perspective i.e. how we conceptualize the world and how this is seen in the form of language, and from a functional perspective i.e. what we are trying to do with language and how this affects the form of language.
Course-work includes weekly readings, both classic and recent, on several different topics (lexical semantics, diachronic change, mental representation, modality, iconicity, etc.) in the cognitive and functional frameworks, a short presentation in class on one of the topics, and a final essay.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

The course looks into the major socio-historical developments in the English-speaking world between the Restoration and mid-19th century, and the ways in which the English language and the attitudes towards it changed. Through introductory mini-lectures and homework reading assignments to be discussed in groups in class, we will examine the major historical events which shaped the British Empire, the rising trends in the writing of English grammars and dictionaries, and the ultimate spread of English around the world. The course work will include weekly assignments including background reading and practical exercises examining the changes in English grammar and vocabulary through a number of electronic databases (e.g. The Oxford English Dictionary and different corpora of British and American English). The assessment will be based on an end-of-term exam and a final written course report.

In addition to enrolment in NettiOpsu you need to fill in a form to indicate an order of preference for your chosen options courses.

In 1858, following the Indian Rebellion of the previous year, the British Crown took over from the East India Company and assumed direct control of (most of) the subcontinent. The Raj - Britain’s formal rule of India, “the Jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire - lasted for 90 years, until the Partition and Independence of India in 1947, and was memorably depicted in British literature. The vision of India constructed by British writers remained dominant in the English-speaking West until the international rise of Indian English fiction in the 1980s. During this course we will read and discuss some of the best-known British novels representing and analysing the Raj, including Kim (1901) by Rudyard Kipling, A Passage to India (1924) by E. M. Forster, The Jewel in the Crown (1966) by Paul Scott and The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) by J. G. Farrell. This course will trace the history of the Raj and provide the historical knowledge needed to contextualize the novels as well as offer critical tools for analyzing British colonial representations of India in the twentieth century. We will identify some of the central themes of Raj fiction and work towards an understanding of the processes of identity formation and the complexities of colonial representations of India.

Assessment: class participation, a presentation and final essay

Singapore and Malaysian English
Prof. Sebastian Hoffmann

4.-9.4.2014

Course Outline

In this course, we will be taking a closer look at two postcolonial varieties of English in Southeast Asia. Our main focus of interest will be Singapore English – a variety that is on the verge of becoming the native language for the majority of its speakers. This is complemented by a less detailed picture of the English spoken in neighbouring Malaysia, where different political and ethnic circumstances have influenced the development of a local variety in interesting ways. Apart from a detailed look at typical features of these two varieties on various levels of linguistic description (phonology, lexis, syntax, pragmatics), we will – among others – be dealing with topics such as "language planning" and "language and identity". In addition, we will also discuss the methodological toolkits available to linguists who study New Englishes, e.g. using corpus linguistic resources. The final part of the course will take a diachronic perspective and consider various theoretical models of variety formation.

No previous knowledge about varieties of English in general or Singapore/Malaysian English in particular is required to attend the course. Participants will however be expected to read a small range of papers before the first session. Depending on the size of the class, students may also be asked to prepare a (short!) presentation or design a class activity relating to a specific topic (to be determined in advance via email).

Friday 4.4.     10-13 (Pinni B3111)

10.15 - 11.15   Introduction, basic concepts, historical overview, Language(s) in Singapore, Census data

                        Reading: Schneider (2012) as very basic background

11.15 - 11.30   break

11.30 - 12.45   The sounds and words of Singapore (and Malaysian) English

                        Reading: Bao Zhiming (1998)

Monday 7.4.   10-13 (Päätalo E301)

10.15 - 11.15   Lexico-grammar and Syntax of Singapore (and Malaysian)  English

                        Reading: TBA

11.15 - 11.30   break

11.30 - 12.45   (variational) pragmatics (esp. particles)

                        Reading: TBA

Tuesday 8.4.  10-12 (Pinni B4079)

10.15 - 11.45   Modelling the language situation in Singapore (diglossia, etc.), the concept of the native speaker

                        Reading: Gupta, Leimgruber

                        Language policies in Singapore (Speak Good English Movement, Speak Mandarin Campaign) and Malaysia

                        Reading: TBA

Wednesday 9.4. 10-12 (Pinni B4079)

10.15 - 11.45   Diachrony

                        Models/Theories of the development of New Englishes (Kachru, Moag, Schneider)

                        Reading: Schneider (2003/7)

Sebastian Hoffmann, Universität Trier

Sebastian Hoffmann is Professor of English Linguistics at Trier University, and currently also guest professor at the School of Language, Translation and Literary Studies at the University of Tampere. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Zurich, where he also worked for several years. Before moving to Trier, he spent three years at Lancaster University (UK) as Lecturer in English Linguistics (2006 - 2009). His research predominantly focuses on the application of usage-based approaches to the study of language; recent research topics include: syntactic change (e.g. Grammaticalization and English Complex Prepositions: A Corpus-based Study; Routledge, 2005), tag questions, the lexico-grammar of New Englishes and corpus linguistic methodology involving Internet-derived data. He is a co-author of BNCweb, a user-friendly web-interface to the British National Corpus, which also forms the basis for his textbook publication Corpus Linguistics with BNCweb – a Practical Guide (Peter Lang, 2008; with S. Evert, N. Smith, D. Lee and Y. Berglund-Prytz).

Enrolment for the course by email to Professor Juhani Klemola by Monday 31.3. Any questions concerning the course should also be directed to Professor Klemola.

Kurssin voi suorittaa joko 5 op:n laajuisena englannin optiokurssina (ENGS6-13) tai 2-5 op:n laajuisena yksikön yhteisten opintojen opintojaksona LTLY210 Kielen erikoiskurssi.

The course can be registered either as an English Language and Literature Option course (ENGS6-13, 5 credits) or as LTLY210 Special Course in Language Studies, 2-5 credits.