German: Language and new media

The course aims to provide deeper insights into various text types in German available on the Internet relating to lexis, morphology, syntax, but also function of language in different types of Internet-based media forms. On completion of the course students should be able to:

• analyze a German text based on theoretical aspects related to the distinction between writing and orality and be able to problematize these concepts
• compare various text types and analyze the medium‘s influence on the text‘s linguistic form
• analyze a German text based on syntactic, morphological and lexical criteria and put this in the context of the concepts of language variation and linguistic change
• problematize and discuss the relationship between text and image in computer-mediated communication
• compile a corpus through a selection of texts produced in an interactive situation online and conduct a small empirical study on this by using the appropriate method.

In the course the students approach computer-mediated communication from different perspectives, and relate it to the various research directions in linguistics and new media. In this course, various web-based text types are studied with a particular focus on the issue of writing versus orality and what its effect on interaction is. In the course language is dealt with in several types of computer-mediated communication, such as discussion forums, text messages, chats and blogs, and studied from a contrastive perspective. During the course students carry out a small empirical study on their own corpus and apply a relevant methodology.

The course is assessed through written assignments and active participation in oral discussions and a final written assignment based on an independent empirical study.

Seminars and individual assignments.

The Swedish grades U–VG.