University
of Rome III _ School of Humanities _
Degree in Languages and International Communication |
Academic Year: 2004-05 _ Course convener: Patrick Boylan _ Email: 1oi @ boylan.it for this module |
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First
Year English for the curriculum OCI + LL
(English minor) |
Module
I: Seeing and saying things in English. |
click
on the orangedots
cliccare
sui puntini
rossi
N.B.
I programmi dei moduli
offerti nel 2004-05 non sono più materia d'esame dopo febbraio
2008
non verranno più
conservati dopo tale data i compiti svolti dagli studenti né i
relativi voti assegnati..
Mon.
1-3 pm, Room B |
Wed.
1-3 pm, Room 18 |
Fri.
1-3 pm, Room B |
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*Mid-term tests: To take the mid-term tests (esoneri), you must enroll in this course (use the form above). But no booking is required since they are not "real"exams -- they simply reduce the study load for the final exam (for which you must book). Each mid-term test you pass eliminates one of the texts from the final exam and counts for a part of your final mark. But only the final mark goes on your libretto. |
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Syllabus |
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Knowing English ‘interculturally’ means having learned not only to say things but also to see things as a native speaker of English might. This does not imply trying to imitate a "perfect Anglo speaker" (an impossible goal since the species does not exist). It does however imply undergoing a transformation of consciousness -- something much more ambitious than just "thinking in English" (the goal that ESL students often say they wish to attain). More
precisely, learning English interculturally means acquiring a new
mode of being, consonant with the kind of person one wishes to be
as a speaker of English and thus -- since one does not normally
learn a language to speak to oneself -- consonant with some
reference group of speakers of English, however marginal: the
group one wishes to be able to "talk sense" to and to
"understand from within".
Neither task is simple, but both are feasible. Indeed,
since "understanding from within" requires not only
reassigning word meanings but reconstructing reality -- culture
B's "sense" being culture A's nonsense --
clearly the acquisition of English (or any other language)
becomes immensely easier if it is experienced as the acquisition
of a mind set in tune with one's new interlocutors. This in
fact is what learning one's native language is fundamentally all
about. And yet linguistics and literary
studies either ignore this dimension or attempt to describe it
from without -- the first like a person deaf from birth who, out
of whim, has learned to comment orchestral scores as combinations
of signs; the second like an inhibited music teacher who explains
to his/her students the history of an orchestral genre but
not how to compose in it (which would require helping them "get
into it"). |
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a.
Book: D. Crystal.1997.
English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Module 2: Using local
Englishes in multicultural encounters a.
C. Roberts et al., 2001, Language learners as
ethnographers, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. b.
Monograph: P. Boylan, 2004, 'Understanding Others',
SIETAR Deutschland Journal 10:1 (April), pp. 28-32. |
Handouts |
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<cliccare "Learning
language as culture" |
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DOOLEY R., "Four Cultures, One Company: Achieving Corporate Excellence through Working Cultural Complexity", Organization Development Journal (forthcoming) |
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Seating
Arrangement: Form groups consist of 6 students, 3 in front and
3 behind.
Room
B
Room 18 |
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TUTORAGE |
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Overall purpose of course: see handout Learning language as culture |
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MODULE
I |
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7 |
Explanation of the
regulations, credits, assessment, enrollment procedure. |
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11 |
The differences among them are not simply phonological and lexical, but also syntactic, pragmatic, textual, stylistic and, above all, cultural. Homework: see Task 1
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14 |
Thus your task is not the choice of which English to speak but rather what kind of person (speaking English) you want to be like.
Example of how to describe a speaker of English linguistically and culturally: Haven Hamilton, a character in the Altman film Nashville.
For
a review of the film, click here > FOR NEXT WEDNESDAY DO Task 2 |
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16 Mar |
Your
double should speak an English from Kachru's Inner or Extended
circle (click
here).
See also Graddol's view (click
here). To
describe the variety as a verbal phenomenon, you can use IPA
transcription symbols, descriptive grammar terminology, and
conversational analysis transcriptions. "cultural
dimensions" (parameters
for measuring cultural differences) |
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23 Mar |
Is
"learning" the reception of preconceived,
prepackaged "knowledge" transmitted by a teacher?
Not in this course. For
further explanations, see the latest discussions on the Bulletin
Board. |
30 Mar |
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01 Apr |
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01 Apr |
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04 Apr |
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4 Apr |
CILT SLIDES: Seeing and saying things in English. Situate the cultural values of Haven Hamilton. On each of Beamer's dimensions, indicate "H" (Haven), "G" (Gandhi) and "M" ("me", that is, you who are writing). Example: Individualist
<| H M G |> Collectivist
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6 April |
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6 Apr |
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11 Apr |
After the previous lesson on
April 4th and in my office on April 5th, three groups asked me to
explain certain parts of the article Seeing and saying things
in English. In other words, it was NOT me telling
them in class what they had to know. It was them
telling me after class what they decided they needed
to know, because what they had found by themselves was not
enough. In other words, they used their teacher as a
supplementary resource. |
13 Apr |
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13 Apr |
Consign Task 6. People not at Trinity: next Monday at the latest, in class or during office hours. Enroll: 2 people not enrolled!
Trinity: zitti /loquaci
For
the final exam in June: D. Crystal.1997. English as a Global
Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Attenders read two chapters (2, 5) - approximately 60 pages.
What
did you learn from this course? |
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MODULE
II |
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15 Apr |
Lesson conducted by a
visiting scholar, the distinguished emeritus Professor I. T.
Takestwototango, professor of Textual Commentary at the University
of San Marino.
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18 April |
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18 Apr |
TEST NB.
The solution chosen after a long class
discussion...
The story of Salvatore
Example
of a Critical Incident - Salavtore
<Click
from Michael Byram, Developing Intercultural Competence in
Practice, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2001 (pp.
117-118) Salvatore
wins one hour, looses one hour, looses the possibility of
justifying his late arrival and therefore has to keep his feelings
of unease until the end of the hour but avoids the teacher's
anger. Salvatore
wins complete class time. He also wins mental tranquility because,
having internalized the British students' mind set, he does not
feel uncomfortable by not giving an excuse immediately. He
feels his guilt but accepts living with it as part of the
Protestant tradition. At the end of the hour he satisfies
his "Italian side" by asking the teacher if she wants an
explanation, even though he knows she will say no. (N.B.: This
dispenses him from giving an explanantion.) So he is completely
satisfied.. |
27 April |
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27 Apr |
Solution
to today's discussion problem: In class we first used the definition of Accommodation Theory given by GiIes (University of Cardiff) in the 1970's: linguistic adjustment to "converge" with one's interlocutor. Giles in fact noticed English people change their speech rate, their dialectal pronunciation, and their vocabulary according to the situation they are in. Example: shop assistants in a Cariff bakery and in a Cardiff travel agency -- when clients entered speaking R.P., they did likewise (or half and half); when clients entered speaking with a local accent, they did too. OUR RESEARCH QUESTION: Does accommodation improve communication? Does it produce better understanding? More breakthroughs? Fewer breakdowns? Does accommodation create a bond of solidarity?
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29 April |
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29 Apr |
Homi Bhabbha, U of Chicago Creating a third space identity and languaged that you construct with your interlocutor ordinary circumstances: no time no will
Intercultural Communication journals
Kate Fox's pub rituals (Passport to the Pub, also see her latest book Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. Hodder & Stoughton, 2004) -
participant observation = integrated into community but with a
METHOD -
Fox's empirically observed "rules" tell you what to
do - it is a model of ethnographic research
Accomodation theory
(revisited)> |
2 May |
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2 May |
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4 May |
Ethnographic
questioning: to see things "from the native's point of view"
(Malinowski). The trap of ethnocentric questioning. Comment
on Roberts' definition of ethnocentric questions: "questions
asked in particular ways [which] construct and constrain the
answers. A different question would produce a different response
and so different data."
But:
how to ask a "non ethnocentric" question? To do so you
need to know the culture. But you can only learn the culture by
asking "non ethnocentric" questions? It's a vicious
circle or, in philosophy, the hermeneutic circle.
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6 May |
Examples
of student attempts at structured participant observation: Note: Privacy laws do not forbid installing and using surveillance cameras; they only forbid showing in public the pictures taken, without the consent of those filmed. 2) the beer party with American students at Rome University, filmed with their consent. Spontaneous speech was guaranteed by using an Eibl-Ebelsfeld lens on the video camera (one that points in one direction but films in another direction, so that the subjects do not feel the camera "on them". Post hoc consent for the use of the material was obtained.)
This
experiment has been conducted several times over the years. For an
example of treatment of material taken from the first attempt (in
1982), click here> Structured questioning during
the conversation presupposes: |
9 May |
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9 May |
NOTE:
This was, it should be remembered, a first cycle.
Clearly you would have written better assignments or esoneri
papers if you had had a second and third cycle to improve on what
you have learned so far. So don't worry about the
"correctness" of what you wrote -- "correctness"
was not the point. You were not expected to say the "right"
things immediately. You were expected to show you can learn
(in our case, English for Intercultural Communication). And
you have! Q.E.D. |
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Marking Scheme |
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Italian school marking system: |
1 - 3 |
4, 5 |
6 |
7, 8 |
(9, 10) |
Points for each Task completed: |
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2 |
3 |
4 |
(5) |
11 Mar |
Finish
comparing the two texts (GenAm and StBrEng) paying special
attention to pragmatic, textual and stylistic features. Then
the North Wind blew as hard as he could, but the more
he blew, the more closely
did the traveller fold
his cloak around him;
and at last the North Wind gave up the
attempt. EVALUTATION
by Group Leader: form to fill out>
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14 Mar |
You have seen and heard Haven Hamilton in two brief sequences from the film Nashville. Now you must try to understand him culturally. How? Well, first of all, you can read about the city of Nashville and the mentality of the people who live and work there by using the Internet search engine Google. Try word combinations like: "country
western" mentality OR mindset Nashville NOTE: In the lesson
recap for March 14th, you will altready find some
Internet pages I discovered by using Google... If you don't have
time to search, use those! _ / _ _ / _
Strong beat = /
Weak beat = _
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16 Mar |
Follow
this model for the appearance:
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TASK
4
EVALUATION CRITERIA After recording your discussion, the Group Leader will listen to the recording and assign the marks. The other students can listen with her/him and offer suggestions (but only suggestions). This interaction will help students become autonomous learners, able to judge themselves. The
teacher will accept the Group Leader's marks, whatever they are.
However the teacher can raise or lower the Group Leader's
mark considerably, according to how reasonably s/he assigned
marks to group members. Group Leaders who play Santa
Claus will get a 0. |
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TASK
5
1. Explore even deeper your character's way of seeing things and saying things. Imagine approximately 5 maxims that your character seems to say to her/himself every morning when s/he gets up, and that make her/him speak and interact the way s/he does. Write these maxims down -- in English! -- on a sheet of paper. Examples
of the maxims a student might write if he has chosen the
"Outback" culture of Crocodile Dundee: 2.
Then do the same thing in italiano. Cioè,
scrivere circa 5 massime che sembrano guidare il tuo
comportamento e che ti fanno comunicare ed interagire "da
italiano/a" con altri italiani, che ti "sentono"
come uno di loro proprio perché capisci
intimamente (e forse condividi) i valori
evocati dalle massime. Solo che, a differenza della lista
in inglese, dopo ogni massima, apri una parentesi e scrivi un
buon motivo per criticarla, o addirittura per ripudiarla -- cioè,
una 'counter-maxim'.
Io
come italiano: "Non alzare la cresta." 3.
Choose a day you want to spend with your family as your
character. (Maybe you won't resist the whole day, but
try as long as you can.) When you wake up in the morning, first
repeat your Italian maxims: read the "positive" maxim
(the one in Italian) silently and then say the counter-maxims
(the ones in English) out loud. If you share your
bedroom with others, do it in the bathroom, to be alone! Do
this twice.
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TASK
6
Use
this form> |
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Module II - Task 1 |
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Critical Incidents
Exercise:
Test on two critical incidents Case
Study: the Culture bump of a Spanish student in
England
1
point if you gave correct answers to BOTH critical incidents in
the exercises;
What do these terms mean? Why
must your Group Leader give one point for existential
values and no points for feelings or rules
of common sense? Why are values a good
explanation of someone's behavior, but feelings and common
sense a poor explanation?: An example will clarify the
differences between these terms.
Finally:
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