State university of applied sciences in konin

STATE UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES IN KONIN

Course title	Models of Culture, Emotions and Language Use in Internet Discussions	Field of study	English Philology
Year of study	BA III or else MA I or II	Semester	2016/2017 winter term
Language of instruction	English	Teaching methods	Interactive lectures (conversatoria)
Number of contact hours	4 hrs every fortnight for 1 semester	ECTS credits	6
Name of lecturer
Prof. dr hab. Barbara Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk
Objectives of the course (expected learning outcomes and competences to be acquired)
The focus of the classes is to acquire competences to identify, discuss and analyse basic discourse properties in online communication and to present an analysis of selected online discourse samples to exemplify perception of events as envisaged by groups of online users. The concept of culture as expressed in the internet language use and exemplified with English and Polish data will be foregrounded and a discussion on various (the students’ native) cultural/linguistic types conducted. Learning outcomes: The students will be able to read and evaluate CMC discourses in English, and also contrastively and experience cross—cultural and emotion linguistic awareness increase. Competences acquired: The students will be able to identify and compare language-specific properties and emotion expression in CMC discourse.
Course contents (consecutive meetings numbered)
The concept of culture and its relationship with language. Main types of Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). CMC discourse strategies and their linguistic realization Emotion dynamics in Computer-Mediated Communication Analysis of samples of English online political/social comments A comparison with Polish posts Cross-cultural models of CMC in the students’ home countries. Access to the computer lab at meetings (5-7)
Assessment methods
Active participation in the classes; Discussion on recommended reading and CMC samples Term paper on Culture-specificity of Emotion Dynamics in Online discourse.
Recommended readings
CURRENT INTERNET RESOURCES Basic sources: Herring, Susan C. (2004). Computer-mediated discourse analysis: An approach to researching online behavior. In S. A. Barab, R. Kling, & J. H. Gray (Eds.), Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning (pp. 338-376). New York: Cambridge University Press. Preprint: http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~herring/cmda.pdf Hofstede, G. (1984). National cultures and corporate cultures. In L.A. Samovar & R.E. Porter (Eds.), Communication Between Cultures. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara and Frauke Zeller (2012). "The media in transforming audiences and societies". In: Piotr Pezik (ed.) Corpus Data Across Languages and Disciplines. Frankfurt a. Main: Peter Lang. Supplementary sources: Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara and Jerzy Tomaszczyk. (2010). ”How much. Europe?. In: Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara and Hanna Pulaczewska (eds.). Intercultural Europe: Arenas of Difference, Communication and Mediation. CINTEUS vol. 7, Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag. 61-84. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara and Jerzy Tomaszczyk (2012). We in the Union: A Polish Perspective on Identity. In: Paul Bayley and Geoffrey Williams (eds.) European Identity: What the Media Say. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 224-257. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara and Paul Wilson. (2010). "A contrastive perspective on emotions: surprise". In Review of Cognitive Linguistics Vol. 8:2. 321-350. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk B. and Paul Wilson (2013). "English fear and Polish starch in contrast: GRID approach and Cognitive Corpus Linguistic methodology" In: J. Fontaine, J. Scherer, & C. Soriano (Eds.), Components of Emotional Meaning: A Sourcebook. Oxford: OUP. Nir, Lilach (2012). “Cross-National Differences in Political Discussion: Can Political Systems Narrow Deliberation Gaps?” Journal of Communication 62. 553–570.