English 416 : English in Society

Syllabus for Fall 2017

Tuesday & Thursday, 9:30 - 10:45 p.m., 2637 Humanities

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bullet Instructor bullet Assignments
bullet Materials bullet Assessment and Grading
bullet Aims of the Course bullet Course Outline

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Portrait of Professor Young Professor Richard F Young
7163 Helen C White Hall
Office hours: Wednesdays, 9:00 - 11:00 a.m., or by appointment

E-mail: rfyoung at wisc dot edu
Home Page: www.wisc.edu/english/rfyoung

Class E-mail List. Use the class e-mail list as a public bulletin board for discussions about the class.  Send your messages to engl416-1-f17 at lists dot wisc dot edu. In order for you to receive messages from the e-mail list, your e-mail address must be in the Registrar's database.  You can update your preferred email address by accessing My UW-Madison, "Student Records" tab, "Preferred Address" module.

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Required Materials

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Young, R. F. (2008). Language and interaction: An advanced resource book. London & New York: Routledge. ISBN: 978-0-415-38553-4 (paperback). A copy of the textbook is on reserve at College Library, Call No. P40.Y68.

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These 11 focal studies are available for download from Box:

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Aims of the Course

The English language is both an object of study in its own right and also a tool that people use to communicate information and to influence the behavior and opinions of others. The English language has been studied for centuries, but what we know about English is strongly influenced by writing and written language and, because writing and reading are most often done in isolation, many linguistic theories have ignored the social life of language. Yes, language has a social life and, obviously, social interaction does not happen in isolation; it involves people doing things and influencing each other by what they do. To combine the English language and social interaction in a single thought means asking: How does social interaction happen through English? And how does our knowledge of the English language change when we consider it to be primarily a means of social interaction? These are the two questions that we will wrestle with over and over again in this course. If you are interested in language and if you are interested in social relationships, this course will help you develop those interests.

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Assignments

Attendance and Readings. You are expected to attend class regularly and to complete weekly readings from section A of the textbook and from the course packet.  Attendance will be taken at each class meeting.

Extension Tasks. You are expected to carry out extensions tasks from Section B of the textbook based on each reading. The readings extracted in Section B of the textbook are short extracts from the articles and chapters in the course packet. Your responses to a given reading are due on the last day scheduled for discussion of that topic. Assignments handed in late will receive a failing grade. These activities must be done in teams of between three and five students. Each member of the team will receive the same grade.

Explorations. On seven occasions throughout the course, a team of students will present one complete lesson based on Section C (Explorations) in the textbook. The team grade will be determined by the votes of the students in your audience on the Presentation Evaluation Form.

Final Exam. Your knowledge and interpretation of the readings and lectures will be assessed by one final take-home exam.

Authorship. Some of your assignments for this course involve integrating information from published sources into your own writing. This means that you need to be careful not to plagiarize: "to steal or pass off (the ideas and words of another) as one's own" or to "present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source" (Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition, p. 888). For advice on what sources you should document and how to document them, consult Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources on the Writing Center's web site, from which the preceding statement is taken.

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Assessment and Grading

I will award letter grades for the Extension Tasks and Explorations and percent scores for the final exam. The meanings and equivalencies of the grades follow.

Grade name
Percent cutoff
Letter grade equivalent
Narrative
A+
100
100%
Excellent. Work goes well beyond the requirements of the assignment.
A
93
96%
Demonstrates full understanding of all concepts; creatively applies theories and methods to new problems in the field.
AB
85
88%
Intermediate grade
B
77
80%
Demonstrates understanding of all concepts; can correctly apply theories and methods to new problems in the field.
BC
69
72%
Intermediate grade
C
61
64%
Demonstrates understanding of some but not all concepts; some errors in applying theory and methods to new problems in the field.
D
53
56%
Demonstrates understanding of a limited number of concepts; many errors in applying theory and methods to new problems in the field.
F
0
0%
Lack of understanding of concepts; not capable of applying theories and methods to new problems in the field. Assignment not completed by deadline.

The final grade for the course will take into account grades awarded on all assignments in the following proportions.

Assignments

Percentage of Final Grade

Attendance 10%
Final Exam 35%
Extension Tasks 35%
Explorations 20%

Incompletes. The grade of "Incomplete" will only be used for a student who has carried the course with a passing grade until near the end of the semester and then, because of illness or other unusual and substantial cause beyond his/her control, is unable to complete the remaining assignments.

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Course Outline

Date

Topic

Readings and Multimedia

Extension Tasks

Explorations

September 7

Introduction to the Course

 

September 12, 14, & 19

Language and Social Interaction

Hymes: 'Models of the interaction of language and social life'

Tasks B1.2.1-5, B1.1.6, B1.2.7, B1.2.8, and B1.2.9-12 on Hymes reading due September 19

C1.2 Language Games
and/or
C1.3 The Ethnography of Speaking
and/or
C1.4 Conversation Analysis

Presented on September 19 by Team P.A.T.

September  21, 26, & 28

Talk in Context

Goodwin & Duranti: 'Rethinking context: An introduction'

Tasks B2.1.4-8 on Goodwin & Duranti reading due September 28  

American Tongues video

October 3, 5, & 10

Interactional Resources

Halliday & Matthiessen: An introduction to functional grammar (Chapter 1)

Tasks B3.1.7-12 on Halliday & Matthiessen reading due October 5

C3.2 Talk-in-Interaction

Presented on October 10 by Team Team!

Hall: '(Re)creating our worlds with words: A sociohistorical perspective of face-to-face interaction'

Tasks B3.2.8-12 on Hall reading due October 10

October 12, 17, & 19

Discursive Practices

Hanks: Language and communicative practices (Chapter 1)

Tasks B4.1.8-12 on Hanks reading due October 19

C4.1.1-5 Greg and The Fat Man
and/or
C4.2.1-3 The Mark Belling Late Afternoon Show

Presented on October 19 by Team S2

October 24, 26, & 31

Describing Discursive Practices

Hymes: 'The ethnography of speaking'

Tasks B5.1.8-12 on Hymes reading due October 26

C5.1.1-5 Elementary School Geometry

Presented on October 31 by Team Supreme

Ochs: 'Linguistic resources for socializing humanity' Tasks B5.2.7-12 on Ochs reading due October 31
A Clarinet Lesson

November 2, 7, & 9

Interactional Competence

Cicourel: 'Medical speech events as resources for inferring differences in expert-novice diagnostic reasoning'

Tasks B61.7-12 on Cicourel reading due November 9

C6.2 and/or C6.3 on Autism and/or Mother-Infant Interaction

Presented on November 9 by Team L.N.L.

November 14, 16, & 21

Talk and Identity

Day: 'Being ascribed, and resisting, membership in an ethnic group'

Tasks B7.1.7-11 on Day reading due November 21

C7.4 Identities On Line

Presented on November 21 by Team Teamwork

A Boy Named Sue by Johnny Cash audio
Extract from Seinfeld's The Wizard video

November 28, 30 & December 5

Community and Communities

Heath: Ways with words: Language, life, and work in communities and classrooms (Chapter 6)

Tasks B8.1.7-9, 11, & 12 on Heath reading due December 5

C8.5 Cultural Communities

Presented on December 5 by
Team Broken Language

They Know All The Lines video

December 7 & 12

Developing Skills in Social Interaction

Ochs: 'Becoming a speaker of culture'

Extra Credit Assignment:

Tasks B9.1.5-8 on Ochs reading due December 12

 
December 12 Final exam available

December 21 at 2:25 p.m.

Final exam due

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This page was last revised on September 14, 2017 .