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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2024/2025

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences : Language Sciences

Undergraduate Course: Global Englishes (LASC10056)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryIn this course we examine the linguistic products of contact between English and other languages, in contexts of colonisation and/or globalisation. These different ¿Englishes¿ can include English creoles, substrate-influenced or ¿L2¿ Englishes, or dense code-mixing with English. Sometimes these Englishes co-occur, and in addition there are L1 varieties of English which are retained in educational and or formal settings. We explore the structure of these Englishes; the circumstances that have led to their formation, ideologies of the new varieties and attitudes towards them.
Course description Students will explore a range of contexts which represent different patterns of contact with English and different outcomes. Typical case studies include Singapore, India, Nigeria, South Korea and China. In each of these situations, there is a code which has become associated with a pan-ethnic or national identity. This may be a creole such as Nigerian Pidgin English, a substrate influenced English such as Colloquial Singapore English or ¿Singlish¿, or dense code-mixing such as Hindi-English code-mixing (¿Hinglish¿) in India. In contexts without a long colonial period of contact this emergent code is restricted to certain media e.g. K-pop, or ¿translanguaging¿ in Chinese social media. Use of these codes can be mapped onto salient local distinctions in class, education, and global outlook. Students will initially produce a focused literature review on their chosen context, and then for their final project they will analyse the use of English together with other languages in a chosen medium, usually film, music or social media.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Students MUST have passed: LEL2C: English in Time and Space (LASC08019) OR LEL2B: Phonetic Analysis and Empirical Methods (LASC08018)
Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesEquivalent of two years of study of Linguistics
High Demand Course? Yes
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1) Quota:  0
Course Start Semester 1
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Lecture Hours 27, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 169 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Mid-term Essay - 30%
Final Essay - 70%
Feedback Individual written feedback on assessments, and in-class group level feedback.
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Describe, in structural terms, the outcomes of language contact resulting from colonisation and globalisation, and differentiate between them
  2. Differentiate between popular descriptions of language contact phenomena e.g. code-mixing, and linguistic descriptions of language contact phenomena
  3. Show familiarity with the literature on English creoles, World Englishes and English-based code-mixing.
  4. Identify the ways in which a new mixed or substrate influenced code can express a pan-ethnic or national identity, and the ways in which it can be associated with more local differences in social categories such as class.
  5. Critically analyse media data which demonstrates substrate-influenced English, code-mixing or translanguaging with English, showing an understanding of the functions of this code in the relevant genre.
Reading List
Rubdy, R. (2001). Creative destruction: Singapore¿s speak good English movement. World Englishes, 20(3), 341-355.
Henry, E. S. (2010). Interpretations of" Chinglish": Native speakers, language learners and the enregisterment of a stigmatized code. Language in Society, 669-688.
Park, J. S. Y. (2010). Naturalization of competence and the neoliberal subject: Success stories of English language learning in the Korean conservative press. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 20(1), 22-38.
Omoniyi, T. (2006). Hip¿hop through the world Englishes lens: a response to globalization. World Englishes, 25(2), 195-208.
Wee, L. (2018). The Singlish controversy: Language, culture and identity in a globalizing world. Chapter 5: The commodification of Singlish. Cambridge University Press.
Key reading: D¿souza, J. (1992). ¿The relationship between code- mixing and the new varieties of English: issues and implications¿. World Englishes 11/2¿3: 217¿23.
Gao, S. (2022). The online activism of mock translanguaging: Language style, celebrity persona, and social class in China. Discourse, Context & Media, 47, 100608.
Jin, D. Y., & Ryoo, W. (2014). Critical interpretation of hybrid K-pop: The global-local paradigm of English mixing in lyrics. Popular Music and Society, 37(2), 113-131.
Lee, J. S. (2004). Linguistic hybridization in K¿Pop: discourse of self¿assertion and resistance. World Englishes, 23(3), 429-450.
Mair, C. (2013). The World System of Englishes: Accounting for the transnational importance of mobile and mediated vernaculars. English World-Wide, 34(3), 253-278.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
Additional Class Delivery Information Teaching Contact Time: 9 weeks out of 11 at 3 hours/week = 27 hours
Keywordsworld Englishes,multilingualism,pidgins,creoles,contact linguistics
Contacts
Course organiserDr Claire Cowie
Tel: (0131 6)50 8392
Email: claire.cowie@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMs Susan Hermiston
Tel: (0131 6)50 3440
Email: Susan.Hermiston@ed.ac.uk
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