- Docente: Sabrina Fusari
- Credits: 9
- SSD: L-LIN/12
- Language: English
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
- Campus: Bologna
- Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Languages, Markets and Cultures of Asia and Mediterranean Africa (cod. 9264)
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from Sep 27, 2024 to Dec 04, 2024
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course, students should be familiar with the meta-language of various aspects of a descriptive-analytical model of the English language, and should master all the communicative skills at B2 level as set by the parameters of the Council of Europe.
Course contents
The course of English Language and Linguistics 1 consists of the following components:
a) Lectures held by the course professor assigned to each group. The lectures are the same for all students, and in English. This course is an introduction to text analysis, especially as concerns grammatical and lexical cohesion from a variety of theoretical and methodological perspectives applied to a selection of texts to increase reading and analysis skills.
b) Practical exercises (= Esercitazioni) in English with native English speaking teachers. At the beginning of the academic year, a Placement Test (OOPT) is held to form groups, based on the students' skills, from intermediate to advanced. In order to study English, it is obligatory to take the Placement Test on either of the following dates
· Thursday 12th September 2024 (enrolments in Studenti Online between 1st August 2024 at 1 pm and 5 September 2024 at 1 pm);
· Wednesday 30 October 2024 (enrolments in Studenti Online between 2nd October 2024 at 1 pm and 23rd October 2024 at 1 pm).
The minimum passing score is 55.
Instructions to enrol for the OOPT are available here.
Students who have obtained one of the following certificates after 1 January 2022 (certificates issued before 1 January 2022 can’t be accepted) are not obliged to take the Placement Test:
1) Cambridge ESOL: PET with Merit o with Distinction , anyway with no less than 154 ponts; FCE and CAE, with no less than 154 points; CPE;
2) IELTS: 5 (or higher);
3) TOEFL iBT: 65 (or higher);
4) TRINITY (only ISE, or Integrated Skills Exam): ISE (II).
Students with certificates are required to email a PDF or JPEG scan of their certificate (Email subject: “Certificate”) either to sabrina.fusari2@unibo.it (for students whose surname begins with a letter between A and F) or to antonella.luporini@unibo.it (for students whose surname initial is between M and Z), from 12 September to 30 October 2024. It is not possible to have your certificate recognized outside this time slot.
Readings/Bibliography
Lectures
Bloor, T. & Bloor, M. (2013). The Functional Analysis of English. London: Routledge, pp. 141-144.
Booj, G. (2007). The Grammar of Words. An Introduction to Linguistic Morphology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 21-23.
Biber D. (1995). Dimensions of Register Variation: A Cross-Linguistic Comparison. Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-26.
Biber, D. & Conrad, S. (2009). Register, Genre and Style. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-28.
Biber, D. & Finegan, E. (1994). “Introduction. Situating Register in Sociolinguistics”. In Biber, D. & Finegan, E. (eds). Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 3-12.
Bublitz, W. (2011). “Cohesion and Coherence”. In Zienkowski, J., Östman, J. & Verschueren, J. (eds.), Discursive Pragmatics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 37-49.
Leech, G. (2006). A Glossary of English Grammar. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, p. 17-18 and 104-105.
Sinclair, J., 2004. Trust the Text. London: Routledge, pp. 179-183.
These readings will be made available in PDF on Virtuale, as are the PowerPoints of the lessons, which students must also study.
Practical Exercises (Esercitazioni)
Latham-Koenig et al. English File Advanced 4th edition, published by Oxford University Press.
Teaching methods
1) Lectures held by the professor during the first semester.
2) Language classes (= Esercitazioni) with mother tongue English teachers throughout the academic year. Students will be divided into groups from the placement test, and will be trained in all four language skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.
Assessment methods
The exam is divided into two parts, one on English linguistics (corresponding to Dr Fusari's lectures) and one on English language (corresponding to the language classes held by mothertongue English teachers).
The linguistics part of the exam is written, and the language part of the exam is both written and oral; the oral part is called SAT (Speaking Ability Test).
The exam consists of:
(1) A linguistics written, based on the contents of the lectures held by the teacher of the course. This consists of a guided text analysis and a set of more general questions about the theoretical models referenced during lessons, as well as in the reading list. The aim is to show your deep reading competence (i.e. beyond literal meanings) and your knowledge of some theoretical concepts regarding text, e.g. register, genre, style, cohesion, coherence, phoric and deictic reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, lexical cohesion and the relation between sentence and text. This exam component is a 31-items multiple-choice cloze; the time allowed is 40 minutes.
(2) A language written, based on the contents of the language classes (Esercitazioni) held by native English speaking teachers. This tests the students' capacity to analyze, understand and use the English language at level B2 of the Common European Framework for Languages. This exam component is divided into separate sections on (a) Use of English (40 minutes), (b) Reading (20 minutes) and (c) Writing (60 minutes). The final mark is the mean of the scores obtained in the three sections. Passing the Use of English exam paper is an essential condition to pass the language exam. The text types used for this component of the exam are general interest texts (e.g. newspaper articles, reviews, interviews).
(3) A SAT (Speaking Ability Test), which tests the students' listening and speaking skills, and their capacity to communicate spontaneously, understand and make themselves understood in English, with a good command of grammar and a fairly wide vocabulary, on a variety of general, non specialized topics. This component of the exam lasts 8-10 minutes.
Regardless of which semester the theoretical lectures (Prof. Fusari's) are held in, students may take the practical (Esercitazioni) component of the exam only at the end of the academic year (May 2025), because the corresponding course held by mothertongue language teachers lasts for the whole academic year. Students, instead, may take the linguistics (Prof. Fusari's) component of the exam already in January 2025, as the corresponding lessons are held in the first semester. Exceptions may apply to Erasmus students spending only one semester in Bologna. These students are asked to contact Prof. Fusari as soon as possible at the beginning of their Erasmus stay.
Students enrolled in previous academic years, who have not passed the linguistics component of this exam yet, may do so with the old programme (Functional Grammar 1) only if they take it in January 2025. Starting from May 2025, the exam will be the same for all students.
Marking criteria and levels
Each part of the exam is evaluated separately. The final mark is calculated as follows: the score obtained in the language written is multiplied by 2, and added to the score obtained in the SAT. This figure is divided by 3, added to the score obtained in the Linguistics written, and finally divided by 2. Students who pass the written exam components with a score of at least 18/30 may not reject their mark and take written exams again. The final mark may be refused, but in that event all the partial exams (Esercitazioni written + lectures written + SAT) must be repeated. Marks obtained in written exams remain valid for 4 exam sessions, including the one in which the exam was passed, i.e. 1 year.
The written language exam (based on the content of the language classes) must be passed before the SAT: only after passing the written language exam can students take the oral.
Students who have chosen English as their third language are not obliged to take the SAT, but may do so if they wish.
Written exams take place once for each exam session; SATs are held twice for each exam session, once before and once after the writtens. It is not obligatory to pass the three components of the exam in the same exam term, but it is not possible to register the final mark for this course until all three exam components have been passed.
Students who show a solid (Independent User-Upper Intermediate) command of the English language and an equally good awareness of its metalinguistic aspects receive an excellent mark. Students with a lesser degree of linguistic competence and metalinguistic awareness receive a lower mark. Students applying their grammatical knowledge mechanically, without an adequate awareness of the connections between grammar, meaning and context, and/ or showing hesitations in their written and spoken skills may still pass the exam but with a low mark. Students with significant gaps in their metalinguistic knowledge and/ or whose language skills are below B2 do not pass the exam.
Teaching tools
PowerPoint presentations, language classes.
Office hours
See the website of Sabrina Fusari