Contemporary German Language and Literature

Postgraduate course

Course description

Objectives and Content

TYS311 provides an introduction to selected topics in linguistics and literature dealing with the analysis of modern works of literature as well as culturally oriented texts, i.e. texts from the 20th and 21st centuries.

Learning Outcomes

Level of Study

Master

Semester of Instruction

Spring

Place of Instruction

Bergen
Required Previous Knowledge
Bachelor degree with specialization in German of at least 90 credits or a corresponding education.
Recommended Previous Knowledge
Access to the Course
Bachelor degree with specialisation in German, or the equivalent.
Compulsory Assignments and Attendance
Students are required to write six short (c. 300¿500 words) practice papers (three in literature and three in linguistics) and to give two oral presentations (one in literature and one in linguistics). Students are also required to attend supervision as part of the process of writing the exam paper (cf. `Forms of Assessment¿). Compulsory assignments must be approved by the course teacher in order for students to attend examination in the course. Compulsory assignments are valid for one semester following the semester of instruction.
Forms of Assessment

The exam is a supervised exam paper of about 5,000 words, excluding list of contents, exam question and bibliography, which is to be written within two weeks. Students are free to choose between writing on a literary or a linguistic topic. In addition there is an oral examination. At the oral examination, students must give a presentation of a topic dealt with by the texts on the reading list. The topic is to be selected by the student, but students whose exam papers deal with a literary topic must choose a linguistic topic for the oral examination, and vice versa. Students may be asked questions concerning both the exam paper and the works on the reading list.

The exam paper counts towards 60 percent of the final grade whereas the oral examination counts towards 40 percent of the final grade.

Grading Scale
The grading scale A-F is used, where F is a fail.
Reading List

The reading list comprises

a) selected linguistic and literary topics (e.g. selected topics on general grammar, textual linguistics and variational linguistics, contrastive analysis, genre studies, text interpretation and text analysis) totalling c. 250¿300 pages and

b) literary works and culturally oriented texts (e.g. essays, media coverage, films, etc.) comprising a maximum of 500 pages).

Course Evaluation
The teaching is evaluated according to the quality assurance system of the University of Bergen.