IC/Passport Number - School of Humanities, USM

Investigating the underlying principles of these frameworks and procedures will
also help students understand a number of key concepts in literary theory. The
evaluation of the underlying principles and approaches will be carried out by
focusing closely on a range of literary texts.
HXE 109/3
ENGLISH LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE
This course aims to equip students with a compendium of critical and analytical
strategies to enable them to read and interpret literary texts across a wide range
of genres and periods. To achieve this aim, students will be exposed to some
basic ideas in linguistics, in particular those that can facilitate their
understanding of the form and structure of texts. Understanding texts in this
manner is crucial as the formal organisation of texts contributes to the creation
and circulation of meanings in society in a number of ways. This course also
hopes to develop an awareness in students of the importance of reading as a
broader process, one that would enable them to relate their close readings of the
text to “readings” of the world around them.
HXE 110/3
MODERN ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE
This course comprises two main components, namely selected works and
modern short stories.
The first component introduces students to the origin and growth of the English
novel and the main trends in modern novels. Students will be given selected
works ranging from the 18th century to the present day for study and comment.
The course analyses and evaluates the works prescribed.
The modern short stories component is designed to study the short story as a
genre. The course will examine the short story as an independent art form and
study its individual characteristics. It will also deal with the themes, situations,
characters and denouements found in the stories studied. The course will deal
with the appreciation of various types of modern essays with emphasis on
lucidity, precision and sobriety.
HET 123/4
A STUDY OF LANGUAGE
The primary objective of this course is to provide a broad understanding of
human language and of the methods and techniques employed by linguists in
arriving at that understanding. This comprehension would require an
exploration of the major sub-fields of linguistics such as syntax, phonetics and
phonology, semantics, morphology, socio-linguistics, to name a few.
Essentially, the course will touch on a wide spectrum of what constitutes
language.
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