(BA) (4-year-programme) - The University of Hong Kong

59LCOM2003.Language and politeness (6 credits)This course will discuss various approaches to linguistic politeness. Students will be introduced to anumber of theoretical frameworks that have been developed in order to capture and assess thiscomplex concept. A particular focus will be on the question of universality and culturally influencedperceptions of politeness. Moreover, the impact of various social factors (including power, genderand ethnicity) on the performance and perception of linguistic politeness is discussed, and the topic ofimpoliteness is covered.Assessment: 60% examination and 40% in-class presentation.LCOM2004. Language, communication and the media (6 credits)[Non permissible combinations: ENGL2103. Language and new media]This course introduces students to the study of mass media discourse in today’s society. The ‘massmedia’ phenomenon deserves particular attention because, as sociologists and sociolinguists point out,it has a deep impact on our knowledge of and on how we communicate about the world. The courseconsiders cross-cultural issues of mediated discourse and looks how eastern and western ideologiesamalgamate to form new local ideological discourses, with particular attention to Hong Kong. Thecourse will take as its foundation the field of (social) semiotics, and will look more closely at how thisfield’s theoretical premises match with our personal experiences as communicating members ofsociety. The course also introduces students to philosophical-semiotic questions about epistemologyand ontology.Assessment: 100% coursework.LCOM2005.Language, communication and globalization: Politics, peril, pop (6 credits)This course, centring on the phenomenon of ‘globalization’ in relation to language andcommunication, critically examines some widely held notions, such as the view that globalization hasresulted in the homogenization of cultures and languages, and in the hegemony of English, and isorganized along three main lines. It investigates the politics of language and globalization, in howvarious nations, particularly those in Asia, struggle with the balance between their indigenouslanguages and languages of global import and/or wider local significance, e.g. English or Mandarin. Itaddresses the phenomenon of globalization bringing communities and languages into contact, theconsequences of which are often viewed as situations of peril, involving the endangerment oflanguages, as well as the evolution of new linguistic varieties such as World/New Englishes. Itidentifies a number of communicative practices in pop culture that are ubiquitous in andrepresentative of today’s global world, such as SMSes, e-mail and other electronic communication,hiphop, and callcentres, and explores how languages are appropriated by users in managing their ownlocal identity alongside wider global needs.Assessment: 100% coursework.LCOM2007.Visual communication (6 credits)All visual texts such as photographs, advertisements, magazine covers and websites are carefullydesigned and create specific effects. Designers use different semiotic tools such as colour, framing,focus, font style and positioning of elements to communicate with the viewer. Taken together, thisvisual vocabulary makes up a visual language that we can analyse. More broadly, this course isconcerned with ‘visuality’ – the different ways in which we are capable of seeing (our ‘vision’) areconstructed: how we see, how we are able, allowed, or made to see, and how we relate to these acts ofseeing (or not seeing). We will examine a wide range of visual examples from everyday life includingphotographs, advertisements, cartoons, magazine covers, artworks and websites.Assessment: 100% coursework.