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

74prison jargon and other speech varieties associated with other marginal or criminalized sub-groups(e.g. drug addicts, ‘tramps’, etc.), as well as to the history of the study of such jargons and theinclusion of jargon and slang items in mainstream dictionaries. Students will read texts from differentperiods in the history of English, as well as considering the role of jargons in modern societies such asthe United States, Britain and Hong Kong, as well as in ‘cyber-space’.Assessment: 100% coursework.ENGL2050.English corpus linguistics (6 credits)Corpus linguistics is a rapidly-developing methodology in the study of language. It exploits thepower of modern computer technology to manipulate and analyse large collections of naturallyoccurringlanguage (‘corpora’). This course will introduce students to the use of computers andcomputerized corpora as tools for exploring the English language.Assessment: 100% coursework.ENGL2057.Text and image (6 credits)This interdisciplinary course explores relations between literature and various forms of image-basedrepresentation. It begins with ‘painterly’ descriptions in novels and poetry, and common strands in artand literary criticism, and proceeds to discussion of relations between film and literature, such as thepresence of cinematographic form in modern literature. In the concluding module, we consider theshift in emphasis from text-based to image-based culture and its impact on postmodern society.Course material consists of critical essays, and examples from literature, the pictorial arts and themoving image.Assessment: 100% coursework.ENGL2069.Form and meaning (6 credits)An investigation into the relationship between English structure and meaning (semantics andpragmatics), considering how meanings are encoded and inferred.Assessment: 100% coursework.ENGL2092.Postcolonial English (6 credits)For many creative writers - writers of poetry, fiction, drama - from outside the Anglo-American world,English has a complex history and often an uneasy relationship, with native languages. The decision,or the choice, to write and publish in English, is an issue they have reflected upon and debated,nationally and internationally, with other writers. Such reflections and debates constitute one of thedynamic contours of ‘Global English’ as a discourse. Critical questions often raised in the debateconcern the English language as the bearer of cultures. They include the changing roles of English asa colonial or postcolonial language, as the language of the unitary or pluralistic nations, as a dominantor minority language, as the language of ‘English literature’ or ‘Literature in English’. In this course,students will be introduced to these questions through discussions of essays by writers who haveconsiderable practical experience using English as the language of creativity, and who are activecontributors to debates about English in their own locations.Assessment: 100% coursework.