Literature meets Linguistics

Linguistics and literary studies have grown to be what now seems quite independent disciplines. There are, however, still areas where both fields can talk to and profit from each other. For this purpose the linguist (Plag) and the literary scholar (Voigts-Virchow) join forces and teach together a seminar 'Linguistics meets Literature/Literature meets Linguistics’. The aim of this seminar is to bridge the gap between the two disciplines in a way that may be especially fruitful for future teachers of English. Using diverse British and American literary texts from the middle ages to the present we want to provide students with the methodological tools to analyze suhc texts more meaningfully as a unit of form and meaning. Students will learn how the interplay of formal linguistic analyis on the one hand and proper literary scholarship on the other can lead to new and fascinating insights into literary interpretation. The course will have an initial focus on poetry (from Beowulf to sonnets and contemporary poetry), and then turn to the analysis of drama and (shorter pieces of) fiction. Students must be willing to engage in their own analyses of texts, using the linguistic and literary categories that are being introduced as we go along. Voigts-Virchow, Eckart, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Universität Siegen WiSe 2010/11 Anglistik - Literaturwissenschaft Univ.-Prof. Dr. Plag Ingo