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Readings
- Testi
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1.
Book: M. Byram, Developing Intercultural Competence in
Practice. Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, 2001; chapters 4,
6, 7 , 9, 12, 15 (for non-frequentanti: ch. 1 to 15).
2.
Monographs: P. Boylan. (a.) 'Understanding Others'.
Interview to appear in the SIETAR Deutschland Journal, vol. 10,
n. 1 (April 2004), pp. 1-7.
(b.) 'Seeing and Saying Things in
English'. Paper to be presented at the CILT Higher
Education Conference, University of London, 30 June - 1 July
2004.
(c.) 'Rewriting Oneself'. Paper presented at the
IV IALIC Conference, Lancaster University, 2003. 'Rewriting
Oneself'.
3. Dispense (only a part of
them) from prof. Hart's first semester module on the History of
English.
The
monographs are available on the web: www.boylan.it
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Lab
Credit: one CFU
Credito Laboratorio: 1 CFU
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The Official 3rd Year
L-Lin/12 Program calls for earning an additional credit (the
fifth L-Lin/12 credit for this course -- officially, 25
additional hours of work) by writing a short commentary on a
designated "work". For this course, the "work"
to study can be either a film excerpt or an ethnographic
recording. If you choose to comment a film excerpt, your final
mark will be between 19 and 25. If you choose to comment an
ethnographic recording, your final mark will be between 24 and
30. Unacceptable papers in both cases will get a mark of 17 or
18.
I. If you choose to comment a film
excerpt...
you
can choose one of the films in the language lab or, if you go to
a video shop, any film that features speakers of some
non-mainstream national, regional, ethnic, or class-distinctive
variety of English. Select a 2-3 minute interaction between one
of these speakers and a speaker of one of the inner-circle
mainstream standards (RP or Estuary British English, General
American, General Australian...). The interaction you choose
must involve a communication breakthrough (or breakdown) due to
understanding (or misunderstanding) the other party's
linguistic-cultural habits. Then write a report in academic
English (4 to 6 pages long, 1500 characters per page) answering
the THREE QUESTIONS listed below.
II.
If you choose to record an ethnographic conversation...
(alone
or with one other student), your target must be an
outer-circle-English micro-community in Rome, preferably the
Bangladeshi community. Your goal is to produce a 2-3 minute tape
recorded conversation. This may require conversing with several
subjects. For example, if you converse with one of the many
Bangladeshi rose sellers in the restaurants al Centro, they might
not speak the Bangladeshi variety of English: they may be from a
rural or low social class and know only the scholastic English
they learned at school, if any. And even if they know English
natively, after years in Rome they may now speak Italian more
fluently than English and will insist on answering you in
Italian! If this happens, you might pretend to be -- relying on
your other foreign language -- a Spanish (French, German...)
tourist in Rome who doesn't speak Italian and must therefore
communicate using English as a lingua franca.
If you
work with a partner, make sure that both of you interact with the
outer-circle-English speaker. You can use any pretext you want
for the conversation -- but be aware that your interlocutor may
feel intimidated (you could be from the police!). So your first
task is to imagine how you can relate to your interlocutor in
order to gain his/her confidence. Once you obtain a suitable
recording, select an excerpt that involves a communication
breakthrough (or breakdown) due to understanding (or
misunderstanding) the other party's linguistic-cultural habits.
If you work with a partner, you will need to select two excerpts,
one for each of you. Write a report in academic English on the
excerpt you have chosen (4 to 6 pages long, 1500 characters per
page), answering the THREE QUESTIONS listed below. Include the
cassette with your report.
The THREE QUESTIONS to
Answer:
(In
your reply, please use the theoretical input from our course --
i.e. our definition of "communication", "language"
and "English".)
1. How successful was the
interaction as communication (and, in particular, intercultural
communication)? If there was a breakdown (a failure), explain
why; if there was a breakthrough (success in spite of
difficulties), explain on what basis. Use transcriptions from
your audio-visual source to illustrate your claim. (If you worked
with a partner, the transcriptions should be of the excerpt YOU
have chosen to comment.) Do not transcribe the entire
interaction, just the excerpt you want to comment.
2.
How much does the outer-circle-English speaker manage to express
his/her communicative intent using his/her behavioral repertory
and how much using only his/her verbal repertory? (Remember that
"intent" includes denotation/connotation, indexical
instantiation/keying, cultural and personal attitudes/agendas
and, of course, illocutionary/perlocutionary force.) Use
transcriptions of excerpts together with descriptions of
behavioral communication to illustrate your claims.
3.
On what basis can you claim, using the term "language"
in its traditional sense of "material manifestation of a
semiotic system", that the verbal repertory and behavioral
repertory of your interlocutor may be called English (with no
qualifying descriptor) rather than some pseudo English language,
an English dialect, an English pidgin/creole, a "New
English", or a new language derived from English? Use
transcriptions of excerpts together with descriptions of
behavioral communication to illustrate your claims.
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Curriculum Operatori Interculturali