R22144 Entwicklungen in der deutschen Gegenwartssprache
Dr Nicola McLelland
Department of German Studies
School of Modern Languages and Culture
University of Nottingham
Spring semester 2009-10
R22144 Entwicklungen in der deutschen Gegenwartssprache
- Number of credits: 10
Summary of Content: This module will look at some of the ways in which German has been developing in recent years. In particular, we will look at variation and change in sentence structure; ways in which new modes of communication (such as texting, chat rooms and other forms of internet communication) are influencing language use; and the use of particles (little words like doch, mal, schon, etc.). By the end of the module, you will have carried out a small research project that allows you to compareGermans’ actual language use with what the dictionaries, grammar-books and other reference works say!
Aims: To enable students to gain an insight into trends in the German language today; to gain an understanding of the processes by which linguistic variation arises and by which language change occurs; to understand debates about ‘correct usage’; to gain first-hand experience in one method of investigating language in use, by working with electronic corpora.
Objectives and Learning Outcomes:
a)Knowledge and understanding:
Students will have the opportunity to gain knowledge and critical understanding of key aspects of the linguistics of contemporary German (A6), to gain a deeper awareness and understanding of the differences and similarities between German and English (A4), and to enhance their knowledge and understanding of the German language, including its registers and linguistic structures (A1).
b) Intellectual skills:
Students will gather, process and evaluate information from a variety of paper, audio, and electronic sources in English and German (B1). The will develop their understanding of linguistic concepts and models used in descriptive linguistics (B3, B5), and will gain experience in reflecting critically and making judgements about the accuracy or appropriateness of such theoretical constructs (B2). They will learn to identify and describe questions and problems (B4) and to apply techniques and concepts appropriate for the analysis of linguistic data (B7).
c) Professional practical and transferable skills:
Students will develop their oral communication skills (C1), as well as their listening comprehension skills in German (C2, C3), and their ability to read German in different registers, and recognise the differences (C3).
d) Transferable skills:
Students will develop their ability to present and assess technical linguistic information in writing in English (D1); to work independently (D4) and in groups (D3). Students will be expected to organise and manage working time, schedule tasks and meet deadlines (D7) and to write and think productively under pressure (under examination conditions) (D5). Students will need to use IT effectively as a research tool to aid their learning, in particular using electronic corpora as a source of date for their essays (D8).
Method and Frequency of Class: 1 2-hour combined lecture/workshop in the digital classroom
Assessment Details: One 2000-word essay in English (100%), and one presentation in German (0%, but a chance to get feedback on your project before you write up your essay).
Deadlinefor essays: The essay is due Monday, May 17th, 2010. You will give a presentation on your project in class, which will give you a chance to get feedback on your research and on how to present it.
Course Outline
Please bear in mind that each weekly class is a double hour, so you will often be expected to prepare 2 different reading tasks, one for each hour. Because of the nature of the course, with a strong practical component, the set reading is rather unevenly distributed. Please plan ahead to make sure you can cover everything. For each class, the reading you are expected to have done before coming to class is listed below.
1.(Jan 29h). Variation and change in the German language today
Reading: Russ 1994, ch. 2 Variation in German
andStevenson 1997 ch. 10: Sprachkultur: preserving the cultural heritage
In class:
- Variation and change: looking at some examples and the effect of change over time, register, text-type, immediacy (Grammatik der Nähe und der Distanz)
- Getting practice in corpus linguistics: Practice in TextStat and presentation of data (exercise on zwar)
2.(Feb 5th)
- Even German grammar changes!Changes in grammar
Reading: Russ 1994, ch. 8 (short loan)
This is a long chapter with a lot of new information in it – give yourselves plenty of time to read it carefully. (In return, there is no reading set in Week 5!)
In class: Case study: changes in the use of weil and obwohl
We will not be discussing any more sections of Russ (1994) in class, but note that there are also useful chapters on language change and variation in word-formation, in lexis, etc. You might find these a good place to start for thinking about how and why to analyse any given aspect of the language. Of course grammar references like those listed in the bibliography will also be useful.
3. (Feb 12th): How corpus studies can add to what we think we know about grammar
Reading: Jones, Randall L. 2000. “A corpus-based study of German accusative/dative prepositions”. In B. Dodd (ed.), Working with German Corpora (Birmingham: Birmingham University Press), pp.116-142.
In class: Investigating the use of German prepositions
4. (Feb 19th)What is corpus linguistics? Qualitative und quantitative analysis
Reading: Corpus linguistics :an introduction byTony McEnery and Andrew Wilson. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2001), short loan.
Read enough of this to be able to explain the following terms:
corpus, sample, qualitative, quantitative, and to be able to give some examples of what corpus linguistics can be useful for, in the areas of grammar, lexis (i.e. vocab.), word-formation (i.e. derivational morphology) and phonology/ phonetics (i.e. pronunciation). Think of some examples of your own for German.
What do we have to be careful about when using a corpus to investigate language?
In class: Nicola will not be there, but you should work through the materials provided on your own. This is a chance for you to investigate different types of corpora:
1. a smallish corpus of German spoken language (
2. parallel corpora of German-English (- Using the Chemnitz Translation Corpus
), and
3. a corpus of nineteenth century letters,
as well as the German Parole corpus that we have already worked with.
(See separate worksheet)
5. (Feb 26th)
Exploring parallel corpora
- Reading and preparation: R. Salkie, “Using parallel corpora in translation” (2003) – don’t be put off by a section on French – he gets on to German/English sollen/ should a bit further down.
Explore one of the corpora we have been looking at. Does it show similar patterns for sollen/ should as those identified by Salkie?
Please note: the amount of reading required for the next two weeks is greater, so get it now
In class: We will examine the use of sollen and other modal verbs in German.
We’ll also learn to use a random number generator to help with sampling.
6. (March 5th)
Corpus study of lexis; and word-formation (I)
Reading:
-Mackinson, April. 2000. “Towards a corpus-based comparison of two journals in the field of business and management German.” In B. Dodd (ed.), Working with German Corpora (Birmingham: Birmingham University Press), pp.181-198.
-Scott, Alan. 2009. The marking of gender agreement using derivational affixes in German and Dutch. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 21.1: 37-89
In class: We’ll discuss these studies, and we’ll have a go at using the spoken language corpus together.
7. (March 12th) Corpus study of word-formation (II)
Reading:
- Gupta, Piklu. 2000. “German be-verbs revisited: using corpus evidence to investigate valency.” In B. Dodd (ed.), Working with German Corpora (Birmingham: Birmingham University Press), pp.96-115.
In class: we’ll spend some time discussing the reading, and will get practice categorizing data by looking at be-verbs.
By next week: you should have a good idea of what you want to investigate for your own project., i.e.: the general area, the precise research question, which corpora you are going to use.
8. (March 19th)
Reading:
Braber, Natalie, and Nicola McLelland. [submitted to Journal of Germanic Linguistics], Modal particles in Dutch and German: clustering and combining
In class: We’ll examine the use of particles in one of the corpora. We’ll work on categorization and analysis of results; finding sensible ways to classify your data; how to present your data
9. (March 26th)
Further practice with analysis
Using a statistical test to check the significance of your results
Presentation of your findings, and your chosen examples for joint analysis; a chance to get feedback on your essays
[10. April 2nd = Good Friday; no class]
[Easter vacation]
11. (May 7th)
Presentation of your findings, and your chosenexamples for joint analysis; a chance to get feedback on your essays
Essays due: Monday, May 17th
Essay (on which your presentation will be based, though you may choose a different topic if you wish).
General
Whichever essay topic you choose, your essay will consist of two parts: I. Linguistic background, and II. Corpus investigation (in addition to a brief Introduction and Conclusion):
I. Linguistic background
In this first part of the essay, you will present a critical and comparative overview of how various reference works describe the linguistic phenomenon in question. How Note any significant differences in the type of information given, and try to explain them – remember to consider how detailed each reference is, what audience it is aimed at (native speakers or learners? experts or laypeople?) and whether it is prescriptive or descriptive.
II. Corpus investigation
In this second part of the essay, you will report on a small corpus investigation that you have carried out to test a specific hypothesis about one aspect of the usage of the phenomenon. Your hypothesis should relate to what you have found out in the first part of your essay, but you will probably need to choose just one or two aspects to focus on to make the task manageable. This part of the essay should be structured as follows:
i. Methods: State the hypothesis you decided to test (and why). (It need not be earth-shattering – you might end up simply hypothesize that usage in the corpus will exactly match that predicted by the references works you have consulted!) Describe your corpus and your method clearly; say why you have chosen to use the particular (sub-)corpora that you have, and how representative they are of a particular register or text-type, or of language use as a whole.
Explain how and why you have categorized / analysed your data as you have. You’ll probably want to give some examples of both typical and difficult cases you encountered.
ii. Results: Present your data appropriately (using tables or graphs where these may be helpful, and % in addition to raw figures if helpful / appropriate, and giving some examples). You should not try to present all the facts and figures that you came up with; concentrate on those that are relevant to your hypothesis and that show whether it is supported or disconfirmed. Remember to give any tables a number and a title (e.g. “Table 1: % frequency of the dative after trotz in Corpus A”)
Describe how
iii. Discussion: Discuss your results in the light of your hypothesis – attempt to explain any differences between what you found and what you hypothesized. This is also the place to comment on any problems with your “experimental design” and to discuss any difficult cases that your data produced.
End the essay with a brief conclusion.
Reference your work appropriately and include a full Bibliography at the end (alphabetical by author – see separate handout on how to present bibliographical references).
Working on the project before you write up the essay:
One of the hardest parts of a corpus study, especially for you while your knowledge of German is not yet perfect, is making sure that you make sensible decisions about how to categorize and analyse your findings. Think hard about how best to discuss the divide the examples you find in the corpus into categories that are useful, and ask for help about this. Make sure that you actually understand the examples – you will often have to use dictionaries to be sure you’ve used the data well.If you’re unsure how to interpret a particular example, you can exclude it from your results.
Referat (presentation)
Your presentation should be in German and last 5-7 minutes per person (no more, so make sure you have practised it first!). It is a chance for you to get some feedback on the design of your project, the analysis of your results, and the conclusions you have drawn from them. You may choose either to present some of what you have found out for the theoretical background of your essay, or some of what you have discovered in your own corpus investigation. Or you may try to cover a little bit from both (especially if you are doing a group presentation). See separate sheet on what makes a good Referat.
Please give some examples of your data for us to discuss in class, and be prepared to lead a discussion on how to interpret them.
Essay topics. You may use one of these topics, you may develop a variant of it, or you may develop your own, in discussion with Nicola.
1. Suffixoids are words that are used as part of noun and adjective compounds: examples include -mäßig, -freundlich, -arm, -süchtig, -werk, -wesen, -zeug. They are like ordinary suffixes such as –lich, -haft, -heit, but they still carry meaning of their own, even though it may be more general and abstract than that of the stand-alone word. (See Russ 1994).
Investigate the use of a selection of the adjective suffixoids listed by Russ (1994:231) based on data from 1978. Which suffixoids occur most frequently as part of other words? Do some occur as part of a large number of different compounds, while others are restricted to just a handful? How does their relative frequency in your corpus compare with that given by Russ? What can be said about what elements the suffixiods collocate with, and about the text-types in which they occur? (For instance, the Duden Richtiges und Gutes Deutsch suggests in the section under “Kompositum” (Duden 1985: 401) that outside advertising, the use of –freundlich to refer to objects rather than things should be avoided. Does usage in your corpus accord with this prescription? )
2. Choose two or three English terms, whose various possible translations are all discussed by Beaton (1996). Beaton attempts to outline under which circumstances which translation would most commonly be used. Investigate the use of these terms in one or more corpora to which you have access. How does his account compare with what you find in your data from the corpus? Describe the usage patterns you have found, and compare with Beaton, as well as with at least three other appropriate dictionaries (from the following: Langenscheidt or de Gruyter Deutsch als Fremdsprache dictionaries, the Duden Universalwörterbuch, Wahrig, or Collins bilingual dictionary). (This question invites you to undertake a more qualitative analysis rather than only quantitative.)
Examples that students have considered in the past include:
mind (Geist, Sinn, Verstand, Seele and others)
follow (folgen, befolgen, verfolgen, nachfolgen ...)
increase (zunehmen, steigen, ansteigen and others)
responsible (verantwortlich, zuständig, zurechnungsfähig ...)
3. Examine the use of the genitive or dative with the prepositions such as während, trotz, wegen, and laut, innerhalb, außerhalb, as outlined in (at least) the following reference works: Hammer’s German Grammar, Eisenberg’s Grundriss der deutschen Grammatik, Dreyer / Schmitt’s German Grammar, Helbig & Buscha’s Deutsche Grammatik, and the Duden, Richtiges und gutes Deutsch. Carry out a corpus investigation of the use of one or more of these prepositions. Does your investigation confirm, add to or undermine any of the accounts you have found in the reference works you have consulted?
In the past students have done the following:
- looked for any evidence for the claim in the Duden Richtiges und Gutes Deutsch (Duden 1985:665) that the dative is common with trotz in Austria, but that elsewhere the genitive is usual?
- examined the use of wegen in spoken language
- You could also look at the usage of laut to see if you can account for / shed light on the rather contradictory accounts of it given by various reference works.
When you do your analysis, remember to be careful with prepositions governing feminine nouns, where you can’t tell if it’s the dative or genitive; also plural nouns ending in –n, e.g. wegen seiner Verbrennungen
4. The use of German modal particles (words like doch, eben, schon, wohl which tell us something about the speaker or writer’s attitude to a proposition) is often difficult for learners to master. In this essay, look at the use of 3 particles – e.g. doch, wohl, and schon – and try to get to grips with how and when they are used. First, consult (at least) three German dictionaries: a German-English dictionary (such as Collins); a large Deutsch als Fremdsprache dictionary such as Langenscheidt or de Gruyter; and a large standard German dictionary for native speakers (such as Wahrig or Duden). Outline how these reference works describe the use of the three particles. You may also find it helpful to look at a grammar such as Hammer to find out more about modal particles generally. Then carry out a corpus study and compare what you find there with the accounts given in the dictionaries. Do the occurrences you find match the usages described in the dictionaries? Are some usages more frequent than others? For at least one of the three particles, use the Chemnitz translation corpus (part of the ChemnitzInternetGrammar available online: to investigate what English expression the German particle translates.