GERMAN: Stage 1

This module begins with a systematic revision of the grammatical structures of the language, and aims to develop oral proficiency and confidence in listening, understanding and translating.  There is a weekly lecture in German on an aspect of the country (Landeskunde), a weekly translation and grammar class, and an hour in which you practise spoken German with a language assistant.  Translation is mainly into English during this year, and there are written tests at the end of each term.  Extensive use is made of the internet.

This module introduces complete beginners to the basics of German grammar (cases, verb formation, rules of word order, declensions and endings).  The module is open to all students in all faculties. It concentrates on both written and oral skills, reading and aural comprehension.  There are two taught hours per week and one hour of conversation practice with a language assistant.  In addition students are expected to use the video lab for private study.  The module leads either to Intermediate German or, for the highly motivated, to German Post ‘A’ level.

This module is intended for students who have completed a beginner's course in German, and it is also suitable for students with a GCSE. The module is open to all students in all faculties. By the end of the year students should be able to produce and comprehend everyday German to ‘A’ Level which will allow them to function with confidence in a German speaking environment and be in a position to follow the Post ‘A’ level module GE301 in the following year.  There are three contact hours per week.  Two are intended for presentation and practice of new material (audio and video recordings, texts, writing practice and grammar).  The third - conducted by a native speaker of German - is intended to offer further practice in spoken German.  Working on Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) materials is encouraged.

From Goethe’s revolutionary lyric poetry to Kafka’s bizarre fantasy of alienation, from Heine’s sardonic satire on political repression in pre-Bismarckian Germany to Brecht’s dialectical epic theatre, the best German writing in this period (1770-1945) is ground-breaking and international.  In each of ten teaching weeks we read some poems or short stories, a play or a novella, or study a film (Georg Pabst's Dreigroschenoper). You choose your two favourites for discussion in assessed essays or presentations.  Material is in German, teaching and assessed work in English.

German-speaking Europe, that is the two German states in East and West Germany between 1949-1989, Austria, and German-speaking Switzerland, underwent profound political upheavals in the aftermath of the Second World War.  The short stories, poems, films, and plays studied on this module focus on social and political themes, such as life in the ruins of a war-ravaged country, memories of the Holocaust, building socialism in the German Democratic Republic, protest against the Vietnam War, Baader-Meinhof terrorism, reunification, and everyday life in post-unification Germany.  You choose your two favourites for discussion in assessed essays or presentations.  Material is in German, teaching and assessed work in English.

This module is available as wild to those students with A’ Level German or equivalent.
This module is designed to help you understand the German sound system, pronounce German correctly and to learn how to record it orthographically and phonetically. You will learn how orthographic and phonological systems vary and be able to apply this knowledge effectively. You will be able to discuss and demonstrate on a practical and theoretical basis the need for different types of notational systems, explain their workings, and will be able to work out by means of exercises in transcription and conversion from speech to notation and vice versa the consequences of choosing a particular sound. In short you will learn how to speak and record authentic German.

This module is for highly motivated students who have no or very little knowledge of German and is intended for students who wish to proceed to Diploma and Degree level in German. The module may also be taken as a wild module. Students are expected to progress rapidly from beginner’s level to core competence in all four skills (listening, reading, writing, speaking), so that they may progress to the next level, Intensive German for Beginners 2. At the end of the term, students will have achieved a level of German approximate to GCSE (A2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR)).

 

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GERMAN: Stages 2 and 3

GE301 Learning German 3 (Post A Level) (Dr Ben Hutchinson)

This module begins with a systematic revision of the grammatical structures of the language, and aims to develop oral proficiency and confidence in listening, understanding and translating. There is a weekly lecture in German on an aspect of the country (Landeskunde), a weekly translation and grammar class, and an hour in which you practise spoken German with a language assistant. Translation is mainly into English during this year, and there are written tests at the end of each term. Extensive use is made of the Internet.

GE575 Learning German 1 (Beginners) (Susanne Krauss)

This module introduces complete beginners to the basics of German grammar (cases, verb formation, rules of word order declensions and endings).  The module is open to all students in all faculties. It concentrates on both written and oral skills, reading and aural comprehension. There are two taught hours per week and one hour of conversation practice with a language assistant. In addition students are expected to use the video lab for private study. The module leads either to Intermediate German or, for the highly motivated, to German Post ’A’ level.

GE505 Learning German 2 (Intermediate) (Dr John Partridge)

Prerequisite: a beginners’ module in German, such as GE304/GE515; it is also suitable for students with a GCSE in German (the module is open to all students in all faculties). By the end of the year students should be able to produce and comprehend everyday German to a level which will allow them to function at a reasonable level in a German-speaking environment and be in a position to follow the Post-‘A’-level module GE516 in the following year. There are three contact hours per week. Two are intended for presentation and practice of new material (audio and video recordings, texts, writing practice and grammar). The third - conducted by a native speaker of German - is intended to offer further practice in spoken German. Working on Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) materials is encouraged.

GE500 Learning German 6 (Advanced Translation) (Dr Deborah Holmes)

This module is designed to suit the needs of short-term exchange students from Germany and German native or near-native speakers on full degree programmes involving German. It offers two hours of translation: one from German to English and one from English to German, with particular concentration on the translational difficulties and structural comparison of the two languages. Texts are taken from a wide variety of sources.

GE503 Learning German 5 (Advanced 2) (Dr John Partridge)

The module is designed primarily for final-year students who have spent a year abroad. It aims to increase and develop at an advanced level a variety of language skills including translation from and into German, covering various styles and registers, written German composition and oral expression. German native speakers are extensively involved in the module, with the object of producing a high level of both oral and written proficiency, building on the experience gained during the year abroad.

GE506 German Dissertation (Final Year) (Dr Ben Hutchinson)

The opportunity to write a final-year dissertation is available only to those students who, either before or during the year abroad, find and make a preliminary study of a subject in German literature, thought, language or cultural history, which is judged by the German Section to be suitable for this purpose. It is intended to provide students with experience in working on their own, as a preparation for possible graduate work. Students must submit to the Head of the German Section the subject of their proposed dissertation by the end of June in the year preceding the final year. The dissertation, which is written in English, must be handed in to the German Section in Cornwallis Northwest by 12.00 noon on Wednesday of Week 1 of the Summer term in the student’s final year.

GE507 Learning German 4 (Advanced 1) (Dr John Partridge)

This module, which consists of four contact hours per week, aims to bring students to a level of proficiency in both written and spoken German enabling them to participate effectively in university modules, placements abroad and to pursue careers involving fluent use of German. Attention is paid to developing fundamental linguistic skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing). Specific attention will also be paid to morphology and syntax. All students will receive a substantial part of their teaching from German native speakers.

GE509 Gender and Identity in the Age of Goethe (Not available in 2011/2)

This module examines the literary output of the Goethezeit (1750-1830) with a view to investigating changing attitudes to the individual. The period is seen as a turning point, in which attitudes to gender, the family and society as a whole underwent a rapid transformation. What many still regard as the Golden Age of German civilisation was in fact a period of social and political upheaval that affected all strata of society. The class system during the period of Absolutism is seen in operation in G E Lessing's work, after which we proceed to a consideration of the Sturm und Drang, which saw violent protest against prevailing social norms by 'angry young' playwrights active in the 1770s. The position of young women was particularly vulnerable, and many tragic heroines are obliged to choose between conformity and the expression of their individual aspirations. Emphasis will be on the role of individuals in pre-revolutionary society, the status and emancipation of women, class conflict as tragedy and opportunity, the theme of youth, education and the 'generation gap' and on legal issues including inheritance and divorce. The module will also consider several nineteenth-century authors' attitudes to gender issues and morality.

GE545/49 German Modernism (Not available in 2011/2)

In the first half of the twentieth century German-speaking writers of High Modernism achieved an international influence in a variety of genres which their counterparts since 1945 have never been able to match. Yet the world they wrote about was under threat, a fact they painfully appreciated, and is now gone. All the authors speak to us, nevertheless, with an immediacy and continuing relevance: Hofmannsthal and Musil question our use of language; Rilke the status of modern urban life and Kafka our place in society and the world; Mann's Der Tod in Venedig links desire to decay, whilst Hesse’s Der Steppenwolf represents the quintessential distallation of modern self-consciousness. These books will be studied in detail as representative of the era.

GE547/52 Desire and Gender Identity in Modern Germany (Not available in 2011/2)

You might think that love, sex and the myriad ways human beings interact with one another in romantic or family relationships are pretty much constant quantities through history. But this is not so. The regime changes undergone by German-speaking Europe in the twentieth century accompanied by social transformations resulted in multiple upheavals in the ways the sexes related to and with one another. From bourgeois decadence in Freud’s Vienna, nascent women’s lib in the Weimar Republic, to attempts at sexual equality in the GDR and FRG and a growing awareness of men’s issues in contemporary Germany, love and sex open windows onto history and society.

GE563 Looking into German 1 (Dr John Partridge)

The module will begin by examining the sound structure of German Standard German, the Hochlautung, then compare it with those of the most salient dialect areas on the basis of the historical implementation of the two Sound Shifts. A similar approach will be taken to the syntactic structures and the lexicon of Hochdeutsch and the dialects.

GE564 Looking into German 2 (Dr John Partridge)

The module will build on a detailed examination of the structure of German Standard German to investigate the interplay of structure, lexis and intonation (prosody) in using German in specific social and functional contexts, e.g. vernacular, informal, formal: affective, persuasive, informative, authoritative to achieve specific results.

GE565 German Past, Present and Future (Dr John Partridge)

The module will begin by looking in both social and linguistic terms at the historical development of German from Proto-Indo European through Old and Middle High German to the present day. Then modern-day trends in the language will be introduced and investigated: for example youth language, issues of gender, Nazi German, East German, German after reunification, the German spelling reform, and the influence of other languages on German structure and lexis. It will conclude by looking at the position of German amongst European and world languages.

GE571/2 The Lyric Imagination (Dr Ben Hutchinson)

This module explores the development of German-language poetry in the 20th century, linking literature to historical events. It introduces a range of poetic styles and movements: starting with fin-de-siecle and Impressionist poetry, the module moves through Expressionism, war poetry, anti-war poetry, holocaust poetry, political poetry of East and West Germany, and the poetry of exile and return and the post-Wende period. Since the amount of reading expected on this module is not enormous, students are able to develop their skills in 'close reading'.

GE573/4 The German Novelle and Short Story (Dr Ben Hutchinson)

This module traces the emergence of the short prose narrative around 1800 and examines its adaptation during the nineteenth century, when realism asserted itself and became the subject of critical controversy. The module looks at the major writers of the period to see what scope the development of realism offered them for artistic variation and psychological depth. Their works are studied as reflections of the societies and regions to which they belonged and as indications of the profound political and economic changes occurring during the period.

GE576/77 German Literature in Film (Dr Deborah Holmes)

This module explores the representation of German literature in film, including film adaptations of individual works and biographical films on writers. It involves in-depth study, both of the literary ‘originals’ and of the corresponding films. Elements of intermedial, adaptation and biographical theory are covered throughout the module. Other topics include why certain works or authors are chosen as the basis for feature or television films; the book and the corresponding film in their respective cultural and political context; and the dynamics of literary film funding and the phenomenon of cultural commemoration (Gedenkjahrfeier) in German-speaking countries.

GE578/79 Women’s Writing in German (Dr Deborah Holmes)

This module studies texts written by women in the late 18th and ‘long’ 19th century up to 1918, the period during which female literacy gradually spread to all levels of the German-speaking population. It begins with an introduction to the critical theory on gender and women’s writing, and also covers the rise of the women’s movement and movements for women’s education in German-speaking countries. Individual writers will be studied from the 18th century onward, with an especial emphasis on the period 1860-1918, during which state structures in Germany, Austria and Switzerland gradually took over education provision for girls. Topics covered include: women’s struggle for political and social emancipation; women in the world of work; changing attitudes to and representations of women’s role in the family; aesthetic strategies of political and social protest literature.

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