Kretzschmar, William
MWF 11:30 AM
Park Hall 0144
ENGL/LING 4826/6826 Spring 2024 Kretzschmar MWF 11:30-12:20
DigiLab (Main Library)
Style: Language, Genre, Cognition
Office: 317 Park. Email: kretzsch@uga.edu. Office Hours: TTH (9-10am and by appointment (email me to set one up). Office hours will be held in Park 313.
Catalog: Study of the patterns of literary style, including language and literary stylistics, genre, and cognition and perception.
Textbooks: Stubbs, Words and Phrases (Blackwell, 2001); Biber and Conrad, Register, Genre, and Style, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 2019); Lakoff and Johnson Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, 1980, new afterword 2003); Gibson, Pattern Recognition: A Novel (Putnam, 2003); articles/chapters (Derrida, Jauss, Steen) on eLC. Students will also be introduced to free concordancing software, AntConc.
Course Conduct: Lecture/discussion. There will be five in-class tests and no final exam ("continuous assessment"). There will be one short paper (5 pp) and a major paper due at the end of the term (c. 15 pp undergrad, c. 20 pp. grad). Papers will be argumentative essays prepared according to standard practices for academic papers, and include appropriate use of the scholarly literature. There will be a proposal (2-3 pp, a special format to be discussed in class) for the final paper due in late March. Grades will be based on class attendance (90 pts), the five in-class exams (250 pts), the short paper (100 pts), and the final paper (50 pts proposal, 150 pts final paper). 640 total points. Course info will be on the Web at the UGA eLC (elc.uga.edu).
Goals and Topics: Style is a word to conjure with in literary analysis and criticism, and yet at the same time it is often not clearly defined. Style in literature it is constituted by the author's choices in language and form, whether conscious or unconscious, or at a higher level constituted by the collective choices made by authors of a period, nation, or other grouping. Readers, too, contribute to meaningful interaction in literature through their perception of patterns in language and literature. The first goal of this course will be to teach corpus linguistics, which includes the ways that words are actually used that we might recognize in style. Another goal of the course is to introduce students to larger literary patterns, genres, through which authors mediate their relationship with readers. Contemporary genre theory has developed in concert with narratology and phenomenology, from formalism (Jolles) to reception theory (Jauss), with commentary by thinkers like Derrida. The final goal of the course is to introduce students to cognitive issues related to literature that mediate our perception of patterns in language and literature (e.g. metaphor in the approach of Lakoff and Johnson, as enhanced by Gerard Steen and others). The whole point, then, is patterns, both for the creation and the reception of language and literature, through the relative contributions of author, reader, and their social milieu to the creation of meaning in literary texts. William Gibson's Pattern Recognition (2003) will help us see this from the literary point of view.
At the end of the course, students should be able to describe the linguistic, generic, and cognitive patterns in any text, using terminology and methods appropriate to patterns at each level of analysis. In order to make an adequate description, students should recognize that their individual perspective on style, developed out of their own unique experience, needs to be supplemented by systematic study of the language, genres, and cognitive setting in conjunction with which any specific text was created. The major paper at the end of the term will provide evidence that students have attained competence with these descriptive skills.
Schedule:
Jan 8, 10, 12 M: Course intro. W: Biber, Ch 1 F: Stubbs, Ch 1
Jan 15, 17, 19 M: MLK Day, no class W: Biber, Ch2 F: Biber, Ch 3
Jan 22, 24, 26 M: Stubbs, Ch2 W: Stubbs, Ch 3 F: EX1
Jan 29, 31, F2 M: AntConc W: DIY corpora F: COCA
Feb 5, 7, 9 M: COHA W: GloWbE F: how to write a paper, incl
authoritative info, citation, structure,
argument
Feb 12, 14, 16 M: AntConc/Brown W: AntConc/literature F: EX2
Feb 19, 21, 23 M: Stubbs, Ch 4 W: Stubbs, Ch 5 F: Stubbs, Ch 6
Feb 26, 28, M1 M: Biber, Ch 4-5 W: Biber, Ch 6-7 F: short paper due
Mar 4, 6, 8 No class. Spring Break
Mar 11, 13, 15 M: Biber, Ch 8-9 W: how to write a proposal F: EX3
Mar 18, 20, 22 M: Complex systems W: CS for language F: CS for corpora, proposal due
Mar 25, 27, 29 M: eLC Jauss W: eLC Blanchot, Derrida F: Good Friday, no class
Apr 1, 3, 5 M: Lakoff/Johnson W: Lakoff/Johnson F: no class (conference)
Apr 8, 10, 12 M: Lakoff/Johnson W: Lakoff/Johnson F: EX4
Apr 15, 17, 19 M: eLC Steen W: eLC Steen F: eLC Steen et al.
Apr 22, 24, 26 M: eLC Steen et al. W: Gibson F: Gibson
Apr 29 M: Gibson W: Gibson F: EX5
May 1 No class; Final paper due by email.
UGA Student Honor Code: "I will be academically honest in all of my academic work and will not tolerate academic dishonesty of others." A Culture of Honesty, the University's policy and procedures for handling cases of suspected dishonesty, such as plagiarism (using the work of others without attribution), can be found at www.uga.edu/ovpi. In this course you are permitted to use AI tools in your research and writing. However, be warned that if you turn in a paper prepared by AI without modifications, you are unlikely to get a good grade.
The course syllabus is a general plan for the course; deviations announced to the class by the instructor may be necessary.
Mental Health and Wellness Resources:
What do I do if I have COVID-19 symptoms?
Students showing COVID-19 symptoms should self-isolate and schedule an appointment with the University Health Center by calling 706-542-1162 (Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5p.m.). Please DO NOT walk-in. For emergencies and after-hours care, see, https://www.uhs.uga.edu/info/emergencies.