Overview
Aims
O1 For students to understand figurative language in English and the psychological processes that underlie its formation
O2 For students to understand the differences between metaphor, metonymy, simile, idiom
O3. For students to understand the different use of figurative language according to different language registers
Course contents
1. Figurative thinking 1.1 Psychological Processes Underlying Figurative Thinking 1.2 Developing Learner Autonomy in Figurative Thinking 2. Figurative Thinking and Sociolinguistic Competence 2.1 Encoding of culture in language 2.2 Sources of cross-cultural variation 3. Figurative Thinking and Illocutionary Competence 3.1 The role of figurative thinking in performing manipulative functions 3.2 The role of figurative thinking in performing heuristic functions 4. Figurative Thinking and Textual Competence 4.1 The role of figurative language in topic transition in interactive spoken discourse 5. Figurative Thinking and Lexico-Grammatical Competence 5.1 Demonstratives 5.2 Prepositions and particles 5.3 Phrasal (and prepositional) verbs 5.4 Tense / aspect 5.5 Modality 6. Strategic Competence 6.1 Compensation strategies 6.2 The role of figurative thinking in word coinage strategies 6.3 The role of figurative thinking in circumlocution strategies 7. Idioms (part 1) 7.1 Compositionality and analysability 7.2 Salience 7.3 Semantic transparency 8. Idioms (part 2) 8.1 Truth conditions 8.2 Dimensions of idiomaticity 9. Collocations 9.1 Defining collocation 9.2 Collocation in the digital age 9.3 Idioms as complex collocations 10. Grammatical and lexical abstractions 10.1 Colligations 10.2 Semantic preference 11. Semantic prosody 11.1 Semantic association 11.2 Discourse and pragmatic functions 12. Metaphors (part 1) 12.1 Source and target domains 12.2 Metaphor in Literature 13. Metaphors (part 2) 13.1 Cognitive Models, Metaphors, and Embodiment 13.2 Metaphorical Entailments 14. Metonymy 14.1 Metonymy and Conceptual Integration 14.2 Metonymy vs Synecdoche
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course students will be able to understand linguistic theories and concepts, methods with a high degree of complexity, peculiar to the study of languages. By the end of the course students will be able to apply certain principles ,basic rules for understanding an oral or written text ,for communicating in an appropriate manner taking into account all the elements involved (linguistic, socio-linguistic, pragmatic, semantic, stylistic).
Assessment
End-of-semester closed-end test Individual glossaries of metaphors/idioms/proverbs/metonymies Argumentative essay