Prospectus

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Aspects of contemporary Italian

Course
2019-2020

Admission requirements

  • A bachelor in Linguistics.

  • A study programme that includes at least one of these courses: Italian Linguistics, History of Italian, Sociolinguistics of Italian. The course must be taken successfully for at least 5 EC before the enrollment.

  • A proficiency in spoken Italian at CEFR level B2-C1, other skills in Italian at level C1.

  • A proficiency in oral English at CEFR level C1.

Description

The course intends to present contemporary Italian at the various levels of linguistic analysis, from phonetics and phonology to the inflectional and lexical morphology, from the syntax to the lexicon. Significant variational aspects will be addressed in the spoken language, in the written texts, in the transmitted language, with insights into youth language, regional varieties and the language of “semi-educated” people.

Addressed topics:

  • The Italian language today,

  • lexicon,

  • phonetics and phonology,

  • flexive and lexical morphology,

  • syntax,

  • the spoken varieties,

  • the written varieties,

  • the transmitted varieties.

Course objectives

The course will provide the necessary basis to know and understand the structures of Italian language, the main dimensions of its social, geographical, historical variation, the relationship between Italian and other languages.
Through the presentation of different descriptive models of linguistic facts, the student will apply the knowledge acquired to analyze and appropriately place (historically, socially, geographically and typologically) linguistic phenomena, accordingly with scientific arguments and methods.
Students will improve the skills in critically judging the features of Italian and refine the ability to compare it with other languages.

Timetable

The timetable is available on the website of the MA Linguistics.

Mode of instruction

Seminar
Workshop

Course Load

Total course load: 10 EC x 28 hours = 280 hours

Lectures: 26
Preparation lectures/ assignment: 52
Study of compulsory literature: 110
Preparation exam: 80
Mid-term tests: 10
Exam(s): 2 (+2)

Assessment method

Assessment

Weakly verifications: students will be asked to deliver written answers to the exercise questions in thetextbook and small analyses of a corpus of oral Italian. Weight: 20%
Final written examination with closed questions, short open questions and a textual analysis. Weight: 80%

Weighing

The final mark is established by determining the weighted average.

Resit

The student does only take the resit for the parts of the final test that were insufficient.

Exam review

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Blackboard

Blackboard will be used for PowerPoint presentations on course contents and extra material when needed

Reading list

*P. D’Achille, L’italiano contemporaneo. Bologna, il Mulino, 2010, pp. 288 (https://www.mulino.it/isbn/9788815138330).
*Follow-up readings at student request.

Registration

Enrolment through uSis is mandatory.
General information about uSis is available on the website.

Registration Studeren à la carte and Contractonderwijs

Registration Studeren à la carte
Registration Contractonderwijs

Contact

Claudio Di Felice

Please contact Student administration van Eyckhof

The coordinator of studies is Else van Dijk

Remarks

The language of instruction is Italian. However, English can be adopted in class if needs of students so require.