Objectives and competences
Students:
- understand relationships among languages on a global scale, and debate the concept of “global English”;
- get acquainted with academic literature on discourse as an aspect or element of globalisation;
- get to know how the analysis of texts can be coherently integrated within political economic analysis;
- use critical discourse analysis within a cultural approach to political economy (Fairclough) to analyse the ways in which neoliberal ideology has seeped into all aspects of our lives.
Content (Syllabus outline)
- Globalization as a complex, interconnected but partly autonomous set of processes affecting many dimensions of social life (economic, political, social, cultural, environmental etc.).
- World languages and language systems.
- Language in processes of globalization: (1) language as a form of social practice being globalising and globalized; (2) the relationship between actual processes and tendencies of globalization, and discourses of globalization.
- A theory of the relationship between discourse and other elements of globalization combining critical discourse analysis with cultural political economy (Norman Fairclough).
- Discourses of neo-liberalism contributing to actualizing new forms of productive activity, new social relations, new forms of identity etc.: examples from neo-liberal economic discourse, discourses of popular culture which are widely disseminated across the globe on the websites and in the magazines which young people use, etc.
Learning and teaching methods
- lectures (verbally-textual: explanation, commentary, discussion);
- seminar exercise (working with texts)
The information and communications technology is used for educational purposes in the teaching and learning process.
Intended learning outcomes - knowledge and understanding
Students:
- consider the concept of “world language”;
- understand relations between discourse and other elements of globalisation;
- understand how language figures in hegemonic struggles around neo-liberalism, and how struggles for social change can be pursued in language;
- recognize the political economy of language, and the general processes of commodification and appropriation of language in the new economic order.
Intended learning outcomes - transferable/key skills and other attributes
Transferable/Key Skills and other attributes:
Students build an adequate relationship toward new linguistic phenomena from the view point of conversational adequateness and new role of Slovene language in European integration processes.
Readings
Norman Fairclough, 2006: Language and Globalization. London: Routledge.
Monica Heller, 2003: Globalization, the new economy and the commodification of language and
identity. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7. 473–498.
Marjeta Humar (ur.), 2004: Terminologija v času globalizacije. Ljubljana: Založba ZRC, ZRC SAZU.
Salikoko S. Mufwene, 2010: Globalization, Global English, and World English(es):
Myths and Facts. The Handbook of Language and Globalization. Ur. Nikolas Coupland. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. 31-55.
Sonja Starc (ur.), 2012: Akademski jeziki v cˇasu globalizacije. Koper : Univerzitetna zalozˇba Annales. Knjizˇnica Annales Ludus.
Prerequisits
Fundamental linguistic knowledge.
Additional information on implementation and assessment - written exam,
- seminar exercise.
