Seminar (MA, Med) Verbal Signs

Tuesday 14-16                                                                  GABF 04/614

Since the advent of structural linguistics, it has been considered a basic truth that the linguistic sign is arbitrary, ie that there is no natural relation between the forms we use when communicating and the meanings they are used to express. In the seminar we will try to find out the extent to which this is true or rather corresponds to linguistic reality by having a close look at both the English lexicon and syntactic structures and topicalizing the motivations we can find for words and structures, provided we look for them.

Requirements for credit points/Leistungsnachweis: presentation in class and final written exam or term paper

Enrolment: at GB 6/32 or via email: Martina.Dornieden@rub.de.