Studying at the University of Verona
Here you can find information on the organisational aspects of the Programme, lecture timetables, learning activities and useful contact details for your time at the University, from enrolment to graduation.
Study Plan
This information is intended exclusively for students already enrolled in this course.If you are a new student interested in enrolling, you can find information about the course of study on the course page:
Laurea magistrale in Linguistics - Enrollment from 2025/2026The Study Plan includes all modules, teaching and learning activities that each student will need to undertake during their time at the University.
Please select your Study Plan based on your enrollment year.
1° Year
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One module to be chosen among the followingOne module to be chosen between the followingOne module to be chosen among the followingOne module to be chosen among the following2° Year activated in the A.Y. 2020/2021
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One module to be chosen among the followingOne module to be chosen between the following| Modules | Credits | TAF | SSD |
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One module to be chosen among the followingOne module to be chosen between the followingOne module to be chosen among the followingOne module to be chosen among the following| Modules | Credits | TAF | SSD |
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One module to be chosen among the followingOne module to be chosen between the following| Modules | Credits | TAF | SSD |
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Legend | Type of training activity (TTA)
TAF (Type of Educational Activity) All courses and activities are classified into different types of educational activities, indicated by a letter.
English linguistics LM with an introduction to Corpus Linguistics (2019/2020)
The teaching is organized as follows:
Learning outcomes
PART I The course aims at leading the students to know in detail: (1) the history of the English language; attention will also be dedicated to the linguistic analysis of texts belonging to Old English, Middle English and Early Modern English; (2) the history of journalistic writing in anglophone countries, from its origins to the present day; multimodal/multisemiotic journalism will also be dealt with. PART II The course module aims at providing students with a practical analytical tool for the close reading of journalistic pieces and political speeches drawing on critical discourse analysis (CDA) as an analytical framework.
Program
The lessons will focus on the following topics:
MODULE 1
1. HISTORY OF ENGLISH
- Mediterraneans, Celts and Romans
- Anglo-Saxons and Old English
- Vikings and Normans
- Middle English
- Standardization of written English
- Standardization of spoken English
- English colonialism
2) LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF EXTRACTS OF OLD ENGLISH, MIDDLE ENGLISH AND EARLY MODERN ENGLISH TEXTS
3) HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEWSPAPER LANGUAGE
- the early steps of journalistic writing in the 17th century
- Newswriting in the 18th, 19th, and 20th century in Anglophone countries
- Present-day newswriting in English (online and offline journalism)
- multimodal/multisemiotic journalism.
MODULE 2
The fundamental theoretical and methodological orientations of CDA will be presented and discussed. A focus will be made on the analysis of those linguistic and rhetorical strategies of journalistic discourse and political discourse that best reveal the relationship between text, power, political and socio-cultural context.
Specifically, the following topics will be covered:
- definition of ‘discourse’
- CDA and persuasive discourse: journalistic discourse and political discourse
- modes of persuasion (ethos, logos, pathos)
- deliberative, forensic, epideictic rhetoric and rhetorical figures
- examples of critical analysis of linguistic and rhetorical strategies of journalistic pieces and political speeches (e.g. lexical choices, transitivity, modality, hedging, use of rhetorical figures, representational strategies).
Bibliography
| Author | Title | Publishing house | Year | ISBN | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Richardson, J.E. | Analysing Newspapers. An Approach from Critical Discourse Analysis | Palgrave Macmillan | 2007 | ||
| Facchinetti Roberta | Lexicographers and Grammarians in the History of English (Edizione 1) | QuiEdit | 2019 | 978-88-6464-551-3 | |
| Facchinetti Roberta, Nicholas Brownlees, Birte Bös, Udo Fries | News as Changing Texts: Corpora, Methodologies and Analysis (Edizione 2) | Cambridge Scholars Publishing | 2015 | 978-1-4438-8036-7 | |
| Mugglestone, Lynda (ed.) | The Oxford History of English (Edizione 2) | Oxford University Press | 2012 | 9780199660162 | |
| Charteris-Black, J. | Analysing Political Speeches. Rhetoric, Discourse and Metaphor | Palgrave Macmillan | 2014 | ||
| Machin, D. and Mayr, A. | How to do Critical Discourse Analysis | SAGE | 2012 | ||
| Bednarek, M. and Caple, H. | The Discourse of News Values. How News Organizations Create Newsworthiness | Oxford University Press | 2017 | 978-0-19-065394-1 |
Examination Methods
Oral exam on the following topics:
MODULE 1
1. HISTORY OF ENGLISH
- Mediterraneans, Celts and Romans
- Anglo-Saxons and Old English
- Vikings and Normans
- Middle English
- Standardization of written English
- Standardization of spoken English
- English colonialism
2) LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF EXTRACTS OF OLD ENGLISH, MIDDLE ENGLISH AND EARLY MODERN ENGLISH TEXTS
3) HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF NEWSPAPER LANGUAGE
- the early steps of journalistic writing in the 17th century
- Newswriting in the 18th, 19th, and 20th century in Anglophone countries
- Present-day newswriting in English (online and offline journalism)
- multimodal/multisemiotic journalism.
MODULE 2:
Oral exam on the topics covered during the module. Students can prepare the analysis of a freely-selected journalistic text or political speech and present it during the exam.
Students who cannot attend Module 1 are required to study the books mentioned on the webpage of the course.
Contents and final exam of module 2 are the same for both attendees and non-attendees.
The final mark will result from an average between the evaluation of the two modules, bearing in mind the number of credits covered by each module.
NB: Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, and in accordance with the University of Verona guidelines, during the 2020 summer session the assessment modality will be modified as follows: online oral exam.
