According to the Dublin descriptors, students, at the
end of the course, will demonstrate:
1) Knowledge and understanding
Development of linguistic and
communicative skills at the C2 level of CEFRL.
In the multi-ethnic and multilingual
context of the United States, students must be able to recognize the ideology
of Standard American English and detect the non-standard cultural and
linguistic phenomena of African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans (Module 1). In
the field of professional communication, they must be able to identify the
semiotic resources and the discursive modes employed by professionals with
particular reference to the reporting practices of business corporations and
non-governmental organizations and to the effects of digitalization (Module 2).
2) Applying
knowledge and understanding
Students must be able to illustrate the linguistic behaviors of African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans in relation to media representations (Module 1). From the perspective of Critical Genre Analysis, they must be able to examine the genre of the annual report as produced by corporations that pursue different communicative purposes (Module 2).
3) Making judgements
Students must be able to detect the connection between the linguistic identity and the cultural identity of the ethnic groups they are studying and observing in the context of media representations as well as their relationship to the standard US language, culture and society (Module 1). They must also know how and why professionals create and disseminate specialist knowledge; which semiotic resources and discursive modalities they employ – and how they employ them – to achieve their specific objectives, especially with reference to the annual report and the way it is “bent” in different professional contexts for different needs of communication (Module 2).
4) Communication skills
Students will develop both linguistic
and intercultural communicative competences. In addition, they must be able to argue
about the language issues and phenomena that are proposed using the tools of Sociolinguistics
and Discourse Analysis (Module 1) as well as of Critical Genre Analysis,
through the approaches employed on various levels (textual and genre analysis,
Habermas’s theory of communicative action, multimodality) (Module 2).
5) Learning skills
Students must be able to employ the
tools of analysis proposed for the study of linguistic phenomena in the
socio-cultural and professional domains in an autonomous way, including the
possibility of writing their thesis in these fields.
1) Language and Cultural
Diversity in the United States (4 ECTS)
· Bonfiglio,
T.P., Race and the Rise of Standard American,
Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002 (pp. 1-73);
· Fought,
C., Chicano English in Context, New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003 (pp. 1-10, 30-110, 211-225);
· Johnson,
F.L., “African American Discourse in Cultural and Historical Context”, in Speaking Culturally: Language Diversity in the United States,
Sage Publications, Inc., 2000, pp. 113-159;
· Morgan,
M., Language, Discourse and Power in African American
Culture, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002,
capp. 1 (pp. 10-34), 2 (pp. 35-61) e 5 (pp. 112-131);
· Nilep,
C., “‘Code Switching’ in Sociocultural
Linguistics”, Colorado Research in
Linguistics, Vol. 19, June 2006, pp. 1-22;
· Stavans,
I., Spanglish, Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press, 2008 (pp. 3-7, 35-40, 42-63, 123-124).
For private
practice:
To integrate their
training, students are highly recommended to use the following textbook on
phonetics and phonology:
·
L. Mojsin, Mastering the American Accent (with 4 Audio CDs), Hauppauge,
NY, Barron's Educational Series, 2009, pp. 201.
Spelling, lexical, morphological, syntactical
and grammatical elements of American English will be examined in the classes
for language practice. For individual study, students can consult the following
textbook:
· G. Tottie,
An Introduction to American English,
Malden, MA, Blackwell, 2002, pp. 320.
2) Professional Communication (5 ECTS)
· Adami E., “Multimodality”, in The Oxford
Handbook of Language and Society, Ofelia García (ed.) et al., Oxford: Oxford UP, 2017, pp. 451-472;
· Barker,
R.T., Gower K., “Strategic Application of Storytelling in Organizations”, Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 47, No. 3, July
2010, pp. 295-312;
· Bhatia, V.K., Critical Genre Analysis. Investigating Interdiscursive
Performance in Professional Practice, London and New York, Routledge 2017
(pp. 3-68; pp. 87-111; 142-160);
· Dhanani, A., & Connolly, C., “Non-governmental
Organizational Accountability: Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk?” Journal of Business Ethics, 129.3 (2014): 613-637;
· Dhanani
A., Kennedy D., 2022. “Envisioning
Legitimacy: Visual Dimensions of NGO Annual Reports," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol.
36(1), June 2022, pp. 348-377;
· Giglioni,
C., “Annual Company Reports’ Narratives migrate to the Web: a Diachronic
Perspective”, Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies Vol. 29, 2020, pp 27-34;
· Stoian,
C.E., “Analysing Images: A Social Semiotic Perspective”, Scientific Bulletin of the Politehnica
University of Timişoara. Transactions on Modern Languages, Vol.
14, No. 1, 2015, pp. 23-30.
Please remember that in compliance with art 171
L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or
journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.
For further information on sanctions and regulations
concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee
Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione
Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian
Association on Copyright).
All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.
