Bøger af Marco Sievers

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Hannover (Englisches Seminar), course: Hauptseminar Corpora and Language Teaching, language: English, abstract: The use of corpora has expanded linguistic research possibilities, revolutionized theoretical concepts of language by applying empirical methods, and changed the face of applied linguistics. Although corpora are a tremendous asset to lexicography, translation studies, cultural studies and even to forensics, an awareness of their benefits has not fully arrived in the field of language teaching, yet. While insights from corpora linguistics have led to the development of a new and improved generation of dictionaries, most teaching materials for teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) have been largely unaffected in this respect, and are regrettably still based on old conventions and on the intuition of course book designers. This unfortunate fact is the starting point for the term paper at hand, which investi-gates the high frequency nouns day, money and way in two corpora in order to compare their authentic use by native speakers to their illustration in German teaching materials. Its focus is set on phraseology and frequency to find out if these nouns are adequately represented, or if an amendment of teaching materials is necessary. The spoken part of the British National Corpus (BNC spoken) serves as the basis of this analysis, due to the fact that German language teaching policy favours a communicative approach aiming at the development of communicative competence and fluency in spoken English. The BNC findings are juxtaposed to the results of an analysis of the German English as a Foreign Language Textbook Corpus (GEFL TC), a corpus comprising two school book series. Additionally, the nouns¿ introduction and presentation in the German English G 2000 textbook series are explored. Finally, as one approach to investigate the teaching materials for advanced learners, the respective entries are checked in three dictionaries aiming at this target group, namely the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the Macmillan Dictionary for Advanced Learners and the Oxford Advanced Learners¿ Dictionary of Current English.The paper will first provide the theoretical background for the analysis, and will explain its concept and methods. Subsequently, it will focus on the analysis¿ results and will propose improvements to textbook design. Last but not least, it presents Data Driven Learning (DDL) as corpus-based complement of course books and devises six exercises, based on the corpora findings of the BNC spoken, to exemplify it.

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2006 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2, Liverpool John Moores University, course: English in British Television, language: English, abstract: Table of Contents1.Introduction 2.Synopsis of the Programme 3.Features of the Genre 3.1. Formal Features of Sitcoms 3.2. Entrapment 3.3. Stereotypical Characters and Situations3.4. Circular Closure 3.5. Verbal and Visual Humour 3.6. Characteristics of British Humour 4. Signs and Symbols 5. Cultural Awareness 6. Discourse Analysis 7. Audience Reaction 8. Entertainment Value 9. Conclusion 10. List of References 11. Annex: Transcriptions

Essay from the year 2006 in the subject Interpreting / Translating , grade: 2, Liverpool John Moores University, course: Translation Studies, language: English, abstract: The basic assumption of laymen concerning translation is that every word or meaning can universally be translated from one language to another. Their idea of translation is that of a straightforward mechanical process which simply replaces source language (SL) items with target language (TL) items. Some conceptions in translation studies seem to encourage this view, and debates suggest that it is only a matter of the right scope, focus or technique to create perfect translations. The paper at hand will refute this notion. It will prove and exemplify the facts that not everything is translatable, and that a transfer of meaning necessarily involves changes entailing loss or gain of linguistic, cultural and stylistic features (cf. Harvey 2001, 38; Pym & Turk 2001, 274). Translation cannot create an identical TL copy of the SL text, but only permits a relative equivalence to it. A maximal approximation, however, can never be achieved, due to the complexity of language, its dependence on constantly changing cultural norms, and because the human factor. Especially the aspect acceptance by the audience will show that perfection is just an abstract evaluative term, which largely depends on individual taste.

Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 1,0, University of Hannover (Englisches Seminar / Lehrgebiet Didaktik des Englischen), course: Hauptseminar Teaching Film (englische Fachdidaktik), language: English, abstract: (...)Film education is already practiced in some European countries, for instance in Eng-land, France and in Scandinavia. (cf. Wharton & Grant 2005: 7; Krüger 2005: 7; Willig 2006: 132ff) German curricula also allow for films, but mostly as part of media education, which is embedded in several subjects and aims at providing students with media competence. This competence should enable them to orient themselves in a world dominated by audio-visual media. It wants to support a conscious and critical handling of media, as well as a creative and self-determined one. By understanding and questioning media contents and aesthetics stu-dents should be protected from being controlled by the media. (cf. Surkamp 2004: 2; Willig 2006: 131f, 137; Roller 2006: 73; Holighaus 2005a: 9) Film education in a narrower sense, aiming at film competence or film literacy, still has to be promoted in schools, though. (cf. Krüger 2005: 7) The intention of the paper at hand is to show possible applications of Ridley Scott¿s science-fiction thriller Blade Runner, which foster film literacy within the context of teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL). First, it will explain the didactic value of films as TEFL devices, define film literacy as a learning target, and present an overview on ap-proaches and methods of teaching film. In doing so, a special focus will be set on film adapta-tions of literary texts. Then, the paper will turn to Scott¿s science-fiction masterpiece and pro-vide a summary of its plot as well as a survey on prominent topics and interpretations. After-wards it will likewise deal with its literary basis, Philip K. Dick¿s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? As an example how to bridge the gap between theory and practice, the last section will finally present sample exercises for the use of the movie in the TEFL classroom. It will cover an analysis of film language as well as intertextual tasks.