IMCB F-10/4

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Subject-Specific Foundational

Introduction to Literary Studies

Course Description

This course introduces literature as cultural and historical phenomena. This entails a study of history of various periods of English Literature from Renaissance to the present. The course also, very briefly, touches upon different theoretical approaches to literature to introduce the student to literary critique and evaluation. A general understanding of literary theory as a broad field of philosophical concepts and principles is also crucial to the understanding of literary piece.           

Course Objectives

   1.      To study the history and practice of English as a scholarly discipline.

   2.      To study the history and development of each genre through excerpts of literary texts.

   3.      To do close reading of texts and analyze them with different critical frameworks.

   4.      To analyze and criticize the works of literature in their cultural and historical contexts.

   5.      To assess the influence of literary movements in Britain on English literature from all parts of the world.

Course Contents

      1.  William Henry Hudson. Introduction to the Study of Literature (1913)

      2.   Andrew Sanders. The Short Oxford History of English Literature(1994)

      3.   Mario Klarer. Introduction to Literary Studies (1999)

      4    J. H. Miller. On Literature (2002)

Note: The teacher will use Sander’s history with any one of the three books on literature as core texts.

Suggested Readings

  • Albert, E. (1979). History of English Literature (5th ed.). Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Alexander, M. (2000). A History of English Literature. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Blamires, H. (1984). A Short History of English Literature. London: Routledge.
  • Carter, R., & McRae, J. (1997). The Routledge History of Literature in English, Britain and Ireland.London: Routledge.
  • Chin, B. A., Wolfe, D., Copeland, J., & Dudzinski, M. A. (2001). Glencoe Literature: British Literature. New York: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
  • Compton-Rickett, A. (1912). A History of English Literature. London: T. C. and E. C. Jack.
  • Daiches, D. (1968). A Critical History of English Literature. London: Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd.
  • Fletcher, R. H. (1919). A History of English Literature. Boston: R. G. Badger.
  • Legouis, E., & Cazamian, L. (1960). A History of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent and Sons.

Introduction to Language Studies

Course Description

Language is central to human experience. This course provides a comprehensive overview of language origin, evolution of language as human faculty, and traces the history of English language in order to provide an idea how languages developed. The part on the history of the English language covers story of English language from beginning to the present. The course also includes a brief introduction of the history of linguistics with special reference to various schools of thought that have contributed significantly to the development of Linguistics.

Course Objectives

This course aims to:

  • Give students a comprehensive overview of language as human faculty.
  • Familiarize students with different stories about the origin of language.
  • Provide students an overview of how a language develops through a comprehensive exposure to English language development.
  • Enable students to identify major theoretical formulations in the development of linguistics.

Course Contents

  1. Language Origin
  2. Language as a divine gift
  3. Natural sound source theories
  4. Social interaction source theories
  5. The Physical adaptation sources
  6. The genetic source
  7. Speech vs Writing
  8. Primacy of speech
  9. Speech vs. Writing
  10. Origin of writing
  11. Types of writing systems
  12. Language as Human Faculty
  13. Human Language vs animal communication
  14. Characteristics of Language: Design features
  15. Animals lack language: A controversy
  16. Language Families
  17. What is a language family?
  18. Language Families in the World: A Brief Overview
  19. Historical Linguistics
  20. What is linguistics?
  21. What is historical linguistics?
  22. What does historical linguistics study? (phonological, morphological, syntactic, and semantic changes)
  23. Methods of Language reconstruction

Evolution of English Language

  • Old & Middle English Periods
  • Grammatical categories
  • Inflections
  • Grammatical gender
  • Renaissance
  • Old, Middle, and Modern English (grammatical categories)
  • Shakespeare
  • 18th Century
  • Major characteristics of the age
  • Problem of refining and fixing the language
  • Swift’s proposal
  • Johnson’s Dictionary
  • Grammarians
  • Vocabulary formation
  • Introduction of passives
  • 19th Century
  • Important events and influences
  • Sources of new words
  • Pidgins   and Creoles
  • Spelling reforms
  • Development of Dictionary
  • Verb-adverb combination
  • English Language in America
  • Americanism
  • Archive Features
  • Difference between the British and American English

Development of Modern Linguistics

  1. Modern Linguistics
    1. Emergence of Modern Linguistics: Saussure
    1. Structuralism
    1. American Structuralism
  2. The Prague School
  3. Contemporary Approaches to Linguistics
  4. Functional Linguistics

Recommended Readings

  • Bough, A.C. & Cable, T. (2002). A History of English Language. London: Prentice Hall, Inc.
  • Campbell, L. (2001), ‘The history of linguistics’, in M. Aronoff and J. Rees-Miller (eds),The  Handbook of Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, pp. 81-104. 
  • Joseph, J.E. (2002), From Whitney to Chomsky: essays in the history of American linguistics. 
    Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
  • Yule, George. (2006). The Study of Language: 4th/ 5th Edition, Cambridge University Press.

Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology

Course Description

This course explores speech sounds as physical entities (phonetics) and linguistic units (phonology). In viewing sounds as physical elements, the focus is on articulatory description. In this part of the course, the goal is to learn to produce, transcribe, and describe in articulatory terms many of the sounds known to occur in human languages. In the next part of the course, the focus is on sounds as members of a particular linguistic system.

Course Objectives

This course aims to:

  • assist students learn a number of technical terms related to the course
  • familiarize students with sounds and sound patterning, particularly in English Language
  • develop knowledge of segmental and supra-segmental speech
  • help students understand the features of connected speech

Course Contents

  1. Basic definitions
  2. Phonetics
  3. Articulatory, Auditory & Acoustic Phonetics
  4. Phonology
  5. Phoneme
  6. Vowels
  7. Consonants
  8. Diphthongs
  9. Triphthongs
  10. Voicing
  11. Aspiration
  12. Minimal pairs
  13. Organs of Speech
  14. Phonemes
  15. Consonants(place and manner of articulation)
  16. Vowels (vowel trapezium/quadrilateral)
  17. Monophthongs
  18. Diphthongs
  19. Triphthongs
  20. Rules
  21. Rules of Voicing
  22. Rules of /r/
  23. Rules of /ŋ/
  24. Practice of phonemic transcription
  25. Definitions
  26. Homophones
  27. Homographs
  28. Homonyms
  29. Homophenes
  30. Fluency Devices
  31. Assimilation
  32. Elision
  33. Weak forms/Strong forms
  34. linking

8.       Sound Values

9.  Stress and Intonation

10. Practice of phonemic transcription

Recommended Readings

  • Collins, B. and Mees, I. (2003) Practical Phonetics and Phonology: A Resource Book for Students. London & NY: Routledge (Taylor & Francis)
  • Clark, J and Yallop, C. (1995). An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology. 2nd edition. Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell.
  • Davenport, Mike & S. J. Hannahs. (2010). Introducing Phonetics & Phonology, 3rd edition. Hodder Education

Roach, Peter. (2009). English Phonetics and Phonology: A Practical Course. 4th Edition. Cambridge.

Literary Forms and Movements

Course Description

This course covers two foundational schemes regarding the study of literature: 1) Forms, and 2) Movements. The term “forms” refer to the study of literary genres and their subtypes in such a way as to introduce the students to their structures and styles with its focus on the following:

1) Poetry;   2) Fiction; 3) Drama; 4) Prose/Non-fiction; and 5) Short Story.  The term “movement” is rather loosely used to characterize literary texts produced in different cultures under the influence of or for the propagation of certain ideas as their hallmarks/signatures.  The course has been designed to intellectually groom the students  for a broad understanding  of the major literary movements in the history of world literature, especially British and American: Idealism (Greek), Renaissance/Early Modern,  Neoclassicism,  Enlightenment, Romanticism,  Victorianism, Raphaelitism,  Realism,  Transcendentalism,    Modernism, Colonialism, Symbolism, Imagist and post-Colonialism, Feminism and post-Feminism.  

Course Objectives 

  • Build students’ capacity for grasping the meaning of a literary text in terms of a given historical period/dominant idea. 
  • Develop their ability for understanding the major ideas that played a key role in shaping the works of different groups of writers.
  • Provide them with a workable tool for interpreting and analyzing a literary text.

Suggested Readings

Berman, Art. Preface to Modernism. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994.
Dirks, B Nicholos.  Colonialism and Culture. Michigan:    Michigan Univ Press. 1992.
Fowler, Alastair. Kinds of Literature : An Introduction to the Theory of Genres and Modes.  Oxford: Clarenden, 2002.
Galea, Ileana. Victorianism and Literature. California. Dacia, 2008.
Gura, Philip. American Transcendentalism.  NP:  Farrar, 2008.
Hagger, Hagger.  A New Phlsophy of World Literature. The Universlaist Literary Tradtion. Ropley: John Hunt Publishing, 2004.
Hooks, Bell. Feminist Theory.  London: Pluto Press, 2000.
Hudson, William Henry.  An Introduction to the Study of Literature.  New Delhi : Rupa, 2015.
Marcuse, J Michael.  Arefence Guide for English Studies. Los Angeles: Univ of  California Press, 1990.   
Osborne, Susan. Feminism. NP: Product Essentials, 2001.
Philips, Jerry , Andrew Ladd, and K H Meyers. Romanticism and Transcendentalism.  New York:  DWJ Books: 2010.
Tandon, Neeru. Feminism: A Paradigm Shift. New Delhi: Atlantic, 2008.
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