Language Courses

Translation
Lang, 2–5, sem, ENG, US, BAEN, BAAM
Dudits András
ENG (kiegészítő törzsképzés/kiegészítő szakképzés, sem), US (kiegészítő törzsképzés/kiegészítő
szakképzés, sem), BAEN (any course, sem), BAAM (any course, sem)

The purpose of the seminar is to develop the basic skills required for source text comprehension and
target text production within the framework of written translation from English into Hungarian and
Hungarian into English. Class discussions will focus on the grammatical, lexical and pragmatic
difficulties and problems translators may encounter in translating between the two languages.
Students will be expected to translate texts of a general nature (i.e. non-technical and non-literary) at
home, with their work evaluated by the instructor and analyzed in class. Grading will be based on the
formative assessment of translation assignments and class participation.

Interpreting 1 (Beginners)
Lang, 2–5, sem, ENG, US, BAEN, BAAM
Dudits András
ENG (kiegészítő törzsképzés /kiegészítő szakképzés, sem), US (kiegészítő törzsképzés/ kiegészítő
szakképzés, sem), BAEN (any course, sem), BAAM (any course, sem)

The purpose of the seminar is to provide a general introduction to the principles and practice of
interpreting, focusing on the relevant cognitive operations and practical techniques related to
attention, source language comprehension, interlingual transfer and target language expression. The
development and enhancement of the basic cognitive and presentation skills required for oral
mediation will be facilitated by the performance of simple tasks in consecutive, liaison and
simultaneous interpreting. Assessment will be formative in nature, with grading based on class
participation.

Linguistics
Lectures

An Introduction to Systemic Functional Grammar

Ling, lect, 1, MAEN, all tracks
Barát Erzsébet

This lecture is intended to explore key areas within systemic functional linguistics, building on the
foundation laid by M.A.K. Halliday's An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd Edition). The course
provides a model of grammar which analyses authentic texts in their social context. In other words,
SF is a linguistic theory that takes into account the contextual dimensions of language. It views
language as a social semiotic resource people use to accomplish their purposes by expressing
meanings in context. The aim of the course is accordingly both theoretical and applied. It will present
a general theoretical outline with descriptive illustrations from English in order to develop a set of
tools which focus on the lexical and grammatical patterns of a variety of texts from different genres
and registers. The major areas of linguistic means and their interaction to be covered are the
following three functions of language use: The representation of experience, the enactment of
speaker/addressee relationships, and the relation of language to the context in which it is unfolding.

The Social Uses of Language

Ling, lect, 1, MAEN, MAAM
Don Peckham

This team taught lecture course covers the following topics: geographic, social and style variation in
English; multicompetence and the English spoken by native speakers vs. nonnative speakers
(including English as a lingua franca); language policy and planning (the spread of English, the
European Union); forensic linguistics; pragmatics (its scope and methods); cross-cultural,
intercultural and interlanguage pragmatics; linguistic politeness; conversation analysis; talk in
institutional contexts; the interdisciplinary concept of discourse; the intersection of language,
ideology and power; language use and identity formation.

Sociopragmatics (NEW)
Ling, lect, 1, MAEN (AL)
Suszczyńska Małgorzata

The course provides an up-to-date overview of sociopragmatics, defined as the sociological interface
of pragmatics, which examines how social, situational and cultural norms affect performance and
interpretation of communicative action. The course addresses both theoretical issues and empirical
work in the field. The topics include a review of speech act theory and Gricean pragmatics,
sociopragmatic variation within and across cultures, pragmatic competence and SLA, pragmatics and
feminism, and research methods in sociopragmatics.
Topics:
1. Defining pragmatics
2. Speech act theory
3. Gricean pragmatics
4. Linguistic politeness: models
5. Sociopragmatics: definition and scope
6. Research methods in sociopragmatics
7. Sociopragmatic variation: speech act realization
8. Sociopragmatic variation: conversational organization
9. Sociopragmatic variation: politeness
10. Sociopragmatics and gender
11. Interlanguage pragmatics and SLA
12. Pragmatics in language teaching

Sociolinguistics (NEW)
Ling, lect, 1-2, MAEN
Szabó Gilinger Eszter
MAEN: EAL szakirány (ANG-MA-AL3 Sociolinguistics)

The course provides an up-to-date overview of sociolinguistics, divided into several smaller sections
on different topics on the linguistic dimensions of gender, power, society and identity. Several
primary texts are going to be used as basic food for discussion in each class alongside secondary texts
chosen by students and presented in class. Both variationist and constructivist approaches are going
to be studied in order to give students a more complete understanding of what sociolinguistics is.
 Students are going to be evaluated in an oral exam, based on readings and their own
understanding of what sociolinguistics is and how is can be used as a methodology to study language,
identities, discourses and people.
Prerequisite: Social uses of language
Topics:
1. Variation 1 (Chambers 1-38)
2. Variation 2 (Chambers 163-174, 194–218)
3. Variation 3 (Holmes and Meyerhoff /Romaine 98–118)
4. Critical applied linguistics (Pennycook 1–23)
5. Sociolinguistics and power (Pennycook 46–73)
6. Gender 1 (Coulmas/Wodak and Benke 127–150)
7. Gender 2 (Holmes and Meyerhoff/Bucholtz 43–68)
8. Gender 3 (Holmes and Meyerhoff /McConnell-Ginet 69–98)
9. Identities 1 (Coulmas/Tabouret-Keller 315–326)
10. Identities 2 (Omoniyi 11–33)
11. Identities 3 (Pavlenko/Pavlenko 34–67)
12. Orthography as a social practice 1 (Sebba 26–57)
13. Orthography as a social practice 2 (Sebba 102–131)

Readings:
Chambers, J. K. 2003. Sociolinguistic theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
Coulmas, Florian. 1997. The Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Holmes, Janet and Meyerhoff, Miriam (eds). 2003. The handbook of language gender. Malden:
Blackwell.
Omoniyi, Tope and White, Goodith (eds). 2006. The sociolinguistics of identity. London; New York,
NY: Continuum.
Pavlenko, Aneta and Blackledge, Adrian (eds). 2006. Negotiation of identities in multilingual contexts
Clevedon Buffalo: Multilingual Matters.
Pennycook, Alastair. 2001. Critical applied linguistics : a critical introduction. Mahwah, N.J.: L.
Erlbaum.
Sebba, Mark. 2007. Spelling and society : the culture and politics of orthography around the world.
Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Approaches to English Linguistics (NEW)

Ling, lect, 2, MAEN
Kenesei István

The course offers an overview of the main trends, debates and theoretical approaches of
current, i.e., 20th-21st century, linguistics from Saussure to the present day. Topics include the
following: Saussure, structuralism, (linguistic) semiotics. Descriptive linguistics in the USA
(Bloomfield, Harris, Hockett). Sapir, Whorf, linguistic relativism. Chomsky and the influence of
Syntactic structures. The first mentalistic period of generative grammar and its aftermath: the
proliferation of grammatical theories (generative semantics, Lexical-functional grammar, head-driven
phrase structure grammar, etc.). Principles and parameters theory, minimalist program. Applications
of grammatical/linguistic theories: psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, cognitive science, language
technology. The rise of generative phonology and its subsequent trends. Chomsky and Halle's Sound
pattern of English, lexical, autosegmental, metrical phonologies, optimality theory. The effect of
Frege's ideas and the philosophy of language on (linguistic) semantics, the Cambridge philosophers
(Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein). The Oxford school of 'ordinary language philosophy' (Austin, Ryle,
Grice). Fundamentals of formal semantics. Problems and trends in cognitive semantics. Exam: written
exam (sample exam sheet made available during term).
Schedule
1. Saussure, structuralism, (linguistic) semiotics.
2. Descriptive linguistics in the USA (Bloomfield, Harris, Hockett).
3. Sapir, Whorf, linguistic relativism.
4. Chomsky and the influence of Syntactic structures.
5. The first mentalistic period of generative grammar and its aftermath.
6. The proliferation of grammatical theories (generative semantics, Lexical-functional grammar, head-
driven phrase structure grammar, etc.).
7. Principles and parameters theory, minimalist program.
8. Applications of grammatical/linguistic theories: psycholinguistics.
9. Applications of grammatical/linguistic theories: neurolinguistics, cognitive science.
10. Applications of grammatical/linguistic theories: language technology.
11. The rise of generative phonology and its subsequent trends. Chomsky and Halle's Sound pattern
of English.
12. Lexical, autosegmental, metrical phonologies, optimality theory.
13. The effect of Frege's ideas and the philosophy of language on (linguistic) semantics, the
Cambridge philosophers (Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein).
14. The Oxford school of 'ordinary language philosophy' (Austin, Ryle, Grice).
15. Fundamentals of formal semantics. Problems and trends in cognitive semantics.

Readings:
Archangeli, Diana, and D. Terence Langendoen. 1997. Optimality theory: An overview. Blackwell,
Oxford.
Haegeman, Liliane, and Jacqueline Guéron. 1999. English grammar. Blackwell, Oxford.
Hurford, James. 1994. Grammar: A student's guide. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Kenstowicz, Michael. 1994. Phonology in generative grammar. Blackwell, Oxford.
Lyons, John. 1996. Linguistic semantics: An introduction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Newmeyer, Frederick J. 1986. Linguistic Theory in America. Academic Press, Orlando.
Radford, Andrew. 2004. English syntax: An introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Seuren, Pieter A.M. 1998. Western linguistics: An historical introduction. Blackwell, Oxford.

Seminars

Bilingualism
Ling, sem, 2, MAEN, MAAM
Fenyvesi Anna
MAEN: mindhárom szakirány (any course, seminar), MAAM (Dissenting Voices in American Culture:
Language, Religion, Gender, Ethnicity)

The aim of the course is to give an overview of the most important aspects of bilingualism as a
societal and individual phenomenon from a variety of points of view: those of sociolinguistics, the
sociology of language, language contact, language acquisition, and psycholinguistics. Class sessions
will focus on aspects of bilingualism regardless of the languages in question, but, wherever possible,
a greater emphasis will be placed on discussing bilingual situations involving English and/or
Hungarian.
Prerequisite: Social Uses of English
Language Policy in the EU and Hungary (NEW)
Meth/ling, 2, sem, MATE, MAEN
Kontra Miklós
MATE (Language Policy in the EU and Hungary), MAEN (AL, any course seminar)

This seminar surveys basic issues in language policy in general, and those in the European Union and
Hungary in particular. Acquisition planning and the spread of English will be discussed in great detail.
Grades will be based on participation in classroom discussions and a mid-term and final essay.
Topics:
1) Ricento 2006: Language Policy: Theory and practice – an introduction
2) Phillipson 2003, chapter 1: The risks of laissez faire language policies
3) chapter 2: European languages: families, nations, empires, states
4) chapter 3: Global trends impacting on European language policy
5) chapter 4: Languages in EU institutions
6) chapter 5: towards equitable communication
7) chapter 6: Recommendations for action on language policies
8) Grin 2006: Economic Considerations in Language Policy
9) Phillipson 2008: Language policy and education in the European Union
10) Sándor 2006: Nyelvtervezés, nyelvpolitika, nyelvművelés
11) Bárdos 2009: Tanárképzési kontextusok különös tekintettel az angolra
12) Kontra 2009: A focihoz és a pedagógiához mindenki ért, a nyelvhez még a politikus is
Readings
Bárdos Jenő. 2009. Tanárképzési kontextusok különös tekintettel az angolra. In: Frank Tibor és Károly
Krisztina, szerk., Anglisztika és amerikanisztika: Magyar kutatások az ezredfordulón, 33–49.
Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó.
Grin, François. 2006. Economic Considerations in Language Policy. In: Ricento, Thomas, ed., An
Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, 77–94. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Kontra Miklós. 2009. A focihoz és a pedagógiához mindenki ért, a nyelvhez még a politikus is. Korunk
2009. május: 87–95.
Phillipson, Robert. 2003. English-Only Europe? Challenging Language Policy. London: Routledge.
Phillipson, Robert. 2008. Language policy and education in the European Union. In: May, Stephen and
Hornberger, Nancy H., eds., Language and political issues in education, volume 1 of
Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd edition, 255–265. New York: Springer.
Ricento, Thomas. 2006. Language Policy: Theory and practice – an introduction. In: Ricento, Thomas,
ed., An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, 10–23. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing.
Sándor Klára. 2006. Nyelvtervezés, nyelvpolitika, nyelvművelés. In: Kiefer Ferenc, főszerk., Magyar
nyelv, 958–995. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

Non-linear phonology
Ling, sem, 4-5, ENG, US (Limitation: 4-5 MAT writers only)
Polgárdi Krisztina
ENG (Kiegészítő nem nyelvi képzés, Kiegészítő szakképzés), US (Kiegészítő nem nyelvi képzés,
Kiegészítő szakképzés)

This course gives an introduction to non-linear phonology. After a brief overview of early generative
phonology, we will deal with three basic issues: (1) syllable structure, (2) melodic representations,
and (3) licensing relations. Phenomena such as stress, phonotactic restrictions, vowel ~ zero
alternation and lenition will be considered. Course book: Harris, J. (1994): English Sound Structure.
Evaluation is based on a mid-term test, homework assignments and a seminar paper. Since the
course is offered to students of the Theoretical Linguistics PhD Program, the language of the course is
Hungarian (although the readings are in English).

The Theory of Syntax

Ling, sem, 4-5, ENG, US
Kenesei István
ENG (Kiegészítő nem nyelvi képzés, Kiegészítő szakképzés), US (Kiegészítő nem nyelvi képzés,
Kiegészítő szakképzés)

Overview and various topics in the "Principles and Parameters" Theory (Government & Binding,
Minimalist Program) are discussed based on reading the relevant literature, i.e., papers and
(text)books by N. Chomsky, A. Radford, D. Adger, L. Haegeman, J. Gueron, etc. The purpose of the
course is to provide students with current knowledge in syntax, enabling them to carry out
independent work.

Literature
Lectures

A 2 Theories of British and American Literature and Culture

Lit, hist/cult, lect, survey, 1 MAEN, MAAM, 4-5 US, ENG
Rozsnyai Bálint
MA1 Survey Lect ANAM-MA2; AMB3-22 , -11, ANGB3-11, ANGB3-311,
AMB3-22, -11,  EN (ANGB3-11 Literary/Cultural Theory, ANGB3-311), MAB3-311

The course introduces the students to 20th century theories of literature, literary history, studies of
culture, and cultural studies, with special relevance to American culture and American Studies. The
course focuses on the shift of modernist to postmodernist traditions or "paradigms" and discusses
the significant European (Continental and British) positions which shaped American approaches to
culture. Finally, through the presentation of various models of American Studies as cultural studies, I
hope to introduce still functional and viable procedures and tools of the trade. Grading: mid-term
test -30%, final examination (test and essay question)--70% of course grade

The Multimediality of Culture

Lit, hist/cult, lect, survey, 1 MAEN (all tracks), MATE, 4-5 ENG, US
Szőnyi György Endre
MA1 Survey lecture

Modern literary and cultural theory distinguishes two major 'turns' since the crystallization of the
humanities disciplines in the 19th century. These are the 'linguistic turn' which occured in the first
half of the 20th century, primarily inspired by the concepts of Ferdinand de Saussure; and the
'pictorial or iconic turn' which emerged in the last quarter of the 20th century. The chief
theoreticians of the latter are the American W. J. T. Mitchell and the German art historian, Hans
Belting. It is quite obvious that Anglo-American culture cannot be examined without taking into
consideration the above theoretical concerns which then have to be completed by case studies,
applied to various media of cultural representations.
The course primarily relies on the methods and achievements of classical and postmodern iconology
but also refers to semiotics and poststructuralist subject-theories on the one hand and traditional
philology on the other. Topics include the multimediality of cultural representations, image-word
relations throughout the centuries, the reconfiguring of the text into hypertext, aesthetic
reception/production of visual arts (painting, photography, cinema), embodied experience of space,
spectacularity, distinctions betweeen the unspeakable / unimaginable / unbelievable / impossible in
a post-traumatic culture, and the move towards the 'corporeal turn' and the 'museum turn'.

Histories of Women’s Writing in English

Lit, lect, survey, MAEN Gend
Kérchy Anna
MAEN C5

Women writers from late 18th century up to the present have always been searching for a literary
tradtion of their own, and from Mary Wollstonecraft, Elizabeth Browning, Virginia Woolf to Doris
Lessing or Joanna Russ often put the question where their literary grandmothers are, whom they
could follow and/or reject.The objective of this lecture course is to read and study the attempts and
the stages of writing feminist literary history revising the canon, and how the emergence of the
second and third wave feminist literary theory supported and/or interrogated the validity, as well as
the relevance of the concept ’a literature of their own.’ Histories of women’s writing involves a study
of the history of the ’images of women’ literary criticism, the ’resisiting reader’ critical approach,
gynocriticism: developing a woman-centered analysis, gynesis: the history of the textualizing of
woman, the history of ’écriture féminine’ emphasizing not the gender of the writer (female), but the
writing effect of the text (feminine), as well as the histories of black and third world women’s writing
in English.

Race, Class, and Gender in English and American Literature and Culture (NEW)
Lit, lect, survey, MAEN Gend
Federmayer Éva
MAEN C4, lect, survey, gender

The interlocking categories of race, class, and gender/sexuality shape our experiences and structure
our identities. Also known as the theory of intersectionality, this new conceptual framework seeks to
expose processes of domination in complex ways.The lecture will address approaches to the
imbrication of race, class, and gender/sexuality and examines various cultural and literary texts to
show their operation. Particular attention is paid to the revisions of the cultural canons in the wake
of the various social movements, such as the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Rights
Movement, the Ethnic Renaissances and various Sexual Liberation movements. Requirements:
attendance; written exam based on the lectures and the reading assignments in the Reader (at JATE
Press). Schedule:
1 Introduction
2-3 The conceptual framework
4-5 Whiteness, class, and gender
6-7 Blackness, class, and gender
8-9 Mixed-race, class, and gender
10-11 The representation of blackness in American cinema
12-13 Race, class, and gender in the New Negro Renaissance
14-15 Post-race narratives and the ’cultural mulatto’

English Renaissance Drama and Cultures of Performance (NEW)

Lit, lect, MAEN Cult
Matuska Ágnes
MAEN Cult C4, survey lecture

These lectures will provide students with a critical analysis of the major achievements in the history of
English drama before the Restoration, as well as an apparatus of theoretical and interpretive tools to be
employed in the contextual understanding of the dramatic achievement of the early modern period. The
course will focus on problems of interrelationships between dramatic art and the dominant cultural,
political, representational discourses that informed the development of specific modes of dramatic
expression. Special emphasis will be laid upon genre-generating factors, the logic of staging and actual
forms of theatricality, the problems in historical reconstruction, and the semiotics of social theatricality
and representational techniques. Early modern English drama will be understood as a mode of social
expression in a society of spectacle and performance, the interpretation of which necessitates the study
of traditions of iconography, emblematology, role-playing and social entertainment, as well as the
general constituents of the epistemological crisis of the period. Key-words: representation,
iconography, iconology, emblem, epistemological crisis, world models, semiotic typology of cultures,
subject, subjectivity, abjection, catharsis, emblematic theater, tragedy of consciousness, essentialism,
historicism, new historicism, cultural materialism, heterogeneity, self-fashioning, body, unsconscious.
Topics to be discussed:
1. Medieval, classical and popular origins of English drama. Drama as social expresion and literary genre.
Preliminary problems in the semiotics of drama.
2. English Renaissance drama and Elizabethan theatricality. Problems in the typology of Renaissance
culture. The logic of the emblematic theatre. “Making greatness familiar.” The "founding fathers": Kyd
and Marlowe.
3. Shakespeare: the undecidabilities of poetic drama. The chronicles and the comedies.
4. Shakespeare: the tragedies and the romances. Shakespeare revised: new historicism, deconstruction,
decanonization.
5. The "contemporaries" and "the decadence of the Jacobean stage."
Jonson, Chapman, Webster, Heywood, Middleton, Marston. From emblematic to photographic theatre.
Primary readings 
Kyd The Spanish Tragedy, Marlowe Doctor Faustus, Shakespeare Richard III, A Midsummer Night's
Dream, Measure for Measure, Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, The Tempest, Jonson Volpone, Middleton
The Revenger's Tragedy, Webster The Duchess  of Malfi, Marston The Malcontent, Middleton – Rowley
The Changeling
Secondary readings
BELSEY, Catherine, 1985. The Subject of Tragedy. Identity and Difference in Renaissance Drama. London
and New York: Methuen.
BERGERON, David M. (ed.) 1985. Pageantry in the Shakespearean Theater. University of Georgia Press.
BRADBROOK, M.C. 1969. Themes and Conventions of Elizabethan Tragedy. Cambridge University Press.
DOLLIMORE, Jonathan, 1984. Radical Tragedy. Religion, Ideology and Power in the Drama of
Shakespeare and His Contemporaries. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
DOLLIMORE, J. - & SINFIELD, A. (eds.) 1985. Political Shakespeare. Cornell University Press.
DRAKAKIS, John (ed.) 1992. Shakespearean Tragedy. London: Longman Limited.
DRAKAKIS, John (ed.) 1985. Alternative Shakespeares. London and New York: Methuen.
FABINY, Tibor (ed.) 1984. Shakespeare and the Emblem. Studies in Renaissance Iconography and
Iconology. Szeged: Attila József  University.
KASTAN, D.S & STALLYBRASS, P. (eds.), 1991. Staging the  Renaissance. Reinterpretations of Elizabethan
and Jacobean Drama. London and New York: Routledge.
McALINDON, Thomas, 1986. English Renaissance Tragedy. Macmillan.
WEIMANN, Robert, 1978. Shakespeare and the Popular Tradition in the Theater. Baltimore and London:
The Johns Hopkins University Press.
WELLS, Stanley (ed), 1986. The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies. Cambridge:
Cambridge U. P.
WICKHAM, Glynne, 1963. Early English Stages. 1300 to 1600. Volume Two 1576 to 1660, Part One.
New York: Columbia U. P.

Seminars

Madwomen in the Attic: Women, Writing and Madness

Lit, sem, MAEN Gend, Cult (any course, sem), 4-5 ENG, US, PhD
Kérchy Anna
MAEN C6 Gender Track Seminar, MAEN D3 Cultural Studies

Freud’s 1905 case-study on Dora, the young hysteric woman peaked in the birth of psychoanalysis, while
The Madwoman in the Attic, Gilbert and Gubar’s vast 1979 study on 19 th and 20th century women writers
became an ultimate reference point in gender studies. Tracing the connections between madness (hysteria,
schizophrenia, psychosis, neurosis, etc.), femininity, subjectivity, authorship and writing has been a
challenging project ever since. The course proposes to analyse literary, filmic and theoretical
representations of women and madness examining the discursive construction, the engendering social
surveillance, as well as the transgressive potentials of the ‘female malady,’ focusing on the question: Is the
madwoman a victim of patriarchal oppression, a silenced ‘leaking vessel’ of the ‘wandering womb’ or an
empowering figure of female rebellion and creativity, speaking up in an embodied, subversive voice? The
material to be discussed includes theoretical texts by S. Freud, Toril Moi, E. Bronfen, Gilbert and Gubar,
Cixous and Clément, Elaine Showalter, Shoshana Felman, Barbara Johnson, Alice Jardine, poems by Emily
Dickinson, Adrienne Rich, Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, short stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Joyce Carol
Oates, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and its rewritings (Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca,
Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea), Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, Virginia
Woolf’s Moments of Being, Muriel Spark’s The Driver’s Seat, Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, a medieval
treatise on witchcraft the Malleus Maleficarum, as well as Roman Polanski’s film Repulsion, and John
Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence.
Grading policy: participation, presentation (30%), homework booklogs (30%), final essay/test (40%)

Literature and the Semiotics of the Subject

Lit, sem, MAEN Cult, Gend (any course, sem), PhD
Kiss Attila
MAEN D3 Gender Studies, C7 Cultural Studies

1. Objectives:
Recent developments in (literary) theory and the semiotics of the speaking subject reveal that the study
of literature presupposes an understanding of how meaning emerges in the human subject through a
socio-historically specific situatedness. The theory of this positioning of the subject involves psycho-
analytical, sociological and semiological approaches to both the macrodynamics of social discursive
practices and the microdynamics of individual meaning-production.
This course aims at introducing students into the above theoretical issues through the study of a
representative selection of works on the theory of the subject. We will concentrate on the problem of
interaction between text and reader, and investigate how they mutually produce each other in a
semiotic model.
2. Scheduled topics:
1.The theory of the subject and the critique of the sign.
Preliminary problems in the theory of communication.
2.Ideology, power-technologies and the constitution of the subject.
3.Psychoanalysis, symbolization and the constitution of the subject.
4.The problem of the extra-linguistic and the borderlines of meaning in literat ure: abjection and the
subject-in-process.
5.Problematizing the "brute materiality of the Letter": surplus, containment and expenditure.
6.Notes towards a theory of practice.
3. Grading policy:
a/attendance, participation in discussions, reading journals, presentations: 40%
b/Home paper (8 pages, on one of three topics to be specified later, Style Sheet should be observed,
40% content, 10% language, 10% apparatus, to be submitted on last Friday of classes): 60%

Ezra Pound’s Cantos (NEW)

Lit, sem, MAAM, 4-5 ENG, US,
Novák György
AM-MA_D7 Challenges to American Literary Canon

The course will discuss The Cantos, the main work of Ezra Pound, one of the most important and
influential figures of 20th-century American literature. The aim of the course is to show how The
Cantos embodied most of what Pound regarded as important to express in literature - as well as the
way he viewed the role/position of litterati in the 20th century, along with the pitfalls, economic,
political, aesthetic and other, that he failed to avoid. List of topics to be covered: The long poem (in
American literature); The Cantos, Ulysses, and The Waste Land; Quest, picaresque, going home;
Metamorphoses; Creating Paradise; Ching ming to chung; The end that’s missing. Required readings
will include Kenner, Hugh: The Pound Era. University of California Press: Berkeley, 1971. Surette,
Leon: Pound in Purgatory. From Economic Radicalism to Anti-Semitism. University of Illinois Press:
Urbana, 1999.

American Travel Writing (NEW)

Lit, hist/cult, sem, MAAM, 4-5 ENG, US
Kovács Ágnes Zsófia
The Rhetoric of American Literature
AMMA 15. sor: AM-MA-D6
4-5 AM EN: AMB3-21, AMB3-312 ANGB3-21, ANB3-312

Travel writing has always been intimately linked with the construction of national identity. Occupying
the space between fact and fiction, it exposes cultural problems and reveals the changing desires and
anxieties of both the traveler and the reading public. The objective of the course is twofold: both to
explore the function of travel writing as a means of constructing a national identity in general and to
focus on American examples of this process in particular. The course traces the journeys taken by
American travel writers from the pre-revolutionary period right up to the present. We are going to
examine a wide range of responses to the problems posed by landscapes found both at home and
abroad, from the Mississippi and the Southwest to Europe and the Holy Land. Requirements and
evaluation: journals = 40%, final = 60%, Grading: 0-50=1, 51-65=2, 66-76=3, 77-89=4, 90-100=5
Topics
1. Travel writing and the definition and formulation of national identity.
2. The American landscape: from NYC to the Niagara. Thoreau, Hawthorne, James
3. The Mississippi, Mark Twain, Huck Finn, Life on the Mississippi.
4. The Southwest; Jack Kerouac, On the Road.
5. Americans Abroad: Europe before the Civil War, Henry Adams
 6. Europe from H. James to the present 1. Mark Twain Innocents Abroad,
7. Europe from James to the present 2. Henry Miller, The Tropic of Cancer
8. Holy Land, Hannah Arendt, Eichman in Jerusalem. Saul Bellow, To Jerusalem.
9. Latin America; John Steinbeck, The Sea of Cortez.
10. Social Scenes: African-American travel writing, Richard Wright, W.E.B. DiBois
11. Travel writing by American women 1. Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place.
12. Travel Writing by American Women 2. Maya Angelou. All God’s Children.
Optional reading list
Hulme, Peter and Tim Youngs, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing. C. CUP, 2002.
Bendix, Alfred and Judith Hamera, eds. The Cambridge Companion to American Travel Writing. C:
CUP, 2009.
Pratt, Marie Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge, 2003
(1992)
Todorov, Tzvetan. The Conquest of America. The Question of the Other. Tr. Richard Howard. New
York: HarperCollins, 1984.

History/Culture
Lectures

Theories of British and American Literature and Culture 

Hist/cult, lect, 1 MAEN, MAAM
Rozsnyai Bálint

The course introduces the students to 20th century theories of literature, literary history,
studies of culture, and  cultural studies, with special relevance to American culture and
American Studies. The course focuses on the shift of modernist to postmodernist traditions or
„paradigms” and discusses the significant European (Continental and British) positions which
shaped American approaches to culture. Finally, through the presentation of various models
of  American Studies as cultural studies, I hope to introduce still functional and viable
procedures and tools of the trade. Grading: mid-term test –30%, final examination (test and
essay question)—70% of course grade

Colonies to Empire through Transatlantic Dimensions

Hist/cult, lect, survey, 1, MAAM, 4-5 ENG, US
Vajda Zoltán
AM-MA-A1 U.S. History

The aim of the course is to survey major issues in the development of American history from
colonial times to the twenty-first century in order to show how, rooted in colonial traditions,
originally imported from the old country but developed in the new world, the USA became
the sole superpower by the beginning of the twenty-first century. Particular emphasis is laid
on the causes, course and consequences/results of the American revolution, the making of the
Constitution, the thrust of modernity in the nineteenth century as well as the economic and
social development of the USA in the twentieth that launched it as a superpower. The course
concludes with a written examination.

American Cultural Studies

Hist/cult, lect, survey, MAAM, 4-5 ENG, US
Federmayer Eva
AMB3-11, Lit/cult theory, ANGB3-11

The objective of this course is to give a handle on some of the most exciting issues of contemporary
American Cultural Studies inflected by recent developments in this multidisciplinary project. We start
with charting the territory of American studies signposted by its institutional framework and
conceptual grounds, then we proceed to explore its recent affiliations with green studies, dance
studies, musicology, and critical race studies. The lecture also seeks to provide students with a basic
tool kit to integrate electronic resources into their study of ACS. The course ends with a sample exam
to make sure students understand the requirements and organize their final preparations
accordingly.

Requirements: regular attendance, midterm and final exam (written) based on the readings and the
lectures.
Readings: Reader to be deposited at the library.

Gendering Theory, Theories of Gender

Hist/cult, lect, survey, 1 MAEN, all tracks, 4-5 ENG, US
Barát Erzsébet

The lecture is designed to advance a dialogue about the implications of the various academic
theorizations of the categories of sex, gender, and sexuality from the 1970s to the beginning
of the 21st century in literary criticism, cultural studies and linguistics. Based on the critical
readings of both classic and recent texts, we shall explore the insights and subversive potential
we can gain from ‘gender’, the key concept of feminism/s and that of ‘sexuality’ developed
by radical feminism and the 1990s generation of queer theory. Our ultimate aim is to go
beyond the unproductive polarization between social historical versus cultural materialist
approaches to culture, literature, and language use. This means that we are neither taking
‘women’ as a pre-given social group/category that is straightforwardly taken to be comparable
with its cultural ‘images’, ‘representations’. Nor are we going to accept the introduction of
‘femininity’ in its stead that hinges on contingent sexual difference. Instead, the course is
hoped to seek a more integrative account of the complex hegemonic relations between gender
and sexuality, destabilizing the (theoretically) assumed reductive continuities between
anatomical sex, social gender, gender identity, sexual practice, sexual desire, and sexual
identity as well as its allegedly infinite dis-embodied playful act of performances. As a result,
we shall not slide from a falsely universalistic ‘woman’ (social essentialism) to a falsely
individualised ‘feminine identity’ (cultural essentialism) but argue for gender and sexuality
relations to be integral to the formation of the cultural filed, including the understanding of
the most relevant conceptual terms, such as authorship, modernism, the distinction between
high and popular culture, co-operative and competitive language strategies.

The Rise of Popular Culture

Hist/cult, lect, 2 MAEN Cult, 4-5 ENG, US
Barát Erzsébet
The Rise of Popular Culture

This course introduces the diversity of approaches to the study of popular culture. It offers an
awareness of cultural studies as a discipline in its own right, and contrasts this with other
approaches drawn from different disciplinary foundations. It explores how different
backgrounds and methodologies change our notions of what popular, mass, folk, and
subculture versus high culture, arts should consist of as well as the various political
implications of such distinctions. At the same time we shall also address the issues of popular
culture as post-modern culture and as globalization, with a particular focus on further internal
differentiations of popular versus unpopular form of cultural production. By the end of the
course students should develop an awareness of different theoretical approaches to (the
invention of) popular culture, namely the changes in the various intellectual discourses that
articulate the distinctions. At the same time students will also acquire the ability to evaluate
and analyze texts critically in relation to their social embeddedness, and to identify the key
concerns in the debates around the emerging range of meanings of ‘popular’ culture and their
‘ordinary’ audiences.

Digital Theory: The Language of New Media

Cult/hist, lect, survey, 1, MAAM, 2 MAAM, 4-5 US, ENG
Dragon Zoltán
06. Visual representations: American arts and media (MAAM); MAAM 2: any course,
lecture, Kiegészítő nem nyelvi képzés (incl. MAT-rel.) – AMB3-2 ill. ANGB3-2

The aim of this course is to analyze the language of new media by placing it within the history
of modern visual and media cultures. What are the ways in which new media relies on older
cultural forms and languages and what are the ways in which it breaks with them? What is
unique about how new media objects create the illusion of reality, address the viewer, and
represent space and time? How do conventions and techniques of old media—such as the
rectangular frame, mobile viewpoint and montage—operate in new media? If we are to
construct an archeology which will connect new computer-based techniques of media creation
with previous techniques of representation and simulation, where should we locate the
essential historical breaks? To answer these questions, we will look at several areas of new
media: Websites, virtual worlds, VR, multimedia, computer games, interactive installations,
computer animation, digital video, cinema, and human-computer interfaces.

Seminars
Cultural Poetics of America
Hist/cult, sem, 2 MAAM, 4-5 ENG, US
Cristian Réka M.
American Culture in Historical Context - AM-MA-D2, AMB3-2

The course aims to present the connections between the field(s) of cultural studies and the
American experience; targets to examine the tensions that exist within the multifaceted and
multi-cultural mix of American life and facilitates glimpses into complex contexts that best
describe the discourses of America. The tools for introspection include academic essays about
global and local culture, objects of everyday use and art making, kitsch and commerce,
politics and identity, representations of personal histories and cultures, of relationships
perceived in the designs and forms of different sets of artefacts, and the way they relate to
organizing principles that tie a whole society together, and how, over time and individual
responses, these shift. During the semester we will 1) develop interdisciplinary research skills
in the domain of American studies; 2) understand how seemingly unimportant cultural
changes of everyday life can be used as tools in the academic interpretation of a given culture
as such; 3) evaluate and synthesize popular culture within American studies 4) utilize the
acquired research skills in preparing and presenting an individual research paper on one of the
topics commonly agreed with the course tutor. Classes will be a combination of presentations,
discussions and team-work. Grading: 20% participation, 30% presentation, 50% final paper
10-12 pages long.  Primary readings: Neil Campbell and Alasdair Kean American Cultural
Studies. An Introduction to American Culture (Routledge: New York, 1997), Rob Kroes If
You’ve Seen One, You’ve Seen the Mall. Europeans and American Mass Culture (U of
Illinois P, Urbana and Chicago, 1996), Jean Baudrillard Amerika, Ford. Tótfalusi Ágnes
(Magvető: Budapest, 1996), Stephen Fry in America (BBC 6 series, 2008).

The Iconology of American Painting

Hist/cult, sem, MAAM, 4-5 ENG, US
Annus Iren
MAAM 12. sor (Am Arts and Their Contexts), ENG, US (kiegeszito nem nyelvi kepzes), AMB3-23
(research methods in Am Studies)

Rooted in the iconological tradition of Panofsky and Mitchell, the course pursues: (1) the
boundaries of reading pieces of American painting, both public and domestic within the
context of contemporary American cultural and social milieu; and (2) the possible relations to
written pieces by American authors, with the purpose of deepening our understanding of
possible social, cultural and political realities out of which these pieces have emerged as well
as the realities they may attempt to convey to the reader.

Film Noir and the American Film

Cult/hist, sem, 2 MAAM, 4-5 US, ENG
Dragon Zoltán
13. American Film Arts and the Media (MAAM); Kiegészítő nem nyelvi képzés (incl. MAT-rel.) –
AMB3-2 ill. ANGB3-2;

Paris, summer of 1946: a moment that marks an important event in film history, for this was
the summer when, after the hiatus of World War II, French moviegoers were again given the
chance to see films from Hollywood. The films they could then see (The Maltese Falcon and
Double Indemnity among them) prompted the naming and theorization of a new phenomenon:
film noir. The course offers an insight into the still ongoing critical and theoretical debates on
film noir: whether it is a genre or a cycle, or none at all; the re-emergence of noir in recent
years primarily in hybrid forms merging it with science fiction and horror; or the somewhat
“lethal” relation between the sexes, the roles and cultural background of the hard-boiled
detective and the femme fatale. The preliminary list of films tries to cover the wide range of
issues: Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Blade
Runner, and Femme Fatale.

Advanced Research Methods

Hist/cult, sem, 2, MAEN (all tracks)
Barát Erzsébet

This seminar prepares students to learn about the major ways and most recent developments
of doing qualitative research methods in culture studies, as well as applied linguistics and
gender studies. The course will be focused on interdisciplinary approaches organized around
three thematic issues: methods, self-reflection, and theoretical and conceptual exploration.
The students will read sample researches and self-reflections on the research procedure by top
names in the chosen field of research to help students learn how to develop their own
methodology in response to the need of the changing design of their projects. They will be
asked to reflect on their own research projects regarding the questions of how to
conceptualize the ‘problem’ and its consequences for selecting and approaching data, sorting
and coding, the ways of reading for emphasis, details and gaps, as well as presenting and
interpreting the ‘results’ of analysis. Finally, we shall address questions of internal and
external ‘validity’ in qualitative approaches where the analysis is concerned with meaning and
the complex – textually mediated – process of its production.

Research Methods in the Information Society (NEW)

Cult/lit, sem, MAEN (all tracks)

Péter Róbert

This seminar prepares students to learn quantitative and qualitative research methods in
culture studies, literary studies as well as applied linguistics and gender studies. As far as
quantitative methods are concerned, students will be introduced to statistical thinking. The
course is designed to assist young researchers in applying the proper statistical procedure to
their data and reporting results in a professional manner consistent with commonly accepted
practice. They will study SPSS examples, learning about how to plan a study, prepare data for
analysis in SPSS, perform the analysis, and interpret the SPSS output.
It will also offer interdisciplinary qualitative methods organized around three thematic issues:
methodology, epistemological reflection, and theoretical and conceptual exploration. They
will also read sample researches and reflections on the research procedure by top names in the
chosen field of research to help them learn how to develop their own methodology in response
to the need of their changing design. They will also be offered an expanded list of suggested
readings, arranged thematically within their chosen framework of research, including relevant
websites and electronic databases.
Reading:
Bercovitch, Sacvan. ”The Problem of Idelogy in a Time of Dissensus” The Rites of Assent:
Transformation in the Symbolic Construction of America. New York & London:
Routledge, 1993. 353-376.
Berry, Ralph. The Research Project. London: Routledge, 2001 (1966).
Bollobás, Enikő. ”Dangerous Liaisons: Politics and Epistemology in Post-Cold War
American Studies.” American Quarterly 54(Dec. 2002): 4. 563-579.
Clandinin, Jean. Handbook of Narrative Inquiry: Mapping a Methodology. London: Sage.
2006.
Eco, Umberto. Hogyan írjunk szakdolgozatot? Budapest: Gondolat, 1994.
Federmayer, Éva. ”American Studies in Hungary” EJAS 2006 (Online) Available:
http://ejas.revues.org/document451.html, access: 06 June, 2006.
Ickstadt, Heinz. ”American Studies in the Age of Globalization” American Quarterly 54(Dec.
2002): 4. 542-562.
Maynard, Mary and June Purvis (eds.) Researching Women’s Lives from a Feminist
Perspective. London: Taylor and Francis. 1994.
Reinard, C. John. Communication Research Statistics. London: Sage.
Seale, Clive (ed.) 1998. researching Society and Culture. London: Sage.
Stanczak, C. Gregory. Visual Research Methods Image, Society, and Representation. London:
Sage. 2006.

MATE
Lectures

The Multimediality of Culture

Lit, lect, 1, MAEN, MATE, 4-5, ENG, US
Szőnyi-György Endre

Modern literary and cultural theory distinguishes two major 'turns' since the crystallization of the
humanities disciplines in the 19th century. These are the 'linguistic turn' which occurred in the first
half of the 20th century, primarily inspired by the concepts of Ferdinand de Saussure; and the
'pictorial or iconic turn' which emerged in the last quarter of the 20th century. The chief
theoreticians of the latter are the American W. J. T. Mitchell and the German art historian, Hans
Belting. It is quite obvious that Anglo-American culture cannot be examined without taking into
consideration the above theoretical concerns which then have to be completed by case studies,
applied to various media of cultural representations.
The course primarily relies on the methods and achievements of classical and postmodern iconology
but also refers to semiotics and poststructuralist subject-theories on the one hand and traditional
philology on the other. Topics include the multimediality of cultural representations, image-word
relations throughout the centuries, the reconfiguring of the text into hypertext, aesthetic
reception/production of visual arts (painting, photography, cinema), embodied experience of space,
spectacularity, distinctions between the unspeakable / unimaginable / unbelievable / impossible in a
post-traumatic culture, and the move towards the 'corporeal turn' and the 'museum turn'.

Seminars

English Phonetics and Phonology for Teachers

Meth, sem, 1, MATE
Kontra Miklós

The aim of the course is to familiarise students with regional, social and stylistic varieties of English
regarding phonetics/pronunciation, to enable them to transfer these issues as the minimum
requirements into their language classes; to present the successful and less successful
phonetic/pronunciation characteristics of communicating in English; in addition, to deal with typical
language learning and language use problems of Hungarian learners’ of English. The course is
assessed on the basis of homework assignments, as well as presentations, based on small-scale
empirical research, preparation for and participation in class.

English Grammar for Teachers

Meth, sem, 1, MATE
Pálos Ildikó

The main aim of the course is to examine English grammar from a language learning and teaching
perspective. In order to realise this aim, English morpho-syntax, basic phonology and pragmatics, and
relevant classroom processes will be in the centre of attention. The course provides opportunities for
teacher trainees to consider different practical and concrete ways of possible application of their
grammatical knowledge in the classroom. The course focuses on encouraging students to look at
grammar from socio-communicative perspective. The course is assessed on the basis of weekly
assignments related to grammar teaching, two grammatical proficiency tests, and a presentation of a
paper in the field of teaching grammar.

Language Policy in the EU and Hungary (NEW)

Meth, sem, 2 MATE, ling, 2 MAEN (any course seminar, AL)
Kontra Miklós

This seminar surveys basic issues in language policy in general, and those in the European Union and
Hungary in particular. Acquisition planning and the spread of English will be discussed in great detail.
Grades will be based on participation in classroom discussions and a mid-term and final essay.
Topics:
1) Ricento 2006: Language Policy: Theory and practice – an introduction
2) Phillipson 2003, chapter 1: The risks of laissez faire language policies
3) chapter 2: European languages: families, nations, empires, states
4) chapter 3: Global trends impacting on European language policy
5) chapter 4: Languages in EU institutions
6) chapter 5: towards equitable communication
7) chapter 6: Recommendations for action on language policies
8) Grin 2006: Economic Considerations in Language Policy
9) Phillipson 2008: Language policy and education in the European Union
10) Sándor 2006: Nyelvtervezés, nyelvpolitika, nyelvművelés
11) Bárdos 2009: Tanárképzési kontextusok különös tekintettel az angolra
12) Kontra 2009: A focihoz és a pedagógiához mindenki ért, a nyelvhez még a politikus is
Readings
Bárdos Jenő. 2009. Tanárképzési kontextusok különös tekintettel az angolra. In: Frank Tibor és Károly
Krisztina, szerk., Anglisztika és amerikanisztika: Magyar kutatások az ezredfordulón, 33–49.
Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó.
Grin, François. 2006. Economic Considerations in Language Policy. In: Ricento, Thomas, ed., An
Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, 77–94. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Kontra Miklós. 2009. A focihoz és a pedagógiához mindenki ért, a nyelvhez még a politikus is. Korunk
2009. május: 87–95.
Phillipson, Robert. 2003. English-Only Europe? Challenging Language Policy. London: Routledge.
Phillipson, Robert. 2008. Language policy and education in the European Union. In: May, Stephen and
Hornberger, Nancy H., eds., Language and political issues in education, volume 1 of
Encyclopedia of Language and Education, 2nd edition, 255–265. New York: Springer.
Ricento, Thomas. 2006. Language Policy: Theory and practice – an introduction. In: Ricento, Thomas,
ed., An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method, 10–23. Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing.
Sándor Klára. 2006. Nyelvtervezés, nyelvpolitika, nyelvművelés. In: Kiefer Ferenc, főszerk., Magyar
nyelv, 958–995. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

English language teaching methodology 2: Skills and practices

Meth, sem, 1 MATE, 3-4 ENG, US
Bukta Katalin

The course is the second part of the methodology training and will cover the four skill areas
(listening, speaking, reading and writing), dealing with errors, testing and lesson planning. Some
current coursebooks and set reading passages will be discussed and evaluated. A variety of teaching
modes will be employed: mini lectures, peer observations, pair- and groupwork, problem solving,
discovery learning, loop-input, etc. The course will be assessed on the basis of class performance and
assignments at the end of the semester.

Vocabulary Acquisition for Teachers

Meth, sem, 1-2 MATE
Doró Katalin
MATE any course sem

This course in the English teacher training MA program recognizes the central role that lexical
knowledge plays in the communicative competence and in the acquisition of a second language. The
course provides a comprehensive overview of the role of vocabulary in language learning, language
teaching, language use and language testing. The topics discussed will include: aspects of knowing a
word, vocabulary in discourse, the role of vocabulary in reading, writing, listening and speaking,
implicit and explicit learning, vocabulary learning strategies, vocabulary teaching, assessment of
vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary building materials. The course will also highlight the
importance of learners’ first language, age, motivation and overall language proficiency in lexical
acquisition. These issues will help students to, on the one hand, understand how they can improve
their own language competence, and, on the other hand, to prepare them for the application of
research tools and existing written and online materials to their own classroom teaching, testing and
material design.

Language Testing (Methodology Option)

Meth, sem 1 MATE, 3, 4-5, ENG, US
Bukta Katalin
MATE any course sem

The course focuses on testing in ELT classes and aims at familiarizing teacher trainees
with the basic theories in language testing. In addition, test construction and evaluation techniques
will be presented. Bearing in mind communicative language teaching, testing is based on the four
skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. Testing vocabulary and grammar will also be included.
The current state of art in language testing in Hungary will also be discussed.

Old MATE
Seminars

English language teaching methodology 1: Theories and practices

Meth, sem, 3-4, ENG, US
Bukta Katalin

The course is the first part of a two-semester course, and will deal with the following issues of
teaching English: language teaching methods and approaches, teacher and student roles, classroom
observation, classroom management, teaching vocabulary. A variety of teaching modes be
employed: presentations, pair and groupwork, discovery learning, etc. The course will be assessed on
the basis of homework assignments, as well as preparation for and participation in class.
Culture in ELT (Methodology Option)
Meth, sem, 3, 4-5, ENG, US,
Tápainé Balla Ágnes

When teaching English as a foreign language it is important to supplement language learning with
information about the culture of English-speaking countries. For the purposes of this course ‘culture’
means knowledge about the everyday life of people, as well as their history, and art. This course has
a dual aim: while expanding Ss’ knowledge about cultural topics, learning how to prepare and teach
culture-related materials for the ELT classroom. The proposed topics include: Arts; Technical
Innovations, Scientists, Researchers; History, Politics, Legal System (Parties, Elections, Royal Family,
etc.); Geography, Climate; Sights; Holidays; Miscellaneous (Sports, Educational system, Dialects, etc.)

Differentiated Learning and Cooperative Techniques ((Methodology Option)

Meth, sem, 3, 4-5, ENG, US,
Pálos Ildikó

The course aims to explore the hot issue of differences among learners from a number perspectives
and to give practical ideas regarding how we can tailor our teaching to suit these differences –
ie. make our teaching as individualized as possible. The course also gives an introduction to
cooperative learning, as well as practice in some basic techniques that can be employed to
make our learners work cooperatively in this highly individualistic culture we live in.

MATELev
Lectures

The Multimediality of Culture

Meth. lect. MATElev

Modern literary and cultural theory distinguishes two major "turns" since the crystallization of the
humanities disciplines in the 19 th century. These are the "linguistic turn" which occurred in the first
half of the 20th century, primarily inspired by the concepts of Ferdinand de Saussure, and the
"pictorial or iconic turn" which emerged in the last quarter of the 20 th century. The chief
theoreticians of the latter are the American W. J. T. Mitchell and the German art historian, Hans
Belting. It is obvious that Anglo-American culture cannot be examined without taking into
consideration the above theoretical concerns, which then have to be completed by case studies,
applied to various media of cultural representations. The course primarily relies on the methods and
achievements of classical and postmodern iconology but also refers to semiotics and poststructuralist
subject-theories on the one hand and traditional philology on the other. Topics include the
multimediality of cultural representations, image-word relations throughout the centuries,
concluding with such up-to-date phenomena as film, hypertext, and computer applications.

Second Language Acquisition

Meth. lect. MATElev

This course will consider topics in second language acquisition, which are of interest to teachers of
English. The focus will be on the learners, their language, the internal processes, which affect
acquisition, and effects of instruction. In doing this, a variety of topics will be touched on including:
the effect of previously learned languages on the learning of additional languages; interaction and
input; cognitive process and language learning; individual differences including the effects of age and
learning strategies on language learning; and questions of what constitutes possible and best
classroom practices in general.

Discourse as an Interdisciplinary Concept

Meth. lect. MATElev

The concept of discourse plays an increasingly significant role in contemporary social

sciences and humanities. The lecture aims to explain the prominence of the concept and
explore the difference its introduction makes instead of deploying language and/or text as if a
synonym. As for the trajectory of the changes to the concept, we shall address its shift from a
narrow, structuralist account to the post-structuralist, and post-Marxist critical approaches that
draw on Foucault’s model. At the same time, students will be introduced to sample analyses
from the different scientific fields in order to make them see that no attempt at actual
discourse analysis should take discourse as given but provide supporting linguistic/textual
categories of analysis and arguments for the particular labelling of the discourses in question,
including those of the analyst. The ultimate aim is to find ways of establishing the
specificities of the text/context articulations that make up various orders of discourse any
given text draws on.

Seminars

English language teaching methodology 1: Theories and principles

Meth. sem. MATElev

The course is the first part of a two-semester course, and will deal with the following issues of
teaching English: language teaching methods and approaches, teacher and student roles, classroom
observation, classroom management, teaching vocabulary. A variety of teaching modes be
employed: presentations, pair and groupwork, discovery learning, etc. The course will be assessed on
the basis of homework assignments, as well as preparation for and participation in class.

English language teaching methodology 2: Skills and practices

Meth. sem. MATElev

The course is the second part of the methodology training and will cover the four skill areas
(listening, speaking, reading and writing), dealing with errors, testing and lesson planning. Some
current coursebooks and set reading passages will be discussed and evaluated. A variety of teaching
modes will be employed: mini lectures, peer observations, pair- and groupwork, problem solving,
discovery learning, loop-input, etc. The course will be assessed on the basis of class performance and
assignments at the end of the semester.

Classroom practices in focus

Meth. sem. MATElev

The course aims to address a number of practical issues of teaching English as a foreign language in a
variety of scenarios, to various learner populations. An initial suggested agenda includes the
following topics: differentiated learning, the age factor in language teaching, discipline, homework,
the role of practice in language teaching, cooperative techniques and materials evaluation - but the
course proceeds on a 'process syllabus' basis, i.e with participants negotiating and agreeing on the
list of the most urgent issues to discuss.
Language proficiency for teachers
Meth. sem. MATElev

This advanced level language course for intending English teachers has two principal aims:
 To provide high level practice as preparation for taking advanced public language
exams;
 To enable trainees to use correct and appropriate language in classroom interactions.
Advanced level students generally reach a language-learning plateau at which point they feel that no
further discernible progress is possible and that any remaining errors in their language use are by this
point fossilized. This course will challenge that view and, by using a variety of diagnostic tools, enable
the participants to measure and analyse their current abilities and deficiencies in the four language
skills areas, vocabulary knowledge, grammar and pronunciation. On the basis of this initial
assessment, participants will agree with course leaders on an individual programme of self-study to
address their major areas of weakness. In- class tasks will concentrate on vocabulary-building
through extensive reading; listening and speaking practice through the use of authentic recordings
from the mass media and the use of proficiency practice tests. In addition, participants will be given
practice in delivering classroom instructions and explanations using age- and level-appropriate
language. Assessment will be by means of a final C-1 level language test.

Vocabulary Acquisition for Teachers

Meth. sem. MATElev

This course in the English teacher training MA program recognizes the central role that lexical
knowledge plays in the communicative competence and in the acquisition of a second language. The
course provides a comprehensive overview of the role of vocabulary in language learning, language
teaching, language use and language testing. The topics discussed will include: aspects of knowing a
word, vocabulary in discourse, the role of vocabulary in reading, writing, listening and speaking,
implicit and explicit learning, vocabulary learning strategies, vocabulary teaching, assessment of
vocabulary knowledge and vocabulary building materials. The course will also highlight the
importance of learners’ first language, age, motivation and overall language proficiency in lexical
acquisition. These issues will help students to, on the one hand, understand how they can improve
their own language competence, and, on the other hand, to prepare them for the application of
research tools and existing written and online materials to their own classroom teaching, testing and
material design.

English Phonetics and Phonology for Teachers

Meth. sem. MATElev

The aim of the course is to familiarise students with regional, social and stylistic varieties of English
regarding phonetics/pronunciation, to enable them to transfer these issues as the minimum
requirements into their language classes; to present the successful and less successful
phonetic/pronunciation characteristics of communicating in English; in addition, to deal with typical
language learning and language use problems of Hungarian learners’ of English. The course is
assessed on the basis of homework assignments, as well as presentations, based on small-scale
empirical research, preparation for and participation in class.

English Grammar for Teachers

Meth. sem. MATElev
The main aim of the course is to examine English grammar from a language learning and teaching
perspective. In order to realise this aim, English morpho-syntax, basic phonology and pragmatics, and
relevant classroom processes will be in the centre of attention. The course provides opportunities for
teacher trainees to consider different practical and concrete ways of possible application of their
grammatical knowledge in the classroom. The course focuses on encouraging students to look at
grammar from socio-communicative perspective. The course is assessed on the basis of weekly
assignments related to grammar teaching, two grammatical proficiency tests, and a presentation of a
paper in the field of teaching grammar.

Language Policy in the EU and Hungary

Meth. sem. MATElev

This seminar surveys basic issues in language policy in general, and those in the European Union and
Hungary in particular. Acquisition planning and the spread of English will be discussed in great detail.
Grades will be based on participation in classroom discussions and a mid-term and final essay.
Topics:
1) Ricento 2006: Language Policy: Theory and practice – an introduction
2) Phillipson 2003, chapter 1: The risks of laissez faire language policies
3) chapter 2: European languages: families, nations, empires, states
4) chapter 3: Global trends impacting on European language policy
5) chapter 4: Languages in EU institutions
6) chapter 5: towards equitable communication
7) chapter 6: Recommendations for action on language policies
8) Grin 2006: Economic Considerations in Language Policy
9) Phillipson 2008: Language policy and education in the European Union
10) Sándor 2006: Nyelvtervezés, nyelvpolitika, nyelvművelés
11) Bárdos 2009: Tanárképzési kontextusok különös tekintettel az angolra
12) Kontra 2009: A focihoz és a pedagógiához mindenki ért, a nyelvhez még a politikus is

Aspects of contemporary British literature and culture

Meth. sem. MATElev

This seminar course will take as its starting point the problematic notion of ’Britishness’ and consider
the issue of multiple and overlapping identities in a modern multicultural state. Wherever possible,
parallels will be drawn with Hungary and Hungarian cultural identity. Each week of the course will
have a specific thematic focus that will be addressed by means of mini-lectures and presentations,
and discussions based on TV and video clips and printed handouts. Themes to be considered will
include the following:
 What is British-ness? The sum of English-ness, Welsh-ness, Scottish-ness and Northern(?)-
Irishness (whatever they are), or more, or less?
 Markers of identity: class; region; education; occupation; race; religion; income.
 The Establishment.
 From the British Empire to multicultural Britain.
 Music, fashion and youth sub-cultures.
 The place of high culture: the plastic arts; opera; ballet; theatre.
 From angry young men to chick lit: post-war British fiction.
 The British sense of humour.
 Eating and drinking in Britain.
 Demography and democracy: two nations in one?
  The language and languages of Britain.
 The power of the press.
 An Englishman’s home…
 A nation of TV watchers.
 The British year: events; celebrations; commemoration.
 The sporting life of Britain.
 Britain and Europe; Britain and America; Britain in the world.
Assessment will be by means of one substantial piece of writing on any aspect of the course. It will
include guidelines for the incorporation of that element of British culture into an English language
teaching course in Hungary.

Current Approaches to North American Culture

Meth. sem. MATElev

This course will focus on the issues of using North American cultural topics in English as a foreign
language classes in Hungary and will be centered around three general areas. First, we will look at
how culture can be seen as a set of products and practices. Second, we will explore possibilities for
classroom activities based on this approach. And third, we will investigate how specific topics can be
brought to the classroom for purposes such as motivating students through the use of authentic
language and topics, developing multicultural understanding, and the learning of specific cultural
information.