I do not know why books get bought enthusiastically only to be read decades later. Which is why I recently made a vow not to buy any new books before I have not read all the ones which are left untouched on my bookshelf. When I look at all those neatly stacked volumes, I notice [...]
Jun 5th, 2009
The paper, “Code-Switching Among English and Swiss-German Speaking Couples” is a proposal for a hypothetical research project in linguistics, and it was a collaboration between Azra von Niederhäusern-Hodzic and me. We worked on the premise that native speakers of both languages will eventually code-switch during a conversation, no matter how consistently they try to stick to one language.
“Accent/Dialect Discrimination in the English Language in Institutions and the Media” and “Grice’s Cooperative Principle and Implicature” were the topics I chose for my 45-minute oral examination in linguistics. The material which I upload with this post includes my discussion topics for the exam and a bibliography. (This information might be useful for students who [...]
May 1st, 2009
How is the yuppie in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho portrayed? Does s/he need to look a certain way, in order to be part of an unanimously approved group identity? What is the yuppie’s consumer behavior – and what is his or her stance on love and moral values? It is not easy to break down stereotypes, for there appears to be a very thin line between an exaggerated and a truthful depiction of a novel-yuppie.
Mar 9th, 2009
1. Introduction In The Knight’s Tale , the two cousins Arcite and Palamon duel over Emelye’s hand in marriage. The concept of dueling is commonly portrayed in literary works as a means to resolve a quarrel between two men. In The Knight’s Tale the duel is depicted in much detail. To readers of medieval tales [...]
Feb 3rd, 2009
The study of accents is by no means a field of interest that is solely claimed or dealt with by linguists in academia. The aim of this paper is to discuss the general awareness of accents in the United States of America, which becomes particularly obvious when browsing the Internet. I discuss three different ways [...]
Oct 4th, 2008
In “What is an Author”, Michel Foucault addresses the relationship between author and text. In addition, he wants to focus on the manner in which the text points to the author-“figure”. Foucault acts on the suggestion once made by Beckett. The latter asked, “What does it matter who is speaking?” Foucault concludes that this exclamation [...]
Amitav Ghosh’s, The Shadow Lines revolves around two families. One lives in Calcutta and the other in London. Also, both of them know each other, as the older generation experienced the events in London during World War II. The unnamed autodiegetic narrator is also the son of the Indian family. Since the narrator switches from [...]