AMERICAN STUDIES AND LANGUAGES

12 CFU - Annual Tuition

Teaching Staff

SALVATORE MARANO - Module CULTURAL STUDIES - L-LIN/11 - 6 CFU
FLORIANA PUGLISI - Module AMERICAN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES - L-LIN/11 - 6 CFU

Learning Objectives

CULTURAL STUDIES
Knowledge (Contents)

Cultural Studies in the UK and US; TV serials and US Culture.

Know-How (Skills)

Critical use of Media and TV Studies. Case study: the deconstructive representation of American cultural stereotypes in “The Simpsons” (Fox TV, 1990s-2010s).
AMERICAN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES
Consolidation of linguistic and communicative skills at the C2 level of CEFRL.

In the context of US multiethnic and multilinguistic society, which calls for the development of intercultural communicative competences, the first part of the program (1) aims at investigating the relationship between language and identity - and the way it is erased by mainstream ideology - as concerning hyphenated Americans.

The second part (2) aims at exploring the specific use of language in the domain of political discourse by offering students the necessary linguistic tools to decode political messages and analyze the last presidential campaign.

Detailed Course Content

CULTURAL STUDIES
Module 1 (3 CFU, 18 ore) “Introducing Cultural Studies”

Introduction to UK and US Cultural Studies (ethnic studies, material history, gender studies; focus on: TV and media studies).

Module 2 (3 CFU, 18 ore) “TV mirrored by The Simpsons”

The critical representation of US cultural stereotypes in the longest American TV series (1990s-2010s).
AMERICAN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES
1. Language and cultural diversity in the United States
American English: processes of language variation and standardization; ethnic cultures and dialects (African-American, Hispanic-American and Asian-American identities; African American Vernacular English, Chicano English, Spanglish)

2. Political discourse analysis

Definition and approaches to the study of political discourse; the relationship between political discourse, media and language production; the genres of political communication; linguistic analysis of significant texts from the last presidential campaign in the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis.

Textbook Information

CULTURAL STUDIES
► The Cultural Studies Reader (3rd ed.), ed. S. During, London and New York: Routledge, 2007.

Mandatory readings: S. During, “Introduction” (pp. 1-30); S. Hall, “Cultural Studies and Its Theoretical Legacies” (pp. 33-44); W. Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproduction” (pp. 59-80); R. Williams, “Ideas of Nature” (pp. 283-297); B. Latour, “War of the Worlds” (pp. 304-313); J. Butler, “Subversive Bodily Acts” (pp. 371-382); Th. Adorno, M. Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightment as Mass Deception” (pp. 405-415); J. Dean, “The Net and Multiple Realities” (pp. 520-534).

► One (1) essay, also in translation, chosen among:

M. Horkheimer, Th. W. Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklärung. Amsterdam, Querido Verlag, 1947; R. Hoggart, The Uses of Literacy, London, Chatto & Windus, 1957; D. MacDonald, Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, Glencoe, The Free Press, 1957; E. Morin, L’Esprit du temps, Paris, Éditions Grasset & Frasquelle, 1962; R. Williams. Culture and Society, New York: Columbia University Press, 1963; M. McLuhan, Q. Fiore, The Medium is the Massage, San Francisco, Hardwired, 1967; E. Said. Orientalism, New York, Pantheon Books, 1978; H. White, Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press, 1978; M. Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité. 1: La volonté de savoir, Paris Gallimard, 1976; id., Histoire de la sexualité. 2: L’usage des plaisirs, Paris, Gallimard, 1984; id., Histoire de la sexualité. 3: Le souci de soi, Paris, Gallimard, 1984; P. Bordieu. Ce que parler veut dire: l’économie des échanges linguistiques, Paris, Fayard, 1982; A. Khatibi, Amour Bilingue, Montpellier, Fata Morgana, 1983; T. Todorov, The Conquest of America. The Question of the Other, Norman, The University of Oklahoma Press,1984; R.E. Scholes, Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1985; G.C. Spivak, In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, New York, Methuen,1987; H.L. Gates jr., The Signifying Monkey. A Theory of African American Literary Criticism, New York, Oxford University Press, 1988; E.S. Herman, N. Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, New York, Pantheon, 1988; J. Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art, Cambridge (Mass.), Harvard University Press, 1988; J. Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture, London, Unwin Hyman, 1989; J. Lotman, Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, New York and London, Tauris, 1990; A. Easthope, Literary into Cultural Studies, New York and London,

Routledge, 1991; N. Postman. Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology, New York, Vintage Books, 1992; M. de Certeau, La culture au pluriel, Paris, Seuils, 1993; H.K. Bhabha. The Location of Culture, New York and London, Routledge, 1994; b. hooks, Outlaw Culture: Resisting Representation, New York and London, Routledge, 1994; J.P. Russo, The Future without a Past: The Humanities in a Technological Society, Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 2005.

► One (1) book, chosen among:

J. Grey, A. G. Lodtz, Television Studies, Cambridge (UK), Polity Press, 2011; T. Miller, Television Studies. The Basics. New York and London, Routledge, 2003; B. Calvert et alii, Television Studies: The Key Concepts, New York and London, Routledge, 2007.

► J. Alberti, ed., Leaving Springfield. The Simpsons and the Possibility of Oppositional Culture, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 2004.

Mandatory readings: J. Alberti, “Introduction” (pp. xi-xxxii); D. L. G. Arnold, “Use a Pen, Sideshow Bob” (pp. 1-28); K. M. Koenigsberger, “Commodity Culture and Its Discontents” (pp. 29-62); V. Brook, “Myth or Consequences: Ideological Fault Lines in The Simpsons” (pp. 172-196); M. Broderick, “Releasing the Hounds: The Simpsons as Anti-Nuclear Satire” (pp. 273-291); D. S. Beard, “Local Satire with a Global Reach” (pp. 273-291).
AMERICAN ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES
1. Language and cultural diversity in the United States
- Bonfiglio, T.P., Race and the Rise of Standard American, Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2002 (pp. 1-73).
- Johnson, J.F., Speaking Culturally: Language Diversity in the United States, Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 2000 (pp. xi-xv, pp. 3-68, pp. 113-242).
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.
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.
2. Political discourse analysis
- Cap., P., Okulska, U., eds., Analyzing Genres in Political Communication, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2013 (“Analyzing Genres in Political Communications: An Introduction”, pp. 1-11; “Political Interviews in Contexts”, pp. 73-99; “Reframing the American Dream: Conceptual Metaphor and Personal Pronouns in the 2008 US Presidential Debates”, pp. 297-319; “The Late-Night TV Talk Show as a Strategic Genre in American Political Campaigning”, pp. 321-343).
- Chilton, P.A., Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice, London and New York: Routledge, 2004 (pp. ix-xii, pp. 3-65, pp. 198-205).
- Chilton, P.A., “Political Terminology”, in R. Wodak and V. Koller, eds., Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere, Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008, pp. 225-242.
- van Dijk, T.A., “What is Political Discourse Analysis?”, in J. Blommaert, C. Bulcaen, eds., Political Linguistics, Amsterdam: Benjamins,1997, pp. 11-52.
- Fairclough, N., “Political Discourse in the Media: An Analytical Framework”, in A. Bell, P. Garrett, eds., Approaches to Media Discourse, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1998, pp. 142-162.
Reisigl, M., “Rhetoric of Political Speeches”, in R. Wodak and V. Koller, eds., Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere, Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008, pp. 243-269.

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