COURSE STRUCTURE AND DURATION

1. The program shall consist of a 2-year full time study by coursework, examination and research project.  The first year of study shall be devoted to coursework only, while the second year will be devoted to coursework and examination (first semester) and to the research project (second semester).
2. In the first year of study each candidate shall be required to take eight (8) compulsory courses.
3. In the first semester of the second year, four different fields of study are offered to the students, each of them consisting of two units.  Each candidate will be required to choose two fields only.
4. At the end of the first year of study, the students will be expected to spend a maximum of five (5) months in an affiliated university in Germany and carry out research under a German professor towards the final Master’s thesis/project,
5. Topics of research for the research project are to be identified in consultation with supervisors during the first semester of the second year.

Course Units

CGS 6101 – Aspects of German Literary History from the Reformation to Modernism ‘Moderne’

The impact of Reformation on German literature through to the defeat of Absolutism by Enlightenment (‘Aufklärung’); Kant: ‘Was ist Aufklärung?’ and the philosophers of Enlightenment; Lessing and Gottsched´s Theories of literature in the formative years of Enlightenment; the effect of the French Revolution on the development of Literature in Germany; the development of Literature in the era of German idealism (encompassing from ‘Sturm und Drang’ through to ‘Klassik’); the different facets of Realism in the German literary history, beginning with ‘bürgerlicher Realismus’ (1850)  and ending with ‘Trümmerliteratur’; German Literature at the turn of the century (1900) – Fin de Siecle and Expressionism; Literature between the two World Wars, especially literary trends in the Weimar republic and in National Socialism; Brechts Theories of Drama, ‘Episches Theater’; The end of modernity and the literature after the second World War (‘Nachkriegsliteratur’) up to 1950.

CGS 6102 – Theories in German Literature and their Application

Grounded on the set of key concepts and intellectual and philosophical assumptions that have accompanied German literature through the epochs; their effects on the production, reception and perception of German literature, in Germany and abroad; comparing the theories in their specific German context with those outside; ranging from the modernist theories of Hermeneutics, (Post-)Structuralism, to the postmodernist theories of Deconstruction, Theories of Intertextuality, the ‘Cultural Turn’ in German Studies, Leo Kreutzer´s concept of “Doppeltblicken”, Interculturalism etc.

CGS 6103: Advanced study of the structure of the German Language

Recent theories for the analysis of the linguistic structure of Modern German in relation to core elements of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics pragmatics and text linguistics as the main components of linguistic structure. Language and signs: what is language, what is linguistics? How do linguists analyze language? German Phonetics and phonology: contrast, naturalness, derivation vs. representation; segmental and prosodic structure. Graphemes and Orthography: basic concepts; inventories using minimal pair analysis; Phoneme-grapheme-phoneme principles. Morphology: description and analysis of various aspects of German morphology; word formation and inflection. German syntax: traditional syntax analysis, complements, dependence and valence; the structure and interpretation of noun phrases including nominal modification and relative clauses; syntactic problems; Semantic theories and their application in the study of German; Elements of word meaning; Semantic relations; theories of pragmatics; the speech act theory; text communication, characteristics of texts.

CGS 6104 – Linguistic Theories and Their Applicability in German

Important linguistic theories from: Humboldt, Frege, Paul, de Saussure, Bloomfield, Bühler Wittgenstein, Trubetzkoy, Chomsky, Austin, Grice, Tomasello, the Prague School; American structuralism; The Relativity Principle, Words and Lexicon; The prototype model; Generative Grammar; Various syntactic models; Sociolinguistics – from the theory to a discipline; Functional Grammar; Cognitive approaches; Unification and Construction Grammar; Contrastive linguistics, Computational linguistics; Error analysis; Discourse analysis.

CGS 6105: Advanced Translation in German I: Theories and Approaches

Current trends and theories in Translation Studies; Translation as a form of Applied Linguistics; Translating texts from and into German; Translation as a process of communication (meaning, referent and symbol in the semiotic triangle); the role of the translator in the translation process; hermeneutics and the process of language reception, the process of language production; the Cultural Turn in Translation Studies; text categories and their role in translation; aspects of machine translation; the Skopos theory; the Leipzig School; The Resistance Strategy; Literary Translation; Translation and postcolonialism aspects of semantics and pragmatics and their role in translation; Translation in the context of Multilingualism

CGS 6106 Principles and Methods of the Didactics of German as a Foreign Language

Research in the methods and principles of teaching and learning German as a Foreign Language; Research in lesson planning; Research in the teaching of German for professional purposes: the didactics of German as a second language; Multilingualism and the teaching of German as a Foreign Language; Tertiärsprachendidaktik; Error analysis (Fehlerlinguistik); Action research in the teaching of German as a Foreign Language; Research on German as a technical language (Fachsprachenlinguistik); Blended learning

CGS 6107 – New Approaches to Social and Cultural Studies in German Speaking Countries

The shift from the cognitive approach to the communicative and inter-cultural approaches, 'Cultural Turn'; Critical analyses of perceptions of 'foreign' and 'own', Critical Analysis and Comparison of Cultural norms (traditions, customs, morals, attitudes, etc); Strategies of understanding the 'other'; Inter-cultural Learning; Inter-cultural Competence; Inter-cultural Communication, Cultural Symbols; Memory Spaces; Social Media, Social Change, Migration and Social Integration.

CGS 6108: Discourse Analysis

Speaker, hearer, utterance, situational context and speech act. Classification of speech acts.  Realization of speech acts. Illocutionary indicators, Felicity conditions.  Text structure and types.  Turns and speech acts.  Logical analysis of discourse.

CGS 6201:  Intercultural Communication

Theories of the nature of cultural differences; Cross-cultural interaction; theories of intercultural abilities to manage interaction effectively; Features and problems of communication in business and tourism across cultures; fundamental concepts of intercultural business communication; Kenya, Germany, Switzerland and Austria as multicultural societies; empathy and openness as preconditions of successful intercultural communication; interactional routines and the values and cultural assumptions tied to them; “critical” communicational occasions: linguistic etiquette(s) and politeness.

CGS 6202 – Main Tendencies in Contemporary German Literature

The development of the postmodern German literature and its place in global literary field; A survey of literary tendencies after 1989. Texts dealing with the historical moment of the fall of the Berlin wall and the German reunification (‘Wendeliteratur’); tendencies in contents and forms; ‘Popliteratur’ and literature as archive; new trends in feminist literature and literature by women; Migration literature in the German speaking countries; Africa in German literature. Selected texts and essays of the period will be analyzed.

CGS 6203 Research Methods and Academic Writing in German

Research questions in German Studies; developing appropriate research methods in relevant thematic areas; principles of academic writing in German; standard scholarly expressions in German academic writing (wissenschaftliche Redemittel); writing scholarly papers in German; electronic publication; text editing; hermeneutic text interpretation; the SQ3R Method;   recording, transcription, data analysis; formal, computational, qualitative and quantitative research methods ; questionnaires, interview methods, observation and field work in linguistics and statistical analysis; referencing within the text, bibliography etc.; current methods of information research: online academic libraries, catalogues, internet research methods, standards of publication and academic communication; plagiarism, ethical issues and their legal implications.

CGS 6204: Advanced Translation II: Practical Translation

The course will handle authentic texts which are to be translated from German to English and vice-versa. The texts will be from varying fields both factual and literary for example literary texts such as poems, short stories, plays as well as factual texts such as manuals, articles from newspapers and magazines, excerpts from books, formal and informal letters, reports, specialized texts such as medical reports, legal texts, certificates among others. These texts will be translated and problems encountered analyzed and discussed.

CGS 6205: A Study of Selected German Classics

A survey of the literary classics of German literary production across different eras and genres: from the Enlightenment to the present and from Novels, Drama, Poetry, Short Stories etc. This includes the selected works of G.E. Lessing (‘Miß Sara Sampson’), J.W. Goethe (‚Faust‘, ‚Die Wahlverwandtschaften‘, ‚West-östlicher-Divan‘), F. Schiller (‚Maria Stuart‘ und ‘Die Räuber), J. Eichendorff (‘Aus dem Leben eines Taugenichts’), A. Chamisso (‚Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte‘), G. Büchner (‚Lenz‘), A. von Droste-Hülshoff (‚Die Judenbuche‘), H. Heine (‚Deutschland. Ein Wintermärchen‘), G. Grass (‚Die Blechtrommel‘), T. Mann (‚Buddenbrooks‘) K. Mann (‚Mephisto‘), R. Musil (‚Der Mann Ohne Eigenschaften‘)

CGS 6206: German Literature Behind the Wall

Covering the period from the 1950s to the end of 1980s, the course looks at literary production after the division of Germany; the development of Literature in the DDR: socialist realism and ‘Bitterfelder Weg’, literary production towards the fall of the wall; trends in literary production in BRD, Austria and Switzerland: literary criticism of fascism, literature, politics and terror in the 60s and 70s, the turn to New Subjectivity; the crisis of language in literature; the beginning of post modernism in German literature; the end of the cold war and the end of divided Germany; Key texts of the period: Christa Wolff “Der geteilte Himmel”, Peter Schneiders “Der Mauerspringer”.

CGS 6207 Sociolinguistics in Intercultural German Studies

Concepts and issues in sociolinguistics; language in face to face interaction; language situation, variation, choice, creation, planning, change, decline and death; Languages and factors such as gender, class, age and ethnicity; multilingual communities; Language and society; bilingualism, multilingualism, diglossia and triglossia; conversational interaction; linguistic etiquette and politeness; conversational routines; Language socialization; conversational code-switching, code-mixing; Lingua francas; slang, pidgins and creoles; official languages, national languages, and international languages.

CGS 6208: German for Technical Communication (Fachkommunikation Deutsch)

Linguistic theories and principles underpinning technical German; technical vocabulary in German, Models of integrating language learning with technical skills, communication skills in a German speaking environment; social and cultural communication barriers of technical German; the role of intercultural competence in technical German.

CGS 6209: Project Paper