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‘ Reconciling “ Anglistik ”’ conference, Trier, September 2003. Designing and piloting a world-wide-web-based stylistics course Mick Short, Lancaster University, UK ([email protected]). The structure of this talk. A. ‘ The place of stylistics ’ in Learning and learning - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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‘Reconciling “Anglistik”’ conference, Trier, September 2003
Designing and piloting a world-wide-web-based
stylistics course
Mick Short, Lancaster University, UK([email protected])
The structure of this talk
A. ‘The place of stylistics’ in Learning and learning
B. The overall investigation
C. The web-based course – some examples
D. The Lancaster 2002-3 pilot investigation
A. The ‘place’ of stylistics in Learning
English Language not in crisis in the UK (but we have had to work hard at making it ‘relevant’)
On the edges of two (three?) academic worlds (language/linguistics and literary criticism)
An irrelevance or a valuable link? The rock and the hard place - linguists want
stylisticians to be more ‘picky and formal’, the critics want them to be less so
Many Linguists tend to ignore stylistics – an irrelevance?
Are academic squabbles worth it?
Most of the squabbles involving stylistics have been with literacy criticism
Academic squabbles rarely change minds, and often:
Are squabbles over territory and resources, not learning
Involve opponents with outdated views of one another Are promoted by those who not take proper account of
the different academic aims of their ‘opponents’ Don’t take into proper account of the range of
different work in each area
Mick’s stylistics (1)
Aim – to understand how we get from the words on the page to meanings in our heads/effects texts have on us (cf. style)
Lots of aspects to this and we can’t ‘beat’ intuition A combination of text analysis and psychological
(pragmatic?) inference The texts don’t have to be literary, but often are:
(1996) Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose, Longman
(1997) ‘Analyzing the changing character and sophistication of TV advertisements in the People’s Republic of China’ (with HU Wen Zhong ), Text 17, 4, 491-515
Mick’s stylistics (2)
Theorising, description and interpretation, e.g.: (1981) Style in Fiction (with G. N. Leech), Longman
Ch. 10 (1999) ‘Graphological deviation, style variation and
point of view in Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh’, Journal of Literary Studies, 15 (3/4), 305-23
‘Linguistic metaphor identification in two extracts from novels’ (with E. Semino and J. Heywood), Language and Literature 11, 1, 35-54
Informant-based work (2002) ‘A Cross-cultural study of fictional and non-
fictional text understanding’ (with L. Halász) Poetics, 30, 3, 195-219
Mick’s stylistics (3)
Corpus stylistics, e.g. (2002) ‘Revisiting the notion of faithfulness in
discourse report/(re)presentation theory Using a Corpus Approach’ (with E. Semino and M. Wynne), Language and Literature, 325-55
(forthcoming) Corpus Stylistics: A Corpus-based Study of Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation in a Corpus of English Writing (with E. Semino), Routledge
Cognitive stylistics/poetics Characterisation, text worlds etc Affect
Style, theme etc. ‘Discourse stylistics’
The squabble I have been involved in
Mackay, R. (1996) ‘Mything the point: a critique of objective stylistics’, Language and Communication 16, 1, pp. 81-93.
Short, M. et al. (1998) ‘Stylistics, criticism and mythrepresentation again: squaring the circle with Ray Mackay’s subjective solution for all problems’, Language and Literature 7, 1, pp. 39-40.
Mackay, R. (1999) ‘There goes the other foot: a reply to Short et al.’ Language and Literature 8, 1, pp. 59-66.
Short, M. and W. van Peer (1999) ‘A reply to Mackay’, Language and Literature 8, 3, 269-75.
Stylistics as an aid for understanding and learning?
It lays bare part of what is involved in the process of textual understanding and interpretation
It pushes students to be more precise and analytical in thinking about understanding and interpretation
If you know the techniques of stylistic analysis, you have something to do if you get stuck interpretatively
It pushes students to think harder about the linguistic structure of texts and cognitive processes in understanding
And now for something different . . . . . . a short simple text (a poem), which is interesting
both linguistically and critically, to illustrate these points:
Stylistics as an aid for understanding and learning?
THE SECRET SITSWe dance round in a ring and suppose,But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
(Robert Frost)
Stylistics as an aid for understanding and learning?
S V A A cj V{[We | dance| round| in a ring] and [suppose,]}
cj S V A Cj VBut {[ the Secret | sits| in the middle] and [knows.]}
What is the overall structure of the sentence (coordination layering)?
S
S´ cj S´ cj S´ cj S´
S
S´ cj S´
S´´ cj S´´ S´´ cj S´´
Can stylistics aid weak students?
It can help, but it depends on how weak the student is and why
It helps students to talk about texts as well as feelings, and be explicit about them
It helps students to become aware of all that needs to be explained in understanding and communication
Stylistic analysis is useful for teachers to know, and then adapt to an appropriate level (cf. grammatical analysis)
It is possible to teach ‘pre-stylistics’ to students who can’t cope (yet) with ‘the terminology’ (!)
Can stylistics aid weak students?
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities(Isaiah, 53, v)
They punched, kicked and gralloched him.
Questions?
A comparison of two teaching methods (same content and pedagogical philosophy): Web-based learning format Traditional lecture/seminar-based format
Aim: To compare student responses and learning outcomes
to WWW-based and more traditional teaching of stylistic analysis
Level: An introductory stylistics course, aimed primarily at
first-year undergraduates (in the UK)
B. The overall investigation
Linguistic tools should be . . . . drip-fed Linguistic tools should be made
‘relevant’ Learning should be FUN! Materials should be varied Task-based learning in bite-sized chunks
For more details see:D.McIntyre (2003) Using foregrounding theory as a
teaching methodology in a stylistics course. Style 37(1): 1-14.
M. Short and D. Archer (2003) Designing a world-wide web-based stylistics course and investigating its effectiveness. Style 37(1): 27-46.
Mick’s course design philosophy
December 2000 to presentDevelopment of materials & Lancaster Pilot
Timetable for investigation
September 2003 - June 2005Comparison of student reaction to the web-based and traditional formats (and other agreed investigations) at Lancaster and other institutions Would you like to join in the investigation?
September 2005I want to make the course freely WWW-available to all
The teaching The web-based course online, password protected A full set of lecture/seminar handouts for the traditional
version of the course (if required) Video-taped recordings of the lectures for the traditional
version of the course (taken during 2001-2) Discussion group – email/online facility
The experiment Advice about when and how to administer the
questionnaires, run the focus groups and conduct interviews
Advice on analysing collected data
Support given to collaborators
Give initial comments on materials Provide me with copies of handouts and
other materials used in their location with their students
Provide a complete set of questionnaires, transcripts of tape-recordings, marking scheme, data on essay and examination grading etc.
Publish their own results (alone and/or co-operatively)
Make investigative data accessible to other collaborators
Collaborators will need to:
Questions?
C. The web-based course Task-based with variation in task types Features to aid navigation round the site Pages designed to be clear and ‘easy on the eye’ ‘Smileys’ Audio and video clips Chat café Self-tests Printer-friendly notes Glossary Self-assessment mechanism Links to other sites (e.g. author sites, the UCL
Internet Grammar of English)
The URLs
Language and Style course:http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/internet_stylistics/start.htm
Username: stylisticsPassword : 131course
Collaborators’ website:http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/internet_stylistics/tutors/(same username and password as above)
Includes electronic versions of McIntyre (2003) and Short and Archer (2003), advice, lecture/seminar handouts etc.
CD-ROM: Course | Collaborators’
Questions?
The Lancaster 2002-3 pilot investigation (January–March 2003)Pilot of an introductory stylistics course for first year undergraduates
One term course Three ‘hours’ of contact time in workshops (‘2 +1’) Students encouraged to work in pairs Tutors present to give advice in all workshops The ‘2-hour’ workshop contained a 15-minute
discussion session with the tutor Poetry and prose sections taught via web-based
workshops Drama section taught via traditional workshops Chat café ‘Printer-friendly’ notes facility
Investigative instruments Questionnaires
Initial Medial (after poetry and prose) Final (last week of the course)
Tape-recorded interviews (following questionnaires)
Tape-recorded focus group discussions (following questionnaires)
Observations by tutors and observers of workshop sessions
(Video recordings)
Initial questionnaire: topics covered
Their familiarity with the web
Student views of the perceived (dis)advantages of web-based courses
Their attitude towards paired-work
Their previous experience of English language in general, and stylistics in particular
… All had several years experience
… Main advantage: able to review material/work at own pace
… Main disadvantage: impersonal/tutor contact limited
… 40 against, 19 in favour
… Mixed
Mid-course questionnaire (49 returns)
Scale reflecting students’ general opinion of the course overall
1 2 3 4 5 Very interesting
5 20 20 4 0 Not at all interesting
Easy 2 8 21 16 2 Difficult
Clear 10 14 25 0 0 Unclear
Fun 3 15 17 13 1 Boring
+ -
Advantages - material can be reviewed/can work at own pace
- able to discuss ideas with partner
Disadvantages – No tutor; two-hour session too long/hard on eyes
Our
“response”
Pair-work discussions Tutor-led group discussions Students had a 10-minute break in the ‘2 hour’ session
However, whole group discussions were difficult
So we switched to smaller discussion groups
Students not expected to work “solidly” at the computer for two hours
Computers too noisy/room layout not amenable
Proved popular. Students said:helped with shyness, less intimidating, easier to hear, a
break from the screen, more personal
Scale reflecting students’ general opinion of the course overall 1 2 3 4 5 Very interesting
7 16 15 5 0 Not at all interesting
Easy 0 9 22 11 0 Difficult
Clear 7 20 12 3 0 Unclear
Fun 2 12 20 7 1 Boring
End-of-course questionnaire (43 returns)
Perceived disadvantages at end of course
Too much material Grammar sessions too difficult
These are typical criticisms of the course, whether web-based or lecture/seminar-based
Length of sessions
‘Self-taught’ = no lecturer present?
Too demanding, takes too much time Again a standard comment on the course,
whatever the mode
Perceived advantages at end of course
Accessibility (especially useful for revision) Paired-work ultimately seen as a positive (2-
to-1) NB. Paired-work could still prove problematic,
especially if partner missed a session or worked at a different pace
Changes to be introduced 3 X 50 minute sessions
New and better venue – dedicated to Linguistics teaching
Room format better for workshop teaching
- Able to split the groups, enabling better group discussions
- Beamer + screen for whole-class work
LCD screens
- Less tiring on the eyes
Coursework essay results
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
0%
10%
+
30%
+
50%
+
70%
+
2001-22002-3
Issue of uncontrolled variables …
Students, texts and markers were different
However … Mick acted as a
standardiser for sample scripts
Standardisation also a feature of the Self Assessment mechanism
No significant statistical difference when compared to last year’s marks (52.7 : 55.4 (53.5 : 57.1 if zero marks discounted)). Number of students similar.
Examination Results
2001-2 Average = 53.02 2002-3 Average = 52.83
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
30%
+
40%
+
50%
+
60%
+
70%
+
2001-22002-3
No zeros – marks on scripts used, so non-attendees (very few, as per cwa) ignored
Markers/standardising situation as per cwa
Conclusions … to date
Web-based mode did not appear to disadvantage students
Course rating good (but not as good as previous years?)
Students prefer a combination of lecture/seminars and web-based materials (but may attitudes change – they tend to like what they have been used to from school)
Social element difficult to reproduce Self-assessment mechanism was used, but patchily Web-based learning most appreciated when in
distance-mode? Special difficulties involved in investigating
(Lancaster) first-year students
Questions?