Department of German and Dutch
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Paper Ge 7 [NEW for Tripos 2013]
German: a Linguistic Introduction
MML Part IB
- Course description
- Teaching
- Examination
- Specimen paper
- Preliminary Reading List
- Set Texts for Section B
- Course adviser
Course Description
German today is spoken by around ninety million people, and our oldest records of the language go back to the sixth and seventh centuries CE. This paper offers an introduction to the linguistic study of the contemporary language and also its historical evolution. The contemporary strand of the course examines the relationship between the modern standard language and the different regional varieties that German speakers use in everyday communication; it also focuses on the various resources deployed in German to form vocabulary, including new words. The historical strand of the course is concerned with the evolution of the German language, especially its sounds, forms and syntax. German shares an inheritance with other closely related languages (such as English, Dutch, the Scandinavian languages), but has modified this inheritance in distinctive ways. In both strands, the aim is not simply to learn new and curious facts about German, but to learn how to describe the facts and the relations between them in a systematic manner. There will also be an opportunity to apply what you have learned in practical exercises: commenting on contemporary linguistic data, translating and explaining words from excerpts of historical German.
Teaching
The contemporary strand will be taught over one eight-week term (weeks 1-4: ‘The sounds of German: structures and varieties’; weeks 5-8: ‘The German lexicon: word-formation’), the historical strand likewise (weeks 1-4: ‘The common Germanic inheritance’; weeks 5-8: ‘The historical development of German’). The Easter term will be devoted to practical exercises.
Examination
The examination will be divided into two sections. Section A is devoted to contemporary German; Section B contains questions on the historical linguistics of German from the earliest times. Each section includes an optional practical exercise: identification of a dialect passage or discussion of a set of words, in Section A; translation of short extracts from set texts, plus commentary on underlined words and phrases, in Section B. Candidates must answer three questions, at least one from each section. A specimen examination paper can be seen here.
Preliminary Reading List
Contemporary
- Boase-Beier, Jen and Ken Lodge. 2002. The German Language: A Linguistic Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell
- Fagan, Sarah M.B. 2009. German: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge: CUP.
- Fox, Anthony. 2005 (2nd ed.). The Structure of German. Oxford: Clarendon.
- Glück, Helmut and Wolfgang Werner Sauer. 1990. Gegenwartsdeutsch. Stuttgart: Metzler.
- König, Werner. 1994 (10th ed.). dtv-Atlas zur deutschen Sprache. Munich: dtv.
- Barbour, Stephen and Patrick Stevenson. 1990. Variation in German. Cambridge: CUP.
- Keller, R.E. 1978. The German Language. London: Faber and Faber.
- Schmidt, Wilhelm. 1993 (6th ed.). Geschichte der deutschen Sprache, Stuttgart and Leipzig: Hirzel.
- Wells, C.J. 1985. German. A linguistic history to 1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Set Texts for Translation and Commentary Question in Section B
Old High German
- Ludwigslied; Notker, Aus Boethius, 1 (Item prologus teutonice); in: Wilhelm Braune, Althochdeutsches Lesebuch, Tübingen: Niemeyer 1994, pp. 61-2 and 136-8.
Middle High German
- Nibelungenlied, strophes 814-76, in: M. O'C. Walshe, A Middle High German Reader, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1974, pp. 137-49.
Early New High German
- Martin Luther. Biblia; Das ist die gantze Heilige Schrifft; Deudsch auffs new zugericht Wittenberg 1545 in the dtv-edition (eds. Hans Volz et al., Munich 1974). Vorrede auff das Newe Testament, Vol. 3 pp. 1962-1965 and Revelation (Offenbarung) Chapters 5 and 6, Vol. 3 pp. 2480-2484. Both texts may also be found on the internet, the Vorrede at www.zeno.org, the books of Revelation at bibel-online.net under Luther 1545 (letzte Hand).
Course adviser
Students who wish to discuss any aspect of the course may approach their Directors of Studies or supervisors. They may also consult the German Department's undergraduate course adviser for this paper who is Dr Sheila Watts (Newnham College, network tel: 35816; e-mail: sw271@cam.ac.uk).
Back to topLinks to all German papers and comparative papers with a substantial German element
- Paper Ge 1: Introduction to German studies
- Paper Ge 2: Introduction to German history and thought since 1750
- Paper Ge 4: The making of German culture, 1
- Paper Ge 5: Modern German culture (1), 1750 - 1890
- Paper Ge 6: Modern German culture (2), 1890 to the present day
- Paper Ge 7: German: a linguistic introduction
- Paper Ge 8: German literature, thought and history from 1700 to 1815 (including Goethe's works to 1815)
- Paper Ge 9: German literature, thought and history from 1815 to 1914
- Paper Ge 10: German literature, thought and history since 1910
- Paper Ge 11: Aspects of the history of the German language
- Paper Ge 12: History and identity in Germany, 1750 to the present
- Paper Ge 13: Aspects of German-speaking Europe since 1945
- Paper Ge 14: The making of German culture, 2
- Paper Ge 15: Modern German cultures of performance
- Paper CS 5: The Body
- Paper CS 6: Modern European Film
