Course: German Language – the Present and the Past

ECTS credits: 2

Language: German

Duration: one semester

Status: elective

Course type: 2 hours of seminars

Enrolment requirements: none

Course description: This course introduces students with language families and typology, with special emphasis on the pluricentric nature of German, its role in international communication, forms of variation within German (dialects, sociolects, national varieties) and gives an overview of its history.

Learning outcomes: Students will be able to: explain the concept of language families, recognize the typological characteristics of German, understand the difference between the standard and non-standard varieties, recognize the characteristics of the Swiss national variety of German, recognize the characteristics of the Austrian national variety of German, recognize German loan words in Croatian, understand the periodization in the history of German.

Teaching methods: direct instructions: teaching through lectures/seminars/exercises and teacher-led demonstrations in the classroom, presentations, classroom discussion, E-Learning

Literature: König, Werner: „dtv-Atlas Deutsche Sprache", 2007; Barbour, Stephen / Stevenson, Patrick: "Variation im Deutschen: Soziolinguistische Perspektiven", 1998.

Evaluation Methods and Grading: class attendance, seminar paper, written exam