History of German Language
Code
711131070
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Linguística
Credits
6
Weekly hours
4
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
1. Reflect on the origins of the German language
2. Identify and characterize the historical periods of the German language
3. Observe the most important phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic and lexical evolutions in different historical periods
4. Identify the permanence of traces of previous phases in modern German
Prerequisites
None.
Subject matter
1. The German language in the context of the Germanic languages
1.1 The Romance and Germanic linguistic branches
1.2 The Germanic three major linguistic groups
2. Language changing and history of language
2.1. The Latin heritage
2.2 Low, Medium and High German
3. German Language in the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries
3.1. From a common language to an unitary language
3.2 Lexical Innovation
2.3 Literary language and language crisis
4. Politics and language
4.1. Politics and language before 1945
4.2. Politics and language after 1945
5. German language at the present
Bibliography
Abrantes, A. M. (2004). O Alemão, uma língua para a Europa. Lisboa: Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
Bach, A. (1986). Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache. Wiesbaden: VMA.
Brudin, G. (2004). Kleine deutsche Sprachgeschichte. München: W. Fink UTB.
Polenz, P (1973). História da Língua Alemã. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
Watermann, (1991) A History of the German Language. Washington: University of Washington Press, Waveland Press.
Teaching method
Lectures, linguistic analysis exercises, commented readings.
Evaluation method
Written final test (50%), 2 written exercises in accordance with program modules (30%), individual work - to be presented in the class and delivered in writing (20%).