The students are introduced to the major contributions made to literature by Shakespearean drama and its unique prominence in English-language literature as well as culture in general. Four plays are read, representing the genres of tragedy, comedy, history, and romance. The students learn to situate them within their historical context in the Renaissance and to trace their cultural impact over the centuries, building an understanding of what has led Shakespeare to become an icon and what continues to inspire modern and global reinterpretations of his works

This course considers some standard methods of analyzing text and discourse, and theories behind those methods, including critical discourse analysis, content analysis and ethnography of communication. The main emphasis is on qualitative methods of analyzing language use in its social context. During the course we will examine in detail both some classic studies and latest developments in the field, and hands-on projects will familiarize students with the empirical analysis of text and discourse in practice. Course work includes weekly sessions, background readings, and a project containing an oral presentation in the class and a final essay. A reading list will be provided in the beginning the course.

The course starts with a discussion of the nature of variationist approaches to language. The methods of Labovian sociolinguistics, which form the backbone of most variationist approaches, will be discussed in some detail during the course. During the course we will also examine in detail the methods applied in some classic sociolinguistic, dialectological and historical studies. The course includes a discussion of the statistical methods used in variationist linguistics.
A reading list will be provided at the beginning of the course.
Course work includes weekly sessions, background reading, oral presentation in the class, and a final essay.

The course will examine early English literary criticism from the late 1500s to the 18th century. Its aim is to introduce students to the critical debates that formed the historical basis of modern literary criticism and theory. Topics of discussion will include Puritan attacks against poetry, defenses of poetry, the role of satire and mockery in criticism, the role of criticism and the critic in society, the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, imitation and nature, meaning and interpretation, censorship, neo-classical theories of art and the sublime. We will examine critical and literary texts by, among others, the authors of the Marprelate Controversy, Sir Philip Sidney, John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope and Dr Johnson.
 
 Assessment: essay and class contribution.

Children's literature is not simple or simplified. It is not easier to examine than adult literature. The first part of this course will be an introduction to the theory of children's literature, illustrated from various works of children's literature, both classics and less familiar ones. Questions we will be asking include: what is a child? What is childhood? How does this text contribute to the development of the child? Is a child reader different from an adult reader? What is a good children's book? Is it different from a good adult's book? What part does intertextuality play in children's literature?
In the second part of the course, students may choose a work of children's literature written in English, and give a short presentation on it, discussing one or more aspects of the work with the help of a theoretical model.
Assessment will be on the basis of the presentation or a 10+ page paper, and class contribution.

This course will be offered again in the spring term, at a different time.

This course surveys the new types of experimental literary fiction that gained prominence in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century. To examine the stylistic and philosophical fundamentals of literary postmodernism, we will first read texts written in the 1960’s by authors such as John Barth, Donald Barthelme, and Robert Coover. The latter half of the course concentrates on more recent examples of postmodernist textuality and the more general cultural consequences of postmodernism. We will also examine a few influential theories and concepts, watch two films, and consider the importance of other kinds of verbal and visual texts in the aesthetic project of postmodernism.
Assessment: class participation, a short presentation, and a course diary.

The course focuses on horror in literature from Romanticism to Modernism, and connects it with today's understanding of the notion both in culture and theory. Specifically, the course deals with horror as an experience that, in literature, is deeply involved with the words read and images aroused. Students will learn the relevant theories and engage in discussions of literature.
 
Assessment: group participation, class presentation, final essay of 10-12 pages.

This course will provide an overview of superhero comics from the late 1930s to the present, focusing on the historical, theoretical, and critical arguments that have evolved around the genre. We will approach the genre of superhero comics as a historical and cultural phenomenon, and discuss such superhero-related issues as audiences and fandom, the representation of gender, the role of the villain, and the relevance of the superhero in a post- 9/11 world. While the entire genre is discussed, longer textual examples will focus more on superhero comics published from 1980s onwards.
We will be reading theoretical texts on superheroes as well as excerpts from various superhero comics, including Superman, Batman, Captain America, and Watchmen (each student is expected to purchase a copy of Watchmen, other materials will be provided in photocopies). In addition, we will also be viewing one superhero film.
Assessment: group participation, class presentation, final essay of 7-9 pages.

This course considers the challenges that language variation poses for language teaching. It is specially designed for future professionals in language learning and teaching, and offers suggestions and support for pro gradu research in this area, but it is useful for any students interested in language variation. The course reviews some of the many dimensions along which a language can vary, such as mode and register (spoken and written language, formal and informal styles), domain (special languages), social class, gender (men’s and women’s language) and geographical region (Englishes), and the ways in which these dimensions are and can be taken into account in the classroom. The course begins with introductory lectures reviewing the dimensions of variation and the pedagogical issues concerning them. After this, the course moves into a seminar phase, including a mini project, its oral presentation and written report.

This course will focus on the social aspects of language variation. The first half of the course will be devoted to a detailed discussion of some of the central issues in so-called Labovian sociolinguistics/microsociolinguistics. During the second half of the course the focus will be on a number of sociolinguistic topics including language and ethnicity, language, sex, and gender, language contact and language change.
A reading list will be provided at the beginning of the course.
Course work includes weekly sessions, background reading, oral presentation in the class, and a final essay.

The course explores selected clausal argument structure constructions in English, and the idea that they carry particular meanings as constructions. Constructions are viewed as “form-meaning correspondences that exist independently of particular verbs” and in this framework “constructions themselves carry meaning” (Adele Goldberg, 1995, Constructions, p. 1). The course begins with an introduction to basic assumptions and principles in the study of sentential complementation, including the postulation of understood subjects. It then turns to the discussion of selected constructions in English involving sentential complements, with a focus on the matrix verbs selecting them and on the syntactic and semantic properties of the constructions. These include patterns with to infinitives and -ing complements, especially the types of I remembered to mail the letter and I remembered mailing the letter. Authentic data from electronic corpora, including the BNC and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) are made use of in the course. The course is also meant to help participants with thesis projects in the area of the course.
The course is largely a lecture course, with a small number of homework assignments and readings. Course work includes regular attendance, class participation, a brief essay presented in class on an approved topic in the area of the course in the second half of the term, and a final exam.

The aim of the course is to give the participants an overall picture of the principles of the study of words. We shall begin by looking at the varieties of English (e.g. geographical, dialectal, social, formal, informal, slang, technical, pejorative) and how these are reflected on the level of vocabulary. The labelling of the different types of variety in dictionaries will also be discussed. After this, the course moves on to examine the main sources of English vocabulary (techniques of word-formation, foreign adoptions). Next, aspects of meaning will be addressed, including the ways in which the meanings of words change along dimensions such as gender (e.g. guy, certain articles of clothing) and pejoration (e.g. idiot, imbecile, moron). We shall finally discuss larger structures pertaining to the lexicon. These may be either paradigmatic relations (e.g. synonymy, polysemy, antonymy, lexical fields, lexical sets) or syntagmatic ones (e.g. collocations).
Course work includes regular attendance of the weekly sessions, homework assignments (practical exercises relating to various aspects of vocabulary), and an essay on a specific topic relating to the study of words.

Spoken language differs from written language both in form and function. For example, grammatical units such as sentences, clauses and phrases are the basic features of written texts but in spoken language their boundaries are often difficult to define. The aim of this course is to consider the peculiarities of spoken English and introduce different approaches to analysing spoken language. We will take a look at the grammar and lexis of spoken English, speech genres, spoken language corpora and various methods of discourse analysis.
 
Course work includes regular attendance and class participation, background reading, oral presentation and a final essay.

This course will be offered again in the spring term.

The course will consist of fortnightly lectures (for all participants) with associated tutorials (2 groups) in the week following the lecture week.
The aim is to learn to read theoretical texts, discover their line of argumentation, become aware of their omissions and see that the authors have produced their texts in a certain situation with particular goals in mind.
The course will cover topics such as New Criticism, structuralism, poststructuralism, deconstruction, psychoanalytical criticism, Marxism, New Historicism, feminism, queer studies, postcolonial studies, and Cultural Studies.

Each student is expected to purchase Hans Bertens: Literary Theory: The Basics (2nd ed., 2008; available at the university bookstore), which will provide preliminary reading for each lecture.
In the tutorials, students will be expected to apply the theoretical positions to literary texts.

The course starts with a discussion of how to motivate the postulation of grammatical constituents. The construction of linguistic hypotheses and generalizations to account for observed data is discussed and illustrated, using concrete examples from relatively recent work, including the X-bar level in English grammar. Electronic corpora are introduced and some of their possibilities explored. The course also includes a discussion of linguistic metatheory and the nature of data in linguistics. Throughout the course the focus is on the grammar of current English.
Course-work includes class participation, homework assignments, a brief paper presented in class, and a final exam.

Children's literature is not simple or simplified. It is not easier to examine than adult literature. The first part of this course will be an introduction to the theory of children's literature, illustrated from various works of children's literature, both classics and less familiar ones. Questions we will be asking include: what is a child? What is childhood? How does this text contribute to the development of the child? Is a child reader different from an adult reader? What is a good children's book? Is it different from a good adult's book? What part does intertextuality play in children's literature?
In the second part of the course, students may choose a work of children's literature written in English, and give a short presentation on it, discussing one or more aspects of the work with the help of a theoretical model.
Assessment will be on the basis of the presentation or a 10+ page paper, and class contribution.

Does literature have a national identity? In what ways might Canadian writing be different from works produced in England, or Scotland, or the U.S.A.? Does Canadian literature display features of colonialist literature, and of post-colonialist literature? If there is a Canadian literary identity, what causes this, and in what ways does it express itself?

Students will be expected to read in the areas of the theory of colonial and post-colonial literature; the history of Canada; and Canadian literary history, and to apply their reading in these areas to texts by American writers. Students will be encouraged to suggest texts for study. However, the texts studied will attempt to cover the history of Canadian prose writing in English from colonial times to the present day.

Assessment will be by class presentation of a particular topic chosen by the student, and by one paper.

In this course we will examine the question of murder and representation, with a special focus on gender issues. We will concentrate on one type of murder, serial murder, as a cultural narrative from the end of the 19th century to the present. During this course we will analyze the cultural imagery and social contexts of serial killing in Britain and the United States. In particular, we will try to answer this question: how are gender and "normalcy" constructed through murder narratives, deviation, and crime? We will start with the case of Jack the Ripper - the first "modern" serial killer - and his victims and move on to representations of male and female psychopaths and lesbian serial killing. We will explore such different genres as films and documentary programmes as well as texts written by FBI agents, serial killers and psychiatrists. We will also read three novels: Robert Bloch's Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho, and Helen Zahavi's Dirty Weekend.

Assessment: essay and class contribution.

This course concentrates on the significance of settings in fiction, and on how descriptions of landscape (or cityscape) influence the thematic structure of texts. We will be considering the aesthetics of different kinds of landscapes, analyzing their social and psychological effects through their literary depictions. We will also be touching on various theoretical approaches, including ecocriticism, and using some concepts from spatial theory and cultural geography to make sense of categories such as travel writing and urban fiction. The texts will cover a wide range of historical circumstances and geographical locations. The course aims at suggesting, among other things, that descriptions of setting can be just as important in literature as the events narrated.
Assessment: class participation, a short presentation, and a course diary.

This course reviews linguistic as well as various socio-cultural aspects of English as a global language, paying attention to both theory and practice. The course has three main aims. Firstly, it briefly outlines the development and characteristics of English as a global language – the variation, change and diversification of English in different regions, societies, communities and settings in the world – with specific emphasis on non-native-speaker contexts. Of particular interest here is the role and use of English in Finland. Secondly, the course provides a critical overview of issues around and debates on the impact of the spread of English in the world. Thirdly, it familiarizes students with a range of linguistic and discourse-pragmatic approaches to studying English as a global language, also providing suggestions and support for pro gradu research in this area. Course work includes weekly sessions, background reading, and a mini project, its oral presentation and written report.

This course focuses on variation, a crucially important aspect of linguistics. How and why is language different in different contexts? What causes variation, how do we study it, what challenges does it pose and how should we deal with it as language professionals? Following an introduction to the main concepts, we will look at a number of registers in detail. With case studies ranging from academic articles and short stories to political speeches and online newspapers, we will get to know specific contexts of text production and examine the variation they give rise to in language. The course will make moderate use of corpus linguistic methods, but no prior knowledge of corpora is required. Course work includes regular attendance and participation, homework assignments, a presentation in class and a final paper on a related topic.

This course will present students with an extensive coverage of the different ways in which new words are formed in English. The course will begin by a survey of the basic concepts relating to word-formation and morphology (affix, derivation, root, base, lexeme, opaqueness, transparency etc.). We shall then move on to examine the many different processes by which new words are formed in English (e.g. derivation, compounding, blending, clipping, sound-symbolism). The course ends with two relatively recent ways of putting together new words (cut-down puns and knock-knock words).
Course work includes regular attendance of the weekly sessions, homework assignments (theory handouts and practical exercises relating to various aspects of word-formation), and an end-of-term examination.

Spoken language differs from written language both in form and function. For example, grammatical units such as sentences, clauses and phrases are the basic features of written texts but in spoken language their boundaries are often difficult to define. The aim of this course is to consider the peculiarities of spoken English and introduce different approaches to analysing spoken language. We will take a look at the grammar and lexis of spoken English, speech genres, spoken language corpora and various methods of discourse analysis.
 
Course work includes regular attendance and class participation, background reading, oral presentation and a final essay.

This course traces features of change and continuity in the core grammar of English from the eighteenth century to the present, with data drawn primarily from synchronic and diachronic computer corpora of English. The course focuses on complementation, but there are no formal prerequisites for attending. The option will offer suggestions on how to use computer corpora to write a pro gradu thesis on complementation.
Course-work includes class participation, homework assignments, a brief paper to be presented in class on complementation or another approved aspect of English grammar, and a final exam.