- Docente: Marina Manfredi
- Credits: 9
- Language: English
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
- Campus: Bologna
- Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Foreign Languages and Literature (cod. 0979)
Learning outcomes
The students are expected to possess an excellent knowledge of the metalanguage, as well as mechanisms, of the descriptive-analytical model of the English language taught. Moreover, they should be competent in all four communicative skills at the C-1 level of the Common European Framework.
Course contents
The course is for those who have already done the first and second year of Lingua e linguistica inglese. If you are an erasmus student or for whatever reason have not done these prior exams, please read the information for erasmus etc. students below (NB 2, under ‘Assessment Methods'). Your program will need to be different.
Integral parts of the course:
Lectures: II semester (students' group M-Z, all semester)
Tutorials: all II semester
Language lessons: all I and II semester
Language as Purposeful: Functional Varieties of Text
The course is for 3rd year undergraduate students who have already passed and registered their marks for Lingua e Linguistica Inglese 1 and 2.
Lectures aim at perfecting the competence acquired during the 1st and 2nd year, through: 1) the introduction of concepts that provide the theoretical bases for the notion of register, the subject of the course, and 2) the application of the Functional Grammar descriptive-analytical model to different functional varieties of texts, or registers, with the aim of having students understand the typical lexicogrammar and discourse semantics of these texts and the contextual variables which tend to active them.
Tutorials offer Workshops on the contents of the lectures.
However, since a knowledge of the model is only progressively and cumulatively acquired in the course of all three years of Lingua e Linguistica Inglese, a pre-requisite for this course is that students know the most updated 1st and 2nd year course-book contents.
The practical language classes which go on all year aim at bringing the students to C1 level in all abilities on the Common European Framework (‘Competent User'). For further information on 3rd year language competence target level, see the ELSP website, at:
The course is divided into three different, non-separable, components, in English:
a) Lectures given in English by the course Professor
b) Tutorial workshops held by the tutor
c) Practical language classes with native-speaker language experts
A + B) Lectures and Workshops:
Lectures aim firstly to review, refine and add to basic systemic functional linguistic notions, such as: text, context of situation and culture; register and genre, inter- and contra-textuality and heteroglossia (Bakhtin), and coding orientation (Bernstein). Then, the description of the semiotic system of language and of the process of text creation which the students were taught during the first two years of the course is reinforced through its application to the analysis of various functional varieties of text.
The workshops explain and illustrate further the contents of the lectures, and offer students the opportunity to do practical exercises on theory as well as analysis of the text types which are covered during the course. They also serve the purpose of ‘bridging' the potential divide between the metalinguistic and practical language components of the course.
C) Language lessons:
These focus on all four skills areas: reading (text structure, reading for specific information, for detail, gist, opinion or attitude) ; writing (content, style and organization in a range of text types) ; listening ( for specific information, gist and attitude); and speaking ( pronunciation practice; oral argumentation on a range of topics ).
Readings/Bibliography
Lectures and Workshops:
The main course-book is:
- Miller D.R. (in collaboration with A. Maiorani & M. Turci), 2005, Language as Purposeful: Functional Varieties of Texts, in the series Functional Grammar Studies for Non-Native Speakers of English; Quaderni del Centro di Studi Linguistico-Culturali (CeSLiC), D.R. Miller (ed.): ALMA DL, Asterisco, Bologna.
- Students are also required to know the following texts:
- Halliday M.A.K. & R. Hasan, 1985/1989, Part A of Language, context and text. Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective, Australia, Deakin University Press; Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- Ravelli L., 2000, “Getting Started with Functional Analysis of Texts”, in L. Unsworth (ed.), Researching Language in Schools and Communities: functional linguistic perspectives, London, Cassell.
- The basic FG Reference book:
· Thompson G., Introducing Functional Grammar, London, Arnold, new edition 2004.
All texts will be available for students at the Department of Modern Foreign Languages and Literature library. The Thompson text will also be at Feltrinelli International in Via Zamboni, Bologna and the Miller coursebook at the copy centre Asterisco in Via delle Belle Arti, and also in electronic form at: AMS ACTA, http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/866/
Language Classes:
The title of the adopted text will be indicated on signing up lists for groups. Supplementary material may be made available in a copy centre near the Department.
Teaching methods
Attendance of all lectures, workshops and language classes is very strongly recommended. Studies in Language Acquisition show that a language is best learnt through active class participation.
a) Lectures and Workshops
3rd year students are divided into 2 groups, by alphabetical order A-L (prof. Manfredi) e M-Z (prof. Miller). Lectures for these groups take place on the average of 3-4 hours a week, while the related workshops, aiming to reinforce theory through concrete practice, ordinarily take place every other week, for 2 hours.
A detailed calendar of these activities will be available at the start of the teaching semester,
All students who regularly attend the lectures will be able to access class PPTs through an online Distribution List.
In order to change lecture group, students must provide BOTH Professors (the student's regular course professor, as well as the one of the group desired) with a letter – categorically by the beginning of the course – specifying and documenting the motivation for their requests (lessons overlapping with other lessons or with a student's working hours, which make attendance impossible). Acceptance of requests – and monitoring of subsequent attendance – is at the discretion of the course Professors.
b) Language lessons
3rd year students will be divided into groups according to their 2nd year results and meet for 4 hours a week for the entire academic year.
Group lists and timetables will be put out on 3rd year notice board at the DLSSM, 2nd floor, staircase B, and on the faculty website, www.facli.unibo.it .
Assessment methods
NB 1: Students CANNOT WAIT to do their language exams until the session in which they are to graduate. Besides the risk that they will not pass and therefore not graduate, there is also simply NOT ample time to correct the exams and register the marks before the deadline in the summer session.
NB 2: Convalidating an exam done abroad is neither simple nor automatic. For vital information concerning Erasmus students (both outgoing and incoming), as well as those out-of-faculty students attending our English courses, see
the English version is available at a link from the Erasmus information page in English.
The English Language and Linguistics 3 exam is divided into three parts:
1. a written test based on the contents of lectures and required readings;
detailed information on the test and sample questions are available on ‘Lingua e Linguistica Inglese 3' webpage in the ELSP website, at:
2. a written language test, at C1 level;
a facsimile of the current language exam typology is available at one of the copy centres near the department and will be available on ‘Lingua e linguistica inglese 3' webpage in the ELSP website, at:
3. a speaking ability test (SAT)
A facsimile of the speaking ability test is also available at one of the photocopy shops in the area, and is available on ‘Lingua e linguistica inglese 3' webpage in the same ELSP website pages .
Students are allowed to take the SAT only after having passed both written exams, after which they can register the final mark for the course. This may NOT be done, however, until the student has registered his/her ‘English Literature 2' results. The written exams and SAT, however, CAN be done before having the mark in literature.
Both written tests will be offered just once in each official exam session.
Students enrolled in the 3rd year for the academic year 2011-12 will have to wait until the summer session in order to take the language written exam. They will, however, be able to take the written based on the lectures in the first exam session following the end of the lectures of their group (for this academic year, not till the summer session 2012).
The 2 writtens can be taken in separate sessions.
Exam results are always published on the facli website and also put out on 3rd year notice board.
The Faculty has ruled that students who have passed the written exams are NOT allowed to take them again. They are valid for 2 years or six sessions.
N.B: All students MUST enrol themselves on the lists in almaesami. In the absence of a ‘libretto' a student doing an exam must present a valid ID with photo.
·Evaluation for Students doing English as a 3rd language:
Due to our serious lack of personnel, we are unable to offer specific programmes for students doing English as a 3rd language. The only difference is that these students do NOT have to take the SAT.
· Evaluation for Students still enrolled in the ‘vecchio ordinamento – laurea quadriennale' – doing ‘Lingua e Letteratura Inglese':
THESE STUDENTS DO NOT NEED TO TAKE THE WRITTEN TEST BASED ON THE LECTURES AND THE COURSE BOOK CONTENTS (FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR) or the SAT.
They need only take the written language test, at C1 level. Their mark in this will be averaged with that of their literature component and registered as ‘Lingua e Letteratura Inglese'.
· ‘Prova di CONOSCENZA della LINGUA STRANIERA'
This 3-credit, pass/fail exam, required for those enrolled in the V.O. 509, is to be done ONLY by those who are certain that they will be doing their final undergraduate paper on some English or Anglo-American topic. It consists in a very brief discussion on current affairs.
Those enrolled in the new ‘ordinamento' 270 do NOT do this exam.
Teaching tools
Lectures will make use of PPT.
Links to further information
Office hours
See the website of Marina Manfredi