(For students admitted in 2021-22 or before, this course will be counted as Introductory course from List A after completion. Please refer to your syllabus at https://english.hku.hk/Undergraduate/Curriculum/English_Studies.)
The way we talk and write does not just describe the world we live in, it actively shapes it. In this course, we will explore together how the mutually constitutive relation between language and social reality/myth plays out in the social construction of and theory of gender. We will start from our personal experiences and understandings of “gender” as well as current gender-related sociopolitical issues. We will then go back in time and (re)examine the changing definitions of gender from historical and cultural perspectives. Our goal will be to reflect on, contextualize, and analytically evaluate the role of language and gender in a wide range of circulating texts, such as everyday conversation, university flyers and posters, advertisements, news, social media posts, and institutional documents.
- Language and gender in everyday life
- Gender in history
- Gendered way of speaking?
- Telling gender
- Doing gender
- Beyond language
- Beyond gender
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Read and understand key theoretical texts that address changing understandings of gender and empirical approaches in the study of language and gender.
- Acquire analytic tools to interpret and evaluate everyday and institutional texts in terms of gender construction.
- Develop discourse analytic skills in spoken and written presentations.
This course consists of a two-hour interactive lecture and a one-hour tutorial per week. Attendance is required for all sessions and participation will be graded.
Assessment for the course is 100% coursework:
- Participation in lectures, tutorial discussions, and online forum 20%
- Reading quizzes 10%
- Research proposal 40% (transcription exercises 5%, annotated bibliography 15%, outline 20%)
- Final research paper 30%
Weekly digital readings will be made available on the course Moodle page. Students are expected to locate, read, and discuss additional materials via the HKU Library E-resources.