‘Reconciling “Anglistik”’ conference, Trier, September 2003

Designing and piloting a world-wide-web-based

stylistics course

Mick Short, Lancaster University, UK(m.short@lancaster.ac.uk)

The structure of this talk

A. ‘The place of stylistics’ in Learning and learning

B. The overall investigation

C. The web-based course – some examples

D. The Lancaster 2002-3 pilot investigation

A. The ‘place’ of stylistics in Learning

English Language not in crisis in the UK (but we have had to work hard at making it ‘relevant’)

On the edges of two (three?) academic worlds (language/linguistics and literary criticism)

An irrelevance or a valuable link? The rock and the hard place - linguists want

stylisticians to be more ‘picky and formal’, the critics want them to be less so

Many Linguists tend to ignore stylistics – an irrelevance?

Are academic squabbles worth it?

Most of the squabbles involving stylistics have been with literacy criticism

Academic squabbles rarely change minds, and often:

Are squabbles over territory and resources, not learning

Involve opponents with outdated views of one another Are promoted by those who not take proper account of

the different academic aims of their ‘opponents’ Don’t take into proper account of the range of

different work in each area

Mick’s stylistics (1)

Aim – to understand how we get from the words on the page to meanings in our heads/effects texts have on us (cf. style)

Lots of aspects to this and we can’t ‘beat’ intuition A combination of text analysis and psychological

(pragmatic?) inference The texts don’t have to be literary, but often are:

(1996) Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose, Longman

(1997) ‘Analyzing the changing character and sophistication of TV advertisements in the People’s Republic of China’ (with HU Wen Zhong ), Text 17, 4, 491-515

Mick’s stylistics (2)

Theorising, description and interpretation, e.g.: (1981) Style in Fiction (with G. N. Leech), Longman

Ch. 10 (1999) ‘Graphological deviation, style variation and

point of view in Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh’, Journal of Literary Studies, 15 (3/4), 305-23

‘Linguistic metaphor identification in two extracts from novels’ (with E. Semino and J. Heywood), Language and Literature 11, 1, 35-54

Informant-based work (2002) ‘A Cross-cultural study of fictional and non-

fictional text understanding’ (with L. Halász) Poetics, 30, 3, 195-219

Mick’s stylistics (3)

Corpus stylistics, e.g. (2002) ‘Revisiting the notion of faithfulness in

discourse report/(re)presentation theory Using a Corpus Approach’ (with E. Semino and M. Wynne), Language and Literature, 325-55

(forthcoming) Corpus Stylistics: A Corpus-based Study of Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation in a Corpus of English Writing (with E. Semino), Routledge

Cognitive stylistics/poetics Characterisation, text worlds etc Affect

Style, theme etc. ‘Discourse stylistics’

The squabble I have been involved in

Mackay, R. (1996) ‘Mything the point: a critique of objective stylistics’, Language and Communication 16, 1, pp. 81-93.

Short, M. et al. (1998) ‘Stylistics, criticism and mythrepresentation again: squaring the circle with Ray Mackay’s subjective solution for all problems’, Language and Literature 7, 1, pp. 39-40.

Mackay, R. (1999) ‘There goes the other foot: a reply to Short et al.’ Language and Literature 8, 1, pp. 59-66.

Short, M. and W. van Peer (1999) ‘A reply to Mackay’, Language and Literature 8, 3, 269-75.

Stylistics as an aid for understanding and learning?

It lays bare part of what is involved in the process of textual understanding and interpretation

It pushes students to be more precise and analytical in thinking about understanding and interpretation

If you know the techniques of stylistic analysis, you have something to do if you get stuck interpretatively

It pushes students to think harder about the linguistic structure of texts and cognitive processes in understanding

And now for something different . . . . . . a short simple text (a poem), which is interesting

both linguistically and critically, to illustrate these points:

Stylistics as an aid for understanding and learning?

THE SECRET SITSWe dance round in a ring and suppose,But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

(Robert Frost)

Stylistics as an aid for understanding and learning?

S V A A cj V{[We | dance| round| in a ring] and [suppose,]}

cj S V A Cj VBut {[ the Secret | sits| in the middle] and [knows.]}

What is the overall structure of the sentence (coordination layering)?

S

S´ cj S´ cj S´ cj S´

S

S´ cj S´

S´´ cj S´´ S´´ cj S´´

Can stylistics aid weak students?

It can help, but it depends on how weak the student is and why

It helps students to talk about texts as well as feelings, and be explicit about them

It helps students to become aware of all that needs to be explained in understanding and communication

Stylistic analysis is useful for teachers to know, and then adapt to an appropriate level (cf. grammatical analysis)

It is possible to teach ‘pre-stylistics’ to students who can’t cope (yet) with ‘the terminology’ (!)

Can stylistics aid weak students?

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities(Isaiah, 53, v)

They punched, kicked and gralloched him.

Questions?

A comparison of two teaching methods (same content and pedagogical philosophy): Web-based learning format Traditional lecture/seminar-based format

Aim: To compare student responses and learning outcomes

to WWW-based and more traditional teaching of stylistic analysis

Level: An introductory stylistics course, aimed primarily at

first-year undergraduates (in the UK)

B. The overall investigation

Linguistic tools should be . . . . drip-fed Linguistic tools should be made

‘relevant’ Learning should be FUN! Materials should be varied Task-based learning in bite-sized chunks

For more details see:D.McIntyre (2003) Using foregrounding theory as a

teaching methodology in a stylistics course. Style 37(1): 1-14.

M. Short and D. Archer (2003) Designing a world-wide web-based stylistics course and investigating its effectiveness. Style 37(1): 27-46.

Mick’s course design philosophy

December 2000 to presentDevelopment of materials & Lancaster Pilot

Timetable for investigation

September 2003 - June 2005Comparison of student reaction to the web-based and traditional formats (and other agreed investigations) at Lancaster and other institutions Would you like to join in the investigation?

September 2005I want to make the course freely WWW-available to all

The teaching The web-based course online, password protected A full set of lecture/seminar handouts for the traditional

version of the course (if required) Video-taped recordings of the lectures for the traditional

version of the course (taken during 2001-2) Discussion group – email/online facility

The experiment Advice about when and how to administer the

questionnaires, run the focus groups and conduct interviews

Advice on analysing collected data

Support given to collaborators

Give initial comments on materials Provide me with copies of handouts and

other materials used in their location with their students

Provide a complete set of questionnaires, transcripts of tape-recordings, marking scheme, data on essay and examination grading etc.

Publish their own results (alone and/or co-operatively)

Make investigative data accessible to other collaborators

Collaborators will need to:

Questions?

C. The web-based course Task-based with variation in task types Features to aid navigation round the site Pages designed to be clear and ‘easy on the eye’ ‘Smileys’ Audio and video clips Chat café Self-tests Printer-friendly notes Glossary Self-assessment mechanism Links to other sites (e.g. author sites, the UCL

Internet Grammar of English)

The URLs

Language and Style course:http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/internet_stylistics/start.htm

Username: stylisticsPassword : 131course

Collaborators’ website:http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/internet_stylistics/tutors/(same username and password as above)

Includes electronic versions of McIntyre (2003) and Short and Archer (2003), advice, lecture/seminar handouts etc.

CD-ROM: Course | Collaborators’

Questions?

The Lancaster 2002-3 pilot investigation (January–March 2003)Pilot of an introductory stylistics course for first year undergraduates

One term course Three ‘hours’ of contact time in workshops (‘2 +1’) Students encouraged to work in pairs Tutors present to give advice in all workshops The ‘2-hour’ workshop contained a 15-minute

discussion session with the tutor Poetry and prose sections taught via web-based

workshops Drama section taught via traditional workshops Chat café ‘Printer-friendly’ notes facility

Investigative instruments Questionnaires

Initial Medial (after poetry and prose) Final (last week of the course)

Tape-recorded interviews (following questionnaires)

Tape-recorded focus group discussions (following questionnaires)

Observations by tutors and observers of workshop sessions

(Video recordings)

Initial questionnaire: topics covered

Their familiarity with the web

Student views of the perceived (dis)advantages of web-based courses

Their attitude towards paired-work

Their previous experience of English language in general, and stylistics in particular

… All had several years experience

… Main advantage: able to review material/work at own pace

… Main disadvantage: impersonal/tutor contact limited

… 40 against, 19 in favour

… Mixed

Mid-course questionnaire (49 returns)

Scale reflecting students’ general opinion of the course overall

1 2 3 4 5 Very interesting

5 20 20 4 0 Not at all interesting

Easy 2 8 21 16 2 Difficult

Clear 10 14 25 0 0 Unclear

Fun 3 15 17 13 1 Boring

+ -

Advantages - material can be reviewed/can work at own pace

- able to discuss ideas with partner

Disadvantages – No tutor; two-hour session too long/hard on eyes

Our

“response”

Pair-work discussions Tutor-led group discussions Students had a 10-minute break in the ‘2 hour’ session

However, whole group discussions were difficult

So we switched to smaller discussion groups

Students not expected to work “solidly” at the computer for two hours

Computers too noisy/room layout not amenable

Proved popular. Students said:helped with shyness, less intimidating, easier to hear, a

break from the screen, more personal

Scale reflecting students’ general opinion of the course overall 1 2 3 4 5 Very interesting

7 16 15 5 0 Not at all interesting

Easy 0 9 22 11 0 Difficult

Clear 7 20 12 3 0 Unclear

Fun 2 12 20 7 1 Boring

End-of-course questionnaire (43 returns)

Perceived disadvantages at end of course

Too much material Grammar sessions too difficult

These are typical criticisms of the course, whether web-based or lecture/seminar-based

Length of sessions

‘Self-taught’ = no lecturer present?

Too demanding, takes too much time Again a standard comment on the course,

whatever the mode

Perceived advantages at end of course

Accessibility (especially useful for revision) Paired-work ultimately seen as a positive (2-

to-1) NB. Paired-work could still prove problematic,

especially if partner missed a session or worked at a different pace

Changes to be introduced 3 X 50 minute sessions

New and better venue – dedicated to Linguistics teaching

Room format better for workshop teaching

- Able to split the groups, enabling better group discussions

- Beamer + screen for whole-class work

LCD screens

- Less tiring on the eyes

Coursework essay results

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

0%

10%

+

30%

+

50%

+

70%

+

2001-22002-3

Issue of uncontrolled variables …

Students, texts and markers were different

However … Mick acted as a

standardiser for sample scripts

Standardisation also a feature of the Self Assessment mechanism

No significant statistical difference when compared to last year’s marks (52.7 : 55.4 (53.5 : 57.1 if zero marks discounted)). Number of students similar.

Examination Results

2001-2 Average = 53.02 2002-3 Average = 52.83

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

30%

+

40%

+

50%

+

60%

+

70%

+

2001-22002-3

No zeros – marks on scripts used, so non-attendees (very few, as per cwa) ignored

Markers/standardising situation as per cwa

Conclusions … to date

Web-based mode did not appear to disadvantage students

Course rating good (but not as good as previous years?)

Students prefer a combination of lecture/seminars and web-based materials (but may attitudes change – they tend to like what they have been used to from school)

Social element difficult to reproduce Self-assessment mechanism was used, but patchily Web-based learning most appreciated when in

distance-mode? Special difficulties involved in investigating

(Lancaster) first-year students

Questions?