ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Academic Year 2019/2020 - 3° Year
Teaching Staff: Paola Clara LEOTTA
Credit Value: 7
Taught classes: 42 hours
Term / Semester:

Learning Objectives

The course aims at consolidating and deepening students’ linguistic skills particularly concerning the grammatical, morphological and phonological aspects of language (B1 level of the Common European Framework), the ability of reading comprehension and the comment on specialized texts belonging to the field of psychology.

Entry level: A2.

Achievement level: B1.


Course Structure

Lectures + Lab.


Detailed Course Content

Grammatical, morphological and phonological analysis of texts of different typologies; reading comprehension activities with a focus on scientific lexicon on Psychology and particularly on the following topics:

- A brief history of psychology (Psychology/Psychologies)

- Clinical and abnormal psychology (Types of psychotherapy)

- General psychology (IQ testing, Memory, Stimuli, Cognitive Psychology)

- Developmental Psychology (The Strange Situation, Erikson, Piaget)

- The Health benefits of journaling (+ film analysis of "Freedom Writers' Diary")

- The Popularization of Psychological Discourse


By the end of the course students will be able to:

- Identify and properly use the grammatical and syntactical structures dealt with during lessons.

- Recognize and properly use the most frequently recurring elements of specialized lexicon.

- Read, translate and comment on texts about education and pedagogy.

- Sum up information found in texts/films.


Textbook Information

Grammar and Language skills

- Grammar: M. Swan, C. Walter, D. Bertocchi, The Good Grammar Book for Italian Students, Oxford U.P., Oxford 2007 (only for reference)

- Language Skills: handouts will be provided.

Monographic course

1. S. Porro, English for Psychological Studies, Celid, Torino 2013, pp. 7- 42

2. M. Purcell, The Health benefits of journaling, www.psychcentral.com

3. P.C.Leotta, “The transportation of British, American and Indian cultures to Italian-dubbed films. Conventionality and creative solutions”, in V. Bonsignori, G. Cappelli, E. Mattiello (eds),Worlds of Words: Complexity, Creativity, and Conventionality in English Language, Literature and Culture, Vol. 1 (Language), Pisa University Press, Pisa, 2019, pp. 187-201. (only the paragraph on "Freedom Writers' Diary").

4. P.C. Leotta, “The Popularization of Psychological Discourse in the Media. Questioning the Boundaries of Genre”, Vijay K. Bhatia / Eleonora Chiavetta /Silvana Sciarrino (eds.), Variations in Specialized Genres. Standardization and Popularization, Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, Tubingen, 2015, pp. 197-211.