Course descriptions

Provides a historical survey of the English language from its Indo-European roots through Old and Middle English to the present. Topics include changes in sound, meaning, and grammar, as well as developments in American English, including regional and social dialects.

Introduces students to the science of sounds in the English Language. Its main objective is to improve our students’ pronunciation; therefore, emphasis is put upon the two main varieties of the English language, British English and American English. The main aspects of English Phonology are also covered in this course to explain the relationship between pronunciation and meaning. The communicative value of intonation is also studied to show the students the importance of this feature in conveying extra linguistic meanings.

Introduces students to the various theories in the field and their application in translation.

Introduces students to the study of lexicon as seen from the viewpoint of modern theories of grammar.

Introduces students to translation software and to principles of machine translation. Exposes students to a variety of computer-based translation techniques and translation programs.

Provides an overview of modern English grammar from the perspectives of traditional, structural, and transformational grammar.

Focuses on the interaction between computers and human language. Provides students with essential skills and knowledge for the processing and analysis of natural language data. Engages in practical projects to apply NLP techniques to specific linguistic and computational cases, offering opportunities for experimentation and innovation.

Myth

Introduces students to the practice of translation for business and commerce. This subject establishes a theoretical framework for business translation and offers extensive practice in translating materials in business and commerce.

Introduces students to the techniques and terminology of literary criticism and trains them in the rudiments of writing about literature and its genres. The emphasis is on reading and writing about literature.

Introduces students to the practice of translation for the media. This subject establishes a theoretical framework for media translation and offers extensive practice in translating materials in a wide range of media.

Introduces students to the practice of translation for science and technology. It establishes a theoretical framework for translating scientific and technological idioms and expressions and offers extensive practice in translating materials in a wide range of texts.

Explores the common themes in YA literature including multiculturalism, identity, gender, and disability. Surveys excerpts of 'new classics' and examines the literary trends associated with them. Emphasizes critical reading as part of the exploration of YA literature in which we explore the politics at hands in each of these texts. Focuses on how we can as educators use young adult literature to develop and enhance critical reading/ thinking skills.

Surveys a broad range of children's literature and its cultural contexts. Aims to teach students to identify literary elements and understand the history and development of children's literature and key issues today. Focuses on the important role children's literature plays in elementary literacy instruction.

Focuses on genres of literature not addressed in other literature courses. Topics vary at the discretion of the instructor.

Introduces students to the practice of legal translation. This subject establishes a theoretical framework for legal translation and offers extensive practice in translating key documents in a wide range of legal fields.

Approaches translation as a wider extra-textual phenomenon that considers cultural encounters as acts of translation. Introduces functionalist, cultural approaches to translation and the critical methods of cultural studies. Covers major historical processes including orientalism, colonialism, post-colonialism, and globalization. Focuses on issues of identity, gender, representation and authenticity of source cultures, and cultural appropriation by the target culture. Requires competency of both Arabic and English to read, analyze, and translate key texts in travel writing.

Provides students with an introductory theoretical background of the study of meaning reinforced by practical exercises in a way that helps the students to grasp the idea of meaning, acquire some critical and analytical thinking toward meanings in the language, and develop an understanding of how meaning is constructed and conveyed across languages.

Introduces students to the process of making meaning and the possibility of communication in the English language. Topics include Speech act theory, politeness theory, and relevance theory.

Focuses on the application of the outcomes of linguistic theory upon the many social practices involving language understanding.

Focuses on the intertwined relationship between translation and intercultural communication. Explores discursive structures in various genres and incorporates them into translation. Facilitates a comprehensive understanding of both the source and target cultures through an intercultural project, equipping students with effective intercultural tools when translating texts.

Helps students to work closely with his/her instructor on the production of an extended translation related topic of the student's own choice. Assists students to improve their expertise in examining texts and analyzing the academic, theoretical, linguistic, and socio-cultural issues underlying communication across cultures. Enhances student's ability to conduct professional translation both in English and Arabic texts. Helps students conduct an advanced project in translating texts from English into Arabic and vice versa.

Examines the ways in which relationships and structures in society influence language and vice versa. Explores variations in language that are determined by region, gender, socio-economic level, and cultural background. Introduces major sociolinguistic theories. Explores methods of analyzing language issues in the students' own lives to help them establish positions in the light of findings of sociolinguistic research

Provides theoretical and practical resources and skills necessary for exploring the theories and applications of second language acquisition of phonology, morphology and pragmatics. Provides an in-depth understanding of the theoretical foundations and practical application for teaching English to speakers of other languages.

Introduces basic theories and findings in the study of the psychological process of language use, with a focus on the comprehension, production, acquisition, and representation of the language. Psycholinguistics is an area of specialization in cognitive psychology that focuses on the psychological components of the langauge processor. This course emphasizes the commonalities that underline human language everywhere, and we will focus on what these commonalities tell us about the basic nature of the human language capacity.

Serves as a seminar for advanced students of linguistics and translation. Examines advanced topics within the study of language and linguistics. Aims to build on the knowledge of linguistic theories acquired in earlier ENGL courses. Explores the theoretical foundations of one or more modern/ dominant theories of language and linguistics, with special reference to their methodological assumptions and applications as manifested in investigations of the core areas of phonetics/ phonology, morphology and semantics.

Provides student with a broad overview of classical literature as it bears on English literature. Also aims to acquaint students with the cultural, religious, political background of the Greek and Roman worlds by perusing a broad range of texts. Examines classical texts by different authors, such as Homer, Sophocles, Aristophanes, Virgil and Horace, in order for students to be exposed to a wide selection of perspectives, rationales and contexts.

Surveys Old and Middle English literature from Beowulf to Malory’s Morte d’Arthur, exclusive of Chaucer. All works are read in modern English translations.

Examines the development of Shakespeare’s concept of tragedy and tragicomedy from Titus Andronicus to The Tempest. The plays will be related to the social and literary milieu of the period.

Examines Shakespeare’s early work for the theatre with some attention to the sonnets and longer poems. Provides historical background for a study of all the plays, including discussions of Elizabethan society, the world of the stage and Shakespeare’s biography.

Studies some of history's most famous dramas both as literary forms and as cultural expressions. Students will read and discuss a wide variety of well-known plays from ancient Greece and Rome, the early modern English stage, and explore the global influence of drama.

Explores the factors contributing to the rise of the 18-century novel and discusses in-depth the two central issues in 18th-century fiction - class and gender.

Novels of the Romantic and Victorian periods, from Austen to George Eliot.

Explores the factors contributing to the rise of Gothic ism in the 18th century, and discusses Gothic literary aesthetics and cultural politics.

Examines literature of the period between 1870 and the First World War, including works by writers such as Hardy, Conrad, James, Wilde, Stevenson, Shaw, Jefferies, and Wells.

Focuses on critical reading and analysis of British fiction of the twentieth century.

Examines American literature of the nineteenth century: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman and others.

Examines American literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: James, Twain, Stephen Crane, Dreiser and others.

Studies the development of the novel and short story in America.

Examines the novel and short story in America since World War I.

Analyzes representative works of world literature, Western and non-Western, from Antiquity to modern times. Highlights certain periods (e.g. from Antiquity to the Renaissance, the 18th century to the late 19th century, or the modern and post-modern periods) or certain thematic concerns. Analyzes works in their cultural/historical contexts and their enduring human values which unite the different literary traditions. Promotes critical thinking and writing within a framework of cultural diversity as well as comparative and interdisciplinary analysis.

Examines modern movements and ideas including Symbolism, Imagism, the Harlen Renaissance, the Beat generation, Confessionalism, Formalism, Martian poetry, Postmodernism, Performance and Slam.

Introduces students to film theory and issues of cinematic adaptation. Highlights text and film as different mediums, and focuses on the creative transformation that takes place in the process of adapting literary texts. Explores and eclectic selection of literary texts and their cinematic counterparts from different traditions and eras.

Focuses on plays and ideas that have influenced or modified the direction of drama in the modern period. Representative plays from the 1880s to the present day are analyzed and reviewed in the class, both critically and in performance.

Acquaints students with a range of critical methodologies that have gained the currency since the 1960's. Includes the following critical theories: formalist (New Critical, Russian, and Aristotelian), structuralism, post-structuralism, Marxist, reader response, feminist, postcolonial, psychoanalytic, postmodern, cultural, ecocritical and aesthetic.

Explores the novels of major twentieth-century Anglophone writers and discusses them from a variety of critical perspectives (Marxist, postcolonial, feminist, psychoanalytic). Emphasises the importance of reading the modern novel in the context of its pertinent literary movements (modernism, postmodernism), as well as in the context of its global, transnational reception.

Introduces theories that have defined cultural studies. Focuses on the dynamics of culture regionally and globally, through interdisciplinary cultural critique and analysis, from literature to other media generally.

Examines topics and texts not covered in other courses at an advanced level. Topics vary per semester and enrollment limited to twelve students.

Examines the role of gender in literature, including the transformation of literary genres by women writers, writings by women during a particular historical period, and gender relations in literature. Specific topics vary from semester to semester. The course may be repeated for credit with departmental approval.

Focuses on topics in literature that are not covered in other 400-level English courses.