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South Asia Department

Readings in Contemporary Hindi

Course Code:
155901185
Unit value:
1
Year of study:
Year 2
Taught in:
Full Year
This course complements Hindi B by looking closely at selected texts and textual extracts, many of them drawn from modern fiction and travelogue. The texts are read and discussed in class, and are re-visited in regular homework tasks in which students make active use of material learnt from the texts. The concentration here is on language and the progressive building-up of vocabulary, rather than on the literary qualities of the texts.

Prerequisites

1st Year Hindi level required

Objectives and learning outcomes of the course

The objectives of the course are to:
  • improve the student’s reading skills through reading a wide range of authentic texts;
  • examine some of the major language problems that occur when moving from simplified to authentic texts;
  • increase the student’s awareness of common features of authentic written Hindi, such as compound verbs, transitive and intransitive phrases, absolutives;
  • to increase the student’s range of vocabulary, including synonyms of Sanskrit and of Perso-Arabic derivation;
  • to increase the student’s knowledge of aspects of South Asian culture and society through reading passages expressing Indian perspectives;
  • to improve the student’s comprehension skills through exercises aimed at extracting and processing information from the passages;
  • to improve the student’s writing skills through resumes, reaction pieces and simple analyses of the texts.
At the end of a course, a student should be able to demonstrate:
  • the ability to read, understand and extract information from authentic Hindi texts on a variety of topics;
  • the ability to translate authentic Hindi texts accurately into English;
  • the ability to express abstract ideas with regards to the texts and their topics in simple Hindi.

Workload

Total of 22 weeks teaching with 2 hours classroom contact per week.

Method of assessment

One three-hour written examination (60%) taken in May/June and 4 pieces of assessed homework (40%) to be submitted on day 1, week 1, term 2 and day 1, week 1, term 3.

Suggested reading

The reading list for this course will be made available from the convenor at the beginning of the course.