English and American Studies (BA) final exam topics
The comprehensive examination concluding your BA English studies is not another end-of-the-semester exam (“kollokvium”). The subjects below demand much broader literary intelligence: integrative skills are needed in handling lecture and seminar materials as well as related required readings. Students will have the option to choose between sub-topics when indicated (a., b., c., etc). Students are required to random-pick a topic from both groups (A) and (B) at the finals and to talk about the topics intelligently and concisely for cca. 15-20 minutes.
Below you can find a chart showing the relationship between subjects and the examination topics.
(A) English-Speaking Literatures and Cultures
1. Medieval English poetry and culture
a. Anglo-Saxon poetry and culture (450-1066)
b. Middle English poetry and culture (1066-1485)
2. Renaissance English literature and culture
a. Early sonnet writers (Wyatt and Surrey) and the Tudor age (1485-1558)
b. The Elizabethan age and the sonnet (Sidney, Spenser, Shakespeare) (1558-1603)
c. Shakespeare’s dramatic art
3. 17th-century English literature and culture (1603-1688)
a. Metaphysical poetry and the Stuart age
b. Milton in the context of Puritanism and the Civil War
c. Restoration comedy and the Restoration period
4. 18th-century British literature and culture (1688-1798)
a. Enlightenment, Neoclassicism and the Williamite compromise
b. Sentimental poetry and the era of the four Georges
c. The rise of the English novel (Defoe, Swift, Fielding, Richardson) and middle-class values
5. 19th-century British literature and culture
a. English Romantic poetry
b. Victorian poetry
c. The novel in the Romantic period (Jane Austen and Walter Scott)
d. The Victorian novel (Dickens, the Brontës, Eliot, Hardy)
e. New Ways in British drama at the turn of the century: Shaw and Wilde
6. The rise of modernism in British literature (1900-1930)
a. Modernism in fiction and its historical context
b. The Irish revival in drama and its historical context
7. Postwar British literature and culture
a. Main tendencies in the British novel after 1945
b. Main tendencies in British poetry after 1945
c. Main tendencies in British drama after 1945
8. US colonial history and literature (1607-1776)
a. Typical genres in poetry
b. Typical prose genres: diaries
9. Enlightenment values in US literature and culture (1776-1850): Michel-Guillaume-Jean de Crévecoeur, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson
10. The first American Renaissance in Literature and the antebellum era in US history (1830-1861)
a. Transcendentalism (Emerson, Thoreau)
b. American Romanticism (Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, Dickinson, Whitman)
11. Realism and naturalism in US literature
a. Stephen Crane and Jack London and the period of the Gilded Age
b. Theodore Dreiser in the context of the 1920s
12. The Lost Generation in US fiction in the context of the 1920s: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Gertrude Stein
13. The history and myth of the American South as reflected in literature: William Faulkner, Katherine Ann Porter, William Styron, Zora Neale Hurston
14. Black voices from Slavery to the first black Nobel Prize Winner in literature in the context of the history of slavery and civil rights movement in the US
15. Images of America: The popular iconography of a culture (the Puritan, the man of the frontier, the Southern Colonel, the faithful slave, the bad man, the Indian chieftain, the Alger hero, the bootlegger, the flapper, the tycoon)
16. The formation and collapse of the American Dream as reflected in US literature
17. The history of immigration in the US and its cultural impact
18. The history and cultural significance of the territorial expansion of the United States
19. Compare and contrast the evolution and mechanisms of the British and US political systems
20. The history of Anglo-Hungarian contacts
a. The role of Protestantism in Anglo-Hungarian cultural relationships
b. 19th-century anglomania and outstanding figures in the history of Anglo-Hungarian cultural relationships
(B) English Linguistics
1. Elements of grammar, parts of speech. Formal and functional classification of verbs.
2. Logical categories of the verb: Tense, aspect, mood and voice.
3. Various concepts expressed by the anomalous finites.
4. Logical categories of the noun: Number, gender and case.
5. Syntactic functions and semantic sub-classification of adjectives and adverbs.
6. Characteristics of the closed-class items. Determiners, pronouns and prepositions.
7. The simple sentence: Syntactic and semantic roles of clause elements.
8. Sentence types and discourse functions. Questions and negation.
9. Grammatical devices of structure expansion and structure reduction: coordination, subordination, pro-forms and ellipsis.
10. The production and system of speech sounds. English vowel and consonant phonemes.
11. Suprasegmental phonology: Stress in simple and complex words. Intonation, functions of intonation. Aspects of connected speech: Rhythm, assimilation, elision, and linking.
12. Theories of language acquisition
a. Innateness, environmental theories and cognitive accounts of L2 learning.
b. The linguistic input for first and second language acquisition.
13. Translation theories. The process of translation. The notion of equivalence. Lexical and grammatical operations. (only for Translation Specialisation students)
14. Features of major regional dialects of English.
a. “The inner circle”: English spoken as a native language and its regional variations
b. “The outer circle”: English used as an official language and its regional variations
15. The English language in a historical perspective: the evolution of English until 1066 (the Indo-European family of languages, the Germanic languages, markers of Germanic separation, Grimm’s Laws, Old English, the Norse influence).
16. The evolution of English from 1066 to the present day (the Norman conquest, the Middle English period, Modern English, standardization, printing, sound changes, the Great Vowel Shift).
17. The main questions of sociolingustics. The relationship between language, society and culture.
18. Stylistics. Definitions of style. The concept of register and dialect. Functional styles: the language and style of newspaper. Text types and style types: genres. Figurative speech and imagery.
19. The definition of pragmatics. Implicature. Presupposition. Deixis. Speech act theory. Conversation analysis.
20. Cognitive semantics – OR – Legal English (depending on your specialisation)
English and American Studies (BA) final exam topics
|
Topic |
Pertaining course |
|
(A) English-Speaking Literatures and Cultures |
|
|
1. Medieval English poetry and culture 2. Renaissance English literature and culture 3. 17th-century English literature and culture (1603-1688) 4. 18th-century British literature and culture (1688-1798) |
BAN1309 British Literature 1. BAN1311 The History of the British Isles |
|
5. 19th-century British literature and culture |
BAN1409 British Literature 2. BAN1311 The History of the British Isles |
|
6. The rise of modernism in British literature (1900-1930) 7. Postwar British literature and culture |
BAN1509 British Literature 3. BAN1311 The History of the British Isles |
|
8. US colonial history and literature (1607-1776) 9. Enlightenment values in US literature and culture (1776-1850) |
BAN1310 American Literature 1. BAN1411 The History of the USA |
|
9. Enlightenment values in US literature and culture (1776-1850) 10. The first American Renaissance in Literature and the antebellum era in US history (1830-1861) 11. Realism and naturalism in US literature |
BAN1410 American Literature 2. BAN1411 The History of the USA |
|
11. Realism and naturalism in US literature 12. The Lost Generation in US fiction in the context of the 1920s 13. The history and myth of the American South as reflected in literature |
BAN1510 American Literature 3. BAN1411 The History of the USA |
|
14. Black voices from Slavery to the first black Nobel Prize Winner in literature in the context of the history of slavery and civil rights movement in the US |
BAN1310 American Literature 1. BAN1410 American Literature 2. BAN1510 American Literature 3. BAN1411 The History of the USA |
|
15. Images of America: The popular iconography of a culture |
To be handed out |
|
16. The formation and collapse of the American Dream as reflected in US literature |
BAN1310 American Literature 1. BAN1410 American Literature 2. BAN1510 American Literature 3. BAN1411 The History of the USA |
|
17. The history of immigration in the US and its cultural impact 18. The history and cultural significance of the territorial expansion of the United States |
BAN1411 The History of the USA |
|
19. Compare and contrast the evolution and mechanisms of the British and US political systems |
BAN1115 Introduction to British Culture BAN1216 Introduction to American Culture |
|
20. The history of Anglo-Hungarian contacts |
BAN1609 The History of Anglo-Hungarian Cultural Contacts |
|
Topic |
Pertaining course |
|
(B) English Linguistics |
|
|
1. Elements of grammar, parts of speech. Formal and functional classification of verbs. 2. Logical categories of the verb: Tense, aspect, mood and voice. 3. Various concepts expressed by the anomalous finites. 4. Logical categories of the noun: Number, gender and case. 5. Syntactic functions and semantic sub-classification of adjectives and adverbs. 6. Characteristics of the closed-class items. Determiners, pronouns and prepositions. |
BAN1215 Introduction to Linguistics BAN1407 Morphology |
|
7. The simple sentence: Syntactic and semantic roles of clause elements. 8. Sentence types and discourse functions. Questions and negation. 9. Grammatical devices of structure expansion and structure reduction: coordination, subordination, pro-forms and ellipsis. |
BAN1408 Syntax |
|
10. The production and system of speech sounds. English vowel and consonant phonemes. 11. Suprasegmental phonology: Stress in simple and complex words. Intonation, functions of intonation. Aspects of connected speech: Rhythm, assimilation, elision, and linking. |
BAN1308 Phonetics and Phonology |
|
12. Theories of language acquisition |
BAN1215 Introduction to Linguistics |
|
13. Translation theories. The process of translation. The notion of equivalence. Lexical and grammatical operations. |
only for Translation specialisation students BAN2106 Introduction to Translation Theory |
|
14. Features of major regional dialects of English. |
BAN1511 Sociolinguistics and Dialectology |
|
15. The English language in a historical perspective: the evolution of English until 1066 16. The evolution of English from 1066 to the present day |
BAN1508 The History of English |
|
17. The main questions of sociolingustics. The relationship between language, society and culture. |
BAN1511 Sociolinguistics and Dialectology |
|
18. Stylistics. Definitions of style. The concept of register and dialect. Functional styles: the language and style of newspaper. Text types and style types: genres. Figurative speech and imagery. |
BAN1611 Stylistics |
|
19. The definition of pragmatics, implicature. Presupposition. Deixis. Speech act theory. Conversation analysis. |
BAN1610 Pragmatics |
|
20. Cognitive semantics – OR – Legal English (depending on your specialisation) |
BAN2113 Cognitive Linguistics or: BAN2205 The Basics of Law |