National University of Singapore

This is a beginning language course for students with no prior knowledge of the language. This is an integrated course that will help students achieve novice proficiency in the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing), grammar and vocabulary (including Hangul, the Korean alphabet) for personal interaction and communication in authentic situations.

This course introduces the idea that space is lived and experienced as part social and cultural life. Drawing from the arts, food, sports and film, and/or other related topics, the course delves into critical developments in social and cultural geography and provides students with the foundational knowledge to read advanced courses in the sub-discipline. It introduces methodological approaches which include ‘ways of seeing’ and ‘landscape as text' and is critical to understanding the human/culture and environment/space relationship.

This course explores the development and evolution of popular culture in Singapore from the colonial period to the present day. Students learn diverse topics including Singapore's changing religious landscape, wedding and death rituals, as well as varied forms of popular entertainment from street opera, amusement parks to radio and cinema. Students gain a sensitivity to change and continuities within historical contexts, better understand Singapore’s rich cultural heritage and improve skills in critical thinking, writing and presentation.

Consumption has come to dominate our lives, is driving economies, yet also endangering the future of our planet. This course asks questions about consumption from multiple perspectives, such as how did consumption assume its prominent place, how do economists rationalize consumption, how do companies use behavioral models to craft marketing strategies, whether consumption is good or bad for society or the individual, or whether consumers need to be protected.

It is generally assumed that language, culture, and our way of thinking are related. The relation, which is often called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis or linguistic relativity, has been the subject of serious philosophical, anthropological and scientific inquiry. Taking advantage of the extensive bilingualism in Singapore, this course selects a few salient grammatical features and critically examines them within the broader cultural and/or cognitive contexts. Topics discussed include pluralisation, classifier, tense and aspect, kinship, polysemy, metaphor and bilingual acquisition. Issues related to translation are also discussed.