The Department of English and American Studies (Anglistik und Amerikanistik) at the Alpen-Adria University of Klagenfurt was founded in 1973. It was the first English department in Austria to introduce the B.A. and M.A. programme in 2005. There are two chairs, one in English and American Literature and one in English Linguistics. In addition, the department specializes in English Language Teaching Methodology, English in Other Subjects and in a wide range of topics in British, North American and Australian cultures. Another area of great expertise, language testing, was officially launched in 2005 with the opening of the LTC (the Language Testing Centre) (see below).

Our teaching programme covers British, American, Australian and Canadian literature and culture. In addition, we also specialize in Canadian, African American and Australian Indigenous literature and cultures, Children’s and Young Adult Fiction, and Games Studies.

Film and media studies figure prominently in our curriculum. Our department houses the largest collection of British and Australian films in Austria. International experts introduce our students to film analysis and media history. A special emphasis is put on

• Methods and techniques of film analysis
• History of British cinema
• Intermediality
• Correlation between media and society
• Creative writing workshops

Our department has long been recognized as Austria’s leading centre for Second Language Acquisition research. But our current teaching and research activities in Applied Linguistics extend beyond this specialization focussing on workplace interaction from an interprofessional perspective, English as a lingua franca and language testing. The increasing role of English worldwide in international communication and the media as well as the availability of computerized data bases for language analysis have led us to offer new approaches to exploring the English language as a social and cultural phenomenon. These new areas include:

• Contact Linguistics
• Multimodal Analysis
• Discourse Analysis
• Translation Studies
• Spatial Language and Spatial Cognition
• Interactional Sociolinguistics
• Corpus Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics

The aim of the programme is to make students fully proficient users of English. Thanks to extensive practice (accompanied by a little theory as necessary) in the four communicative skills of reading, listening, speaking and writing, students gain in-depth knowledge and fluency, making them confident speakers. The department also offers courses in ‘general English’ that deal specifically with grammar and extend students’ vocabulary. The assumed starting level is Matura, or B2 according to the CEFR, and the objective is that students achieve level C2 (mastery) within 3 years.

English in Other Subjects

In addition to our language programme for students of English, we offer courses on English for Business, Technology and the Media for students in other departments at the university. These courses focus on meeting students’ English language needs in their studies and their later professions.

Language Testing Centre (LTC)

Professional language testing is playing an increasingly important role in Austria as well as in all countries of the EU. Although language competence is assessed in Austria at secondary and tertiary level in the educational system, professionalism in current practice is largely missing. The situation for modern languages at universities is not much different. As a result, it is unclear what the diplomas of Austrian university graduates in modern languages mean in terms of language competence.The Language Testing Centre aims to remedy this situation by providing an institutional basis for

• professional test development
• research in Language Testing and Evaluation
• pre- and in-service teacher training in Language Testing and Evaluation
• conferences and workshops in Language Testing and Evaluation
• construction of learner corpora