Video of Dr Beedham's lecture on the German passive
The video shown here is of Dr Beedham giving a class on the German passive as part of his Honours (= 3rd and 4th year) module, GM3080 Grammatical Rules and Lexical Exceptions in Modern German. The class was given on 2.12.2010 especially for the purposes of making this video, at the end of a 3-week session (5 hrs.) on the passive, and is a summary of Dr Beedham's aspectual analysis of the German passive. The video is aimed at three audiences:
- school-leavers thinking of going to University, and who want to see what a University class looks like;
- students of German already at the University of St Andrews thinking of taking module GM3080;
- professional linguists, and (prospective) PhD students, who might find it useful to see Dr Beedham summarise his aspectual analysis of the German passive in lecture format to an undergraduate audience.
The film lasts for 36 mins., and consists of a PowerPoint lecture followed by questions from the student audience.
Download Powerpoint slides
In order to prepare for the lecture please read the following two chapters:
Beedham, Christopher. 1995. German Linguistics: An Introduction. München: Iudicium. (See especially Chapter 5 'The passive', pp.66-86).
Beedham, Christopher. 2005. Language and Meaning: The Structural Creation of Reality. Amsterdam: Benjamins. (See especially Chapter 3 'The passive', pp.33-60).
To watch the video you may need to download some software, e.g. Media Player or QuickTime, in which case you will need to click on "add plug-in" below. When you have downloaded the software you may need to restart your web browser. The first time you watch the video it may take a few minutes to load, depending on the speed of your connection.
Dr Beedham's lecture on the German passive from University of St Andrews on Vimeo.