Course Title: Discourse Analysis

Course Code: 448

Credit Hours: 3

Semester: Spring 2020

CORSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES

This course introduces students to major theorists and research in the field of discourse analysis. Fosters awareness of coherence and other textual features in written texts and trains students in a variety of analytical methods so that students are able to carry out practical work using authentic data. It introduces theories and methodologies for the study of human discourse, or language in use. Discourse history, assumptions and principles, verbal and nonverbal communication, as well as society and culture's roles in a variety of discourse genres are discussed.

Students will study the nature of meaning, how we usually convey more than we actually say or write, the role of politeness in verbal communication, the necessarily cooperative nature of most forms of communication, and what makes texts cohesive and coherent. We are particularly interested in working with text, that is, larger units of meaning than a clause or sentence. Students will develop skills in analysing the properties of different texts, in characterizing the interpersonal stances adopted by speakers and writers, and in identifying and classifying the various genres or texts types which operate in particular social settings.

SLOs

By the end of this course, students should be:

•  aware of the ways in which texts are organised
• aware of the ways in which discourse practices vary across social, cultural and linguistic boundaries, and how this impacts within local and global contexts
•  aware of the major approaches to the analysis of discourse
•  able to use approaches and findings from discourse analysis in teaching language
• able to use new knowledge to better prepare and deliver coherently and logically. argued written assignments
• capable of integrating tools from linguistics and also social theory as a key method in discourse analysis

COURSE CONTENTS

Introduction

• What is discourse?
• Level of discourse in language
• Linguistic forms and functions
• Transactional VS Interactional view
• Sentence and utterance
• Product Vs process
• Text
• Context
• Genre
• Discourse analysis

 The role of context in interpretation

(Reference, presupposition, implicatures, inference etc.)

Discourse markers

Topic and representation of discourse content

(Sentential topic & discourse topic, discourse topic and representation of discourse content etc.

Staging and the representation of discourse structure

(Theme, staging, thematization, thematic structure, natural order and point of view)

Information structure

(Give & new, Halliday’s account of information structure etc.)

The nature of reference in text and discourse (Cohesion, referring expressions etc.)

Coherence in the interpretation of discourse

(Top-down and bottom-up processing, speech acts, representing background knowledge. frames etc)

Conversational analysis

Critical discourse analysis

1. Language and Ideology
2. Language and Power
3. Language and Culture
4. Language and Gender
5. Language and Identity

Multimodality

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

• Baker, P. (2011). Key Terms in Discourse Analysis. New York: Continuum.
• Brown, G. and Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: CUP
• Cutting, J. (2002). Pragmatics and Discourse: A Resource book for students. London: Routledge
• Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical Discourse Analysis: The critical study of language. London: Longman
• Gee, J.P. (2010). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. New York: Routledge
• Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. London: Longman.
• Mills, S. (2003). Michel Foucault. London; Routledge
• Widdoson, H.G. (2004). Text, Context, Pretext. Malden; Blackwell.
• McHoul, A. (2002). A Foucault Primer: Discourse, power and the subject. London: Routledge
• Van Dijk, T. (2009). Society and Discourse. New York: Cambridge.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

• Mid Term: 30
• Sessional: 20
• Final: 50

CLASS SCHEDULE

BS-VIII (ExPPP)

• Wednesday n Thursday
• 3:30-5:00

ACADEMIC CALENDAR (Initially implemented)

• Commencement of Classes: January 13, 2020
• Mid-Term Examination: March 9-13, 2020
• Final Term Examination: My 4-8, 2020
• (PS: The Academic Calendar has been revised due to Covid-19 Pandemic)