Discourse analysis is an important area within language study that
typically includes exploration of a variety of linguistic features as a
means of elucidating meaning making in interactions or texts. Aspects
of language use examined can include semantics, grammar, lexical
choices, conversation skills, narrative structure and situational
features. Analyses typically involve systematic descriptions of speech
samples, with a focus on understanding how language is used in context.
Analyses of discourse may also highlight how language use functions to
construct and maintain social understanding of the world. The goal of
this course is to develop skills in performing a discourse analysis and
evaluating discourse analyses of other researchers. These two skills
are seen to be interconnected. The focus of the course will be on
evaluating recent research papers in discourse analysis, with an
emphasis on linguistic discourse analysis. Topics addressed in the
readings include transcription, information structure, conversation
analysis, cohesion, hesitation phenomena, forms of talk, narrative
analysis and indirectness. A key part of learning discourse analysis is
doing it. Students will therefore need to collect and transcribe some
data at the beginning of the term, and to analyze it using several
approaches we study. Students will also present 2-3 articles (depending
on class size) from the required readings. Evaluation
will be based on data collection and transcription (10%), text analysis
(15%), literature presentations (25% average), final presentation and
paper (40%) and class participation (10%). The reading
for the course will be a package of articles including papers by Clark,
Fairclough, Goffman, Labov, Schegloff, Schiffrin, Sherzer, and others. | Discourse Analysis Engl. 489 002 2019-2020 Term 2 Time: Th 11:00-1:00 Room: Buchanan Tower 541 |
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