Undergraduate Course: Discourse Analysis (LASC10114)
Course Outline
| School | School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | Discourse analysis is the study of language in use. In this course, the students will learn empirical methods for studying naturally-occurring language data in various social, institutional and technological contexts. |
| Course description |
Discourse analysis looks at how people use language in real-life contexts. In this course, we will explore how discourse or language in use can be studied empirically. We are going to focus, in particular, on two types of naturally-occurring discourse: spoken (e.g. small talk, professional interaction, media interviews, etc.) and computer-mediated (e.g. text and multimedia messaging, social media postings, etc). The course will cover three main components:
1. What is discourse and discourse analysis: introducing key concepts in discourse analysis such as written vs. spoken discourse, small d and big D discourse, cohesion, turn-taking, etc.;
2. What are the main approaches to discourse analysis: e.g. Conversation Analysis, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Computer-mediated Discourse Analysis, Critical and Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Corpus-assisted Discourse Analysis;
3. How to design and carry out a discourse analysis project: the ethical and practical considerations of collecting spoken, text messaging and social media data in different contexts, transcribing spoken and multimodal data, analyzing naturally-occurring discourse data adopting one of the main DA approaches.
The course is highly hands-on. The students will learn to apply linguistic skills they have learned in this and other courses to examine real-life questions.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 Linguistics/Language Sciences courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Explain key concepts and theories of discourse and key approaches to discourse analysis
- Collect and transcribe spoken and computer-mediated discourse data
- Analyze spoken and computer-mediated discourse using one of the key DA approaches and linguistic analytical skills acquired in other courses (such as phonology, syntax and/or pragmatics)
- Observe and describe the structures and patterns of discourse
- Interpret discursive patterns using appropriate discourse concepts and theories
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Reading List
Cameron, D. (2001). Working with spoken discourse. London: Sage.
Cameron, D., & Panovic, I. (2014). Working with written discourse. London: Sage Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J., & O'Halloran, K. (2016). Introducing multimodality. London: Routledge.
Page, R., Barton, D., Unger, J. W., & Zappavigna, M. (2014). Researching language and social media: A student guide. Routledge.
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Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1. Analytical & Critical thinking
2. Independent Research: Conduct research and enquiry into language in use through research design, the collection and analysis of qualitative data, synthesising and reporting research finding.
3. Written Communication: be able to communicate complex ideas and arguments in writing using language and visual resources (such as images, tables and figures).
4. Ethics and social responsibility: applying ethical principles in research practices.
5. Team working: effectively perform within team environments including the ability to recognise and capitalise on individuals' different thinking, experience and skills.
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| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Christopher Cummins
Tel: (0131 6)50 6858
Email: |
Course secretary | Ms Susan Hermiston
Tel: (0131 6)50 3440
Email: |
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