Undergraduate - UnitATS2683 - The analysis of discourse: Texts, narrative and society

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Arts
Organisational Unit	Linguistics
Offered	Not offered in 2014
Coordinator(s)	Dr Louisa Willoughby

Notes

Previously coded LIN2570

Synopsis

Every day, we engage with a wide range of different text types and speaking situations, from casual conversations with friends to news reports, medical appointments to advertising. In this unit, we explore the typical features of these and other genres. We look in detail at text and conversation structure to uncover their hidden rules and understand what causes common misunderstandings. Students are introduced to different approaches to discourse analysis, including Conversation Analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis and Interactional Sociolinguistics, and reflect on the appropriateness of each approach for analysing different types of data and answering different types of research questions.

Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, a student will be able to:

Understand and be able to apply key terms and concepts used in discourse analysis
Have a developed understanding of the linguistic features that define different types of texts
Be able to articulate key differences between two or more approaches to discourse analysis
Describe in detail the ways in which English speakers use paralanguage cues (such as pitch, stress, pauses, laughter) to convey meaning in conversation
Outline common rhetorical strategies used to develop coherence and cohesion within a text
Be able to apply their knowledge in an extended analysis of a text of their own choosing