units

ATS2683

Faculty of Arts

18 September 2017 29 April 2024
Monash University

Undergraduate - Unit

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 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.

LevelUndergraduate
FacultyFaculty of Arts
Organisational UnitLinguistics
OfferedClayton First semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)Dr Melanie Burns

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:

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

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 100%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

See also Unit timetable information

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Melanie Burns

This unit applies to the following area(s) of study

Linguistics

Prerequisites

ATS1338 & ATS1339

Prohibitions

ATS3683