Authorised by Academic Registrar, April 1996
Synopsis It is reasonable to believe that phonological, syntactic, and semantic analyses are all properly included within discourse analysis and that they should each be constrained by their efficacy in the task of explaining discourse. In the division of linguistic labors, however, discourse analysis is concerned with language expressions larger than a single sentence. This subject aims to be a study of the practical analysis of written texts and conversation, paying particular attention to cohesive factors within texts and some to stylistic and varietal differences in discourse structure. We shall investigate conversational structure; narrative structures in different languages; indicators of semantic cohesion; how topics are introduced and terminated; how they are recognised and maintained; the distribution of information in a text (givenness, focus, etc.); the place of knowledge and context in language and understanding; and perhaps other things besides.
Assessment Class presentation: 5% + 2 assignments (2000 words): 25% + Essay (6000) words: 70%