ESL 5303 - Discourse Analysis

Credits: 3 hrs

The course is meant to be an introduction to discourse analysis from a linguistic perspective. An interactive, activity-based approach to the study of language in use will be adopted in order to help students understand language structure and variety. Emphasis will be placed on topics such as linguistic categories, worldviews, discourse structure, register, genre, literacy, speech acts, communication and technology, among others. A variety of texts will be used, which will include literary extracts, advertisements, horoscopes, junk mail, comedy sketches, political speeches, telephone discourse, and Internet chat.