LIN 2113: Elements of Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis
Course Description:
The aim of this subject is to explore the relation between discourse and other contextual
phenomena, and sentence structure. Many syntactic and semantic features can only be adequately
described in terms of the wider context of discourse. Topics to be discussed include: strategies
for maintaining text cohesion ( reference tracking, anaphora, topic continuity, tense and aspect
marking, foregrounding and backgrounding of events) deixis and speech act types.
Course objectives:
1. to explain the important concepts and major approaches to pragmatics
2. to use socially appropriate language in a variety of informal and formal situations.
Course Outline:
- Speech act theory
- Felicity conditions
- Conversational implicature
- The cooperative principle
- Relevance
- Politeness
- Phatic tokens
- Deixis
- Presupposition ,
- Language and social context,
- The study of discourse
- Essentials in the study of discourse
- Context and utterance meaning
- Language and function,
- Form and function
- Content and, form and function
- Macro functions
- Interpreting discourse,
- Language awareness,
- The question of style.
Learning outcomes:
1. to use socially appropriate language in a variety of informal and formal situations
2. conduct a pragmatic analysis of a conversation.
Mode Delivery
-Lectures
-Group discussions
Mode of assessment:
-Course work- 30%
-Final Examination- 70%
References:
1. Austin, J.L.( 1962) How to Do Things With Words, New York: Oxford University
Press.
2. Blakemore, D.( 1990) Understanding Utterances: The Pragmatics of Natural Language,
Oxford: Blackwell.
3. Bloomaert, J.(2005) Discourse, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
4. Brown, P & Levinson, S. ( 1978) “ Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena”
in Goody, E. ( ed) Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction , pp. 56-311,
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
5. Brown, G. and Gorge Yule ( 1983) Discourse Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge
University
6. Gee,J.P.( 2005) An Introduction Discourse analysis: Theory and method.London:
Routledge.
7. Green, G. (1989) Pragmatics and Natural Understanding, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum.
8. Grice, H.P ( 1975) “Logic and Conversation” in Cole, P. & Morgan , J. (eds) Syntax
and Semantics3: Speech Acts, new York: Academic Press. 1995) Doing Pragmatics,
London: Edward Arnold
9. Leech, G. ( 1983) Principles of Pragmatics, London: Longman.
10. Mey, J ( 1993) Pragmatics, An Introduction , Oxford: Blackwell
11. Kasper, G ( 1996) Introduction: interlanguage pragmatics in SLA’ , in Studies of Second
language Acquisition, Vol. 18, pp 145-148.
12. Searle, J. ( 19690 Speech Acts, Cambridge, Cambridge University press.
13. Schiffrin, D; Deborah Tannen, & Hamilton, H.E (eds) (2001) Handbook of Discourse
Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
14. Stubbs, M. ( 1983) Discourse Analysis: The sociolinguistic analysis of natural language.
Oxford: Blackwell.
15. Thomas, J ( 1995) Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics, London:
Longman.