Linguistics 326 - Discourse Reed College, Spring 2016 M/W 3:10 4:30 pm, ETC 211 Kara Becker kbecker@reed.edu Vollum 125 Office Hours: Tuesday 3-4pm; Wednesday 1-3 pm; and by appointment Prerequisites Linguistics 211 and 212, or consent of instructor. Course Description This course is an investigation into linguistic units above the level of the sentence, and how these units are used by speakers in social interaction. Our investigation will be equal parts theoretical (in particular, surveying the historical trajectories and theoretical motivations for a variety of types of discourse analysis) and empirical (recording, transcribing, and analyzing discourse). We will ask what is discourse (a question with no short answer), why is discourse a valuable object of study, as well as how is discourse analysis situated within the field of linguistics and what can discourse analysis accomplish. Students will read and critically engage with scholarly works each week; in addition, they will do discourse analysis. Part of each week s class time will be devoted to lab work, whether collaborating on transcription conventions, critiquing a specific discourse analysis, practicing field techniques, etc. Students will complete four recording/transcription/analysis assignments, and submit a final project that is a discourse analysis of their choosing. Conference. (Fulfills Group B). Text Jaworski, Adam and Nikolas Coupland (eds.). 2014. The Discourse Reader (3rd Edition). London: Routledge. (Referred to here as DR). +Supplementary Readings, provided in PDF on Moodle. Course Requirements Participation. 20% Participation in conference is mandatory and crucial to the success of our class, particularly at the upper division. Engage in class in a way that demonstrates the effort you put in to our class and our readings. Ask questions, connect concepts and readings, and clarify or expand on what others say in class. In this class read papers on Tuesdays; I expect you to arrive to class with at least two questions or comments related to those readings. On Thursdays during our lab time each week you will present aspects of the work you will doing with the class. Assignments. 60% Four assignments (15% each) during the semester:
Assignment #1: The structure of (d)iscourse Assignment #2: Narrative Analysis Assignment #3: Conversation Analysis Assignment #4: Critical Discourse Analysis Each assignment is divided into three parts: 1) A recording of some naturally occurring speech, gathered by you, for use as text/data. 2) A transcription of the text in question. 3) A write-up describing your analysis of the text using the relevant method. Final Project. 20% For your final project, you will do a discourse analysis of some text. You must 1) Select an approach (a type of DA) with which to interact with your text 2) Use original data from naturally occurring interaction: speech gathered by you, transcribed by you, and analyzed by you 3) Append the full text, transcribed, with conventions 4) Cite in-text and include a bibliography Course Policies On Absences: Regular, prepared and disciplined conferencing is intrinsic to this course. Once you have missed two weeks of class whether or not your absences are excused you will have missed two much material and will not receive credit for this course. If a condition is chronic, appropriate documentation and reasonable accommodations should be considered in consultation with both me and the Disability Support Services office. If you must be absent due to health or an emergency, it is your responsibility to catch up on missed material. On Accommodations: If you are a student with a disability and believe you will need accommodation for this class, it is your responsibility to contact and register with Disability Support Services and provide them with documentation of your disability, so that they can determine what accommodations are appropriate for your situation. With your permission they will discuss with me those reasonable and appropriate accommodations. To avoid any delay you should contact the DSS office as early as possible in the semester, and contact me for assistance in developing a plan to address your academic needs in this course. Please note that accommodations are not retroactive and that reasonable disability accommodations cannot be provided until I have received an accommodation letter from and discussed your case with the DSS office. You can reach Disability Support Services at (503) 517-7921 or disability-services@reed.edu On Incompletes: I don t give them except in the case of an acute, extreme emergency or health crisis that interrupts what otherwise was good work in this course. On Late Work/Extensions: You are entitled to one one-day extension on a due date in this course, no questions asked. After that, any late work drops a full letter grade for every 24 hours past the deadline.
COURSE OUTLINE Week 1 Monday January 25th DR, Introduction pgs. 1-11 Wednesday January 27th Linde, Charlotte. 1981. The organization of discourse. Lab: Recording Equipment. Field methods. Week 2. Transcription Monday February 1st DR, Chapter 1: Linguistics and Poetics J. Maxwell Atkinson and John Heritage. 1999. Jefferson s Transcript Notation. Ochs, Elinor. 1999. Transcription as Theory. Bucholtz, Mary. 2007. Variation in Transcription. Discourse Studies 9(6): 784-808. Wednesday February 3rd Due: Recording #1: discourse unit Lab: ELAN Tutorial. Week 3. Politeness Monday February 8 th DR Chapter 19, On Face-work: An analysis of ritual elements in social interaction DR Chapter 20, Politeness: Some universals in language use Graham, Sage Lambert. 2007. Disagreeing to agree: Conflict, (im)politeness and identity in a computer-mediated community. Journal of Pragmatics 39: 742-759. Wednesday February 10 th Due: Transcription #1 Week 4. Discourse and Variation Monday February 15 th Tagliamonte, Sali. 2005. So who? Like how? Just what? Discourse markers in the conversations of young Canadians. Journal of Pragmatics 37: 1896-1915. Cheshire, Jenny. Discourse variation, grammaticalisation, and stuff like that. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11 (2): 155-193. Wednesday February 17 th Due: Write-up #1: The structure of discourse Lab: Present Analysis #1 Week 5. Narrative Analysis Monday February 22 nd DR, Chapter 12: The Transformation of Experience in Narrative Syntax DR, Chapter 13: Narrative Analysis
Wednesday February 24 th Due: Recording #2: A narrative Lab: Working with narratives Week 6. Narratives and Identity Monday February 29 th Duranti, Alessandro. 2006. Narrating the political self in a campaign for U.S. Congress. Language in Society 35: 467-497. Schiffrin, Deborah. 1996. Narrative as self-portrait: Sociolinguistic constructions of identity. Language in Society 25 (2): 167-203. Wednesday March 2 nd Due: Transcription #2 Week 7. Discourse and Identity Monday March 7 th Moonwoman-Baird, Birch. 2000. What do lesbians do in the daytime? Recover. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (3): 348-378. Morgan, Marcyliena. 1991. Indirectness and interpretation in African American women s discourse. Pragamtics 1 (4): 421-451. Wednesday March 9 th Due: Write-up #2: Narrative Analysis Lab: Present Analysis #2 Week 8. Conversation Analysis. Monday March 14 th DR Chapter 3: Logic and Conversation DR Chapter 16, Conversation Analysis DR Chapter 17, Oh as a Marker of Information Management Kitzinger, Celia and Hannah Frith. Just say no? The use of conversation analysis in developing a feminist perspective on sexual refusal. Discourse & Society 10 (3): 293-316. Wednesday March 16 th Schegloff, Emanual A. 1987. Analyzing Single Episodes of Interaction: An exercise in Conversation Analysis. Social Psychological Quarterly 50 (2): 101-114. Due: Recording #3: A conversation Lab: Working with Conversations Week 9. Happy Spring Break! Week 10. Monday March 28 th. Conversational Style Tannen, Deborah. 1981. New York Jewish Conversational Style. DR Chapter 22, Performing gender identity: Young men s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity.
Wednesday March 30 th Due: Transcription #3 Week 11. Monday April 4 th. Critiquing CA. Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1997. Whose text? Whose context? Discourse & Society 8 (2): 165-187. (Sections X and X only). Billig, Michael. 1999. Whose terms? Whose ordinariness? Rhetoric and ideology in Conversation Analysis. Discourse & Society 10 (4): 543-582. Guadio, Rudolf P. 2003. Coffeetalk: Starbucks and the commercialization of casual conversation. Language in Society 32: 659-691. Wednesday April 6 th Due: Write-up #3: Conversation Analysis Lab: Present Analysis #3 Week 12. Critical Discourse Analysis Monday April 11th DR Chapter 26, Language and Symbolic Power Blommaert, Jan and Chris Bulcaen. 2000. Critical Discourse Analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 447-466. Callier, Patrick. 2014. Class as a semiotic resource in consumer advertising: Markedness, heteroglossia, and commodity temporalities. Discourse & Society 25 (5): 581-599. Wednesday April 13 th Graddol, David. 2011. The semiotic construction of a wine label. In The Discourse Reader (end Edition): 194-203. Due: Recording/Transcription #4 Week 13. Discourse and Racism Monday April 18 th DR Chapter 27, Discourse and the Denial of Racism Gaudio, Rudolf P. and Steve Bialostok. 2005. The trouble with culture: Everyday racism in white middle-class discourse. Critical Discourse Studies 2 (1): 51-69. Hill, Jane. 1999. Language, race, and white public space. American Anthropologist 100 (3): 680-689. Wednesday April 20th Due: Write-up #4: Critical Discourse Analysis Lab: Present Analysis #4 Week 14 Monday April 25 th DR Chapter 7, Ethics, Advocacy and Empowerment Wednesday April 27th Last Day of Class Final Papers Due Wednesday, May 11 th at 5pm.