761 syllabus

English 350-761: Discourse Analysis
R 4:30-7:10, CRT 286
Patricia Mayes
Office Hours: R 1:30-3:30 & by appointment
Office: 486 Curtin Hall, ext. 6992
e-mail: mayes@uwm.edu
Required Texts: Course reader, available at Clark Graphics, 2915 N. Oakland Ave.
Phone first! (962-4633)
Course Objectives: ‘Discourse analysis’ as broadly conceived is an interdisciplinary
field, including work in linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and rhetoric. Though the
subject of a discourse analysis could be any aspect of human communication, in this
class, we’ll focus primarily on naturally occurring verbal interaction (mostly English).
However, many of the methods and general principles discussed can be used to study
written discourse or discourse from other languages. Thus the primary goal of the course
is to provide graduate students in linguistics, rhetoric and composition, education,
sociology, and other language arts fields with a basic theoretical and methodological
foundation for the study of naturally occurring language.
Course Requirements
1. Reading and Participation: A significant part of this course is based on the readings
and in-class discussions. You will be expected to actively engage in the learning
experience by doing the readings and participating in the class discussions. Note:
Readings are due the day they are listed on the schedule.
2. Response Journal: We’ll divide the class into two groups. Each time response
journal is listed on the schedule one of the groups will submit their responses to the
readings via the BlackBoard site. To produce your entry, do the following: When you are
reading, make notes of any questions or comments you have; then synthesize your
response into two or three paragraphs discussing the week’s readings. Your journal entry
should include at least one question that concerns all of the week’s readings as an
integrated whole. This question might also refer to other information already discussed
in previous readings or in class. Post your entry, including your question(s) on the
BlackBoard site by 12:00 noon on the Wednesday before the readings are due so that
everyone will have time to read your entry before class. Be prepared to discuss your
entry in class.
3. Transcription: You will be responsible for submitting a typed transcript of 3-5
minutes of audio or videotaped interaction that you have recorded, using one of the
transcription systems we’ll discuss in class. Turn in both the transcript and the tape.

4. Short Papers: You will write two short (6-8 double-spaced pages) papers for the
course. Each paper must deal with issues related to one of the discussion topics already
dealt with in class or to one currently under discussion at the time the paper is due. They
must be on different topics. You are to choose your own relevant topics, though I will be
glad to advise and answer questions on this choice. Each paper must be based on real
discourse data, and at least one of these papers should be based on the data you collected
for your transcription. Each paper should connect ideas from the readings and
discussions to observations from your data. They do not have to make a new 'discovery';
it's enough to raise thoughtful questions about how the issues examined in the readings
apply to your data. It should not be necessary to do additional reading for these papers,
though you may if you have time. Your main task is to apply the principles brought out
in class to some data of your own.
5. Proposal for final paper: Submit a statement concerning the research theme for your
final paper.
6. Final Paper: The requirements for the final paper are the same as those listed in 4, but
this paper should be a bit longer (about 15 double-spaced pages). Though this paper may
build on a theme that you discussed in one of your other papers, it should not just be just
a revision of that paper. It should present new information and/or data. Before the paper
is due, you’ll have a chance to present your research to the class. The paper will be due
on the last day of class, unless you are presenting that day, in which case, it will be due
on Monday (12/16).
Grading
Class Participation
Transcription
Response Journal
Short Papers
Final Paper
Total

10 points
10 points
10 points (5 points each)
40 points (20 points each)
30 points
100 points
Tentative Schedule

Week/Date
1 (9/5)
2 (9/12)

Topic
Course Introduction –
What is discourse?
Discourse Transcription

3 (9/19)

Conversation Analysis

Du Bois et al.; Hutchby
& Wooffitt; Swann
(handouts)
Reader: Readings 1-3

4 (9/26)

Institutional Talk


5 (10/3)

Anthropological
Perspectives on
Discourse
Critical Discourse

Reader: Readings: 8-10

Response Journal
(Grp 1)
Response Journal
(Grp 2)
Due: transcription

Reader: Reading 11

Response Journal

6 (10/10)

Readings
van Dijk (handout)

2

Assignments

7 (10/17)

Analysis
Genre Analysis


8 (10/24)
9 (10/31)
10 (11/7)

Corpus Linguistics
Discourse and Grammar
Discourse and Cognition


11 (11/14)
12 (11/21)
11/28
13 (12/5)
14 (12/12)

Prosody
Participation Structure
Thanksgiving


15 (12/19)

(Grp 1)
Response Journal
(Grp 2)
Due: Short paper 1

Final Exams

Due: Proposal for final
paper
Due: Short paper 2

Student Presentations
Student Presentations
Due: Final papers
(unless presenting);
presenters papers are
due Monday (12/16)

Reader Contents
1. Heritage, John. 1995. Conversation analysis: Methodological aspects. Aspects of Oral
Communication, ed by Uta M. Quasthoff, 391-418. Berlin: de Gruyter.
2. Sacks, Harvey. 1992 (1972). Adjacency pairs: Scope of operation. Lectures on
Conversation: Volume II, ed. by Gail Jefferson, 521-532. Oxford: Blackwell.
3. Sacks, Harvey, Emanuel A. Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson. 1974. A simplest
systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50:696-735.
4. Ellis, Donald G. 1999. Research on social interaction and the micro-macro issue.
Language and Social Interaction 32 (1&2): 31-40.
5. Zimmerman, Don H. and Deirdre Boden. 1991. Structure in action: An introduction.
Talk and Social Structure, ed. by Deirdre Boden and Don H. Zimmerman, 3-21.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
6. Goodwin, Charles and Marjorie Harness Goodwin. 1992. Professional vision. Plenary
Lecture presented at the International Conference on Discourse and the Professions,
Uppsala, Sweden.
7. Chapter 2 ( The structure of classroom lessons) from Mehan, Hugh. 1979. Learning
Lessons. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
8. Hymes, Dell H. 1962. The ethnography of speaking. Anthropology and Human
Behavior, ed. by Thomas Gladwin and William C. Sturtevant, 13-53. Washington,
DC: The Anthropological Society of Washington. (Printed by Theo, Gaus’ Sons,
Incorporated, New York.)

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9. Duranti, Alessandro. 1985. Sociocultural dimensions of discourse. Handbook of
Discourse Analysis, Vol. 1, ed. by Teun A. Van Dijk, 193-231. Orlando: Academic
Press.
10. Auer, Peter. 1995. Ethnographic methods in the analysis of oral communication.
Aspects of Oral Communication, ed by Uta M. Quasthoff, 419-440. Berlin: de
Gruyter.
11. Excerpts from Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical
Study of Language. London: Longman.
12. Chapters 1-3 from Swales, John. 1990. Genre Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
13. Kress, Gunther. 1993. Genre as social process. The Power of Literacy: A Genre
Approach to Teaching Writing, ed. by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, 22-37.
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
14. Chapter 1 (Introduction to a corpus in use) from Hunston, Susan. 2002. Corpora in
Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
15. Biber, Douglas. 2001. Using corpus-based methods to investigate grammar and use:
Some case studies on the use of verbs in English. Corpus Linguistics in North
America, ed. by Rita C. Simpson and John M. Swales, 101-115. Ann Arbor: The
University of Michigan Press.
16. Tao, Hongyin. 2001. Discovering the usual with corpora: The case of remember. .
Corpus Linguistics in North America, ed. by Rita C. Simpson and John M. Swales,
116-144. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
17. Schegloff, Emanuel A., Elinor Ochs, and Sandra A. Thompson. 1996. Introduction.
Interaction and Grammar, ed. by Elinor Ochs, Emanuel Schegloff, and Sandra A.
Thompson, 1-51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
18. Cumming, Susanna and Tsuyoshi Ono. 1997. Discourse and grammar. Discourse as
Structure and Process, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, 112-137. London: Sage Publications.
19. Hopper, Paul J. 1998. Emergent grammar. The New Psychology of Language, ed. by
Michael Tomasello, 155-175. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
20. Chafe, Wallace. 1992. Information flow. Oxford International Encyclopedia, 215218.
21. Chapter 6 (Activation cost) from Chafe, Wallace. 1994. Discourse, Consciousness,
and Time. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

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22. Tomlin, Russell S. Linda Forrest, Ming Ming Pu, and Myung Hee Kim. 1997.
Discourse semantics Discourse as Structure and Process, ed. by Teun A. van Dijk, 63111. London: Sage Publications.
23. Slobin, Dan I. 1996. From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking”.
Rethinking Linguistic Relativity, ed. by John Gumperz and Stephen Levinson, 70-96.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
24. Chapter 6 (Contextualization conventions) from Gumperz, John. 1982. Discourse
Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
25. Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth and Margret Selting. 1996. Towards an interactional
perspective on prosody and a prosodic perspective on interaction. Prosody in
Conversation, ed. by Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen and Margret Selting, 11-56.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
26. Pickering, Lucy. The role of tone choice in improving ITA communication in the
classroom. 2002. TESOL Quarterly 35 (2): 233-255.
27. Chapter 3 (Footing) from Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press.
28. Irvine, Judith. 1996. Shadow conversations: The indeterminacy of participant roles.
Natural Histories of Discourse, ed. by Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban, 131-159.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
29. Chapters 9-10 from Goodwin, Marjorie Harness. 1990. He-Said-She-Said.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

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761 syllabus

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