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LING-484 Discourse Analysis: Conversation
Fall only
LING 484 Discourse Analysis: Conversation
Fall 2009
Heidi Hamilton
ICC 455
hamilthe@georgetown.edu
Description
This is a companion course, not a sequel, to Linguistics 483, Discourse Analysis: Narrative. Students may take one or both in any order. Whereas Discourse Analysis: Narrative is concerned with discourse produced primarily by one speaker, Discourse Analysis: Conversation is concerned with dialogic or multi-party conversational discourse.
The course is a combination lecture/workshop. It provides reading and discussion of, and practice trying out, a variety of approaches to the analysis of conversational discourse. Although the theoretical focus is interactional sociolinguistics with an anthropological orientation, students will be introduced to classic ethnomethodological studies as well. Topics include theories of conversational involvement and conversational inference; conversational coherence; transcription theory and practice; turntaking; adjacency pairs; repair; framing/footing; identity construction/positioning; politeness theory; conversational style; repetition; discourse markers; and conversations within institutional contexts.
Requirements
Students tape record a naturally-occurring conversation that they take part in, and choose a half-hour segment to work with. Of this, a short segment (3-4 minutes) is transcribed (three ways) and analyzed throughout the semester. Students apply the methods and theories of assigned readings to their own conversational segments. On 3 occasions, they write up these applications as a 3-page assignment, one of which may be revised and resubmitted. Each student is responsible for one 10-minute class presentation showing how one of the readings applies to their conversation. In a 12-15 page final paper, each student analyzes a different conversation, the larger conversation from which the small excerpt came, or discourse of another type. Final papers are not simply long assignments (i.e. applications of a single reading) but rather employ a combination of approaches or an approach not discussed in class and refer to at least three sources not read in class.
Attendance is required; participation in class discussion is expected.
Credits: 3
Prerequisites: None
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