
Apply through UCAS
- UCAS course code
- TQ11
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Course unit details:
Pragmatics: Meaning, Context, and Interaction
Unit code | LELA20291 |
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Credit rating | 20 |
Unit level | Level 2 |
Teaching period(s) | Semester 1 |
Offered by | Linguistics & English Language |
Available as a free choice unit? | Yes |
Overview
This course covers central topics in pragmatics, studying how meaning is generated by the use of language in specific contexts of communication.
Subtopics covered include conversation analysis, (im)politeness, implicature, presupposition, speech acts, and deixis. Consideration of the interaction between semantics and pragmatics will be a focal point. In addition, some consideration will be given to issues in intercultural communication and/or the ways in which pragmatic and interactional constraints may contribute to shaping the linguistic system.
While English will be the main language of study, data from other languages will be included to highlight crosslinguistic variation. (NB! If the module is taken for credit in French, that will be the main language of study in seminars and with respect to the assessment.)
Pre/co-requisites
Unit title | Unit code | Requirement type | Description |
---|---|---|---|
French Language 1 | FREN51011 | Pre-Requisite | Recommended |
Study of Meaning | LELA10332 | Pre-Requisite | Recommended |
Aims
The course aims to address the question of how meaning is created and interpreted by the use of language in specific communicative contexts. More specifically:
- The distribution of labor between the linguistic code and features of the context.
- The typology of contextually generated meanings.
- The specific principles that can be hypothesized to underlie different types of contextually generated meaning.
- The ways in which the structure of verbal interaction itself can create meanings.
- The ways in which pragmatics may drive meaning change.
Knowledge and understanding
By successfully completing this course students will be able to:
- identify and analyze the empirical phenomena that are central to pragmatics, including recurrent patterns in verbal interaction;
- analyze new data representing language use in context applying appropriate methodologies, as well as a precisely defined metalinguistic and metadiscursive vocabulary;
- understand the main theoretical approaches to the different subfields of pragmatics, and the relations that obtain between those approaches;
- reflect critically on their own communicative practice and that of others.
Intellectual skills
- Analytical skills
- Argumentation skills
- Abstract thinking skills
Practical skills
- Data collection skills
- Data analysis skills
Transferable skills and personal qualities
- Communication skills
- Team-working skills
- Time-management skills
- Enhanced intercultural awareness
Employability skills
- Other
- The course enhances skills related to data analysis and synthesis. It strengthens the students¿ understanding of linguistic meaning and of human interaction, and enhances intercultural awareness. It has particular benefits for students who wish to work in communication-related fields (including, but not limited to, teaching)
Assessment methods
Exam | 80% |
Group seminar assignments | 10% |
Group lecture assignments | 10% |
Feedback methods
Feedback method | Formative or summative |
Oral and written feedback on exam performance
| Formative and summative |
Written feedback on participation-related submissions and seminar assignments | Formative and summative |
Oral feedback on in-class contributions, participations-related submissions and seminar assingments | Formative and summative |
Recommended reading
Bailey, Benjamin. 1997. Communication of respect in interethnic service encounters. Language in Society 26: 327-356. (LEL students ONLY)
Béal, Christine.1992. Did you have a good weekend? Or why there is no such thing as a simple question in cross-cultural encounters. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 15(1): 23-52. (FS students ONLY)
Hansen, Maj-Britt Mosegaard. Forthcoming. De ainz à plutôt: un cycle de pragmaticalisation. In Olga Inkova, ed. Autour de la reformulation. Geneva: Droz (FS students ONLY)
Huang, Yan. 2014. Pragmatics. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (ALL students)
Levinson, Stephen C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (ALL students)
Schwenter, Scott A. & Richard Waltereit. 2010. Presupposition accommodation and language change. In Kristin Davidse, Lieven Vandelanotte & Hubert Cuyckens, eds. Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalization. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 75-102. (LEL students ONLY)
Senft, Gunter. 2014. Understanding Pragmatics. Abingdon: Routledge. (ALL students)
Sidnell. Jack. 2010. Conversation Analysis. An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. (ALL students)
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1999. The role of pragmatics in semantic change. In Jef Verschueren, ed. Pragmatics in 1998. Selected Papers from the 6th International Pragmatics Conference, vol. 2. Antwerp: International Pragmatics Association, 93-102. (ALL students)
Zhu, Hua. 2014. Exploring Intercultural Communication. Language in Action. Abingdon: Routledge. (ALL students)
Study hours
Scheduled activity hours | |
---|---|
Lectures | 22 |
Seminars | 11 |
Independent study hours | |
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Independent study | 167 |
Teaching staff
Staff member | Role |
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Maj-Britt Hansen | Unit coordinator |