PT|EN
Discourse Analysis
Courses Degree in Humanities
Cod: 51147
Department: DH
ECTS: 6
Scientific area: Linguistics
Total working hours: 156
Total contact time: 15

Discourse Analysis is a research field in language sciences whose main study subject is the analysis and comprehension of discourse, as a social practice, framed into the historical-social context in which it was produced, and as a reflexion of one way of acting and of one interactivity.
Discourse analysis promotes interdisciplinary, namely with History, Sociology, Psychoanalysis, Pragmatics and Rhetoric and appears as a research domain where different theoretical currents dialogue, from communication ethnography (Gumperz e Hymes) to conversational analysis, inspired in interactionists approaches (Goffman).
In this course unit we will emphasize the French approach of discourse analysis, whose main researchers were, in the final of the sixties, Saussure, Althusser, Foucault, Lacan, Dubois, Pêcheux, and nowadays are Maingueneau, Charaudeau, Rastier, Plantin e Kerbrat-Orecchioni.

  1. Language
  2. Interaction
  3. Argumentation
  4. Text typologies

After the study of the principal theoretical concepts which are subjacent to discourse analysis, we will develop its application in the analysis of different discursive genders, exploring literary, advertising, political and religious texts
By the end of this course unit, students are expected:
•To recognize the principal moments in the evolution of Discourse Analysis field;
•To relate similar and close knowledge areas
•To have knowledge about the different theoretical models in the discourse analysis field;
•To understand the matricial importance of interdisciplinary studies;
•To understand de discourse as a way of socialization and self-construction
•To explicit the linguistic-discoursive mechanisms subjacent to each text type
•To apply adequately the theoretical assumptions adquired in the analysis of different texts type;
•To develop abilities to perform rhetorical, discursive and methodological analysis.

1. Discourse Analysis: linguistic theories and history of discourse analysis
1.1. Similarities and divergences from other perspectives: Conversational analysis, Linguistics of text, Critical
discourse analysis
1.2. Main trends: formalist, sociological, historical
1.3. State-of-the art in Discourse Analysis
2. Principal concepts in discourse analysis
2.1. Language, discourse, interaction, speech act and argumentation
2.2. Discursive heterogeneity and linguistic materiality
2.3. Textual genders and discursive typologies
2.4. Dialogism and polyphony
3. Application of theoretical concepts to the analysis of texts
3.1. Identification of linguistic-discursive mechanisms of each text type
3.2. Pertinence and adequacy of these mechanisms to the discursive gender under analysis.

ADAM, Jean-Michel. 1990. Éléments de linguistique textuelle: théorie et pratique de l’analyse textuelle, Pierre Mardaga.
BROWN, G., YULE, G. 2005 . Discourse Analysis, Cambridge University Press.
CHARAUDEAU, Patrick e MAINGUENEAU, Dominique 2002. Dictionnaire d’Analyse du Discours, Éditions du Seuil.
GOFFMAN, Erving. 1973. La mise en scène de la vie quotidienne, Tomos 1 e 2, Paris, Les Éditions de Minuit.
GUMPERZ, John 1996. Language and social identity, Cambridge University Press.
KERBRAT-ORECCHIONI, Catherine. 2001. Les actes de langage dans le discours. discours en interaction, Paris, Nathan.
KERBRAT-ORECCHIONI, Catherine. 2005. Le discours en interaction, Armand Colin.
MAINGUENEAU, Dominique. 1996. Les Termes clés de l’analyse du discours, Paris, Éditions du Seuil.
TANNEN, Deborah. et al.2001. Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Oxford:  Blackwell.
VAN DIJK, Teun A. 1997. Discourse Studies. London: Sage (2 vols).

E-learning.

Continuous assessment is privileged: 2 digital written documents (e-folios) during the semester (40%) and a final digital test, Global e-folio (e-folio G) at the end of the semester (60%). In due time, students can alternatively choose to perform one final exam (100%).

Students are required to have access to a computer with Internet connection.