2015-2016 academic year

Discourse Analysis (22266)

Degree: Humanities

Year: Third
Teacher: Vicent Climent-Ferrando
Teaching language: English

1.      About this course

The goal of this course is to provide a general overview of the discursive mechanisms used today by different political, social, economic and media stakeholders to create particular cognitive frames in society. The course focuses, therefore, on discourse and society, that is, the use of language in different social, political and economic contexts to achieve specific goals. The course wishes to offer insights on how ideologies determine the way the different social realities are perceived. The objective is, therefore, to provide students with the necessary tools to analyse how different political, social and economic stakeholders shape opinions, attitudes and believes about different societal issues such as immigration, education, the economy, etc. The course will tackle different approaches within Discourse Analysis, namely, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Political Discourse Analysis (PDA), etc. It will also look at the semantic and discursive macrostrategies as well as the lexical-semantic, rhetorical and argumentative microstrategies.

 

This is a practical, interdisciplinary course. It will start by providing an overview of the different theoretical approaches to discourse analysis for students to apply them to a real case study of their interest (immigration, education, economy, language policies, etc.). Students will conduct a guided research study in order to apply the theoretical foundation to a real case.

 

 

 

2. Competencies to be achieved

This course is geared towards achieving the following competencies

1. General competencies

1.1. Capacity for synthesis and analysis (G.1)

·         Formulate and focus on a specific element to be analysed

·         Chose the most appropriate methodology to analyse a specific problem

·         Reach relevant conclusions, link the different concepts studied in a holistic way.

1.2. Critical thinking (G.3)

·         Evaluate content with different theoretical paradigms

·         Justify decisions taken

·         Be able to provide alternative and critical approaches to the dominant discourses  

1.3. Acknowledgment of Discourse Analysis and its importance to understand the (social) reality

·         Observe the social, economic, political and cultural effects of "shaping" the reality discursively

·         Identify the different ideologies behind discursive postulates

 

2. Specific competencies

 

2.1. Capacity to analyse communicative facts (with different levels of detail) (E.18)

·         Describe the processes of communicative interaction at micro and macro level

·         Be able to identify a social issue that requires a discourse analysis approach and chose the best way to carry out the analysis

 

2.2. Capacity to apply discourse analysis to analyse social issues (E.20)

·         Apply the concepts of discourse analysis to social, political, economic or linguistic issues.

·         Elaborate a sound analytic proposal after having detected a particular social issue

 

3. Contents

§  Discourse analysis and the different disciplines: CDA, PDA, etc

§  Discursive macro and microstrategies

§  The process of shaping dominant ideologies

§  Social theories, social representations and frames

§  The process of building cognitive frames

§  Thematic analysis 

§  Empirical analysis of data through discourse analysis techniques

§  Elaboration, systematization and corpus analysis


4. Evaluation  

 

Evaluation

Percentage of total grade

Requirements

Paper 1. (theoretical)

25%

Group

Paper 2. How to build a corpus for analysis. Tools, mechanisms, sources

25%


Group

Paper 3. Practical. Analysis of case study chosen by students

50%


Group

"Second-chance" evaluation: paper 3 to be redone by choosing a subject other than the subject chosen in the course.


Evaluation criteria

1.      Capacity to build systematic knowledge of the different approaches to discourse analysis

2.      Formulate critical questions about a specific social, political or economic issue

3.      Knowledge of the different methodologies related to discourse analysis (data collection, project design, etc.)

4.      Capacity to think critically

5.      Capacity to compare discursive elements in different contexts

6.      Capacity to identify and trace how dominant ideologies are shaped

7.      Capacity to innovate from the information learned and provide new ways of approaching and thinking the reality

8.      Capacity to formulate questions and provide an academically-sound answer.

9.      Capacity to synthesize the information and to know where and how to find it.

5. Methodology

Problem-based learning approach  (PBL)

  

The course will follow the seven steps in the PBL approach

1)      Explain terms and concepts

2)      Define the problem

3)      Brainstorming process

4)      Structure and explain the information derived from brainstorming

5)      Formulate the necessary objectives to elaborate a work plan

6)      Find the adequate learning resources (research monitored by professor as well as independent research)

7)      Group discussions, information sharing and evaluation 

 

The course will be mainly divided into two parts: the first part will be more theoretical and will explain the different approaches to discourse analysis and the second will be eminently practical with the analysis of a case study chose by the students.

 

The course will be developed through the following activities

 

  • Theoretical thinking, illustrated with real cases, to help students systematize the information
  • Debates from compulsory readings
  • Oral presentations (in group)

 

6. Basic bibliography  

General

Van Dijk, T (ed.) A Handbook on Discourse ed. 4 vols. London: Academic Press, 1985

Fairclough, N., Mulderrig, J. & Wodak, R.  Discourse Studies. A multidisciplinary Introduction. van Dijk, T. A. (ed.). London: Sage, p. 357-378 22 p. 2011

Fairclough, N., and R. Wodak. "Critical Discourse Analysis." In Discourse as Social Interaction. Ed. T. A. van Dijk. London: Sage, 1997.

Van Dijk,T. Ideology and Discourse Analysis, Journal of Political Ideologies, Routledge 11(2), 115-140, 2006

 

Blommaert, J. (ed.). Language Ideological Debates. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 1999

Empirical

Wodak, R., De Cillia R., Reisigl, M. The discursive construction of national Identities, Discourse and Society Vol 10(2): 149-173 (2009)

 

Climent-Ferrando, V. The Language Debates on Immigrant Integration in France. Immigrant Integration or Immigrant Control? In: Journal of Language & Law num 63, 2015

  

Rubio Carbonero, Gema. Los Discursos Políticos del Partido Popular sobre Immigración. Tesis, UPF Barcelona, 2010

Milani, T. "Language testing and citizenship: A language ideological debate in Sweden" in: Language in Society 37, 27-59, 2008

 

Millar, J. "An interdiscursive analysis of language and immigrant integration policy discourse in Canada". Critical Discourse Studies, 10(1), 18-31 (2012)