PdF:A2MP_PRAG Pragmatics - Course Information

A2MP_PRAG Pragmatics

Extent and Intensity

0/2/0. 4 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).

Teacher(s)

doc. PhDr. Renata Povolná, Ph.D. (seminar tutor)

Guaranteed by

doc. PhDr. Renata Povolná, Ph.D.
Department of English Language and Literature – Faculty of Education
Contact Person: Jana Popelková

Prerequisites

Pragmatics can be taken by any student of English, preferably after functional and communicative syntax, and must be taken by all students in all the programmes for secondary schools.

Course Enrolment Limitations

The course is only offered to the students of the study fields the course is directly associated with.

fields of study / plans the course is directly associated with

• Lower Secondary School and Language School Teacher Training in English Language (programme PdF, N-ZS)

Course objectives

The aim of the course labelled Pragmatics is to introduce students into the study of pragmatics, i.e. a linguistic discipline which views the language from the point of view of its user. In this respect the course will be contrasted especially with students previous study of syntax and semantics. The course concentrates on the most important issues connected with the study of pragmatics with the aim to make students acquainted with the possibilities how to encorporate their knowledge of pragmatics into their future daily teaching profession.

Syllabus

• 1. Introduction to the study of pragmatics. 2. Deixis and distance. 3. Reference and inference. 4. Presupposition and entailment. 5. The cooperative principle. Conversational implicature. 6. Conventional implicature. 7. Conversation analysis. Features typical of spoken interaction. Conversational style. 8. Conversation and preference structure. 9. Speech acts and speech events. Performative hypothesis. 10. Direct and indirect speech acts. 11. Speech act classification. 12. Politeness and interaction. Positive and negative politeness. 13. Discourse and culture. Discourse analysis. 14. Revision. 15. Credits.

Literature

• YULE, George. Pragmatics. First published. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, xiv, 138. ISBN 0194372073. info
• STENSTRÖM, Anna-Brita. An introduction to spoken interaction. 1st publ. London: Longman, 1994, ix, 238. ISBN 0582071305. info
• THOMAS, Jenny. Meaning in interaction : an introduction to pragmatics. Harlow: Longman, 1995, xii, 224. ISBN 0582291518. info
• BROWN, Gillian and George YULE. Discourse analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, xii, 288. ISBN 0521284759. info
• YULE, George. The study of language [Yule, 1996]. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xiii, 294. ISBN 0-521-56851-X. info

Teaching methods

Mode of teaching: seminar The methods used in classes are presentations of new and problematic issues by the teacher, who provides students with some necessary theoretical background. This is always suplemented by many examples. Then, after discussing the given topic with their teacher, students are asked to prepare and simulate authentic conversational situations in which they are supposed to use structures and/or strategies under discussion. As for homework, students are supposed to study in advance relevant chapters from their textbooks and be ready for class discussions. Apart from that, students have to do various interactive moodle modules including quizzes designed particularly for their course.

Assessment methods

For getting a credit, students must past a credit test which consists of three topics, different for every student, taken from the subject matter studied during the term and an on-line moodle test in the middle of the term. Moreover, all students are supposed to prepare a suggestion how to use pragmatics in their own teaching profession.

Language of instruction

English

Further Comments

Study Materials
The course is taught: every week.

• Enrolment Statistics (Autumn 2010, recent)
  
• Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/ped/autumn2010/A2MP_PRAG