PRJ001 Seminar on Text and Discourse Analysis

Faculty of Arts
Autumn 2010
Extent and Intensity
0/1/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: zk (examination).
Teacher(s)
doc. PhDr. Jiří Gazda, CSc. (lecturer)
Guaranteed by
doc. PhDr. Jiří Gazda, CSc.
Department of Slavonic Studies – Faculty of Arts
Contact Person: doc. PhDr. Jiří Gazda, CSc.
Timetable
each odd Monday 16:40–18:15 zruseno C21
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
Course objectives
The main goal of the one-semester compulsory course Text and Discourse Analysis is to introduce students to the discipline, both by presenting and applying its conceptual apparatus and through analyzing specific texts. Due to the focus of the Master’s Degree in Translation studies programme within which the course is offered, all work with text will be conceived as preparatory to treating texts within the translatorial profession. The keywords of the course will be ‘text function’ and ‘communicative purpose of the text’; texts will be analyzed in a manner allowing for basing the potential subsequent process of translation on functional approaches to translation (modern theory of skopos). At the onset of the course, students will receive a portfolio of texts in Czech and English (supplemented with texts in other target languages in the case of students of translation in combination with other languages) which they will get acquainted with in the beginning of the course and which will be referred to in different contexts throughout the course. The course will combine a lecture and a seminar, both forms being used freely within the 90-minute teaching blocks. Another emphasis of the course will be its contrastive orientation: texts sharing some con/textual parameters and differing in others will be compared and differences in genre conventions characterizing different cultures will be stressed in preparation for the process of translation. Students will be expected to prepare for the lessons throughout the semester; the preparation will consist in analyzing set texts, modifying texts based on set parameters, and searching for texts meeting set parameters. Credits will be granted upon passing a practically oriented written exam.
Syllabus
  • (1) Course objectives, pathways to achieving them. Course organization instructions: teaching block structuring, requirements placed on students, course completion requirements.
  • (2) Concepts “text” and “discourse”, seven standards of textuality, relations between “genre”, “discourse” and “text” (based on Hatim and Mason).
  • (3) Functionalist approaches to text: text typologies proposed by Jakobson/Bűhler/Newmark/Reiss, text functions and language functions; Hallidayian theory of language and language functions based on Halliday.
  • (4) Register and context of situation; language variation – by user and use; field, tenor and mode of discourse.
  • (5) Communication dimension of context/context of situation; application within the skopos theory; text intentionality and acceptability.
  • (6) Pragmatic dimension of context, illocutionary structure of text, basic concepts in conversational analysis; Grice’s cooperation principle; inference, relevance.
  • (7) Semiotic dimension of context, translator as an intercultural communicator.
  • (8) Cohesion and coherence in text and translation.
  • (9) Lexical cohesion; collocations. Written and spoken texts.
  • (10) Text types: argumentative, expository, instructional, descriptive, narrative.
  • (11) Text structure.
  • (12) Thematic structure of texts; functional sentence perspective vs. iconicity in language.
  • (13) Intertextuality, signals of intertextuality, typology of intertextual reference; text hybridization.
Literature
  • BAKER, Mona. In other words : a coursebook on translation. New York: Routledge, 1992, x, 304. ISBN 0415030862. info
  • BEAUGRANDE, Robert-Alain de and Wolfgang U. DRESSLER. Introduction to text linguistics. 1st publ. London: Longman, 1981, 270 s. : g. ISBN 0-582-55486-1. info
  • BROWN, Gillian and George YULE. Discourse analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998, xii, 288. ISBN 0521284759. info
  • HATIM, B. Communication across cultures :translation theory and contrastive text linguistics. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997, xvi, 235 s. ISBN 0-85989-497-5. info
  • HOEY, Michael. Textual interaction : an introduction to written discourse analysis. 1st pub. London: Routledge, 2001, xvii, 203. ISBN 0415231698. info
  • HOFFMANOVÁ, Jana. Stylistika a-- :současná situace stylistiky. 1. vyd. Praha: Trizonia, 1997, 200 s. ISBN 80-85573-67-9. info
  • MARTIN, J. R. and David ROSE. Working with discourse : meaning beyond the clause. New York: Continuum, 2003, x, 293. ISBN 0826455085. info
  • HATIM, B. and Ian MASON. Discourse and the translator. London: Longman, 1990, xiv, 258 s. ISBN 0-582-02190-1. info
  • NORD, Christiane. Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Fuctionalist Approaches Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, 1997, 154 pp. ISBN 1900650029. info
  • HALLIDAY, M. A. K. and Ruqaiya HASAN. Cohesion in English. Harlow: Longman, 1976, xv, 374 s. ISBN 0-582-55041-6. info
  • YULE, George. Pragmatics. First published. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, xiv, 138. ISBN 0194372073. info
Assessment methods
One lecture and one seminar per week, integrated in a single 90-minute block. (Presentation of theoretical concepts and reference to specific texts and work with them alternate.) Compulsory attendance; regular class preparation is essential (see the annotation). Credits will be granted upon passing a witten practically oriented exam.
Language of instruction
Czech
Further Comments
Study Materials
The course is taught annually.
The course is also listed under the following terms Autumn 2009.
  • Enrolment Statistics (recent)
  • Permalink: https://is.muni.cz/course/phil/autumn2010/PRJ001