Week 1  Introduction of the course

• Readings: Language Files, 2017. (Ch. 7)


• Lecture


• Class discussion

Week 2  Meaning in use – Deixis

• Readings: Huang, Yan, 2014. (Ch. 5)


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Week 3  Meaning in use – Discourse markers

• Readings: Fraser, Bruce, 1999.


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Week 4  Principles of conversation

• Readings: Huang, Yan, 2014. (Ch. 2)


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Weeks 5-6  Inferencing in interaction

• Readings: Huang, Yan, 2014. (Ch. 2 & Ch. 3)


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Week 7  Speech acts

• Readings: Huang, Yan, 2014. (Ch. 4)


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Week 8  Mid-term exam

Week 9  Politeness

• Readings: Flores-Salgado, Elizabeth, & Castineira-Benitez, Teresa A., 2018.


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Weeks 10-11  Utterances as actions

• Readings: Sidnell, Jack, 2010. (Ch. 4); Enfield, N.J., Stivers, Tanya, and Levinson, Stephen C., 2010.


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Week 12  Speaking and writing

• Readings: Biber, D. & Conrad, S., 2001.


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Week 13  The use of gesture in communication

• Readings: Kendon, A., 2004 (Ch. 10)


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Weeks 14-15  Gender differences in communication

• Readings: Eckert, Penelope, 2003.


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Week 16  Language, power, and identity

• Readings: Li, Wei, 2011.


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Week 17  Language change in use

• Readings: Biber, D., & Gray, B., 2011.


• Lecture on this topic


• Class discussion

Week 18  Students' presentation of the term report

TBA

COURSE REQUIREMENTS

• Attend class on time. Students who are absent three times or more cannot pass the course.


• Students preview and review the reading materials.


• Class participation is essential. 


• Assignments are given from time to time and must be turned in on time.


• Final oral presentation of a language-use issue.

GRADING

• Assignments & exams (40%)


• Attendance & participation (30%)


• Oral presentation (30%)


• Cheating or plagiarism (FAIL)

References are subject to change.

• Bavelas, J. B., Gerwing, J., & Healing, S. 2014. Hand gestures and facial displays in conversational interaction. In T. Holtgraves (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of language and social psychology (pp. 111-130). New York: Oxford University Press.


• Biber, D., Conrad, S., 2001. Register variation: A corpus approach. In: Schiffrin, D., Tannen, D., Hamilton, H. (Eds.) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 175–196.


• Biber, D., Gray, B., 2011. Grammar emerging in the noun phrase: The influence of written language use. English Language and Linguistics 15, 223–250.


• Enfield, N.J., Stivers, Tanya, and Levinson, Stephen C. 2010. Question–response sequences in conversation across ten languages: An introduction. Journal of Pragmatics 42(10). 2615-2619.


• Flores-Salgado, Elizabeth, and Teresa A. Castineira-Benitez. 2018. The use of politeness in WhatsApp discourse and move ‘requests’. Journal of Pragmatics 133, 79-92, 2018.


• Fraser, Bruce. 1999. What are discourse markers? Journal of Pragmatics 31, 931-952.


• Huang, Yan. 2014. Pragmatics. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.


• Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics, 12th Edition. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2017.


• Li, Wei. 2011. Moment Analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 1222-1235.


• Sidnell, Jack. 2010. Conversation Analysis: An Introduction. UK: Wiley-Blackwell.