Courses

Undergraduate Courses

• 

  Introduction to Linguistics (I,II)

  Required

  Introduced, designed, developed by Eliza in 1982; taught until the early 1990s: Introduction to Linguistics I and II: The nature of human language, The origin of human language, Animals and human language, The sound system of language, Word formation, The sentence patterns of language, Meaning in Language: Semantics (word and sentence meaning), Meaning in context, Language in society, Language and the brain.

• 

  Semantics

  Required Elective

  Course Code: Ling-2-341 

  Instructor: Eliza Kitis

  Students are advised to access this course through the department’s e-learning platform.

  ECTS Code: G-LSUD3 ThLing 341E Semantics

   

  Course Description and Objectives: The course explores the basic semantic structures in language at the level of words and sentences. Lexical relations, sentence-relations, sense and reference, indexicality, truth-functionality and formal representations of meaning are some of the areas that are studied. The main objective of the course is to raise an acute awareness that meaning is fundamental in language and communication; the subject matter of the course is at the level at which language makes contact with reality.

   

  Learning Outcomes:
  • An understanding of the basic issues across subdomains of semantics
  • Knowledge of the terms used and of the most significant concepts
  • An appreciation of the variability of semantic problems
  • Ability to analyse sentences semantically (according to theories taught)
  • Ability to see the relevance/significance of semantic knowledge to further data at large
  • Ease to comprehend the various problems involved in the field
  • Acquisition of a good background for further studies at postgraduate level
  • Possibly, developing skills at adapting or incorporating semantic analyses into further analyses in other domains of linguistics
  • Development and consolidation of an almost automatic reflex of semantic motivation in further fields of applied knowledge and practice, most notably in language learning and FLT, EAP, etc.

  Students are urged to take this course before taking courses in pragmatics and/or discourse analysis, as knowledge of semantics is fundamental for these other courses.

   

  Assessment: Final exam, hand in short exercises.

   

  Recommended reading: Eliza Kitis (2012), Semantics: Meaning in Language, Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, also 2 e-books for further exercises, if desired.

   

  Is there a list of readings? Yes, available on the Dept’s e-learning platform.

• 

  Pragmatics

  Required Elective

  Course Code: Ling-2-350 

  Instructor: Eliza Kitis

  Students are advised to access this course through the department’s e-learning platform.

  ECTS Code: G-LSUD3 ThLing 350 E Pragmatics

   

  Course Description and Objectives: The purpose of this course is to provide some indication of the scope of pragmatics which deals with the question of how utterances have variable meanings in specific situations, i.e., in language usage. It will, therefore, examine utterances not in isolation from the co-text, context, and other factors, as might be done in semantics, but within their co-text and context, and in relation to a number of factors contributing to variability of meaning. Areas which will be dealt with will include speech-acts, various topics relating to presupposition and implicatures, an introduction to the principles governing conversation, and Relevance theory. This course is of immediate relevance to literary studies, linguistic stylistics, jurisprudence, language in the media, but, primarily, pragmatics constitutes the cornerstone of methodologies in language teaching;nit’s also the bedrock of discourse analysis and EAP. This course is both logically and methodologically dependent on prior knowledge of the fundamentals of semantics. Therefore, it is greatly urged that only students who have already passed Semantics take this course. This course should also be taken before 4-420 (Discourse Analysis).

   

  Learning Outcomes:
  • An understanding of the basic phenomena of pragmatics
  • Knowledge of the terms used and of the most significant concepts
  • Competence to distinguish between semantic and pragmatic phenomena
  • Appreciation of the interface between the domains of pragmatics and semantics and incumbent problems
  • Ability to analyse contextualized sentences (utterances) and talk-exchanges pragmatically, beyond their semantic meaning, according to theories taught
  • Ability to see the relevance and centrality of pragmatic knowledge to a host of other fields
  • Acquisition of a good background for discourse and conversation analysis (modules of the curriculum)
  • Acquisition of a good background for further studies at postgraduate level
  • Possibly, developing skills at adapting or incorporating semantic analyses into further analyses in other domains of linguistics
  • Develop and consolidate an almost automatic reflex of pragmatic outlook in further fields of applied knowledge and practice, most notably in language learning and FLT

   

  Assessment: Final exam, hand in short exercise, or assignment of seminar paper.

   

  Recommended reading: Textbook and collection of papers (see e-learning platform). This course is at the University’s elearning platform.

• 

  Discourse Analysis

  Undergraduate

  Course Code: Ling-4-420 

  Instructor: Eliza Kitis

  Students are advised to access this course through the department’s e-learning platform.

  ECTS Code: G-LSUD4 LingSp 420E Discourse Analysis

   

  Course Description and Objectives:In this course you will analyse language in its linguistic and situational context, as used by its speakers, but you will also focus on multimodality (incorporation of various forms of discourse, such as icons, pictures, logos, visual symbols, etc.), because people do not just mean but act and perform in language. This course is designed to be partly theoretical and partly practical.
  In its theoretical part you will be acquainted with various modes of the analysis of discourse and text. In its practical component you are expected to develop an acute awareness of selectional issues as per genre, and form your own hypotheses. Amongst other things, this course will aim at making prospective teachers of English acquire a critical stance towards reference grammars and course-books intended for the use of EFL and help them to develop an awareness of the need to heed and incorporate the findings of discourse analysis in their teaching strategies and materials designing. It cannot be overemphasized that an appreciation of the issues discussed in this course will greatly depend on a fair grounding in general linguistics, semantics and pragmatics. Therefore it is recommended that this course follows the above. It must also be stressed that the practical component of this course presupposes small classes.

   

  Learning Outcomes:
  • An appreciation of the centrality of discourse in all forms of social life
  • Competence in text analysis including multimodal discourse
  • To practice knowledge acquired in various courses (mainly pragmatics, semantics) and apply it in the technique of analysis
  • To comprehend and put to practice why some forms or constructions are used in specific contexts/genres rather than others, and possibly generate their own hypotheses to be put to test
  • Acquisition of a critical stance in language use
  • Acquisition of the technique for academic writing (EAP), cv compilation, covering letter-writing, and related genres
  • Acquisition of a good background for further studies at postgraduate level
  • Possibly, to develop skills at adapting or incorporating the discursive angle into further analyses in other fields (literature, advertising, media, film studies, etc.)
  • To develop and adopt as an automatic reflex the discursive outlook in further fields of applied knowledge and practice, most notably in language learning and FLT

   

  Assessment: Final assignment, hand in short assignment weekly. Course on e-learning platform.

   

  Main Textbook: R. Carter, A. Goddard, D. Reah, K. Sanger & M. Bowring (2001). Working with Texts. London and New York: Routledge. This is a hands-on textbook with lots of exercises and activities.

Postgraduate Courses

• 

  Pragmatics and Text Analysis

  Kent State University, Ohio

  This postgraduate course focused on a critical analysis of texts.

  Assigned reading:
  G. Leech (1983) Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.
  N. Fairclough (1989). Language and Power. London: Longman.

  Assessment:  2 assigned seminar papers

• 

  Foundations of Language

  Ling 2-520

  Course Description and Objectives:  The course is quite broad in its scope as it addresses deeper issues of the science of linguistics. It aims to explore the most fundamental strands and theories of meaning in language, track them down at their inception and follow up their development in current perceptions of meaning in language. Foundational issues will include naming, referential theories of meaning, picture theory of meaning, proposition theories, logical truth, definite descriptions, sense and reference, intensional contexts, perceptions of compositionality, ‘use’ theories of meaning, but also presupposition and entailment, meaning as intention, meaning as action, etc. A connection between theory and application is also attempted.

  Assessment Methods: Continuous assessment, quizzes, mini-research papers, PPPresentation, long final assigned paper.

• 

  Semantics/Pragmatics

  MA Course

  Course Code: ELing 2-5XX

  Main Textbook: J. Saeed (2003). Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell. (chs from this book)

  Background Textbook: J. Lyons (1977). Semantics. I. II. CUP

   

  Students are advised to access this course through the department’s e-learning platform.

   

  Additional Reading:

  • Eliza Kitis (2012) Semantics: Meaning in language, Thessaloniki: University Studio Press
  • Eliza Kitis (MS) Strands in Pragmatics. School of English, Aristotle University
  • Sophia Marmaridou (2000) Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

   

  Method of Assessment:

  • Short in-class quizzes: 20%
  • Short research papers: 30%
  • In-class participation: 10%
  • End-of-term exam or long research paper: 40%

   

   Course Outline

   

  Week	Topic	Assigned Reading
  Week 1	Semantics-Pragmatics: Background	Ch. 1 (all chs from assigned textbook if not otherwise specified) (+ background reading)
  Week 2	Theories of Meaning: Thought-Reality, useful concepts	Ch. 2 (+ background reading)
  Week 3	Lexical Meaning	Ch. 3; D. Cruse (1986). Lexical semantics CUP; W. Hirtle ‘The challenge of polysemy’ in Y. Tobin (ed.) From sign to text,135-41, Benjamins; D. Tuggy (1993) ‘Ambiguity, polysemy, and vagueness’ GL: 273-90; P. Seuren (2001) ‘Lexical meaning and metaphor’, in Cognition in Language Use: Selected Papers from the 7th International Pragmatics Conference. V.1: 422-31. IPrA; D. Geeraerts (1993), ‘Vagueness’s puzzles, polysemy’s vagaries’ GL: 223-72; E. Koutoupi-Kitis  (2001)  ‘The semiotization of frames’ [in Greek], in G. Paschalidis and E. Hondolidou (eds) Semiotics and culture. VI. Thessaloniki: Paratiritis.
  Week 4	Sentence Relations Presupposition, Entailment	Ch. 4; S. Levinson (1983) Pragmatics (Ch. 4); (Optional: G. Frege (1892) ‘Sense and Reference’; P. Strawson (1952) ‘On referring’
  Week 5	Context, Deixis	Ch. 7; S. Levinson (1983) Pragmatics (Ch. 2); A. Duranti & Ch. Goodwin (eds) (1992) Rethinking Context, CUP (Introduction); M. Petruck (1996) ‘Frame Semantics’ in Handbook of Pragmatics ed. J. Blommaert & Ch. Bulcaen, 1-13, Benjamins (EK’s notes)
  Week 6	Speech Act Theory	Ch 8; S. Levinson (1983) Pragmatics (Ch. 5); E. Koutoupi-Kitis (MS) Pragmatics. The study of invisible meaning in language [in Greek]. Thessaloniki, University Studio Press. E. Kitis (2000) ‘Reporting speech acts in ELT’ Proceedings of 13th International Symposium on Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, in Ed. K. Nicolaidou and M. Mattheoudaki , 265-275, Thessaloniki: University Studio Press; (Optional reading)
  Week 7	Logic and Conversation	S. Levinson (1983) Pragmatics (Ch. 3); E. Kitis (1982) Problems connected with the notion of Implicature, Univ. of Warwick Thesis; (Optional reading)
  Week 8	Formalisation of Lexical Meaning, Formal Semantics	Chs 9 & 10; chs 5 and 6 from E. Kitis (2012) Semantics. Meaning in Language, University Studio Press; Y. Veloudis  (1998) Elements of formal Logic and Semantics, Aristotle University [in Greek]
  Week 9	Cognitive Semantics	Ch. 11; Marmaridou; G. Lakoff (1988) ‘Cognitive Semantics’ in U. Eco et al. Meaning and Mental Representations, 119-54, Indiana UP; R. Langacker (1997) ‘The contextual basis of cognitive semantics’ in J. Nuyts & Pederson (eds) Language and Conceptualization, 229-52,CUP
  Week 10		Revision

• 

  Pragmatics

  Elective

  Course Code: ELing 2-542

  Course Description: In the undergraduate course of Pragmatics the student is initiated into how we, as language-users, understand what other language-users mean, on account of what they say, but sometimes despite what they say, and how we make sense of what we read in texts. In sum, rather than examining components of language as constituents of an abstract system, the focus in a course in Pragmatics is on language-in-use. At this graduate level, the aim is to delve more deeply into the same aspects of language-use in order to acquire mastery of the functionality of language. The course will briefly review the roots of Pragmatics and will start with the philosopher Wittgenstein, who inaugurated two distinct, but equally important, trends in philosophy of language. The aim of the course is to help the student to come to grips with fundamental issues in Pragmatics. More specifically, the course will cover areas in Speech Act Theory, Logic of Conversation, Implicature and Relevance. Within this framework students will be acquainted with the work of Austin, Searle, Grice, the neo-Griceans and relevance theorists. An appreciation of the main thrust of Grice’s philosophy of language as well as the distinct philosophy of a relevance-theoretic view of language will be within the objectives of the course.

  The course is of immediate (but, alas, not so obvious) relevance to language teaching, as it extends to an appreciation of language use beyond the sentence. It also bears on literary criticism (hence the terms ‘literary pragmatics’ and ‘pragmastylistics’) since it will deal with language in its textual, social and psychological context. (But there is no time to make the connections as no practical component is included).

  However, pragmatics nowadays, by introducing a distinct perspective, has opened new vistas for domains and fields such as speech and visual communication, critical thinking, rhetoric, reading and listening theories, composition studies, film studies, semiotics, pictorial perception, informal logic, cognitive psychology, literary theory, education, argumentation, sociology, psychiatry (psychosis, various disorders, developmental disabilities), etc. Pragmatics also provides the sturdy (back)ground for work in computer science and Artificial Intelligence (AI). And it goes without saying that nowadays all the hyphenated subfields of linguistics, such as socio-linguistics or psycho-linguistics, as well as components of it, such as morphology, all tend to incorporate in their research a pragmatic perspective.

   

  Method of Assessment: 1. Research paper  2. Active in-class participation /quizzes

   

  Basic Textbooks:

  • Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP
  • Saeed, J. (2003). Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Kitis, E. (MS). Strands in Pragmatics.

   

  Syllabus

  Background:

  Earlier Wittgenstein – Ludwig Wittgenstein (1922[1961]) Tractatus Logicophilosophicus, trsl. D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

  Later Wittgenstein – Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953) Philosophical Investigations, trsl. G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell.

   

  What is Pragmatics:

  • Haberland, H. and J. L. Mey (1977) ‘Editorial. Linguistics and Pragmatics’. Journal of Pragmatics 1: 1-12.
  • Haldur Oim (1977) ‘Towards a theory of linguistic pragmatics’. Journal of Pragmatics 1: 251-68.

   

  Speech Act Theory:

  • AUSTIN: J. Austin (1962) How to do things with words. Oxford: OUP.
  • Austin, J. (1971) ‘Performative-Constative’. In: Searle (ed.) 13-22.
  • SEARLE: J. R. Searle (1969) Speech acts. Cambridge: CUP
  • J. R. Searle (ed.) (1971) The philosophy of language. Oxford: OUP
  • Volume: Cole, P. (ed.) (1975) Syntax and semantics. Speech acts. V 3. N.Y. : Academic Press. (P1.S9v3)
  • SOME CURRENT PROBLEMS: Bach & Harnish and Reimer

   

  Further Reading:

  • Tsohatzidis, S. (ed.) (1994) Foundations of speech act theory. London and N.Y.: Routledge.
  • Review: Elda Weigand (1996) ‘The state of the art in speech act theory’. Pragmatics & Cognition 4(2): 367-406.

   

  Implicature:

  • Grice, P. (1975) ‘Logic and conversation’. In: Cole, P. (ed.) 43-58.
  • Grice: (1989) Studies in the way of words. CA, MA: Harvard University Press
  • PROBLEMS: E. Kitis (1982) Problems connected with the notion of implicature. University of Warwick thesis.
  • Levinson, S. (1979) ‘Activity types and language’. Linguistics 17(5/6): 356-399.
  • Also: Drew, P. and J. Heritage (eds.) Talk at work. CUP, 66-100.
  • Levinson, S. (1981) Some pre-observations on the modelling of dialogue. Discourse Processes 4: 93-110.
  • Levinson, S. (1983) Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Levinson, S. (1995) Three levels of meaning. In: F. R. Palmer, (ed.) Grammar and meaning. Essays in honour of SIR JOHN LYONS, 90-115. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

   

  NEO-GRICEANS:
  • J. Atlas and S. Levinson (1981) ‘It-clefts, informativeness, and logical form’. In: P. Cole (ed.) Radical Pragmatics. N.Y.: Academic Press, 1-61.
  • L. Horn (1985) ‘Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q- and R-based implicature’. In: D. Schiffrin (ed.) Meaning, form and use in context. Washington: Georgetown University Press, 11-42.
  • S. Levinson (1987) ‘Minimization and conversational inference’. In: J. Verschueren and M. Bertuccelli-Papi (eds.) The pragmatic perspective. Benjamins.
  • S. Levinson (2000) Presumptive meanings. MIT Press.

   

  Relevance:

  • Sperber, D. and D. Wilson (1986) Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Blakemore, D. (1992) Understanding utterances. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Sperber, D. and D. Wilson (1987) ‘Precis of Relevance: communication and cognition’. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 10, 697-754.
  • Kitis, E. (1999) ‘On Relevance again: From Philosophy of Language across ‘Pragmatics and Power’ to Global Relevance’. Journal of Pragmatics 31: 643-67.
  • Kitis, E. (1998) ‘When Relevance saves’. Proceedings of 12th International Symposium of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, VI: Papers on Theoretical Linguistics, ed. S. Lambropoulou, Thessaloniki, 225-35.

   High aspirations:

  Frame Semantics: Fillmore

  Sweetserian domains

  ---

  Broad Research Areas

  • Relationship between speech acts and implicature.
  • Relationship between implicature and semantics.
  • Accommodation of various types / aspects of extra-logical meaning in various levels of analysis (e.g., Levinson’s -also Dascal’s- three levels of analysis).
  • Interrelationship of conventional and conversational implicature.
  • Interrelationship of indirectness and conventional or conversational implicature.

   

  Research Topics: General

  1. Is conventional implicature semantic or pragmatic?
  2. If the notion of literal meaning is defensible in a semantic theory, what other / further analyses need to be offered in pragmatics towards a more comprehensive theory of meaning?
  3. Is a distinction between semantics and pragmatics defensible or plausible? What are the (dis)advantages?
  4. Do we need to view pragmatic meaning in a broader framework than that espoused in SAT(Speech Act Theory)? Defend.
  5. What are the arguments in favour of regarding SAT as part of semantics?
  6. What are the arguments in favour of regarding SAT as part of pragmatics?
  7. What is Grice’s motivation for discerning conventional implicature as distinct from conversational implicature?
  8. Advance arguments towards regarding conventional implicature as part of truth-conditional meaning.
  9. Advance arguments towards regarding conventional implicature as part of extra-logical, non-truth-conditional meaning.
  10. What is the impact of Grice’s theory of Logic and Conversation?
  11. What is the connection between Grice’s theory  of Logic and Conversation and his theory of Meaning?
  12. Is meaning computed serially or parallely, i.e., what are the processes of computation of direct / indirect speech acts for example, or literal / non-literal [metaphorical, metonymical meaning]?
  13. What is Grice’s (indirect) answer to later Wittgenstein’s account of meaning?
  14. Is the postulation of CP (Cooperative Principle) defensible / universal?ho are the forerunners of Austin and in what way did they foreshadow his theory?
  15. What are the (dis)advantages of Austin’s ground-breaking view of meaning as against the tradition in which he wrote (or taught)?
  16. Is Searle’s distinction between direct / indirect speech acts defensible?
  17. What are the advantages of a neo-Gricean account? What problems does it solve / create?

   

  Research Topics: Relevance Theory

  1. The main attractions of Relevance theory: What problems does it purport to solve and what problems does it create / leave unsolved?
  2. How does Relevance theory compare to a Gricean or neo-Gricean account?
  3. Is Relevance rightly postulated as the principle par excellence? Defend.
  4. Show the asocial nature of Relevance theory. In what ways could this be remedied?
• 

  Semantics

  Elective

  Course Outline

   

  Topics Covered
  Theory of Meaning:	Theory of Meaning:	(Optional)
  (1) Formalist or Constructivist:	(2) Ordinary Language approach:	(3) Foundations of T-G/Chomskyan paradigm:
  Frege’s programme, Sense and Reference	Wittgenstein (later), Meaning as use	Philosophical Basis:
  Russell’s Theory of Descriptions  Strawson on Referring	Austin, Speech-act Theory	Rationalism vs Empiricism
  Donnellan on Reference and Definite descriptions	Searle Speech-act Theory	The Innateness hypothesis
  Wittgenstein (earlier), Set Theory, Propositional/Predicate Logic	Grice Meaning as Intention	Competence vs Performance
  	Strawson Meaning as Convention	Formal properties of T-G
  	Lewis Convention	GB, Parameters, etc.
  	Grice Logic of Conversation
  	Formal Pragmatics
  Bibliography for Semantics (MA)
  (1) Gottlob Frege (1892) “On sense and reference” H. Feigl and W. Sellars (eds). Readings in pholosophical analysis. NY: Appleton, 85-102.	(2) Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953). Pholosophical Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell.
  Bertrand Russell (1905) “On denoting” (in above item)	John Austin (1962) How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon.
  Peter Strawson “On referring” Mind, in Steinberg&Jakobovits (S&J)	John Searle (1969)
  Keith Donnellan, in (S&J)	Paul Grice in (S&J)
  E. Kitis (1989) “Frege’s and Russell’s solutions to the problems of non-existent subject terms, identity statements and opaque contexts” (hard copy in library, downloadable pdf file)	Paul Grice (Logic of Conversation)
  	Neo-Griceans
  	Relevance
  	D. Sperber & D. Wilson (1986) Relevance. Blackwell.

   

  Assignment Topics for Semantics:

  1. Compare Russell’s and Strawson’s approaches to a Theory of Reference.
  2. What are the (de)merits of Russell’s Theory of denoting?
  3. Identify and discuss Frege’s major contribution to semantics.
  4. Discuss and compare the notions of presupposition and entailment in a semantic theory. What problems have they created/solved?
  5. Frege regards his theory of sense and reference as applying not only to definite descriptions but also to ordinary proper names like ‘Chicago’. Discuss.
  6. It is customary to distinguish between a semantic and a pragmatic notion of presupposition. What has necessitated the distinction? Which of the two notions is more essential in semantic theory? Discuss.
  7. Discuss the role of intention in a theory of communication.
  8. Discuss the role of intention in a semantic theory.
  9. Intention or convention? Discuss the two notions in formulating a semantic theory.
  10. Is presupposition a semantic relation between sentences or is it a relation between the latter and their speakers? Discuss.
  11. Presupposition and lexical semantics: In what way can presupposition contribute to a better understanding and/or description of lexical meanings?
  12. Provide some examples which seem to demand the semantic notion of presupposition and critically evaluate arguments in its favour.
  13. Discuss what is meant by ‘appropriacy conditions’ and evaluate their role in linguistic analysis.
• 

  Issues in Pragmatics

  Elective

  Course Code: Ling 2-544

   

  Course Description and Objectives: The purpose of the course is to explore at some depth certain central areas of pragmatics, or the use of language as the main societal fabric. The focus will be mainly on unarticulated constituents, or on underspecification in language (use). In other words, the focus will be mainly on the ‘invisible’ meaning in language that is very often the main concern in communication. This aspect of meaning has received recently a great deal of attention and various theories have been developed to account for its centrality. So this course will inevitably deal with issues that lie at the interface between semantics and pragmatics, but will selectively deal at some depth with various theories -often competing ones- that aspire to give solutions to a string of problems, which have bedeviled semantic and pragmatic theories for a long time. Pragmatic phenomena that will be of concern to us will be in the areas of deixis and indexicality, speech acts (language as action) and the logic of conversation, relevance theory, etc. but we will also see how a specific linguistic phenomenon receives distinct treatments within distinct theoretical perspectives.

  The course is of immediate relevance to language teaching, as it extends to an appreciation of language use beyond the sentence, but also to many other disciplines as it deals with language in its textual, social and psychological context.

   

  Assessment Methods: Continuous assessment: Quizzes, mini-research paper, final assignment (paper).

• 

  Pragmatics in Language Teaching

  Interdepartmental graduate program

  Course Description and Objectives: This course aims to familiarise prospective language teachers with the main themes in pragmatics and with strategies of incorporating them in their language teaching; it also aims to help students develop an awareness and appreciation of inter-pragmatic issues affecting L2 learning.

• 

  Critical Discourse Analysis

  Ling 4-595

  Course Description and Objectives: The basic levels of language (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics) all contribute to meaning making, but interpretation of texts exceeds a configuration of all these levels of encoded language. This course aims to transgress the linguistic level and look at meanings and interpretations as social constructs. In effect, it will be looking at ‘hidden’ meanings of texts that often generate ideological complexes unawares of their readers/audiences. The analysis exceeds the language level and is social and critical in perspective in an effort to ‘dehabituate’ or ‘denaturalize’ texts and discourses through a distanced but informed critical stance. The critical analysis will also be multimodal to an extent as meaning-making uses multiple modes of communication.

• 

  Subordinate Clauses in Modern Greek

  Interdepartmental graduate program

  Course Description and Objectives: This course, part of the curriculum of interdepartmental postgraduate programmes, addressed prospective and in-service Modern Greek language teachers. It focused on the various multifunctional subordinators of Modern Greek as vehicles of coherence, unravelling underspecified implicated meanings surrounding their use, especially in written language. This course was mostly focused on academic writing techniques.

• 

  Discourse Markers of Modern Greek #DMs

  Interdepartmental graduate program

  Course Description and Objectives: This course, part of the curriculum of interdepartmental postgraduate programmes, addressed prospective and in-service language teachers. It aimed to raise awareness surrounding various genres and issues of cohesion and coherence with a specific focus on the use of discourse markers in creating coherence and interactivity in spoken discourse, and on connectives (including subordinators) in written language. Academic writing and its techniques was a priority of the course.

• 

  Discourse/Textual Analysis

  Proposed Module

  Course Description and Objectives: This module is designed to be partly theoretical and partly practical. You will learn how to approach and analyse texts, and you will explore their connection with discourse. We will focus on language in its linguistic, situational and cultural context, just as it is used by its speakers, but we will also look at various texts that ‘collaborate’ with visual and other means to make sense, what we call multimodality or multimodal discourse (icons, pictures, logos, brand names, visual symbols, etc.).
  You will learn that people do not just mean or communicate with language but they actually act and perform in it. You will develop an awareness of issues such as why some forms or constructions are used in specific contexts rather than others, and possibly generate your own hypotheses which might be put to test.
  The module rubs shoulders with other disciplines, and so it aspires to construct informed and critical students of other disciplines too, such as media studies, film studies and literary studies. Amongst other objectives, this course will also make prospective teachers of English acquire a critical stance towards reference grammars and coursebooks intended for the use of EFL and help them to develop an awareness of the need to heed and incorporate the findings of textual and discourse analysis in their teaching strategies and materials designing. The quantitative methodology of corpus linguistics incorporated in this module will also enable you to adopt a more ‘scientific’ basis in further studies and analyses.

   

  Learning Outcomes:

  On successful completion of the course students are expected to have, or be able to:

  • Competence in text analysis including multimodal texts/discourses
  • An appreciation of the centrality of text and discourse in all forms of social life
  • To inform your language teaching (LT, ELT, FLT, EAP,ESOL, etc.)
  • To practice knowledge acquired in various other courses (literature, public discourse s. a. journalese, newspaper discourse, advertising discourse, also in film studies, and other media forms, urban semiotics s. a. signage, logos) and apply it in the technique of analysis
  • To comprehend -and put to practice- why some forms or constructions are used in specific contexts/genres rather than others, and possibly generate your own hypotheses to be put to test
  • To acquire a critical stance in reading/language use. To appreciate the variability of interpretation (useful, esp. in literary studies, works of art s. a. paintings)
  • Creative outcomes: to raise awareness of the systematics of text and textuality so that you can systematise your technique in creative writing, but also to be able to transform texts creatively based on the material taught.
  • To acquire the relevant linguistic/discursive concepts and terms on which aspects of film analysis are based. Good grasp of these notions and terms will inform your film studies (hear them and learn them from the horse’s mouth)
  • To critically read, hear, listen to, and gain an informed insight into and appreciation of social encounters.
  • To realise how prospective consumerism is constructed in advertising discourse
  • To familiarise yourself with a quantitative methodology (corpus linguistics)that will enable you to test and substantiate your hypotheses and qualitative analyses
  • To acquire a good background for further studies in a range of disciplines at postgraduate level
  • Possibly, to develop skills at adapting or incorporating the discursive angle into further analyses in other fields (literature, advertising, media, film studies, etc.)
  • To develop and adopt as an automatic reflex the discursive outlook in further fields of applied knowledge and practice, including language learning and FLT
  • Not least, to make you understand that language is power, to be linguistically aware is to be empowered in all your social encounters, which makes you a more aware citizen.

   

  Materials: texts from a broad range of fields, such as advertisements, newspapers, magazines, poetry, prose shall be employed for exemplification and practice of theoretical points. Students are encouraged to bring their own texts of interest for analysis.

   

  Method

  Teaching: lectures with power point presentations, students can download in advance the pps in handout notes form to take notes in class, interactive method engaging students, handouts for longer texts, and an e-learning platform for uploading materials, further relevant links, etc. (and for interacting, if available). Materials will be mostly from a range of students’ interests and from current affairs they are expected to be familiar with, have heard about in the news, etc., so as to boost their engagement. Possibly liaise with other instructors of other modules to coordinate/share teaching materials, if desired. E.g., use a poem /poet from their Lit syllabus, or a news item used in the media studies syllabus, etc., to illustrate a certain linguistic phenomenon.

   

  Course Outline

   

   

  When?	What?	What to Read!
  Week 1	What is discourse? What is text? (definitions of discourse, layperson’s, linguistics, literature, its place in the system of linguistics)	My notes (25 pp)
  Week 2	Three levels to analyse texts: (these are levels and categories we’ll be coming back to in order to connect and classify taught material in a more compact meaningful way)	Halliday, M.A.K. 2003. On the “architecture” of human language. In On Language and Linguistics. Volume 3, the Collected Works of M.A.K. Halliday. London and New York: Equinox. Pp. 15–16 (on experient. function); Excerpts from Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan, 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman; or from Halliday, M.A.K. and C.M.I.M. Matthiessen, 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold; (or any other appropriate source)
  Week 3	Consolidation/revision of material of week 2	Eggins, S and M. R. James 1997. Genres and registers of discourse. In T. van Dijk (ed.) Discourse as Structure and Process. Discourse Studies. A multidisciplinary Introduction. London: Sage, 230-56.
  Week 4	Working with texts: Words and things (alias Reference), sentences and situations (types of sentence, structure)	From my notes, Carter et al
  Week 5	Vocabulary (from signs to words, from iconicity and visuality to symbolism)	Carter et al, my material; resource
  Week 6	What words mean and how they mean it? (Denotation vs. connotation)	Allan, K. 2007. The pragmatics of connotation. Journal of Pragmatics 39: 1047- 1057. My notes
  Week 7	Types of inference: some are ‘hooked on the text’ but some are more ‘liberal’	Resource; Thomas
  Week 8	Textual level: Cohesion: phonological, lexical, grammatical, structural (thematic progression, parallelism) and conjunction	From Halliday and Hasan (or other sources)
  Week 9	Textual level: discourse markers, hedging and other ‘worrying paraphernalia’	Resource, Reference
  Easter Break	Easter Break	Easter Break
  Week 10	Textual level: Topic in sentence, topic in paragraph, topic in text. Thematic progression or how we organise what we write or speak; information structure	Core reading
  Week 11	Texts in context: or, why we do not say or write what we mean, why my audience thinks I meant something I didn’t say/write. When connotation turns into conversational implicature and other oddities (From explicatures to implicatures), Relevance, T of Mind	Core sources
  Week 12	Interpersonal level: deixis (indexicals, address forms, honorifics, social deixis, discourse deixis), modality, text as action, how we act in language, how we can hurt with language	Hanks W. 1992. The indexical ground for deictic reference. In A. Duranti and C. Goodwin. Rethinking context. CUP, 43-77; Speech act theory, excerpts from core reading, also from Judith Butler for our Lit students(injurious speech); core sources
  Week 13	Framing the text: Discourse, society and cognition (mental models, frames, schema theory and scripts); metaphor	van Dijk, T. A. 2006. Discourse, context and cognition.
  Week 14	Corpus linguistics: what is a corpus, what is collocations, concordances, Word Lists, keyness of texts, clusters or lexical bundles, how they matter. Corpus tools	Core sources, resource
  Week 15	Corpus linguistics: find out how CL can help you identify genres, how meanings change in time, why Lord Heseltine called ‘disabled’ people ‘handicapped’ (26.10.2014) but ‘meant well’ and why we can still say “Haseltine was handicapped by deep anger among some legislators, etc.”(26.11.1990), or why our world has recently turned so ‘toxic’	Core sources

   

  Core Reading:

  Carter, R. et al 2001. Working with Texts. London/NY: Routledge

  Brown, G and G. Yule 1983. Discourse Analysis. CUP

  Thomas, J. 1995. Meaning in Interaction. London: Longman

  Resource: Archer, D., K. Aijmer & A. Wichmann (2012). Pragmatics: An Advanced Resource Book. Routledge.

  Reference: Archer, D., & P. Grundy 2011. Pragmatics Reader. Routledge

   

  Further Resources and Reading List:

  Cook, G. 1989. Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  Schiffrin, D., D. Tannen, and H. E. Hamilton, (eds) 2001. The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

  Nunan, D. 1993. Introducing Discourse Analysis. London: Penguin Books.

  Jaworski, A. and N. Coupland, (eds) 1999. The Discourse Reader. London: Routledge.

  Johnstone, B. 2008. Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.