Frameworks of English Discourse Analysis 2009

Last minute Essay suggestion

2010-04-20T12:26:00.004+01:00

By now I hope most of you are finished with your essays, and have progressed into the proof-reading stage. If, however, you are stuck suffering from writer's block or the flight ban (I know one of you is stuck in Turkey), here is a suggestion for data: a database of election leaflets. You could just have a look through leaflets from various parties for a comparative study.

A further point: one of you discovered that CHAB does in fact show collocates (there is a button/link in the bottom left corner). If you use that facility, I suggest that you choose either log-likelihood or Chi-square, and ignore the others. Also, use the same column throughout if you look up several words. If you're interested in the technical issues related to this, then I recommend the final year module Corpus Linguistics where this will be covered. But for FREDA it'd be too much, so don't worry about it.

Literariness

2010-04-08T17:09:00.003+01:00

--I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.

Pascal. Lettres provinciales, 16, Dec.14,1656.

I had originally planned to turn Charles Owen's lecture on literariness in something more like a proper podcast; summarising and structuring it, and providing of a narrative around excerpts from his lecture. In the end, time was the big problem, and so I apologise that this 'podcast' is rather long, 48 minutes, half a football match with injury time added on. On the other hand, you will pretty much hear everything Charles had to say, apart from his comments on the weather at the beginning.

The recording quality is not all that great, and it has been heavily processed in Audacity to make it reasonable, but I thought this was better than nothing, and might still be helpful for your assignment.

So, here is the next podcast for this module.

Content:

Charles Owen's lecture on Literariness

Length: 47:58 min, Filesize: 14.4MB.

Happy listening!

Complexity and Literature

2010-04-02T14:40:00.002+01:00

This article from the New York Times might be interesting if you're doing one of the literary questions, as it mentions complexity as a factor that defines fiction.

A few more things about the assignment

2010-03-26T11:41:00.002Z

If you're analysing newspaper texts, you might want to take into account the demographics of the target audience. For UK newspapers you can find some information on the website of the Newspaper Marketing Agency.

While reading an article about a BBC documentary on feminism in the Guardian, it occurred to me that some of you might be interested in this topic: take a 'normal' text, and analyse it for gender bias. Are the participants presupposed to be male/female? Are there implicit (or explicit) assumptions about differences between men and women?

Comments on Grammar and Style

2010-03-22T20:57:00.001Z

I have finally had a chance to put up the comments on grammar and style from the first assignment. They are in the root folder on WebCT.

Looking at speeches

2010-03-18T11:59:00.001Z

For those of you who consider looking at a political speech for your second assignment, here is a brief article in the THES which might give you some further leads.

Text for analysis in week 10

2010-03-15T17:02:00.003Z

This week we will look at an article from the on-line version of the Socialist Worker: Pakistan: faultline of the war on terror. Just to provide a bit of balance after the previous texts we looked at, and also to show that a critical analysis can equally well look at left-wing discourse.

Again, you will get a hand-out with this text in the seminar, but in order to save time, please have a read through it beforehand!

Also, all 10 podcasts are now in (thank you!) but only 2 have so far been posted on the blog. Could the other 8 groups please do the same now? If you don't know how to do it, just ask!

Text for Analysis

2010-03-08T23:38:00.003Z

This week the topic is evaluation. We will look at a book review from the Guardian.

You will get the text as a hand-out, as usual, but please do have a look at it in advance!

The Splice Comma

2010-02-23T17:39:00.002Z

This is a problem that I noticed repeatedly when marking the first assignments. And other colleagues have noticed it as well. Tom Davis has written a short piece on it, which you should read before you start writing your next essay. And this applies not only to FREDA essays!

This week I will put up on WebCT a list of some sentences I came across during marking which I didn't like for either stylistic or grammatical reasons, with suggested improvements. I will also start putting your podcasts up; the way I think I will do this is to store the file on the web and send a link to it to the group which did the recording, and then each group can write a blog post with that link in. That way you can add any additional comments (such as the text you were looking at) in the post.

And, finally, this week you will also get the second assignments.

Instead of a podcast: looking at reported speech

2010-02-06T22:01:00.003Z

As I've only just about finished marking your essays, I have not had any time to produce any more podcasts; this will, however, change after reading week. In the meantime, here is a brief discussion of something I came across while reading the paper. It fits in nicely with the representation of speech and thought in writing, which we looked at in last week's seminar. This time it's not literature, but a newspaper article, but the principle is the same.

The article in question is a comment on the fallibility of scientists. The author, Simon Jenkins, writes:

Last week 14 stem cell researchers accused the science journals on which their reputation (and money) depends of corrupting the peer-review process. They protested at their papers being sent for vetting to known rivals. "Papers that are scientifically flawed or comprise only modest technical increments often attract undue profile," they said, while original new material was delayed or suppressed. Sending research papers to rivals in a field of potential profitability is like asking General Motors to pass judgment on the latest Ford.

What is interesting here, is the final sentence of this paragraph: in the classification we used in the seminar that would be Pure Narrative. But it looks like reported speech, did the stem cell researchers not write this? Not if Jenkins used his language properly. In that paragraph we actually have a progression: first, (non-free) direct speech ("..." they said) followed by indirect speech. Free or non-free? Depends on whether you count the "they said". We can see that it is indirect because of the shift in tense. Originally they'd have said "... while original new material is delayed or suppressed."

But the final sentence is in the present tense. Therefore it cannot be free indirect speech. It is not in quote marks, so it has to be a Pure Narrative, in other words, Jenkins' own view/comment. Otherwise it would have to be "... profitability was like asking General Motors to ..."

Since this is from the Grauniad, we have to take the possibility into account that it was in fact a mistake, but if it is not, then he sneakily added his own opinion directly after the reported speech of those scientists, only marked by a subtle shift back to the present tense. It seems to me that this will to many readers appear like a continuation of the quote. Not that it is a very big deal here, as that comment just elaborates on what has been said before, but I hope you can see the potential here for putting words into other people's mouths while still being able to maintain that you didn't.

Change of Room, this Thursday

2010-01-24T09:33:00.002Z

On Thursday morning I have to chair a PhD viva, and the first seminar (11:00-12:00) has to be moved to coincide with the second (12:00-13:00). As a consequence, we need a bigger room to fit everybody in. So, if you are in either of the Thursday seminar groups, please come at 12:00 to the Strathcona Building, Lecture Theatre 2 (G17).

If you are in the 11:00 group and cannot make it due to a timetable clash, please get in touch with me so that I can sort things out; in that case you would need to attend one of the Wednesday seminars (10:00-11:00 or 11:00-12:00).

I will also make an announcement in the lecture on Monday.

Good Writing

2010-01-20T15:34:00.002Z

Here is an article I just came across: 8 Qualities of Powerful Writing. I know it's a bit too late for your first assignment, but the advice given in this blog post is valuable in any case, so I recommend that you have a look at it.

Of course, writing alone is not all; you also need to have something to write about. Often, this is what gives away a poor essay: the writing is very vague and unspecific, and usually also convoluted. The writer didn't understand what they were writing, or had no clear idea about its significance, and that is mirrored in the use of language. If you are unsure, get somebody to have a look at your writing who does not know much about your subject: they will still be able to see whether your writing makes sense or not, and can flag up issues. I did this with my PhD dissertation, where it worked really well.

Next Group Task

2010-01-20T13:38:00.002Z

The first group task in the second semester (due by week 6, reading week) is a brief lexical analysis:

Select a short piece of (literary) text. This can either be a poem (or part thereof), or a paragraph from a novel or short story - anything, really. Discuss the use of lexis (ie choice of words) in that text. For this you could look at the usage of words in a corpus, or consider issues discussed by Carter in his 'Figures of Speech' article.

Then, turn this into a podcast.

How you do this is up to you. Lengthwise it should not be too long, but also not too short, just aim for something you'd be prepared to listen to yourself (it's audio-only). If you have difficulties on the technical side with recording etc, get in touch with me and I will assist you. Other than that, feel free to be creative. Play around with a theme tune, decide how many speakers you are going to have, how to present your analysis, and so forth. Just bear in mind that you probably need to compress your analysis somewhat - a 30min monologue on the usage of a word is not exactly an exciting prospect.

Two things are important here: the quality of the analysis (does it make sense, is it insightful?) and that you have fun doing it (which will make it fun for others to listen to). I will put up the final results on here in the second half of the term.

Also, there are no podcasts at the moment, as I use all the available time marking your essays, but as soon as they are out of the way, normal podcasting will resume!

Word Limit Myth

2010-01-12T11:52:00.005Z

Just a quick note, which might be rather late, but it has just come up again when a student asked me some questions about the essay:

The word limit is 2500 words. Do not write more. There is no 10% 'allowance', otherwise it would say the word limit was 2750 words. It isn't. It's a myth. Please do not write more that 2500 words.

You can, of course, write fewer words. If you want, you can submit an essay with 500 words. But you will probably not be able to say enough to get a good mark for it. The 2500 is the maximum word count of your essay. This is clearly stated in the Department Handbook.

The 'there-is-no-10%-allowance' applies to any essay you are writing, not just FREDA ones.

Weather

2010-01-08T23:45:00.002Z

Several students have asked about their essay submission, as they might not be able to come back to Birmingham in time due to the bad weather. So, here is what to do:

print out your essay

write a little note about which module and banner code it is (Frameworks of English Discourse Analysis, 09 18404)

post it to the following address:

Department of English
The University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
United Kingdom

It's probably best to make sure it'll arrive in time, so don't post it on Wednesday. If in doubt, I guess the postmark should show that you have submitted it on time, but it's probably better to post it early!

It might also be a good idea to send me an email confirming that you have posted it, just so that I know to expect your essay.

Good luck!

End of Year Podcast

2009-12-17T12:06:00.002Z

Here is the eighth podcast for this module.

Content:

Interview with Susan Hunston on the Birmingham-developed model of Exchange Structure. Also: general advice on the assignment!

Length: 14:32 min, Filesize: 7MB.

Happy listening!

Plagiarism

2009-12-11T12:14:00.003Z

Plagiarism is not quite a hanging offence, but can cause serious damage to your grades. Obviously you all know not to plagiarise; however, sometimes the rules of when and how to acknowledge other people's work can be confusing, and you can breach the rules by accident if you are not careful or perhaps a little disorganised. If, before embarking on your assessed essay, you want to get a refresher on that subject, at this post on the OLIA Blog (On-line learner independence in the Arts) you can find links to some guidance/tutorials, including a 30 minute on-line tutorial specifically for English.

This is from the University of Leicester, so the penalties are different from Birmingham, but the principles are the same.

More on Conversation Analysis

2009-12-03T10:20:00.003Z

A general description of CA is in the textbook you used last year for Language Foundation, Introducing Language in Use. Chapter 2 takes you through transcription, turn-taking, and adjacency pairs, and gives a range of activities plus further reading.

This might be useful to give you more of an idea what question to investigate in your assessed essay!

Podcast week 10

2009-11-30T12:14:00.003Z

Here is the seventh podcast for this module. I'm sorry it's only just before the lecture, but due to scheduling problems I wasn't able to get it done before then.

Content:

Interview with Alison Sealey about Analysing Spoken Discourse, Conversation Analysis, and Exchange Structure. Worth listening to, even after the lecture.

Length: 5:51 min, Filesize: 2.8MB.

Happy listening!

Formative Essays

2009-11-27T14:43:00.002Z

I have finally finished marking your formative assignments. They are now available on WebCT, together with feedback sheets. I have scanned in the whole essay in each case, so that you can see my annotations on the pages; this is usually more insightful than the written comments on the feedback sheet, as those have to be rather short and general.

Transcriptions

2009-11-25T13:17:00.003Z

I have now uploaded the segmented sound recordings; they are on WebCT. If you cannot get them off there (it might be that you can only listen to them, but not download them for use on your own machine) let me know, and I can send you the relevant file by email. Each sound file is between 1.5 and 2 MB in size. Some segments have a few seconds overlap to make it easier to align them. As for software to help you with the transcription, I suggest either the transcription program I mentioned in an earlier post, or Audacity, which I use to produce the podcasts.

For the transcription please use the scheme from your handout in week 7:

speakers labelled with upper case letters
simultaneous speech in square brackets
latching turns aligned with vertical bar (‘|’)
blank line to segment turns
pauses: short pause (.), longer pauses with time in seconds in brackets (1.5)
fixed width font: either plain text file or Courier
normal orthography (but no punctuation)
colon for stretched syllables
stressed syllables in CAPITAL letters
question mark for final rising intonation
other sounds/unclear segments in <...>

Make sure to check with the other people transcribing the same recording that you are using the same labels for the speakers, otherwise it could be very confusing. For anonymising, please use labels like or ; make sure that no actual names are contained in the transcriptions.

Also, please use plain text/courier, to be able to mark the alignment of utterances properly. Please try to get the transcription done as quickly as possible; I'm sorry for the delay, but I only received the last recording earlier today!

Any questions, just drop me an email or post a comment here!

Sound files for transcriptions

2009-11-23T18:24:00.002Z

I meant to get those ready at the weekend, but had too much to do; I will try to get them out of the way on Tuesday. Basically, I will need to go through each recording, and slice it up into a set of reasonably-sized segments. These I will then put on WebCT; and each segment will be assigned to two people, one for transcription, the other for proofing. I will announce details on this blog once I'm there. In the meantime, apologies for the delay!

Podcast week 9

2009-11-23T18:18:00.002Z

Here is the sixth podcast for this module. Please let me know if you have problems listening to it!

Content:

The rank scale and its application to discourse analysis. Now with added theme music!

Length: 9:05 min, Filesize: 4.4MB.

Happy listening!

PS: Just thought I'd clarify an issue that might lead to confusion: the podcasts are not meant as replacements for lectures; this module always only had one lecture every two weeks. Instead, they are meant as additional source of information, either new (as the current one), giving some context for the lectures (the interviews) or simply as recap/revision material relating to the seminars (as the first couple of ones).

Transcriptions

2009-11-20T10:18:00.001Z

For your transcriptions you might want to try out NCH Express Scribe; this is free software that works on various platforms. With this you can eg slow down recordings, which might be useful for transcribing.

Dell Hymes

2009-11-19T21:38:00.002Z

Dell Hymes, who created the SPEAKING-model for describing discourse, died last week.

Audio Recording

2009-11-19T11:37:00.004Z

The audio recording of the transcript we looked at in the last seminar is available online at https://lw.lsa.umich.edu/eli/micase/Audio/adv.htm (you need Real player to listen to it, but a download link is provided on the page)

The transcribed stretch begins after about 50 seconds.

Yet another podcast

2009-11-11T15:47:00.001Z

Here is the fifth podcast for this module. Please let me know if you have problems listening to it!

Content:

Interview with Alison Sealey about the features of spoken discourse

Length: 9:33 min, Filesize: 4.5MB.

Happy listening!

Conversation Analysis

2009-11-10T14:10:00.002Z

Here is a useful tutorial about CA; it would be good if you could have a look at this over the next two weeks.

Conversation Analysis Tutorial (from Loughborough University)

You might want to work through this after having read Ochs (1979), and before beginning with the Cameron and Drew & Curl papers.

Podcast week 7

2009-11-09T21:05:00.001Z

Here is the fourth podcast for this module. Please let me know if you have problems listening to it!

Content:

brief summary of the module, and things to look out for when recording your own data

Length: 26:33 min, Filesize: just over 12MB.

Happy listening!

Next Reading

2009-11-04T10:10:00.003Z

The next reading is now available on WebCT. It's Ochs (1979), Transcription as Theory. Please discuss this text in your group meetings, and post a summary of your discussion on the student blog (1 per group).

Also, as of the time I am writing this post, there have now been 13 replies to the feedback questionnaires, which is a lot better than the 6 that were there before, but still way short of the 42 students taking the module!

Two reminders

2009-10-23T10:31:00.000+01:00

Please remember to record one of your group discussions: this also needs to be submitted by the end of next week. If you have any technical problems, just let me know. I can provide you with a digital recorder if you do not have any facilities for recording your discussion. The length should be between 10 and 20 minutes, depending on the amount of talking.

This is important, as we will work with these recordings after reading week.

Also, it would be great if you could fill in the feedback questionnaires I sent round yesterday. As I mentioned in one group, I'll be asking you for feedback on the module during term, rather than at the end, so that I can identify problems and take up suggestions while you're still benefiting from it. I have changed a lot this year, and I will need feedback from you to assess whether the changes have been successful or not!

Reading for week 5

2009-10-22T10:39:00.000+01:00

The reading for the coming week is Bex, Tony (1996) "Genre". This is chapter 7 of his Variety in Written English, London: Routledge.

I will put a copy of that chapter on WebCT.

Third Podcast - Genre

2009-10-21T14:07:00.000+01:00

Here is the third podcast for this module. Please let me know if you have problems listening to it!

Content:

brief summary of week 4, Interview with Alison Sealey about the upcoming lecture

Length: 8:57 min, Filesize: just over 6MB.

Happy listening!

Mid-week Podcast, week 3

2009-10-14T15:50:00.000+01:00

Here is the second podcast for this module. Please let me know if you have problems listening to it!

Content:

brief summary of weeks 2 and 3l

Length: 6:30 min, Filesize: just under 5MB.

Happy listening!

Reading for week 4

2009-10-14T14:09:00.000+01:00

The reading for week 4 is Vijay Bhatia's Towards critical genre analysis. This is chapter 11 (p.166-177) of Bhatia, Flowerdew & Jones (eds) (2008) "Advances in Discourse Studies", Routledge.

There should be plenty of copies in the library. If you have problems getting hold of it, please let me know!

Formative Essay

2009-10-09T14:20:00.000+01:00

I have now thought of a good topic for the formative essay. This essay should be handed in by week 5, ie before reading week. Submission should be in electronic form, just send it in by email. I will then put all essays up on WebCT together with my comments.

Your task is to collect a couple of short texts which you think might belong to the same genre. Work out what the features are that these texts have in common; this set of features then defines the genre. Come up with a descriptive label for that.

Now select another text, not from the same source as any of the previous texts, but one which might be related, in other words, a text which you'd expect to have similar characteristics. Look at the features you identified for the other texts, and decide whether your final text belongs to the same genre or not.

For example: you select a handful of recipes from various 'traditional' cookery books, and come up with a brief description of the genre 'recipe'. Now you take a recipe from a 'modern' cookery book (eg Jamie Oliver or similar) and compare. Even if it still is a recipe, does it have anything in common with your 'traditional' recipes?

Do not write more than 2000 words. I will give you a hand-out next week with guidance on how to write a language-style essay.

As for this being a group project, it is up to you how you divide the work. I suggest you collectively make the various decisions, and discuss the analysis. Before writing the actual essay you could create a mindmap, and then perhaps split the writing of various sections between you. Or, someone writes a draft/outline, the next one fills in/edits, etc.

If you have any questions, let me know in the comments!

Podcast week 2

2009-10-05T22:28:00.000+01:00

Here is the first podcast for this module. Please let me know if you have problems listening to it!

Content:

administrative matters
more on Baden-Powell

Length: 12 min, Filesize: just under 9MB.

Happy listening!

Administrative Matters

2009-10-01T16:33:00.000+01:00

A few more notes:

I have now realised that I can add you to the blog even without a google email address; your university address seems to work fine. Please let me know if you want me to change your address in case you're already registered, or let me know if I haven't registered you yet!

As for the group meetings: In order to take a bit of load off the people in charge of organising the groups this first quarter, and because I don't have everybody's email addresses easily available, I have decided to change the procedure slightly. On WebCT is now a file with the group memberships and the email addresses of the group coordinators. It is now your responsibility to find out which group you are in (in most cases this will be the one you have been assigned to in the seminar this week), and contact the coordinator. The coordinator will then arrange a meeting, preferably Friday, Monday, or Tuesday, so that you can discuss the reading before the first set of seminars on Wednesday. I will check with the coordinators on Wednesday that everybody has contacted them, just to make sure nobody is left behind!

Group Coordinators: I suggest you use a tool such as Diarised to find a time that all of you can make. And don't worry too much, for the next lot of groups someone else will be in charge of this.

If you have any questions or problems, just let me know!

Things you need to do before the course starts

2009-06-08T17:31:00.000+01:00

Before the course starts in October, there are a few things you need to do:

send me an email from this account to O.Mason@bham.ac.uk

Please include your full name in the email, especially if you have chosen a 'creative' user name. Otherwise I won't know who you are!

With this user name you will then be able to comment on this blog, and you will also be using it for posting on your own group blog.

Once you have done that, have a look at an encyclopedia definition of discourse analysis, and see what you can make of it. Don't worry if there are things you don't understand yet.

I'm also wondering about using Twitter, but I am not sure yet. We will see... but it won't do any harm if you create a user account there as well. As for other tools, they are up to you. Feel free to set up a Facebook group if you like, but don't forget to tell the others about it!

Module Details and Outline

2009-06-08T16:33:00.000+01:00

Purpose:

This blog is intended for students at the University of Birmingham, attending the module "Frameworks of English Discourse Analysis" (FREDA). The Module Description and Learning Outcomes are as follows. The full module description can be found on WebCT.

Description:

The module provides an overview of linguistic models useful for the analysis of a range of different text types (both literary and non-literary). The aim is to learn how to characterise texts according to their distinctive lexical, grammatical and text organisational properties, in order to relate these properties to a text's context of use, and in order to develop arguments about how these properties may serve communicative, aesthetic, rhetorical and ideological ends.

More specifically, students will (a) understand principles of the application of linguistic analysis to literary texts and (b) be able to characterise and explain the communicative functionality of both literary and non-literary texts by reference to the register, genre and rhetorical properties. The literary text types to be examined will include poetry and prose fiction while the non-literary text types (both spoken and written) will be drawn from such domains as politics, popular television drama, popular science, news and lifestyle journalism, media interviews, advertising and casual conversation.

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the module the student will be able to:

demonstrate familiarity with a range of analytical models and techniques, as covered in the extensive background literature; carry out a detailed stylistic and generic analysis of both literary and non-literary texts;

have an understanding of how foregrounded linguistic features can be identified, and used to support arguments about the meaning of a text, its communicative functionality, its aesthetic value (where appropriate) and its rhetorical potential;

have experience of designing and executing their own piece of research, involving selection, analysis and evaluation of appropriate materials.

Assessment:

2x2500 word essays or equivalent

Why not just use WebCT?
I don't like WebCT. It is clunky, slow, and not very user-friendly. This year I am trying to use a blog as a replacement. This blog will serve as a central communications point, and I expect all students to regularly check up on it, either by periodically visiting it, or by subscribing to its RSS feed.

This module will make heavy use of 'Web 2.0' for teaching and learning. This is pretty much uncharted territory, and I don't know myself whether it will be successful or not. A lot of this depends on you. As I do not know most students (yet), and I do not know how you will respond to the way I am going to teach this module this year, a lot of it will have to be handled very flexibly. Instead of presenting you with a fixed weekly timetable, there is a range of topics that we will work through, in order to achieve the learning outcomes listed above; though I think one of the most important learning outcomes is not in the description -- "0. see that doing Discourse Analysis can be fun."

I think fun is important to support learning. From past experience (both as a student and as a teacher) I know that nothing is worse than a boring seminar that you have to drag yourself to every week. Adding variety to the learning process is one way to make it more fun. I have several ideas that will with any luck make FREDA 2009 an enjoyable and satisfying experience for you, see below. Remember: this depends very heavily on your own involvement. You only get out what you put in.

Basic Structure
The module has a lecture every fortnight (starting in week 1), and a seminar every week. As students you are expected to work about 6hrs for each contact hour per week. A lot of this will be group work. The basic idea here is that you go through the module in smallish groups, probably between 3 and 6 people (depending on overall numbers). These groups will meet regularly during the week to discuss reading materials or do other tasks. The group composition will change every 5 weeks, so that you have a chance to work together with a range of other people on the course. They will also cross seminar groups, so that in each group there will be members from every seminar group.

A lecture every two weeks is not very much, so this year I will supplement them by podcasts. These will not be hour-long lectures, but instead will be a lot shorter (but probably quite frequent; I don't know yet how this will pan out). Podcasts will probably be posted on here, or made available through WebCT. As I said, this is all new territory, and I will try and be flexible if I find something doesn't work. Again it depends on your input: It would be great to receive pretty much constant feedback about the module, what you like, what you don't like, whether things could be organised differently, etc. I promise to be open to suggestions!

Each group will have its own blog. Links to those blogs will appear on the side bar once you have set them up. You are going to do a lot of the necessary work yourself (otherwise you won't really learn how to use it, and I see that as a valuable skill in the 'information society'!). If ever you have problems, don't resign, let me know. I will then help you with it. Just because I ask you to do things doesn't mean that I'm not going to help you! But I won't know that you need help if you don't tell me. And please try it for yourself first, before asking for help.

On these blogs you will describe your findings. You will post summaries of and comments on readings, ask questions, make suggestions, etc. And you will comment on each other's blogs. In a way I think the real work should take place outside the seminar groups. In the seminar groups we will talk about things, but you will have read and discussed them with your peers beforehand, either in a small group meeting or on-line. This should make it a lot less boring to discuss seminar readings... and if you happen to come across any interesting further reading, post about it on the blog, share it with the others. I will try to keep up with all the blogs as well.

There will also be some tasks that you will do as a group. These will not be assessed, as that is rather difficult with group work. But you will be given feedback on it, so that it will hopefully give you some guidance towards the assessed essays. This module has no exam, but at the end of each semester you will write a 2500 word essay, and the average mark of the two will make up the mark you get for it in the end. While you will have to write your essay yourself, it will build up on work that you have done in your group, and also on the work of the other groups.

These are my initial plans for this module. They might work, or they might not work, in which case I will change them accordingly. But I hope that you a) learn a lot about Discourse Analysis and b) have fun doing it!

UPDATE: I now know more about numbers. There are 40 students in 4 seminar groups, so it makes sense to have 10 groups with 4 members each. I will set up those groups at the beginning of the term. 10 groups would have meant 10 blogs, and I think that would be too much, so I have changed my mind on this: we are now going to have ONE blog for group postings. All of you will be set up as authors on that blog (see the following post about setting up a Google account), and only authors can post and comment (though the blog is open to be read by anybody).

If any of you are uncertain about how to use blogs, there is the possibility of a brief taster course in Web 2.0 at the beginning of the term; let me know if you are interested in that, and I will arrange things.

Frameworks of English Discourse Analysis 2009

Last minute Essay suggestion

Literariness

Complexity and Literature

A few more things about the assignment

Comments on Grammar and Style

Looking at speeches

Text for analysis in week 10

Text for Analysis

The Splice Comma

Instead of a podcast: looking at reported speech

Change of Room, this Thursday

Good Writing

Next Group Task

Word Limit Myth

Weather

End of Year Podcast

Plagiarism

Further Reading for Conversation analysis

More on Conversation Analysis

Podcast week 10

Formative Essays

Recommended reading

Transcriptions

Sound files for transcriptions

Podcast week 9

Transcriptions

Dell Hymes

Audio Recording

Yet another podcast

Conversation Analysis

Podcast week 7

Next Reading

Two reminders

Reading for week 5

Third Podcast - Genre

Mid-week Podcast, week 3

Reading for week 4

Formative Essay

Podcast week 2

Administrative Matters

Things you need to do before the course starts

Module Details and Outline