ENGL 355 - Introduction to Discourse Analysis (3 credits)

(Prereq: ENGL 101 and ENGL 102 with a grade of ‘C’ or better) This course provides an introduction to discourse analysis, the study of language in context. It looks at what makes a complex stretch of language an interpretable piece of discourse, and examines the structural aspects of how language is used in society as well as how it reflects and shapes our world. It explores how we make sense of what we hear and read, and how we can recognize well-constructed discourse as opposed to that which is jumbled or incoherent. This course examines both the formal and contextual features of discourse and how it is that language users successfully understand what other language users intend to convey. F, S.