ATS2683: The Analysis of Discourse: Texts, narrative and society

I guess I should be transparent from the start, here. Discourse Analysis doesn't interest me hugely, and if not for a shortage of Linguistics staff this semester, I probably would have avoided the unit. There were very few Linguistics units to choose from this semester, and I needed to do two to complete my major before studying abroad next semester. But I was pleasantly surprised by the unit.

I had Mel last year for Sociolinguistics, which I quite enjoyed. I would have been a lot more hesitant going into the unit if she wasn't running it; Mel is very approachable, fair, and a good teacher. The unit was split up in the following fashion:

• Week 1: Introduction to Discourse Analysis
• Week 2: Understanding Discourse Structure
• Week 3: Conversation Analysis 1: Rules of Interaction
• Week 4: Conversation Analysis 2: Identities in Talk
• Week 5: Genre Analysis
• Week 6: Ethnography and Critical Discourse Analysis
• Week 7: Media Discourse
• Week 8: Political Discourse
• Week 9: Education Discourse
• Week 10: Workplace Discourse and Medical Discourse
• Week 11: In-class test
• Week 12: Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis

I found Week 7 - Week 12 a lot more interesting than the first six weeks, which I found a little dry.

One thing I will say about the lectures is that they are very fast-paced. I found this in Socio, too, so I think it might be an aspect of Mel's lecture style. I would contend that there is about 40% too much content, or that the lectures go about 40% too quickly. That's not to say that I'm complaining about the content as such; I just think that the main messages could be portrayed without a lot of the secondary information.

The tutes were good and largely engaging. I think all of the tutes had Lee Murray. A lot of the students had her in their first year studies, but I had never had her (she started teaching first year in my second year). But she was excellent: easy to get along with, made the most important things clear, and was happy to cover the content that the students were having the most trouble with. By the end of the semester, Lee even went out of her way to help me prepare for (hopefully) Honours in Linguistics next year, which was very kind of her. I would definitely choose her again if I had a choice of tutors, so you will be in good hands, there.

The assignments were fine - I think they were well structured during the semester. The short answer assignment was fairly self-explanatory and was based almost exclusively on core content from the first few weeks. I was happy with how it was marked, too - lots of good feedback for improvement. Then there was nothing until the test in Week 11. I think a lot of students struggled for time, as many didn't finish. I only just finished the last question, and I write quite quickly. The test was open book, so you could take in anything (that wasn't electronic) at all, but you would have been in Struggle Street if you had to rely on your notes. The last assignment is the most interesting, from my viewpoint. You select your own extract from a major text (I did Joe Hockey's first budget speech), and then analyse it in depth using everything that you have covered during the semester. This was also marked thoroughly, which was appreciated.
I can see how a lot of people would love this unit. I went in thinking that I wouldn't enjoy it much, but it did surprise me. In fact, I'm thinking of now doing a D.A. Honours project, which is quite a large turnaround. I would recommend the unit to anybody studying Linguistics, but especially those with an interest in Socio or Discourse.

Not a clue, but not really needed even if there were.

out of 5
3.5 out of 5

The textbook is Discourse Analysis (2ed) (2008) by Barbara Johnstone. A lot of the readings (none of which I completed) are from this. Despite the fact that I didn't do the readings, I did buy the textbook and I did use it at times as an aid in assignments and revision. I wouldn't say that it's strictly necessary; it is prescribed, but you could get away without it if you needed to.

1x one hour lecture per week
1x one hour tutorial per week

N/A