Discourse Analysis
- General information
- Undergraduate studies and Discourse Analysis
- Postgraduate studies and Discourse Analysis
- Forthcoming Symposium
General information
Discourse Analysis is an area of research that is expanding rapidly and includes many disciplines such as: linguistics, law, business and science, among many others, as a result of the perceived benefits that come from the understanding of how to communicate more effectively.
Better communication leads to better understanding among people. Better understanding leads to a better appreciation of the world.
Have you ever thought about the power of language? How the use of language can have an impact on readers and listeners? Think about the impact on news and our perception of the world. Think about how we form ideas about wars, immigration, education, political issues, pop singers and so on. All this is done through language!
Discourse Studies investigates written and oral texts/discourses by following different multidisciplinary approaches. Such approaches include Conversation analysis, a discipline with a long history in the study of discourse, which investigates the sequencing and orderedness of texts under investigation. Pragmatics, which originates from the philosophy of language and which attempts to understand how language is used in context, and the meaning that the speaker and hearer may give to a particular utterance. Critical discourse analysis comes from both structural linguistics and critical theory and aims at understanding the interconnection between language and society. Interactional socio-linguistics adopts a framework of study that integrates language, society and culture.
Undergraduate studies and Discourse Analysis
The Spanish and Latin American Studies Program is proud to offer units (SPN2070/SPN2290/SPN3290, SPN3080 and SPN3910) that include some of these approaches. These second and third year subjects give students the intellectual tools to better understand the Spanish language in connection to the groups in society who make up the discourse. In addition, the nexus of historical events and the production of particular discourses (e.g. the discourse used during military regimes) are widely used to understand how language operates within an historical and cultural framework.
Postgraduate studies and Discourse Analysis
The Spanish and Latin American Studies Program offers postgraduate studies (Ma and PhD by research) in Hispanic discourse analysis under the supervision of Dr Marisa Cordella.
Dr Cordella has extensive experience in pragmatics, interactional sociolinguistics and critical discourse analysis. Dr Cordella’s work has gained international recognition through the publication of articles in prestigious peer-reviewed journals such as: Multilingua: Journal of Cross Cultural and Interlanguage Communication; International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching; Oralia as well as the recent publication of a book The Dynamic Consultation: A discourse-analytical study of doctor-patient communication. She is currently the Associate editor of Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. (Visit her home page)
If you are interested in undertaking a PhD or Masters Degree in Discourse Analysis, please contact Dr Cordella directly via email: Marisa.Cordella@arts.monash.edu.au
or phone: 9905-5449.