NATIONAL OPEN UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA

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Contents
1. Introduction
2. Course Aim
3. Course Objectives
4. Working through the course
5. Course Materials
6. Study Units
7. References
8. Assessments
9.
Tutor-marked Assignments
10. Final Examination and Grading
11. Course Marking scheme
12. How to get the most from this course
13. Tutor and Tutorials
1.
Introduction
ENG 209: Discourse Analysis simply refers to the linguistic analysis of connected writing and speech. The major focus in Discourse Analysis is the use of language in social context. Discourse Analysis focuses not only on the linguistic symbols used, but also on all the features that accompany language, which include the paralinguistic features, such as gestures and kinesics. Discourse Analysis has to do with the study of language in use, so it is concerned with the performance of the language user. Such performance maybe a monologue,
(soliloquiy) a dialogue, a multilogue
2. What you will learn in the Course

This course will introduce you to the discipline called Discourse Analysis, as afield of study. It is designed for you to help you to understand the intricate relationship

5 between the linguistic and paralinguistic content of human behaviour. You will learn about how the discipline originates and the different theories and methods of Discourse Analysis. This course will take you through the major topics in Discourse Analysis, especially those that have to do with spoken discourse, such as Ethnomethodology, Conversational Analysis. We will also examine approaches to analyzing written discourse. These include the examination of Information and Thematic Structures, Thematic Progression in text and cohesion and coherence in written texts. Discourse Analysis also focus on utterance meaning. In this respect, we shall take you through some basic Pragmatics principles, such as Presupposition, implicature, Entailment, Speech Acts, Cooperative Principle and Politeness Principle. In the last section of the course, you will learn about the recent approaches to Discourse Analysis and how discourse is functions in some specific human endeavour . You will also see how it is related to other disciplines

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