- Docente: Paul Bayley
- Credits: 9
- SSD: M-FIL/05
- Language: English
- Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures
- Campus: Bologna
- Corso: Second cycle degree programme (LM) in LANGUAGE, SOCIETY AND COMMUNICATION (cod. 0982)
Learning outcomes
At the end of the course, the student will be able to identify various genres of political discourse and political reporting with particular reference to Great Britain and the USA, to analyze the contextual features which determine the lexical and grammatical characteristics of different varieties of political language, and finally to make a semantic amd lexical analysis of political texts.
Course contents
During the course, quantitative and quantitative methods of analysing political discourse will be illustrated, with particular reference to The USA and Great Britain. Specifically, the following questions will be presented:
Definition of political language – broad and narrow definitions
Relationships between language and context.
The concept of linguistic register.
Basic grammatical categories for a functional analysis of a text.
Political lexis
The creation of a specialized corpus of political language
Electronic analysis of a corpus – collocations, keyword, clusters
Typology of political language
Written texts
Solemn declarations;
constitutional texts;
Political journalism
Spoken texts: a) preseidential mologues:
Electoral speeches, inaugural speeches, addresses on the state of the Union
Spoken texts: b) dialogical
Televised debates;
Discourse of deliberative assemblies
Press briefings
Readings/Bibliography
Introduction
Bayley, P. 2005 “Analyzing Language and Politics”, in MediAzioni, 1:
(http://www.mediazionionline.it/articoli/bayley.htm).
Chilton, P. & Schäffner, C. 1997 “Discourse and Politics”, in T. A. van Dijk Discourse as Social Interaction, London: Sage, pp. 206-230.
Political lexis
Heywood, A. 2000 Key Concepts in Politics, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Grammatical Description
Thompson, G. 2004 Introducing Functional Grammar, London: Arnold
Case Studies
Bayley, P. (ed.) 2004 Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Parliamentary Discourse, Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Bayley, P. & Miller D. R. 1993 Texts and Contexts of the American Dream: A social semiotic study of political language, Bologna: Pitagora.
Bell , A. 1991, The Language of News Media, Oxford: Blackwell.
Partington, A. 2003 The Linguistics of Political Argument: The spin-doctor and the wolf-pack at the White House, London: Routledge.
Morley, J. and Bayley, P. 2009, Corpus-assisted Discourse Studies on the Iraq Conflict: Wording the War. New York and London: Routledge
A dossier of documents will be available at the Student Registry office.
Teaching methods
The course consists of traditional lectures, in English, alternated with laboratory sessions to learn and practice how to conduct an electronic analysis of a corpus, and seminars to illustrate student projects.
Assessment methods
Students will have to prepare a paper and take an oral exam. The choice of argument for the paper shall be agreed upon with the teacher, and can be either a qualitative analysis of a single text or a quantitive analysis of a specialized corpus. The evaluation of the oral exam will take into consideration various aspects such as the students' knowledge of the basic concepts dealt with during the course, their capacity for critical reasoning and their capacity to organize discursively an argument. The paper and the oral exam will each count for 50% of the final grade.
Teaching tools
Projector, PC, internet, Wordsmith Tools 4.0
Office hours
See the website of Paul Bayley