Literature Question

Task

You will then develop this essay plan into your final essay:

1. Explain the concept of deixis and its relationship to reference. What is deictic centre, and how can it be used to create a particular point of view?

2. Explain the principles of Speech Act Theory. Is it possible or useful to define all speech acts in the way Searle proposes? Choose one or two speech act types (e.g. refusals, promises) as examples and use instances of their use to discuss whether such an approach is effective.

3. Explain the Cooperative Principle and how it works. Why does Grice claim there’s a logic to conversation? What are the strengths and weaknesses of his position?

4. Choose an understudied genre to investigate. Collect 4-8 examples of this genre (depending on the length of the texts). Develop and present a move-step analysis of your texts using the principles of Swales (1990). Make sure that you explain your technical terminology. What are the difficulties in developing such an analysis? What are its strengths and weaknesses? Please make sure you read the section on ethics issues and data in the Assessment Brief for the summative task.

5. Choose a genre to investigate that has been previously analysed using the move-step approach. Collect 4-8 examples of this genre (depending on the length of the texts). Analyse your corpus using one or two move-step models of this genre. Critically evaluate the effectiveness of this/these model(s) through reference to your own experience of applying them. Make sure that you explain your technical terminology. Note that there is scope here to make this a cross-linguistic or cross-cultural study. Please make sure you read the section on ethics issues and data in the Assessment Brief for the summative task.

6. Creativity is part of genre change. But who determines whether ‘bending and/or blending’ of genres is acceptable? Using Swales’ and/or Bhatia’s approach to Genre, discuss a linguistic genre that is currently changing or has changed. With reference to the literature, you should consider why the genre might be changing in this way (i.e. factors influencing change) and whether the genre is being colonised by another.

7. The title of Brown & Levinson’s classic publication is: ‘Politeness: Some universals of language usage’ Explain the basic concepts of Brown & Levinson’s approach. Evaluate its ability to analyse languages other than English. You should refer to your own experience of using another language and also to discussions in the research literature.

8. Intercultural communication and intercultural pragmatics / discourse analysis are relatively new, and growing, fields. What are the challenges involved in cultural comparison? What might linguistic theories in this module be able to contribute to this? (You are expected to consider different ways of conceptualising culture and discuss critically the strengths/weaknesses of linguistic approaches in relation to this.)

9. What concept introduced in the module has affected your view or understanding of language the most? Critically compare it to at least two other concepts in the module. Use linguistic examples to illustrate your points.