Pragmatics

                                        Autumn 2020, Opava

                          (teacher: Jan Chovanec, chovanec@phil.muni.cz)


Modified course instructions, version 22.11.2020


Course syllabus


25.9. Session 1    –     Lecture 1a – Basic concepts in pragmatics

25.9. Session 2    –     Lecture 1b – Approaches to pragmatics

                                    (Content to be found in: Yule Ch1-3, 5-6)



18.12. Session 3 –     Practical analysis, discussion of readings

                                    (Readings for class: Yule CH 7-9)


Final exam: a written test based on compulsory readings. The test includes concepts, open-ended
questions and practical analysis of sample texts.


Cutting, Joan – in Section C, you will find a lot of sample exercises. These types of texts and
tasks may be included in the exam.



Course readings:


Yule, George (1996) Pragmatics. Oxford: OUP.

Chapter 4 is marginal. Pages 40-45 (on implicature) are marginal. They will not be included in the
exam.

Cutting, Joan (2002) Pragmatics and Discourse. – Sections A+B (pages 1-76)

Cutting, Joan (2002) Pragmatics and Discourse – Section C – optional.


Please note that the content of Yule (1996) and Cutting (2002) partly overlaps. Cutting contains
more explanations with examples.



Requirements:

data collection – covid humour on social media – 100 items + reflection on the material

analysis of text – 2 pages

written test/exam in class/long-distance


Detailed instructions for assignments:

Submit in “Odevzdavarna” in the Information System

Assignment 1 - Data collection: Czech covid humour (deadline: any time)

Data collection – covid humour on social media – 100 items + a brief reflection on the material.
Please use CZECH covid humor. You can ask a member of your family to collect this for you, but you
should write the reflection yourself, obviously (1 page is fine, your observations, explanations;
you can comment on how you use/spread/create covid humour, you can copy a part of an interactive
sequence from Messenger or Whatsapp, where you/your friends are exchanging humour - your reflection
need not be just on the material but also on how you joke and how you use this humour in
interaction with others. This is an open exercise, I welcome any ideas and reflections). The
material can be submitted as a zipped file or a folder, the reflection probably best in an MS Word
file. (Please make sure that the files with memes/cartoons can be further processed, we're
compiling a database. Thank you!) (Multiple submissions are welcome.)


Assignment 2 – Analysis of text (deadline: before the exam)

Find any piece of text (written, spoken, online, broadcast, youtube video, youtube comments,
twitter messages,...) and carry out a 2-page analysis according to any of the theoretical
constructs mentioned in the readings. This can include: presupposition, speech acts, face, verbal
aggression, context, etc. Please look for inspiration in Cutting's chapter. The submission should
be made before the exam. I will process all submissions after we write the exam test.