Pragmatics and discourse

Teacher(s)

Aulit Laetitia (compensates De Cock Barbara); De Cock Barbara;

Language

Spanish

Main themes

This learning unit will focus on the characteristics of spoken and written Spanish, as well as on the differences between registers. Themes such as the use of pronouns and deictic forms, linguistic politeness and coherence of spoken and written productions will be covered. 

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	Identify the specific features of the registers (both spoken and written) of modern Spanish.
2	Analyse linguistic data from spoken and written Spanish from a pragmatic-discursive perspective, by consulting corpora and referring to the scientific literature and current theories of the studied field.
Through these activities, students will also improve their language skills in the use of registers, as part of the overall objective: achieving level B2 at the end of the course and acquiring certain C1 level skills.
This learning unit contributes to the development and command of the following skills and learning outcomes of the ELAL programmes: 1.4, 1.6, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5, 2.6, 3.5, 3.6, 4.3,  5.6, 6.2, 6.4, 6.5

Content

This course deals with the characteristics of spoken and written Spanish, as well as with register differences. We will deal with topics such as (subject) pronoun use and deictics, linguistic politeness, discourse markers, coherence in the production.

Teaching methods

The course consists of the explanation of the articles and of the application of the proposed analyses on the topics that are dealt with in this course.
The students are required to prepare the scientific articles on the topics that are dealt with. These articles will be explained in class. In addition, students are required to practice the use of corpora both during class and autonomously.

Evaluation methods

The evaluation is partly continuous and partly during the exam session.
For the continuous evaluation, students present a paper (8/20) (applying the analysis of one of the topics dealt with in a class on a (mini)corpus of their own choice). A detailed calendar will be published on Moodle. If the student uses generative artificial intelligence tools, this has to be done in a responsible way and in compliance with good practice standards of academic and scientific integrity. Since the scientific integrity implies that one cites one's sources, the use of AI always has to be mentioned. The use of AI for tasks where this has been explicitly forbidden will be considered a case of fraud. For a description of uses of AI that respect academic norms, students can consult the document "Lignes directrices pour une utilisation des outils d’intelligence artificielles génératives (IAG) en ELAL", available at LELALmemoire: L'utilisation des IA génératives et le plagiat | MoodleUCLouvain
The evaluation during the exam session is an oral exam (12/20)
For the September resit, there is an oral exam (12/20) and a written paper (8/20). Students who did not pass the written paper in the June session, should resubmit an improved version of the paper.
The evaluation is entirely in Spanish.

Other information

Online resources

Moodle page of the course

Bibliography

- A selection of articles (Moodle)
- Powerpoint presentations (Moodle)

Faculty or entity

> ELAL