SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATION

CMNS 304-4

COMMUNICATION AND THE LANGUAGE OF EVERYDAY LIFE

Prerequisite:

CMNS 205.

This course will examine critically various formations of everyday language in an attempt to reveal the social values which, embedded in the very structures of our commonplace talk, give order and meaning to our perceptions of the world. Everyday language can be a language of resistance, but it also reflects social processes of domination. In slang, in gossip and in humor we can express our opposition to this oppression; but in the so-called “institutional registers” of privileged discourse, the language of social control remains an integral part of everyday communication.

Students will be introduced to the fundamental elements of discourse analysis in the class. Among the topics we will consider in the course are; Issues in gender and language; the rhetoric of religion; the scientific paradigm as the modern discourse of social control; the medical model and the language of normality; psychiatric diagnosis and the framing of everyday behavior; humor as a subversive language; consumerism and exchange as language; and Zygmunt Bauman’s theories of postmodern morality.

Required Readings:

Salamensky, S.I., ed. Talk, Talk, Talk: The Cultural Life of Everyday Conversation.
Garber, Marjorie, Symptoms of Culture.

Recommended Readings:

Stillar, Glenn, Analyzing Everyday Texts.

Course Requirements:

Tutorial: (Participation and presentation) 20%
Short assignment 20%
Term Paper 30%
Final Exam 30%

The School expects that the grades awarded in this course will bear some reasonable relation to established university-wide practices with respect to both levels and distribution of grades. In addition, the School will follow Policy T10.02 with respect to “Intellectual Honesty” and “Academic Discipline” (see the current Calendar, General Regulations section).