CMNS 304-4
RCB 6151; 604-291-3860
Email: gmccarro@sfu.ca
COMMUNICATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE
Prerequisite: 45 credit hours including CMNS 110 and 130. Recommended: CMNS 220 and 221.
This course examines 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.
Daniel Chandler, Semiotics: The Basics.
Courseware
package to be purchased from the bookstore.
Recommended
Stillar,
Glenn. Analyzing Everyday Texts.
Seminar: (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).