English 805-001
Seminar in English Language: Pragmatics in Literacy and Poetics
Instr: Amsler, Mark
Office: CRT 568; 229-5043
e-mail: mamsler@uwm.edu
Office Hours: TBA
Course Information: W; 3:30-6:10pm; CRT 468
Course Description
This seminar focuses on some key theoretical questions about meaning and usage in language, with special reference to English, and applies our thinking about those question to English in written and spoken contexts. We will begin with some questions about the semantics-pragmatics interface/connection/distinction, including autonomous vs. situated meaning, ostensive meaning vs. inferencing, speech acts, implicatures, and presuppositions, language structure and language usage. Then we will take up aspects of situated meaning, usage, and discourse in written, spoken, and aesthetic contexts, focusing on 1) whether speakers/writers and listeners/readers necessarily share the same 'grammar' and 'meaning sets'; 2) how listeners and readers construct meaning using inferential processes, context, performative cues, and grammatical knowledge; 3) how listeners and readers construct meaning from novel input; 4) speech acts (esp. Austin and Searle); 5) encyclopedia vs dictionary models of semantics; 6) connectionist challenges to traditional pragmatics (Churchland, Gee); 7) formal vs. cognitive grammatical frameworks; 8) critical uses of descriptive pragmatics. We will investigate conversation and conversation analysis, using transcripts of classroom discourse, telephone talk, crosscultural exchanges, and political discourse. We will then examine the pragmatics of written discourse, in everyday and aesthetic texts, and pay special attention to anaphora, context and reading, deixis, coherence, cohesion, and textual performativity. Finally, we will investigate uses and representations of dialogue, conversation, and point of view in drama, narrative, and poetry, with proof texts from Tom Stoppard (Dogg's Hamlet), Caryl Churchill (Cloud 9), Harriet Mullen (Sleepng with the Dictionary), selected other poems (Carroll's "Jabberwocky", Donne's "Sun Rising", L. Hughes, "Theme for English B", etc.), and performative narratives (Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera). Theoretical readings will include J. L. Austin, J. Searle, R. Barthes, M. L. Pratt, N. Fairclough, E. Schegloff, J. Gee, C. Churchland, U. Eco, R. Jackendoff.
