Language, Power and Institutions: how linguistic practices can shape our lives

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Understand and participate in verbal debates arising from the study of different texts
• Analyse primary data and case studies (e.g. Written texts, speeches, transcripts)
• Critically assess key issues and approaches to institutional discourse
• Describe how institutional discourse is constructed on a linguistic level
• Apply models of discourse analysis to naturally occurring data

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Links between genres, registers and social practices
• The nature of language use in social interaction
• The theoretical approaches to discourse, power, ideology, and institutions
• The conceptual and analytical tools which can be used to critically analyse language and discourse
• The importance of context to meaning
• The main characteristics of various texts in both spoken and written language in institutions

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Apply critical thinking and problem-solving techniques in order to address new issues and new data
• Present ideas and results of discourse analysis in a structured, coherent manner

We will think about language use in social institutions such as education, politics, traditional and social media, religion, and the workplace. We will analyse the types of text produced, the contexts of text production, the audiences addressed and shaped by ideological language and institutions. Our discussion will address the role of language in issues such as persuasion, discrimination, issues legitimization, and argumentation.

Teaching and learning methods

There will be one double seminar each week. During the session, short lecture by the tutors will serve to introduce, analyse and investigate key aspects of language, power and ideology as they are found in contemporary institutions. Lectures will also introduce students to selected conceptual, analytical and methodological frameworks that can be used to reveal features and strategies of power in discourse. Readings carried out in advance of seminars lead in to small group discussions and class debates.

Students play an active role in the seminars through a ‘workshop’ approach, in which they will take it in turns to lead discussions and carry out small-group activities. The module places considerable emphasis on collaborative forms of learning, in particular through Blackboard reading groups in which they will discuss topics in advance of seminars and reflect on them afterwards.

The module will also encourage you to explore the language of institutions on the basis of different kinds of data —linguistic, audio and visual—and will provide an occasion for you to engage with specific areas in more detail, through investigation and collaboration.

Learning activities include:

• Completing specified preparatory reading tasks;
• Reading, analysis, reflection and discussion of multimodal data;
• Individual and collaborative research and analysis of data
• Written and oral presentation of findings;
• Practical exercises, group discussions and class debates on selected topics;
• Individual essays and research projects (assessed).

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Andrea Mayr (2008). Language and Power : An Introduction to Institutional Discourse. Bloomsbury.

Pierre Bourdieu (1992). Language and Symbolic Power.

Ruth Wodak; Barbara Johnstone; Paul E. Kerswill (2010). The SAGE Handbook of Sociolinguistics.

Ruth Wodak, Michael Meyer (2016). Methods of critical discourse studies.

Annabelle Mooney; Betsy Evans (2019). Language, society and power: an introduction.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External