Description

The Power of Words:
Investigating Discourse and Society 

Stéphane Kostantzer 

Course description: 

 This course aims at articulating various existing theories on language and communication in order to carry out analyses of political discourse (political speeches, interaction in political contexts). To do so, we will study the texts in a multiplicity of ways: we will try to put into application each of the different theories studied in class and we will endeavour to combine these applications with a more traditional formal analysis of the constituents, forms and markers (grammar, semantics, syntax). Several theories will be studied to analyse the vast array of strategies that are at the speaker’s disposal, starting with rhetoric. As we proceed, we shall also see that speakers in fact already have to interact with a form of power that is inherent in language.

Modalités d'organisation et de suivi

 Assessment: 

 Oral exam 

 30 minutes, in the course of the semester

 Oral exam 

 30 minutes, at the end of the semester

Disciplines

• Études anglophones

Informations complémentaires

• Stéphane Kostantzer :  skostant@unistra.fr  

Bibliographie

 Recommended reading: 

 Bakhtine, Mikhaïl (1920-1974). Esthétique de la création verbale. Paris : Gallimard, 1984.

 Brown, Penelope and Stephen Levinson. "Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena." In E.N. Goody (ed.), Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP (1978): 56-311.

 Brown, Penelope and Stephen Levinson. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1987.

 Ducrot, Oswald. Dire et ne pas dire. Principes de sémantique linguistique. Collection Savoir : Sciences. Hermann éditeurs des sciences et des arts, 3ème éd : Paris, 1993.

 Ducrot, Oswald. Le Dire et le dit. Paris : Les éditions de minuit, 1984.

 Giles, Howard, et al. "Accommodation theory: communication, context and consequence." In H. Giles, N. Coupland and J. Coupland (eds), Contexts of Accommodation: Development in Applied Sociolinguistics. Paris: Maison des Sciences de l’homme (1991): 1-68.

 Goffman, Erving. Les Rites d’interaction. Paris : Editions de Minuit, 1974.

 Grice, Herbert Paul. Studies in the Way of Words. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1989.

 Kerbrat-Orecchioni, Catherine. Le Discours en interaction. Paris : Armand Colin, 2005.

 Kerbrat-Orecchioni Catherine, L’Implicite, Paris : Armand Colin, 1986.

 Lecercle, Jean-Jacques, The Violence of Language. Routledge : New York, 1990.

 Viktorovitch Clément. Le Pouvoir rhétorique. Apprendre à convaincre et à décrypter les discours. Paris : Editions du Seuil, 2021.
  

Contacts

• Stéphane Kostantzer