MAAL7008 Pragmatics in Digital Communication
COURSE TEACHER:
Dr. Kevin Pat
Email: kevinpat@hku.hk
OVERVIEW
Communicating through digital means has become an indispensable part of human interaction and a burgeoning field of study in the pragmatics discipline. This course will explore integral pragmatic concepts and other key concepts for the purpose of analyzing and characterizing communication in a variety of digital modes including emailing, text messaging, and social media networking. It will also evaluate the extent to which key theories and concepts in pragmatics can explain contextual behavior in digital communication. Implications for researching and teaching pragmatics in digital communication will also be discussed.
AIMS
This course aims to develop students’ understanding of pragmatics in a variety of digital communication modes. It also aims to provide opportunities for students to apply their understanding of pragmatics and other useful concepts to analyze and describe digital communication. With this application, the course also aims to facilitate students’ critical assessment on whether or not seminal pragmatic theories require revision to account for digital communication phenomena. Lastly, it aims to leave students with knowledge of issues relevant to the researching and teaching of pragmatics in digital communication.
COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
1) explain their understanding of key pragmatic theories and concepts
2) apply key pragmatic theories and other useful concepts to analyze and characterize digital communication
3) critically assess whether integral theories and concepts in pragmatics require modification to explain behavior in digital communication
4) critically discuss research methods for investigating pragmatics and issues relevant to the teaching and learning of pragmatics in digital communication
KEY REFERENCES
Key readings:
Archer, D., Jagodzinski, P., & Jagodzinski, R. (2021). Activity types and genres. In M. Haugh, D.Z. Kadar, & M. Terkourafi (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociopragmatics (pp. 206-226). De Gruyter Mouton.
Culpeper, J. (2011a). Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence. Cambridge University Press.
Culpeper, J., Mackey, A., & Taguchi, N. (2018). Second language pragmatics: From theory to research. Routledge.
Leech, G. (2014). The pragmatics of politeness. Oxford University Press.
Xie, C., Yus, F., & Haberland, H. (2021). Approaches to internet pragmatics: Theory and practice. John Benjamins.
Additional readings:
Blitvich, P. G. C., & Sifianou, M. (2019). Im/politeness and discursive pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics, 145, 91-101.
Herring, S.C., Stein, D., & Virtanen, T. (2013). Pragmatics of computer-mediated communication. De Gruyter Mouton.
Huang, Y. (2014). Pragmatics (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.
Payrato, L. (2017). Pragmatics and multimodality: A reflection on multimodal pragmastylistics. In R. Giora, & M. Haugh (Eds.), Doing pragmatics interculturally: Cognitive, philosophical, and sociopragmatic perspectives (pp. 293-314). De Gruyter Mouton.
Yus, F. (2023). The pragmatics of internet humour. Palgrave Macmillan.
PROVISIONAL SCHEDULE
Session 1: Activity types, genres, and/or communities of practice in digital domains
Session 2: Implicating and inferencing
Session 3: Pragmatic acts
Session 4: (Im)politeness and humor
Session 5: Multimodality and pragmatics
Session 6: Implications for teaching and learning pragmatics in digital communication and research methods
ASSESSMENT
Take a normal sized screen capture of communication between two or more participants from any two digital platforms. Each screen capture should be normal and fit into one page of a Microsoft Word document (do not minimize or magnify the screen capture). If there is a relevant audio clip that is short, transcribe it on an additional one page. Afterwards, write an essay of 2,500 words (+/- 10%) covering the following:
1) analyze and characterize the communication in each of your two chosen digital modes using at least two of the pragmatic and/or other concepts from the course
2) compare and contrast the pragmatic phenomena you analyzed from your two chosen digital modes in point 1
3) critically evaluate whether any one pragmatic concept requires modification as a result of your analysis and comparison
4) critically discuss one implication for teaching and learning pragmatics or researching pragmatics in digital communication
ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT
The university does not tolerate any form of academic dishonesty, and cases of suspected plagiarism will be investigated and taken seriously. Students should bear the responsibility of checking their work carefully to ensure that sources are properly acknowledged and that APA citation and referencing format is adhered to before turning in their assignment.