Prof. Dr Maria Georgieva
Lectures: 30
Seminars: 30
ECTS credits: 6
The Pragmatics of Interaction introduces students to the problems of understanding/producing contextual, implied or vague meanings in oral discourse by means of pragmatic analytic tools such as the Conversational or the Relevance Principles. It has a direct bearing on the practice of foreign language teaching and learning and aims to enhance students’ pragmatic competence and communication skills. The list of topics includes basic pragmatic categories and principles such as: deixis and reference, presupposition and implicature, relevance and politeness. The course is student-oriented and involves autonomous reading and discussion of papers by key researchers in the field. During the seminar sessions students get hands-on experience of different methods of pragmatic analysis and develop skills in analyzing speech in context and uncovering hidden meanings on utterance and discourse level. Students’ progress is controlled through a number of autonomous tasks, a mid-term test and a final oral exam. Competence in General Linguistics and Semantics is advisable. The course is conducted in English.