Learning outcomes

The 2025–2026 course will focus on the theme: The Making of Discourse: Speech, Interaction, and Multimodality. By the end of the course, students will be able to work with various concepts from discourse analysis, pragmatics, and interactional linguistics related to discourse activity, understood as an ongoing process.

Goals

By the end of the course, students will be able to:


  • Describe and apply key concepts from discourse analysis, pragmatics, and interactional linguistics, including enunciation, discursive heterogeneity, and (dis)fluency.
  • Identify and analyze various traces of the “work of saying” (meta-enunciative loops, reformulations, self-corrections, hesitations) in oral and multimodal corpora.
  • Detect and interpret discourse markers and speech habits according to their interactional, pragmatic, and sociolinguistic functions.
  • Apply a multimodal approach to discourse analysis by integrating gestures, gaze, and posture into the study of interactions.
  • Transcribe and annotate excerpts from oral corpora, using simplified conventions adapted to interactional analysis.
  • Compare different discourse contexts (casual conversation, media debate, multimodal corpora) to highlight variation in language use.
  • Adopt a reflexive stance on language as a social and situated activity, connecting empirical analyses with contemporary theoretical frameworks.


Content

The course will be organized around three main themes:


  1. Discursive heterogeneity (e.g. meta-enunciative comments, reformulations, self-corrections).
  2. Speech habits and discourse markers linked to (dis)fluency.
  3. Gestures and the body in interaction.


Teaching methods

The sessions will combine lectures, readings and text discussions, as well as the analysis of concrete case studies. Students will be actively involved throughout: identifying and formulating research questions, summarizing arguments and article excerpts, analyzing real examples, collecting data, and finding diverse illustrations of the concepts and issues discussed.

Assessment method

Assessment will take the form of an analysis of selected data that brings together the different dimensions of the course (markers of discursive heterogeneity, speech habits and (dis)fluency, gestures), highlighting discourse as an activity in progress.


Evaluation criteria:


  • Clarity and relevance of the chosen research question
  • Appropriateness of the selected data and analytical method
  • Clarity in presenting analyses and results
  • Accuracy in the use of concepts and terminology
  • Relevance of the connections made between the different themes of the course
  • Quality of expression and overall structure of the work
  • Quality of the discussion and broader perspective


Sources, references and any support material

Authier-Revuz, J. (1995). Ces mots qui ne vont pas de soi. Boucles réflexives et non-coïncidences du dire. Paris : Larousse.

Blanche-Benveniste, C. (2010). Approches de la langue parlée en français. Paris : Ophrys.

Ducrot, O. (1984). Le dire et le dit. Paris : Minuit.

Goffman, E. (1987). Façons de parler. Paris : Minuit. (trad. de Forms of Talk).

Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. (2005). Le discours en interaction. Paris : Armand Colin.

Mondada, L. (2019). Contemporary Issues in Conversation Analysis: Embodiment and Materiality in Social Interaction. Journal of Pragmatics, 145, 47– 62.

Language of instruction

French