Spanish Pragmatics (Level 6)

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 6
• Convenor: Professor María Elena Placencia
• Assessment: two essays of 2500 words (40%) and 3500 words (60%) respectively

Aimed at advanced learners or native speakers of Spanish, this module focuses on studying the use of Spanish in interaction from a sociocultural perspective.

You will be introduced to some of the theories that deal with language use in the management of interpersonal relations, with an emphasis on politeness and impoliteness theory, and will look at their application to a range of topics such as personal address and speech act realisation. You will also engage with descriptive techniques in the field and methodological issues.

This module aims to bring awareness of micro- and macro-social factors that have an impact on language use, drawing on various subfields, including intercultural, variational and ciberpragmatics.

Indicative module content

• Language as action and the role of context in the interpretation of meaning
• From expressed to implied meanings
• Im/politeness: managing rapport and interpersonal relationships through language
• Pronominal and nominal address in interaction
• Data collection in pragmatics research