Course Outcomes

Identify how discourse creates and maintains power and authority

Identify how discourse creates and maintains power and authority

Understand how discourse develops and circulates knowledge, and how it shapes and is
shaped by social groups

Critically understand discourse through linguistic, structuralism, and post-structuralism

theories

Analyze the elements of written and spoken discourse: form, genre, syntax, diction.
Discourse creates and maintains power and authority in many ways. For example,
in our society, parents and teachers maintain power and authority over children. When
the child does not want to go to school, the child may feel forced to go, simply because
his mother has set boundaries for him. Perhaps, he doesnt want to go to school because
he wants to play videogames and the mother is disapproving of this. As a result, the
mother tells her child that he cannot play videogames at all if he tries to stay home from
school. On this same note, when the child is sick the parent has the power and
responsibility to write the teacher an excusal for the kids absence. The child would then
hand the note to his teacher the next time he arrived to class. The power relationship is
maintained here between the teacher and the parent, and is defined because of the role of
the child and his inability to act on his own accord in such matters. This type of power
relationship goes all the way up to presidents and those in charge of countries and who
are involved in more serious matters. For example, only one person (the commander in
chief) in the U.S. Government can declare war. If there were more members in the

government who could do this, it would certainly result in an abuse in power (although it
already has with just one person, in some instances).
Group assignments are great in college courses, because it forces this exact interaction
within a social group which is necessary for a circulation of knowledge. When two students
interact with each other on a topic, they have different perspectives. They may have to pair up
and perform a project together on cultural relationships. One person might have grown up in
another country while the other could be native. The assignment, along with their backgrounds
are perfect for the sake of interaction and a circulation of knowledge.
Linguistic theory works its best when learning a new language. Since syntax, and
semantics (among others) are major components of learning a new language, the discourse
changes. For example, in Spanish, most of the adjectives follow the noun, whereas in English,
they come before. This leads into structuralism because we are more inclined to have more
lasting and better relationships with each other if we can communicate. Two people who have
two separate language backgrounds are going to be better at communicating and building a good
relationship if they both understand the language. Post-structuralism, since it comes from
structuralism, has a similar importance to communication, because it is based on structure. If we
all understand the structure of language, then we are better off understanding each other.
The form of spoken and written discourse has to do with formalities. It is important that
we understand cultures in order to successfully produce the right form with each other when
speaking and writing. There are many genres of written and spoken discourse. Some people like
to listen to audiobooks, and others like to read books. Syntax changes between languages and is
important for cultures to understand each other by learning more than one language. I believe
that all of these things are important for a better understanding of each other and other cultures.