Course aims:

1. To critically analyse mass-media situations common to professional, business discourse
2. To use that analysis to understand audience needs and address those needs in both written and oral communication
3. To hone skills in developing and formatting common, professional documents with an eye toward clarity and identification of the rhetorical situation
4. Finding the best means to position oneself within that rhetorical situation
5. To identify issues in addressing and advancing various agenda – whether your own career or based on client needs – and respond by means of identifying appropriate research materials

Course Entry Requirements:

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Course contents:

C1. Introduction to metaphor in thought and language C2. Conceptual Metaphor Theory C3. Linguistic and conceptual metaphors C4. Metaphors dead and alive: Lakoff and Goatley’s models C5. Cultural aspects of metaphor C6. Metonymy, and metonymy-based metaphor C7. Metaphor Identification Procedure – MIP – The Pragglejazz Group C8 Critical Metaphor Analysis C9 Media discourse analysis C10 Analysis of media identities C11 Business metaphors in Romanian business press C12 Business metaphors in British business press C13 Corpus linguistics research applied to the media discourse – individual research C14 Corpus linguistics research applied to the media discourse – individual research

Teaching methods:

lecture (direct instruction), debate, Inquiry-based Learning, creative thinking

Learning outcomes:

By the end of the course students will have developed better approaches to common forms of media discourses, especially in analysing figurative language and its rhetorical effects.

Learning outcomes verification and assessment criteria:

academic paper (4500 words) and 15-minute PowerPoint presentation

Recommended reading:

Gibbs, Raymond (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, Gibbs, Raymond, Metaphor and Thought. The State of the Art, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008, 3-13.
Kövecses, Zoltan, Metaphor in Culture. Universality and variation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2005,
Lakoff, George, and Johnson, Mark, Metaphors we live by, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980,
Charteris-Black, Jonathan, Corpus approaches to critical metaphor analysis, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2004,
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