Re: What good is linguistics?

["fjeffery" <Franciej@mail.uca.edu>]

I took a course called Discourse Analysis and consider it one of my 
absolute favorites. Margaret called such study "invaluable," and I 
agree. For me, exposure to the concepts of language form, language 
use, and language processing added important layers to the 
theoretical foundation that supports my teaching practice. There were 
always connections to be made between what we were discussing in 
class and what I saw going on in my own classroom in my students' 
writing. For example,  I remember taking examples from a chapter on 
the "given-new contract" into my freshman comp class for a workshop 
on what we mean by coherence in a piece of writing and how it is 
achieved. 

We used three primary texts: 
Freedle's _Discourse Production and Comprehension_
Coulthard's _An Introduction to Discourse Analysis_
Ong's _Orality and Literacy_ (my personal favorite)

Of the three, the class felt the last two were better at conveying 
information and just generally allowing access to complex concepts. 

Hope this helps--

Francie Jeffery
University of Central Arkansas