The course presents selected theories of the Information Structure of
Discourse, among others Chafe’s theory of Information Flow and
Activation Cost; Hajičová and Sgall’s theory of Topic-Focus
Articulation; Halliday’s Systemic Functional approach; Gundel’s view of
Topic and Focus; and Firbas’s theory of Functional Sentence Perspective.
The classes will include presentations of the teacher, discussions of
discourse interpretations, and presentations of selected topics
by the students based on recommended sources. Assessment will be based on the grade acquired for the presentation and for a final essay.
- Teacher: Jana Chamonikolasová