This course is designed to expose students to competing theoretical approaches in discourse analysis. It covers a wide range of topical issues in approaches such as Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Conversation Analysis (CA), Political Discourse Analysis (PDA) and Discursive Psychology (DP). Students will be expected to critique these approaches on the basis of their claims, points of convergence and divergence. Topics include: perspectives on the nature of discourse, language of diplomacy, parliamentary discourse, the concepts of ‘talk-in-interaction’ and speakers’ orientation in CA, inter-textuality in CDA and ideological dilemmas in DP.