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77908-01 - Seminar: Speech Acts in Written Communication (3 CP)
| Semester | spring semester 2026 |
| Course frequency | Irregular |
| Lecturers | Thomas Messerli (thomas.messerli@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | When we think about speech acts, we often imagine spoken interaction and prototypical performatives such as apologies, requests, or declarations, i.e., cases where the right words in the right context bring about recognisable social actions. Yet written communication also abounds with actions accomplished through language: from customer-service emails and academic feedback to social-media posts, comment threads, and messaging apps. These written contexts give rise to particular functions of language and to realisations and interpretations that rely on genre, medium, and audience design. In this seminar, we explore how speech acts are performed, recognised, softened, intensified, or contested in written communication across various digital and non-digital genres. We revisit foundational approaches to speech-act theory and discuss how these frameworks have been adapted to the study of contemporary written discourse. Along the way, we examine how linguistic cues such as formulaic language, evidentials, mitigation devices, layout, and multimodal elements (such as emojis and typography) can act as IFIDs (illocutionary force indicating devices) or otherwise shape the interpretation of illocutionary force. A key challenge in studying written speech acts lies in establishing form-function connections across genres and platforms. We therefore take on board close reading as well as corpus-based and discourse-analytic methods, allowing us to compare explicit and implicit realisations of requests, offers, refusals, evaluations, apologies, and other acts. Throughout the semester, we engage with empirical studies that investigate written interaction across a broad range of written genres, and we consider how technological affordances reshape the ways actions are performed and understood. The course will integrate theoretical discussion with empirical analysis of authentic data. Students will work with examples and datasets in order to analyse how written speech acts operate in real contexts. Together we will explore the methodological and interpretive challenges of inferring function from form, and we will develop a more nuanced understanding of how speakers and writers perform actions through written language. |
| Learning objectives | By the end of the course, students will have engaged with key theoretical approaches to speech acts and will have examined how these frameworks apply to written communication across diverse genres and platforms. They will have deepened their understanding of form–function relations, indirectness, mitigation, and other pragmatic phenomena central to written language use. Students will have worked with close reading, discourse-analytic, and corpus-based methods and will have applied these approaches to authentic examples and small datasets. Through collaborative discussion and individual analysis, they will have developed informed insights into how speakers and writers perform actions in written contexts and how these actions are shaped by medium, genre, and audience design. |
| Bibliography | All obligatory reading for the course will be made available on ADAM. |
| Weblink | ADAM |
| Admission requirements | This course is open to students of English who have passed all three BA introductory modules (including the proseminar papers) and to MA students of English and MSG Sprache und Kommunikation. |
| Course application | Please register for this course on services unibas. In order to ensure a good learning environment, we aim at no more than 20 students per linguistics seminar. We ask you to sign up for classes via the ADAM registration surveys, which will open on 1 January, 2026, 10am (CET) and close on 22 February, 2026, 2pm (CET): https://adam.unibas.ch/goto_adam_crs_1623802.html **Please only register for a maximum of TWO seminars and only for more than one if you really intend to take both courses.** Should you have not made it into one of the courses and you are only able to register on the list in a position higher than 20, we guarantee that we will take you in the course with the least student numbers. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | Online, mandatory |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| wöchentlich | Wednesday | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
Dates
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesday 18.02.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 25.02.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Fasnachtsferien |
| Wednesday 04.03.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 11.03.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 18.03.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 25.03.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 01.04.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 08.04.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 15.04.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 22.04.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 29.04.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 06.05.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 13.05.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 20.05.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Wednesday 27.05.2026 | 12.15-14.00 | Nadelberg 6, Raum 11 |
| Modules |
Modul: Advanced English Linguistics (Bachelor's degree subject: English) Modul: English Linguistics (Master's degree subject: English) Module: Language as Process (Master's degree program: Language and Communication) Module: Research and Extension (Master's degree program: Language and Communication) |
| Assessment format | continuous assessment |
| Assessment details | regular and active participation; preparatory reading; oral presentation plus handout; short written task in connection with the presentation (around 1’500 words) |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | as often as necessary |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Fachbereich Englische Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft |