This course is an introduction to some of the major approaches to studying oral and written texts. We will examine and practice various analytic perspectives, including conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis, pragmatics/speech act theory, and interactional sociolinguistics. We will apply these approaches to a variety of texts; possibilities include the mass media, "naturally occurring" conversation, classroom interaction, policy documents, and other texts of special interest to seminar members. I expect students from a range of disciplinary perspectives. What unites us will not be the questions we ask so much as where and how we look to answer them: in discourse and its analysis. Our goals are threefold: 1. to acquaint students with approaches to and research in discourse analysis; 2. to provide a forum for evaluating this work; 3. to provide students opportunities to engage discourse analytic methods in relation to those texts/sites of consequence to them.