Content and wording of university course descriptions

Academic course descriptions (ACDs) are informational-regulatory texts: they orientate students and impose rules on them. The analysis of 100 ACDs representative of 10 disciplines (10,304 words) shows that their communicative goals are realized through the choice of topics dealt with, and through the representation of processes and the entities involved in them. Thus, the ACDs outline the content, method and background of courses (referential function), but also their logistics/requirements and goals/outcomes (conative function). The focus of the ACDs is seemingly more on what course are about (referential function) than who they are for or by (conative function): the courses, their content and activities are more frequently mentioned than the students and the teachers, and these participants are hardly ever represented as direct interlocutors. However, the ubiquitous simple present and "will"-future, which authoritatively represent events as non-negotiable arrangements, serves the same purpose as deontic modality. Overall, the ACDs present courses not as the product of the teachers‘ and students‘ joint efforts, but as self-determined entities responsible for their policies and content, which mediate between the teachers and the students by avoiding the confrontation implicit in the imposition of rules by the former onto the latter.