Representation of Events and Event Participants in Academic Course Descriptions

Academic course descriptions (ACDs) are an institutional genre with an orientational-regulatory goal: presenting information and imposing requirements. The analysis of 100 ACDs from 10 disciplines (40,000 words) reveals that the orientational goal of the ACDs is achieved through the outline of the topics, methods and disciplinary backgrounds of courses, while the regulatory one through reference to their logistics/requirements and goals/outcomes. Courses are authoritatively represented as non-negotiable arrangements through the recurrent use of the simple present and will future. However, the implicit directive force of these tense choices is downtoned by the frequent representation of courses as external agents responsible for choices about educational contents and aims, while teachers are seldom mentioned and hardly ever depicted as potentially confrontational addressers. The imposition of requirements follows the same encoding pattern as above in the 63 ACDs consisting of one paragraph, and in the main sections of the longer ones (called Description or Aims), but is characterized by a more marked presence of, especially deontic, modality (e.g. may, should), and a more frequent reference to students as addressees (i.e. you’s) in the other sections of the longer ACDs (e.g. Assignments, Grading). Overall, the texts are oriented toward communicative effectiveness, that is, the provision of accurate directions, which prevent misunderstandings and raise the right expectations in the supposedly self-motivated readership. However, in (the sections of) the ACDs with a strong referential function, this authoritative confidence is softened by the negative politeness strategy of indirectness (i.e. avoiding representing teachers and students as direct interlocutors, the former deciding things for the latter). Instead, in the sections with a strong conative function (e.g. Policies, Requirements) precision and thoroughness take priority over concerns for the negative face of the addressees – aware of having to meet requirements – and this leads to a clear indication of roles, rules and expectations..