Text, Narrative & Discourse Analysis - JSM693

• Title: Text, Narrative & Discourse Analysis
• Guaranteed by: Department of Sociology (23-KS)
• Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences
• Actual: from 2018 to 2021
• Semester: summer
• E-Credits: 9
• Examination process: summer s.:combined
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:1/1, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: unlimited / 15 (unknown)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Additional information: https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=5941
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment; priority enrollment if the course is part of the study plan
• Guarantor: doc. Mgr. Martin Hájek, Ph.D.
• Teacher(s): doc. Mgr. Martin Hájek, Ph.D.
• Class: Courses for incoming students

Annotation

One of the important features of contemporary society is that it produces a large amount of self-descriptions; by the words of Niklas Luhmann, the modern society is an intensively self-observing and self-reporting system. The aim of this course is to provide students with knowledge of relatively broad issues of methods of analysis of these self-descriptions, which are mainly texts in their nature (media texts, biographic narratives, conversations, open-ended questions in questionnaires, expert discourse texts etc.). The successful student will become fluent in the vocabulary of narrative, discursive, content, and computer-assisted text analyses and bring those tools to bear on various kinds of texts.

Last update: Jusić Mirna, M.A. et M.A., Ph.D. (26.02.2024)

Course completion requirements

Course requirements and assignments.

Assignment guidelines:
1. Seven pieces of homework (42 points)
2. Term paper: A paper based on student's research. Each student should carry out an analysis on the topic of their choice. Extending a selected piece of homework is recommended but not necessary. Using one's own data is welcome. Paper due: 10/6/2026 (30 points)
3. Oral examination: (a) a presentation of the paper (10 mins.); (b) peer-review of the colleague's paper (5 mins.); (c) discussion (15 mins.)
(15 + 5 + 8 = 28 points).

The use of AI for brainstorming and literature searches is permitted, but plagiarism, including the use of AI-generated text, is strictly prohibited. We also discourage the use of AI-enhanced text polishing. We much prefer to read your authentic work, with all its imperfections, than a machine-processed literary product.

To succesfully finish the course, any student has to achieve at least a half of the points in the assignments, i.e., 21 pts. for homework, 15 pts. for the term paper, and 14 pts. in oral examination.

Evaluation:
91 - 100 points: excellent (A)
81 - 90 points: very good (B)
71 - 80 points: good (C)
61 - 70 points: satisfactory (D)
51 - 60 points: sufficient (E)
less than 50 points: failed (F)

Last update: Hájek Martin, doc. Mgr., Ph.D. (07.02.2026)

Syllabus

Please, visit the course page on Moodle: https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=5941

Course Calendar

Week 1 (18.2.): Introductory class presentation;

Week 2 (25.2.): A text - key concepts presentation; homework 1

Week 3 (4.3.): Levels of text analysis 1 - operative and cooperative reading presentation; homework 2

Week 4 (11.3.): Levels of text analysis 2 - word, sentence and supra-sentence level presentation; homework 3

Week 5 (18.3.): Narrative analysis 1 - introduction presentation; homework 4

Week 6 (25.3.): Narrative analysis 2 - structural and hermeneutic approaches presentation; homework 5

Week 7 (1.4.): Narrative analysis 3 - interactional and network approaches presentation;

Week 8 (8.4.): Discourse analysis 1 - CDA approach presentation; homework 6

Week 9 (15.4.): Discourse analysis 2 - Foucauldian approach presentation

Week 10 (22.4.): Discourse analysis 3 - conversation analysis presentation

Week 11 (29.4.): Performativity of Text and Discourse presentation; homework 7

Week 12 (6.5.): Individual consultation of term papers

Last update: Hájek Martin, doc. Mgr., Ph.D. (26.01.2021)