This page contains data on the courses that I teach. For course schedules and other information, see the Registrar's section of UT Austin Web Central . This undergraduate course is designed to introduce some ideas about the role of language in communication and methods scholars have used in their investigations.
Students learn to think analytically about language and communication.
Some of the reading is on the World Wide Web. There are differences in disputes involving participants with different backgrounds and goals in different situations, but there are similarities and identifiable underlying dimensions in conflict talk. Some relevant dimensions may be gender, role, ethnicity, nationality, and even family background. The purpose of this upper division undergraduate class is to explore a framework for systematic analysis of conflict and communication and to learn some of the effects of communication on conflict and of conflict on communication. Activities for learning include reading about conflict and communication, analyzing conflicts, and experiencing and evaluating communication behaviors that are said to be effective in conflict talk.