Context in Professional Communication: The Experience of a Course Design
Context in Professional Communication: The Experience of a Course Design

Summary/Abstract: This paper describes our conversation analytical and pragmatic approach to the study of context in a course on professional communication for the students in international relations and political science of “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Both Conversation Analysis and pragmatics treat context as dynamically emerging through the process of interaction itself, and the insights they provide are complementary, by taking a talk-intrinsic view and a talk-extrinsic perspective, respectively. The objective of the course is to facilitate the development of those cognitive and affective skills involved in transactional and relational communication that will allow our students to interact appropriately in specific situated activities. The concepts introduced in the course and the follow-up seminar activities and assignments help our students to develop an understanding of how context can influence the constraints on allowable contributions, the lexical and grammatical choice, and the inferential frameworks specific to various professional settings.

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