The course aims to approach concepts like speech training, intonation, syntactic forms, syntactic flaws in oral speech, elliptic speech, body language in combination with voice, proxemics and kinesics. Apart from their theoretical presentation and analysis, the course also includes the projection of audiovisual aids and their immediate summarisation, whilst the students participate in exercises of sound recognition, kinesics recognition and interpretation, voice pitch and intensity recognition and interpretation, pause and repetition recognition and interpretation.

Upon successful completion of the course, the students will be able to:

• comprehend and interpret rhetorical and non-verbal communication of the speaker
• help students interpret speeches (mainly of political and social content) with fluency
• help students summarize their discourse, when they are asked to summarize a text in a few words
• be absorbed from the market being fully qualified to this subject

Week 1

The features of oral speech. Similarities and differences with the written speech.

Week 2

The principles of rhetoric and its importance in speech.

Week 3

Figures of Speech in the Greek language and their use in oral speech.

Week 4

Figures of Speech of other languages and their use in oral speech.

Week 5

Basic principles of non-verbal communication and analysis of audiovisual aids containing political speech.

Week 6

The code of body language through the analysis of different kinds of speakers based on relevant audiovisual aids.

Week 7

Prosodic phenomena of conversational speech with emphasis on intonation, pauses and rhythm.

Week 8

Summarising techniques and exercise based on a 20-minute speech from a recorded scientific speech at a conference.

Week 9

Basic principles of Discourse Analysis and summarising exercise based on a 20-minute scientific lecture.

Week 10

Discourse Analysis exercise and summarising exercise based on a 20-minute scientific lecture.

Week 11

Basic principles of Political Discourse Analysis and summarising exercise based on a 20-minute speech of a Greek politician.

Week 12

Political Discourse Analysis exercise and summarising exercise based on a 20-minute speech of a Greek politician.

Week 13

Course recap and review of the most important course material; guidelines for drafting the term paper.

Fairclough, N.L. (1985) «Critical and Descriptive Goals in Discourse Analysis». Journal of Pragmatics 9: 739-63.

Fairclough I. and  Fairclough N. (2012) Political Discourse Analysis. London&NewYork:Routledge.

Tζάρτζανος Α. (1991) Νεοελληνική Σύνταξις. Θεσσαλονίκη: Κυριακίδης.

Wodak, R., ed. (1989) Language, Power and Ideology. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Van Dijk T. (1993) «Principles of critical discourse analysis» in Discourse and Society. vol. 4(2). SAGE Journals: 249-283.

Face to face teaching. The course’s duration is two hours. It is offered exclusively to students of the Interpreting studies and is delivered by lecture. Exercises for understanding and applying the theoretical knowledge are used throughout the course, which include the projection and analysis of audiovisual aids (of up to 20-minute duration) from the Internet. This method successfully combines background knowledge and everyday experience for the best possible comprehension of the oral speech techniques.

Use of ICT in teaching.

Students are assessed based on their performance in the class throughout the term. The final assessment and grading of the course will be held through an obligatory term paper, which includes the transcription and oral speech techniques analysis of a 10-minute political speech or scientific lecture chosen by each student.