MEETING MINUTES DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF AN ENGLISH PREPARATORY DEPARTMENT

Abstract

This study aimed at examining the discourse of the meeting minutes of a university preparatory department as the verbal record of a social institution. The focus is on the interaction of the academic staff members and understanding their relations as well as the general communicative characteristics of the academic community. Apart from the content of the written text, the linguistic formulations of the writer, patterns, phrases, repeated speech acts, and the way the author introduces the piece of written work are considered during the analysis process. To gather qualitative data, the weekly reports of the meetings of a preparatory department were used as research instruments. This article deals with teachers’ ability to read coherent texts about their subject, comprehend them, and respond accordingly to the mentioned decisions, actions, and announcements provided for them in written form. In regard to their ability to understand the meeting minutes, the goal is to describe the effects of linguistic patterns. In brief, the structure of the communication system and communication components for the appropriate social interaction will be analyzed