Faculty
Our Department in the Media
The Department of Communication Studies (Theory of Discourse and Communication) was established in the Philological Faculty at Moscow University in 2004. The department’s faculty and courses focus on the study of speech as a communication activity in the complex, historically volatile context of culture.
The practices and genres of speech are various — a mundane conversation is far from high literary fiction, just as a personal letter differs vastly from commercial advertising. But all of them are closely bound by culture. Modern theories of discourse have developed on the “intersection” of two different kinds of humanistic knowledge: between traditional philology (linguistics and literature studies) and psychology, social studies, semiotics, new rhetoric, cultural studies, and yet other disciplines.
Our department’s teaching and learning practices cover a multiplicity of analytical approaches to the text integrated by a common strategy: that speech is studied as the means of an individual’s self-definition and social contexts, within boundaries set in culture and between cultures, as well as in overcoming them and acquiring contact with others (cross-cultural communication, transmedia text, theory and philosophy of translation).
We encourage students of a variety of media–from traditional philological studies to media and identity studies to consider the offerings in our department. If you have questions, please write to any of the contacts found on the contacts page.