Discourse & Discourse Analysis

8/3/2019 Discourse & Discourse Analysis

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Discourse Communication of thought by words; talk;

conversation

A formal discussion of a subject in speech or

writing


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Discourse AnalysisDiscourse analysis is sometimes defined as the analysis

of language 'beyond the sentence.

This contrasts with types of analysis more typical ofmodern linguistics, which are chiefly concerned with the

study of grammar.


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Discourse analysts study larger chunks of language as

they flow together.

Both the production and the comprehension of language are

factors of our ability to perceive and process stretches ofdiscourse.

Discourse analysis is a multifaceted and exceedingly

important consideration in the teaching of a second language.


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Discourse and Frames 'Reframing' is a way to talk about going back and re-

interpreting the meaning of the first sentence.

Frame analysis is a type of discourse analysis that asks,What activity are speakers engaged in when they say this?

What do they think they are doing by talking in this way at

this time?

Consider how hard it is to make sense of what you are

hearing or reading if you don't know who's talking or what

the general topic is.


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Turn-taking

Conversation is an enterprise in which one person speaks

and another listens.

Discourse analysts who study conversation note thatspeakers have systems for determining when one person's

turn is over and the next person's turn begins.

This exchange of turns or 'floors' is signaled by such

linguistic means as intonation, pausing, and phrasing. Listenership, too, may be signaled in different ways.

The type of listener response you get can change how you

speak.


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Discourse Markers'Discourse markers' is the term linguists give to the little

words like 'well', 'oh', 'but', and 'and' that break our speech up

into parts and show the relation between parts.

'Oh' prepares the hearer for a surprising or just-

remembered item, and 'but' indicates that sentence to

follow is in opposition to the one before.

However, these markers don't necessarily mean what the

dictionary says they mean.


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Some people use 'and' just to start a new thought, and

some people put 'but' at the end of their sentences, as a

way of trailing off gently.

Realizing that these words can function as discoursemarkers is important to prevent the frustration that can be

experienced if you expect every word to have its dictionary

meaning every time it is used.


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Speech Acts

Speech act analysis asks not what form the utterance

takes but what it does.

Saying "I now pronounce you man and wife" enacts a

marriage.

We perform speech acts when we offer an apology,

greeting, request, complaint, invitation, compliment, or

refusal. A speech act is an utterance that serves a function in

communication.


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Studying speech acts such as complimenting allows

discourse analysts to ask what counts as a compliment, who

gives compliments to whom, and what other functions they

can serve.

Speech acts include real-life interactions and require

not only knowledge of the language but also appropriate

use of that language within a given culture.


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Greeting: "Hi, Eric. How are things going?"

examples of speech acts we use or hear every day:

Request: "Could you pass me the mashed potatoes,

please?"

Complaint: "Ive already been waiting three weeks forthe computer, and I was told it would be delivered within a

week."

Invitation: "Were having some people over Saturday

evening and wanted to know if youd like to join us."

Compliment: "Hey, I really like your tie!"

Refusal: "Oh, Id love to see that movie with you but

this Friday just isnt going to work."


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Discourse Analysis Approaches Levinson proposes that there are two major approaches

to the study of naturally occurring interaction: discourse

analysis (DA) and conversation analysis (CA).

Seedhouse suggests that the overwhelming majority of

previous approaches to L2 classroom interaction have

implicitly or explicitly adopted what is fundamentally, adiscourse analysis approach.


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When DA approaches are used to isolation, they areguided by principles taken from structural-functional

linguistics. For example, the frequently used Could

you turn to page 36? might be interpreted as a

request under DA.

Sinclair and Coulthard compiled a list of 22 speech

acts representing verbal behaviors of both teachers

and students participating in primary classroom

interaction.


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Sinclair and Coulthard: It is now widely accepted that

most classroom communications are characterized by anIRF or IRE structure, where I corresponds to teacher

Initiation, R to student Response, and F/E to optional

teacher Feedback or teacher Evaluation.

I-R-E structure: This exchange comprises how teacher

moves for every student move and typifies much of the

communication to be found in both content-based and L2

classrooms. We can say that DA approaches are both descriptive and

prescriptive and attempt to categorize naturally occurring

patterns of interaction and account for them by reference to

a discourse hierarchy.

Documents

Discourse & Discourse Analysis