Capitolul 6 - .tocilar.ro

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6. Discourse analysis

the study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful

units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews, etc. (see DISCOURSE).

For example, discourse analysis deals with:a. how the choice of articles, pronouns, and tenses affects the structure of

the discourse (see ADDRESS FORMS, COHESION)

b. the relationship between utterances in a discourse (see ADJACENCY

PAIRS, COHERENCE)

c. the MOVES made by speakers to introduce a new topic, or assert a higher

ROLE RELATIONSHIP to the other participants

Analysis of spoken discourse is sometimes called CONVENTIONAL ANALYSIS.

Some linguists use the term TEXT LINGUISTICS for the study of written

discourse.

Recent analyses have carried out on discourse in the classroom. Such analyses

can be useful in finding out about the effectiveness of teaching methods and the

types of teacher-student relationships.

Discourse

a general term for examples of language use, i.e. language which has been

produced as the result of an act of communication.

Whereas grammar refers to the rules a language uses to form grammatical units

such as CLAUSE, PHRASE, and SENTENCE, discourse refers to larger units of

language such as paragraphs, conversations, and interviews.

Sometimes the study of both written and spoken discourse is known as

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS; some researchers however use discourse analysis to

refer to the study of spoken discourse and TEXT LINGUISTICS to refer to the

study of written discourse.

Address form

also address term, form/term of address

the word or words used to address somebody in speech or writing. The way in

which people address one another usually depends on their age, sex, social

group, and personal relationship.


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For example, many languages have different second person pronoun forms which

are used according to whether the speaker wants to address someone politely or

more informally, e.g. in German Sie du , in French vous tu , in Spanish usted

tu and in Mandarin Chinese nn n (you).

If a language has only one second person pronoun form, e.g. English you , other

address forms are used to show formality or informality, e.g. Sir, Mr Brown, Brown,

Bill . In some languages, such as Chinese dialects and Japanese, words

expressing relationship, e.g. father, mother, aunt, or position, e.g. teacher,

lecturer, are used as address forms to show respect and/or signal the formality of

the situation, for example:

Mandarin Chinese: bba q ng ch

father please eat!

Japanese: sensei dazo! (a polite request)

teacher/sir please!

The address forms of a language are arranged into a complex address system

with its own rules which need to be acquired if a person wants to communicate

appropriately.

Cohesion

the grammatical and/or lexical relationships between the different elements of a

text. This may be the relationship between different sentences or between different

parts of a sentence. For example:

a. A: Is Jenny coming to the party?

B: Yes, she is.

There is a link between Jenny and she and also between is coming and is .

b. In the sentence:

If you are going to London, I can give you the address of a good hotel there.

the link is between London and there (see ANAPHORA).

Adjacency pair

a sequence of two related utterances by two different speakers. The second

utterance is always a response to the first.

In the following example, speaker A makes a complaint, and speaker B replieswith a denial:


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A: You left the light on.

B: It wasnt me!

The sequence of complaint denial is an adjacency pair. Other examples of

adjacency pairs are greeting greeting, question answer, invitation

acceptance/ non-acceptance, offer acceptance/non-acceptance, complaint

apology.

Adjacency pairs are part of the structure of conversation and are studied in

CONVENTIONAL ANALYSIS.

Coherence

the relationships which link the meanings of UTTERANCES in a DISCOURSE or

of the sentences in a text.

These links may be based on the speakers shared knowledge. For example:

A: Could you give me a lift home?

B: Sorry, Im visiting my sister.

There is no grammatical or lexical link between As question and Bs reply (see

COHESION) but the exchange has coherence because both A and B know that

Bs sister lives in the opposite direction to As home.

Generally a PARAGRAPH has coherence if it is a series of sentences that develop

the main idea (i.e. with a TOPIC SENTENCE and supporting sentences which

relate to it).

Text linguistics

a branch of linguistics which studies spoken or written TEXTS, e.g. a descriptive

passage, a scene in a play, a conversation. It is concerned, for instance, with the

way the parts of a text are organized and related to one another in order to form ameaningful whole.

Some linguists prefer to include the study of all spoken texts, particularly if they

are longer than one sentence, under DISCOURSE ANALYSIS.

Communicative competence

the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules of a language in order to form

grammatically correct sentences but also to know when and where to use thesesentences and to whom.


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Communicative competence includes:

a. knowledge of the grammar and vocabulary of the LANGUAGE 2 (see

COMPETENCE)

b. knowledge of rules of speaking (e.g. knowing how to begin and end

conversations, knowing what topics may be talked about in different types

of SPEECH EVENTS, knowing which ADDRESS FORMS should be used

with different persons one speaks to and in different situations

c. knowing how to use and respond to different types of SPEECH ACTS,

such as requests, apologies, thanks, and invitations

d. knowing how to use language appropriately (see APPROPRIATENESS).

When someone wishes to communicate with others, they must recognize the

social setting, their relationship to the other person(s) (see ROLE

RELATIONSHIP), and the types of language that can be used for a particular

occasion. They must also be able to interpret written or spoken sentences within

the context in which they are used.

For example, the English statement Its rather cold in here could be a request,

particularly to someone in a lower role relationship, to close a window or door or to

turn on the heating.

Appropriateness

When producing an utterance, a speaker needs to know that it is grammatical, and

also that it is suitable (appropriate) for the particular situation.

For example:

Give me a glass water!

is grammatical, but it would not be appropriate if the speaker wanted to be polite.

A request such as:

May I have a glass of water, please?

would be more appropriate.

Role relationship

the relationship which people have to each other in an act of communication and

which influences the way they speak to each other. One of the speakers may have

a ROLE which has a higher STATUS than that of the other speaker(s), e.g. schoolprincipal teacher, teacher student(s), lieutenant sergeant. Sometimes


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people temporarily take on superior roles, either because of the situation, e.g.

bank manager loan seeker, or because one of them has a stronger personality,

e.g. student A student B.

Style

1. variation in a persons speech or writing. Style usually varies from casual to

formal according to the type of situation, the person or persons addressed, the

location, the topic discussed, etc. A particular style, e.g. a formal style or a

colloquial style, is sometimes referred to as a stylistic variety .

Some linguists use the term register for a stylistic variety whilst others

differentiate between the two (see REGISTER).2. style can also refer to a particular persons use of speech or writing at all times

or to a way of speaking or writing at a particular period of time, e.g. Dickens

style the style of Shakespeare, an 18 th-century style of writing.

Scheme

also schema, macro-structure, genre-scheme, discourse structure, rhetorical

structure

(in TEXT LINGUISTICS and DISCOURSE ANALYSIS) the underlying structure

which accounts for the organization of a TEXT or DISCOURSE. Different kinds of

texts and discourse (e.g. stories, descriptions, letters, reports, poems) are

distinguished by the way in which the TOPIC, PROPOSITIONS, and other

information are linked together to form a unit. This underlying structure is known

as the scheme or macro-structure. For example the scheme underlying many

stories is:Story=Setting(=state+state+)+Episodes(=Event(s)+Reaction)

i.e. stories consist of a setting in which the time, place, and characters are

identified, followed by episodes leading towards a reaction. A text or discourse in

which a suitable underlying scheme or macro-structure is used is said to be

coherent (see COHERENCE)

Note that the plural of scheme is schemes , but the plural of schema is either

schemes or schemata .


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Text linguistics

a branch of linguistics which studies spoken or written TEXTS, e.g. a descriptive

passage, a scene in a play, a conversation. It is concerned, for instance, with the

way the parts of a text are organized and related to one another in order to form a

meaningful whole.

Some linguists prefer to include the study of all spoken texts, particularly if they

are longer than one sentence, under DISCOURSE ANALYSIS.

Conversational analysis

the analysis of natural conversation in order to discover what the linguistic

characteristics of conversation are and how conversation is used in ordinary life.

Conversational analysis includes the study of:

a. how speakers decide when to speak during a conversation (i.e. rules of TURN-

TAKING)

b. how the sentences of two or more speakers are related (see ADJACENCY

PAIR, CONVENTIONAL MAXIM)

c. the different functions that conversation is used for (for example to establish

ROLES, and to communicate politeness or intimacy).

Text

a piece of spoken or written language. A text may be considered from the point of

view of its structure and/or its functions, e.g. warning, instructing, carrying out a

transaction.

A full understanding of a text is often impossible without reference to the context in

which it occurs. A text may consist of just one word, e.g. DANGER or a warning sign, or it may be

of considerable length, e.g. a sermon, a novel, or a debate.

Turn-taking

In conversation, the roles of speaker and listener change constantly. The person

who speaks first becomes a listener as soon as the person addressed takes his or

her turn in the conversation by beginning to speak.


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The rules for turn-taking may differ from one community to another as they do from

one type of SPEECH EVENT (e.g. a conversation) to another (e.g. an oral test).

Turn-taking and rules for turn-taking are studied in CONVERSATIONAL

ANALYSIS and DISCOURSE ANALYSIS.

Conversational maxim

an unwritten rule about conversation which people know and which influences the

form of conversational exchanges. For example in the following exchange:

A: Lets go to the movies.

B: I have an examination in the morning.

Bs reply might appear not to be connected to As remark. However, since A hasmade an invitation and since a reply to an invitation is usually either an

acceptance or a refusal, Bs reply is here understood as an excuse for not

accepting the invitation (i.e. refusal). B has used the maxim that speakers

normally give replies which are relevant to the question that has been asked. The

philosopher Grice has suggested that there are four conventional maxims:

a. The maxim of quantity: give as much information as is needed.

b. The maxim of quality: speak truthfully.c. The maxim of relevance: say things that are relevant.

d. The maxim of manner: say things clearly and briefly.

The use of conventional maxims to imply meaning during conversation is called

conversational implicature , and the co-operation between speakers in using

the maxims is sometimes called the co-operative principle .

Ethnomethodologya branch of sociology which studies how people organize and understand the

activities of ordinary life. It studies peoples relations with each other and how

social interaction takes place between people. Ethnomethodologists have studied

such things as relationships between children and adults, interviews, telephone

conversation, and TURN TALKING in conversation. Language is not the main

interest of ethnomethodologists, but their observations on how language is used in

everyday activities such as conversation are of interest to linguists andsociolinguists.


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Highlights

Discourse analysis is the study of how sentences in spoken and written languageform larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews, etc.

Discourse is a general term for examples of language use, i.e. language which

has been produced as the result of an act of communication.

Address form (also address term, form/term of address ) is the word or words

used to address somebody in speech or writing.

Cohesion is the grammatical and/or lexical relationships between the different

elements of a text.

Adjacency pair is a sequence of two related utterances by two different speakers.

The second utterance is always a response to the first.

Coherence is the relationships which link the meanings of UTTERANCES in a

DISCOURSE or of the sentences in a text.

Text linguistics is a branch of linguistics which studies spoken or written TEXTS,

e.g. a descriptive passage, a scene in a play, a conversation.

Communicative competence is the ability not only to apply the grammatical rules

of a language in order to form grammatically correct sentences but also to know

when and where to use these sentences and to whom.

Appropriateness refers to the fact that when producing an utterance, a speaker

needs to know that it is grammatical, and also that it is suitable (appropriate) for

the particular situation.

Role relationship is the relationship which people have to each other in an act of

communication and which influences the way they speak to each other.

Scheme (also schema, macro-structure, genre-scheme, discourse structure,

rhetorical structure ) is (in TEXT LINGUISTICS and DISCOURSE ANALYSIS)

the underlying structure which accounts for the organization of a TEXT or

DISCOURSE. Different kinds of texts and discourse (e.g. stories, descriptions,

letters, reports, poems) are distinguished by the way in which the TOPIC,

PROPOSITIONS, and other information are linked together to form a unit.

Text linguistics is a branch of linguistics which studies spoken or written TEXTS,

e.g. a descriptive passage, a scene in a play, a conversation.


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Conversational analysis is the analysis of natural conversation in order to

discover what the linguistic characteristics of conversation are and how

conversation is used in ordinary life.

Text is a piece of spoken or written language.

Conversational maxim is an unwritten rule about conversation which people

know and which influences the form of conversational exchanges.

Ethnomethodology is a branch of sociology which studies how people organize

and understand the activities of ordinary life.

Questions

1. What does discourse analysis deal with?

2. What is conversational analysis?

3. What is text linguistics?

4. What does discourse refer to?

5. What does the way in which people address one another depend on?

6. What is an address system?

7. Give examples of adjacency pairs.

8. What is text linguistics concerned with?

9. What does communicative competence include?

10. What does style refer to?

11. What is text linguistics concerned with?

12. What does conversational analysis include?

13. From what point of view can a text be considered?

14. What is turn taking?

15. How many conversational maxims are there, according to Grice?

16. What is conversational implicature?

17. What is the co-operative principle?

18. What does ethnomethodology study?

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