DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 6/8/2021 When you do a discourse analysis you can analyze according to any field of knowledge. It can be according to fields of general linguistics, or it may depend on the culture. According to general linguistics each text has semantic surface and pragmatic depth which leads us to say that each text has a deep message, and this message is called a pragmatic equation. The semantic surface answers the question what words are used? The pragmatic surface answers the question how and why these words are used and not any other words? These questions are variable. Whatever they are, these questions are considered as the pragmatic depth for the text. These are the types of questions: 1- Who Question: The text answers a question such as: who did the event or action to be expressed in the text? 2- What Question: The text answers a question such as: What is the definition of characteristics of the event to be expressed in the text? 3- Where Question: The text answers a question such as: where is some place located? Where is an event happening? 4- When Question: The text answers a question such as: when an event is going to happen? When did an event happen? 5- Why Question: The text answers a question such as: Why did a certain event take place? 6- How Question: The text answers a question such as: How a certain event is happening? What is the process of it? How a certain event happened? 7- To Whom Question: The text answers a question such as: To whom was an action done? Therefore, the pragmatic equation of a process essay is usually ‘how’ and one text can answer multiple questions. Other than analyzing a text from a general field perspective, discourse analysts can analyze it according to any specific approach emerging from those fields which is proposed by a linguist or a group of linguists. They aim to analyze discourse from their view. Such a view focuses on any element in the text such as (the context of situation) and its role in giving a specific meaning rather than other within the text at study. Coherence is defined as “the quality of meaning, unity, and purpose perceived in discourse, any written text is expected to be produced as a coherent discourse that conveys meaning and not just isolated sentences free of meaning”. Each language gives meanings. When you want to speak something meaningful, you use logic and you should be clear in your topic and ideas. If there is no sense, there is no coherence. So, coherence is logic. This would make you understand the meaning. A text is said to be coherent when it shows the following criteria: 1- Unity of meaning: the text is developing one idea only. Thus, the text generator cannot bounce from a topic to another randomly. He or she needs to be consistent about the main message or point of the text in relation to its pragmatic purpose and answer. Let us say I am talking about a specific person. I do not talk about a whole different one or about a whole different thing even if the two of them answer the question who. Being consistent is sticking to your ideas and not moving away from them to talk about something totally different. 2- Logic: the text needs to make sense logically. For example, if the text generator is elaborating on a sequence of historical events preceding the raging of war, he cannot cut the flow of thoughts progression and suddenly say: What a lovely view! 3- Mental and cultural understanding: For each language, there are speakers or writers who have their own thoughts and culture. These two elements contribute to what makes a text mentally logical for us (the outside world of receivers). For example, if we read a text about a religious verse, we expect the analysis to be in a certain degree of formality and judge the text according to what is logically right or wrong according to our background information. We cannot separate coherence form language. Even when cohesion is used wrongly, then coherence would be affected badly too. If a word is used in the wrong way then the meaning and logic will be wrong as well. So, cohesion and coherence are well connected and every text should be both coherent and cohesive. Cohesion is the formal link between sentences and between clauses which also contribute to the meaning of the text but with regard to the text elements themselves and not the outside world of receivers of the discourse. When we talk about the outside world of receivers, then we are talking about coherence not cohesion. Cohesion refers to the grammatical and or lexical relationships between the different elements of a text. This may be the relationship between different sentences or different parts of a sentence. TYPES OF COHESION: - Lexical Cohesion. It includes: 1. Collocation 2. Reiteration - Grammatical Cohesion. It includes: 1. Substitution 2. Ellipsis 3. Reference 4. conjunctions LEXICAL COHESION: Lexical cohesion is achieved through the selection of vocabulary. There are two ways in which this type of cohesion is established. These two ways are reiteration and collocation. Collocation means words coming together as a part of group. For example, ‘I want a bowl of bananas, apples, kiwis, and strawberries.’ All these are part of the same group which is fruit. The relationship between these items (bananas, apples, kiwis, and strawberries) is collocative. LEXICAL COHESION: Reiteration means a restatement of meaning in a variety of ways to make it clearer. The meaning is restated by having a recourse to the following relations: Synonyms: words are said to be synonyms or holding a relationship of synonymy when two words or more have the same meaning. Antonyms: words are said to be antonyms or holding a relationship of antonymy when two words or more have opposing meanings. Superordination: when words have a relationship of inclusion, the lexical relationship is then that of a superordination. LEXICAL COHESION: Examples: -Get rid of that chair. The furniture should be changed. This is superordination. Furniture is the general noun. Chair is a part of this general noun. But there is not collocation here. Yet it is still superordination. General Nouns: this lexical relation is well connected to the lexical relation of superordination. The main categories or hyperonyms are called the general nouns. So in the previous examples, the word (furniture) is a general noun too. LEXICAL COHESION: Repetition: it is the last type of lexical reiteration. It is either repeating the same words as it is or repeating it through using its different parts of speech. For example, run, runner, ran, running. Repetition is like the literal repetition. It is repeating the same lexical word in many parts of speech. GRAMMATICAL COHESION: Substitution: it is the replacement of a word or a group of words with another word or word-group. There are three types for substitution: 1. Nominal Substitution: a noun substitutes another noun. Mostly the words “one” or “ones” get used. Example: I offered him a seat. He said he didn’t want one. 2. Verbal Substitution: a word or a verb substitutes another verb. It is realized through an auxiliary verb (be, do, have), sometimes with another substitute term such as “so” or “the same”. Examples: A: Did Mary take the letter? B: She might have done. You can substitute the verb with a verb to be or verb to have or verb to do. GRAMMATICAL COHESION: 3. Clausal Substitution: using (so) or (not) to substitute a clause in a sentence. Example: Do you need a lift? If so, wait for me; if not, it’s ok. Ellipsis: it is the complete omission of a word or group of words for reasons of economy, emphasis or style. They are, however, recoverable from the context. There are three types for Ellipsis: 1) Nominal Ellipsis: it is presented in the omission of a noun. Example: Lynn likes the green apple; myself I preferred the red. GRAMMATICAL COHESION: 2) Verbal Ellipsis: it is presented in the omission of a verb. Example: A: Will anyone be waiting? B: James will, I think. 3) Clausal Ellipsis: it is presented in the omission of a clause. Example: He said he would retire as soon as he could and he has. GRAMMATICAL COHESION: Reference: it is used when two linguistic elements are related in what they refer to. Reference items in English include Pronouns like (the- he- she- it, everyone, nobody, himself, this, that, these, those…etc. Example: “I met Aya, she is nice.” “She” is a reference to “Aya”. There are two types of references: Endophoric. Exophoric. GRAMMATICAL COHESION: Endophoric refers to something that is within the text. the reference could be referring to something mentioned earlier or to something that will be mentioned later. Endophoric has two types: Anaphoric which is going backwards in the text to know the referents. Cataphoric which is when you read forward in the text to know the referents. Example: John helped Mary because she is his sister. So these are endophoric anaphoric references. ‘His’ is anaphoric reference to John. ‘She’ is anaphoric reference to Mary. Both are endophoric. GRAMMATICAL COHESION: Example: Since she is his sister, John helped Mary. Here this is endophoric cataphoric because you had to read forwards not backwards to know to whom these pronouns refers to. Here we have grammatical cohesion, which is endophoric cataphoric reference. Exophoric refers to something external and out of the text. Examples on exophoric: Tell everyone I will be in my office on Tuesday. GRAMMATICAL COHESION: Now there is nothing here that says what this everyone refers to in the text or in the sentence I am telling you. But you yourself should know that what I mean with everyone is your fellow students. This is what we mean with exophoric. Because there is nothing in the text itself that says to whom this everyone refers to. Conjunctions: the last type of grammatical cohesion is the use of conjunctions to link and connect parts of a sentence or a text in a meaningful way. This can be achieved by the use of subordinate or coordinate conjunctions.
