What is discourse
analysis?
B. Paltridge 2006. Discourse Analysis.
Continuum.
Discourse Analysis
focuses on knowledge beyond the word,
clauses, phrase and sentence that is needed
for successful communication.
looks at patterns of language across texts
and considers the relationship between
language and the social and cultural context
in which it is used.
Discourse Analysis
considers the ways the use of language
presents different views of the world and
different understandings.
examines how the use of language is
influenced by the relationships between
participants as well as the effects the use of
language has upon social identities and
relations.
Discourse Analysis
considers how views of the world and
identities are constructed through the use of
discourse
examines both spoken and written texts.
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The term discourse analysis was introduced
by Zellig Harris in 1952.
Discourse Analysis and
Relevant Concepts
Context
Pragmatics
Cultural ways of speaking and writing
Communicative competence
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Why?
How do you relate these terms to the
“concerns” of discourse analysis?
Language-Context
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The runway is full at the moment
1. Air traffic controller says it to a pilot:
instruction
2. A woman says it to her friend waiting
someone to pick up: simple statement
Discourse analysis is the language in use. It
considers the relation between language and
contexts in which it is used and concerned
with the description and analysis of spoken and
written interactions.
Discourse analysis-Pragmatics
Pragmatics is concerned with how the
interpretation of language depends on
knowledge of the real world.
It is interested in what people mean by what
they say.
Communicative competence
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4 underlying components of communicative
competence:
grammatical competence : mastery of language codes
sociolinguistic competence: knowledge of appropriate
language use
discourse competence:knowledge of connection
utterances in a cohesive and coherent text
strategic competence: mastery of strategies that
speakers use to compensate for breakdowns in
communication and the strategies to enhance the
effectiveness of the communication.
Discursive competence
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It includes not only language-related and text-level
knowledge but also complex factors outside of the text
which need to be taken account for effective communication.
Textual competence: ability to produce and interpret
contextually appropriate texts. To do this we draw on our
linguistic, textual, contextual and pragmatic
knowledge of what typically occurs in a particular text,
how it is typically organized and how it is typically
interpreted.
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Eg. Internet communication (MSN Messenger), term
paper, seminar, etc.
Discursive competence
Generic competence describes how we are able to
respond to both recurring and new communicative
situations by constructing, interpreting, using and
exploiting conventions associated with the use of
particular kinds of texts, or genres. Eg. e-mail to a lecturer
or a text message to a friend.
Social competence describes how we use language to
take part in social and institutional interactions in a
way that enables us to express our social identity, within
the constraints of the particular social situation and
communicative interaction.
Different Views of Discourse Analysis
Cazden (1998): analysis of the stretches of naturally
occuring language; considering different ways of
talking and understanding
Fairclough (2003) : textually oriented discourse
analysis vs. social theoretical orientation
Cameron and Klucik (2003): instances of language in
use that are studied under a textually oriented view of
discourse are still socially situated and need to be
interpreted in terms of their social meanings and
functions.
Summary
DA is a view of language at the level of text.
DA is a view of language in use. (communicative
goals, acts, present themselves)
DA considers how people manage interactions with
each other, other groups, societies and cultures.
DA focuses on how people do things beyond
language, and the ideas and beliefs that they
communicate.
Discourse as the Social Construction
of Reality
Texts are embedded in social and cultural
practices.
Discourse is both shaped by the world as well
as shaping the world.
Discourse is shaped by language as well as
shaping the language that people use.
Discourse as the Social Construction
of Reality
Discourse is shaped by the discourse that has
preceded or follow it.
Discourse is shaped by the medium in which it
occurs as well as it shapes the possibilties of
that medium.
Discourse shapes the range of possible
purposes of texts.
Discourse as the Social Situated
Identities
When we speak or write we use more than just
language to display who we are, and how we
want people to see us.
Dressing, gestures, the ways we think, the
attitudes we display, and the things we
value,feel and believe.
Discourse as the Social Situated
Identities
Discourses invole the socially situated identities
that we enact and recognize in different settings that
we interact in: culture specific ways of performing
and culture specific ways of recognizing identities
and activities.
Discourses involve different styles of language.
Discourses involve characteristic ways of acting,
interacting and feeling and showing emotion,
gesturing.
Discourses involve particular ways of valuing,
thinking, believing, knowing, speaking and listening,
reading and writing.
Discourse and Performace
Discourses are socially constructed rathen than
natural. People “are who thay are because of the
way they talk” not because of who they already are”
Social identities are not per-given, but are formed in
the use of language and the various other ways
we display who we are, what we think, value and
feel,etc.
Eg. the rap singer
Discourse and Intertextuality
Texts may more or less implicity or explicitly cite
other texts, they may refer to another texts, or
they may allude to other past, or future texts.
All texts are intertextual relationship with other
texts.
Eg. The movie “Casablanca” recalls film genres such
as adventure movie, the patriotic movie, gangester
movies, action movies, spy movies and romance.
Difference between spoken and written
language
Grammatical intricacy and spoken discourse
Lexical density in spoken and written discourse
Nominalization in written and spoken discourse
Explicitness in spoken and written discourse
Contextualization in spoken and written discourse
The spontaneous nature of spoken discourse
Repetition, hesitation and redundancy in spoken
discourse
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Grammatical intricacy and spoken discourse:
Written language is more structurally complex and
elaborate than speech. Halliday (1989) argues that
spoken discourse has its own complexity. Gramatical
intricacy refers to the relationship between clauses
in spoken discourse which can be much more
spread out and with more complex relations
between them than in writing.
Lexical density in spoken and written discourse:
Written language tends to be more lexically dense
which refers to the ratio of content words to
function words.
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Nominalization in written and spoken discourse
There is a high level of nominalization in written texts. Actions
and events are presented as nouns rather than as verb. They
also include longer noun groups
Explicitness in spoken and written discourse
Writing is more explicit than speech. This depends on the
purpose of text and again is not absolute.
Contextualization in spoken and written discourse
Writing is more decontextualized than speech. This view
based on the percepin that speech depends on a shared
situation and backgroud for interpretation wheras writting
does not depend on such a shared context. Spoken genres
determins it.
For convesations: YES for academic lectures:NO
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The spontaneous nature of spoken discourse
Spoken discourse contains more half completed and
reformulated utterances than written discourse. This is
because it is often produced spontaneously.
Repetition, hesitation and redundancy in spoken
discourse
Spoken discourse involves repetition, hesitation and
redundancy than written discourse. It is produced in real
time.
It also involves fillers leke “hhh,er, you see”.