The Application of Discourse Analysis to
Materials Design for Language Teaching
Ben Fenton-Smith
Presented by: Mehran Daghestani
What we know
The term ‘discourse’ was invoked to refer to text in a
wider sense - as language with meaning in context. This
altered focus, towards texts with communicative
purposes in the social world, underlies both
contemporary discourse analysis and CLT. The influence
of discourse analysis on materials design is evident in
many ways (to the extent that most CLT tasks are
effectively discourse analysis activities).
To begin with, texts of various shapes and sizes have
become objects of study. When focused on formal
properties, sentences or clauses are reasonable base
units of analysis, since grammar is conveniently and
tightly packed there. However, from a discourse
perspective, texts of all shapes and sizes have
recognizable identities and purposes. Even a single,
muffled grunt from a sleeping person could constitute a
complete, fully comprehensible, and culturally familiar
text - for example, when interpreted as someone
expressing unease over a bad dream. Equally. PhD
dissertations and Russian novels are recognizable
discourse units.
Spoken discourse is particularly free-flowing and was
neglected in language teaching, at least in comparison
to its written counterpart, until developments in
discourse analysis elevated its status. Burns et al.(1996)
point out that in the past many teaching materials,
such as contrived versions of spoken texts, were ‘based
on traditional grammars of written English’(p.44).
Differences between Spoken and Written
Discourse
 Grammatical intricacy (speech tends to have a more
complex architecture of clauses)
 Lexical density (written discourse tends to have a
higher ratio of content words to grammatical words)
 Nominalization (the repackaging of actions/events as
nouns rather than verbs is a feature of written
discourse)
 Explicitness (indirectness and inference are common
in spoken discourse)
 Contextualization (spoken and written genres vary in
the extent to which a shared context is required to
make sense of the text)
 Spontaneity (spoken discourse has less opportunity
for conscious planning)
What We Think We Know
In some ways, however, discourse knowledge has
further complicated the language teaching field. Three
areas of continuing contention are grammar,
authenticity and critical pedagogy.
Grammar
Attempts to place CLT within a theory of
‘communicative competence’ have troubled over a
suitable approach to lexicogrammar. As Canale(1983)
concedes: 'It is still not clear that any current theory of
grammar can be selected over others to characterize
this competence nor in what ways a theory of grammar
is directly relevant for second language pedagogy’
In a sense CLT has become decoupled from discourse
analysis because the essential link between the internal
encodings of the language and the contexts m which
these resources can be appropriately realized has been
neglected. Widdowson views the 'central issue of CLT'
as being how learners can be made aware of ‘how this
relationship works‘.
Authenticity
The most common definition of the word ‘authentic’ by
Morrow(1997):
‘ a stretch of real language, produced by a real
speaker or writer for a real audience and designed to
convey a real message of some sort’.
The discourse approach gels with the use of authentic
materials because it makes naturally occurring language
the focus of learners’ attention. As Burns et al. (1996)
state:
 Contrived materials rarely reflect the structure of
natural spoken discourse
 Contrived materials are usually based on materials
writers’ unreliable intuitions about what natural
discourse is
 Contrived materials are often based on traditional
grammars of written English
 Contrived materials are often designed around target
structures or functions to suit syllabi
 What are some arguments and counter
arguments around the concept of
authenticity?
 Gilmore(2007) adds that authentic materials are
often preferred in the belief they are more
motivating for learners, although he notes there is
little empirical evidence to support this.
Several points have been raised by Widdowson (1994,
1998, 2007a) in opposition to preference for authentic
materials.
 First privileging the authentic can privilege native
speakers since exemplars will inevitably be native
speaker productions, such as newspaper reports and
advertisements.
 Second, non-native teachers, who for many reasons
are better suited to instructing fellow non-natives,
will be sublined, lacking the capability to handle
nuanced, idiomatic discourse
 Another of Widdowson's arguments is that discourse
is authentic only in the context it originates: that is,
for students, language-made-for-learning is real for
their context. While this may be so, Gilmore (2007) is
right to insist that we need to limit the definition of
authenticity to some 'objectifiable criteria since,
once we start including subjective notions such as
learner authentication, any discourse can be called
authentic and the term becomes meaningless' (p 98)
 The last of Widdowson's objections is a common
sense (but sometimes overlooked) reminder that a
piece of language is not necessarily the most
appropriate for learners just because it has been
performed. The primary guiding principle for
materials design should always be the learning
purpose. Thus, believing that learners benefit from
exposure to real language does not preclude the use
of contrived material, and indeed most discourse
analysis books contain made- up examples too.
Critical Discourse Teaching
By adding ‘critical’ to discourse analysis, the focus shifts
from language to society.
CDA’s main tenets (Blommaert 2005,pp. 25-6):
 Discourse is not benign-It is an ideological, nontransparent ‘instrument of power’
 CDA can denaturalize discourse practices through the
analysis of power relationships
 CDA targets topics where the intersection of
language and social structure have the most impact:
for example, politics, racism, gender, economics and
media
What is the CDA’s place in a language learning
programme-if any?
CDA does have a place in language learning. While
outright advocacy is odious, excessively anodyne
materials can be equally dull. Additionally, any act of
materials design constitutes an ideological statement,
since all materials represent a worldview of some kind.
Letting students in on that secret is a good thing. The
function of discourse in constructing and perpetuating
social structures is beyond argument and therefore has
a place in language programmes. But the teacher's role
is to provide the tools for analysis - not prescribe the
analysis itself.
What we need to find out
Because discourse perpetually evolves, research on
new discourse forms is continually required .This entails
estimation of common/significant contexts students
will face through their lives and materials that equip
learners
with
the
tools
(lexicogrammatical,
sociolinguistic, generic, etc.) needed to operate in
them.
One way we obtain information on language-in-use is
by referring to large corpora, such as the British
National Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary
American English. The mapping of discourses will be
enhanced as corpora relevant to more discourse
communities build around the world, along with the
technology for using them. But although corpora have
the potential to alter language policy and provide
resources for materials designers, the extent to which
teachers currently utilize them is questionable.
It is dangerous to conceptualize the future of materials
design as a dialogue only between academics (discourse
analysts) and teachers (including materials designers), as
this excludes the student voice.
 It is possible to conflate one’s teaching philosophies
with students’ learning preferences.
The meaning of the term 'discourse’ itself is continually
metamorphosing, and this too has repercussions for
materials design
An expanded conception of discourse could now
include, for example, multimodal forms of expression.
Thus Fairclough2010, p 530) argues that education
programmes need to incorporate a critical awareness
of discourse which includes other forms of semiosis as
well as language: visual images in particular are an
increasingly important feature of contemporary
discourse.
The Current Match Between Published
Materials
Most commercial textbooks and resource books display
the influence of discourse studies. A representative
example is New Headway (Soars & Soars, 2005). It is
divided into 12 units, each 8-10pages long, with
broadly relevant, inoffensive themes (e. g. 'No place
like home’, ‘Forever friends').
On the surface these themes approximate contexts-foruse, but in fact are literary devices. As rationales for
otherwise disjointed narratives, they link an array of minicontexts and text types that have no other necessary
connection. Each contrived situation or text is elaborated a
variety of language activities.
Yet it is surprising how many books on discourse
analysis pay little attention to its connection to
language teaching .There is, arguably, an
onus(responsibility) on those who convene discourse
analysis courses to ask ‘In what profession will my
students most likely apply the principles of discourse
analysis?' The answer: language teaching.
Suggestions for Materials Development
Applications
There are several ways in which discourse analysis can
be conceptualized and practiced in materials design,
depending on the materials writer's objectives.
1.Form/Function matching exercise. This is the most
basic and familiar in commercial textbooks. An
example, from New Headway (Soars & Soars, 2005)
Unit 3 ("What a story!')
 Showing interest and surprise. Students listen to (and
fill in the gaps of) a dialogue which interlocutors
express interest/surprise about personal news. They
then learn how 'echo' and 'reply' questions have been
used to fulfil the communicative functions and consider
the role of intonation and stress in realizing the
question forms. Finally, they complete further
dialogues applying the question types.
2. A second type focuses on micro skills while still
maintaining a broader discourse perspective. For example:
 Vocabulary. Discourse fields are partly defined by the
recurrence of lexical items, so learning is facilitated by
specialized frequency word lists. For example, Wang et
al., (2008) provide a medical academic word list to aid
students of medical English.
 Pronunciation. In a discourse-driven syllabus, the
question is not necessarily whether a learner's
pronunciation approximates native-speaker norms.
Rather, it is 'Does pronunciation impede( delay,
stop) communication in this context?' Materials are
developed that raise awareness of this fact or target
trouble spots.
3. A third approach is to focus on whole genres,
typically of an academic or professional nature:
 Academic. Some genres are well documented, such
as
the
traditional
five-paragraph
(introduction/body/conclusion paragraphs, thesis
statements, topic sentences, etc.)- more work is
needed on varieties of discipline-specific texts.
 Professional. English for specific/professional
purposes is a growth area, with an increasing number
of genres of professional writing being documented. It
is more difficult to obtain or develop models of
spoken interactions.
4. The 'systemic-functional' tradition (Halliday &
Matthiessen, 2004; Martin & Rose, 2003).For example:
 Clause Structure. Butt el al (2000) present an
introductory, step-by-step guide for learning how to
define clause boundaries and clause types, along
with texts to work on. The same process can be
adapted to any group of learners using different texts
that are closer to interests/experiences.
5. Raise learners’ awareness of the principles of
pragmatics through text analysis tasks. For example:
 Politeness. Students are given a reason for needing
to contact a teacher/lecturer (e.g. to enquire about
assignment specifications). They then evaluate a
collection of sample emails. which vary in tone,
formality, structure, etc. and decide which is the
most appropriate. Finally, students compose their
own example.
6. Within the critical discourse/critical pedagogy tradition,
the objective of the materials designer could be to develop
the learner’s capacity to critique society itself. The goal is
to understand that language structures reflect and
perpetuate sociocultural structures. For example:
 Identity. Learners examine how individuals/groups are
identified in separate accounts of the same event(e.g. a
major speech by a US president, covered in
western/non-western news papers), and consider what
the date says about the worldviews of the sources.
7. The most readily available source of authentic (but nonnative), contextually appropriate, student-centred
discourse is students' own work.
It is common practice in second language writing classes
for students to critique their drafts and those of
classmates.
An Example of Materials Development
Application
There is an example of materials developed for a large
scale EAP project. This was conducted at Griffith
University with a student population of 43,000 of
whom approximately 20 percent come from overseas.
The university executive commissioned the creation of
four ‘English language enhancement courses’(ELECs) to
boost the oral and written English language skills of
international students and to maximize their chances of
succeeding in their academic studies.
The courses were aligned with the university’s major
academic groupings:
 English Language and Communication for Business
and Commerce
 English Language and Communication for Health
 English Language and Communication for Science,
Environment, Engineering and Technology
 English Language and Communication for Arts and
Social Sciences
An example of the materials that resulted from this
design process is a lesson on the language of academic
journal articles for students of health sciences. As
preparation for class, students read a model, authentic
text (cited by Polit & Beck, 2010, as a good example of
the discourse of nursing research):
Howell, C., Rice, M., Carmon, M., Pickett Hauber, R.
(2007), The relationships among anxiety, anger, and
blood pressure in children'. Applied Nursing Research,
20,17-23
Task 1
1. Prior to coming to Griffith University, how much
journal reading experience did you have?
Have you had to read many journal articles in your
courses so far? How easy/difficult is reading journal
articles for you?
2. Who reads and who writes the research contained in
academic journals? Only academics?
3. What are the purposes of these texts?
4.Many research articles in academic journals have a
predictable structure. What do you think it is? (Hint:
the letters IMRaD might help you.)
Students then worked through a number of exercises
that guided text analysis at multiple levels, ranging
from specific focus on key lexical and grammatical
features, to the rhetorical functions of, and relations
between, sentences, to the organization of
paragraphs/mam sections. Tasks 2-5 demonstrate how
this was done for the model text's literature review
section.
 Task 1 focuses on context, purpose, forms and
functions of the overall text.
Task 2
What is the overall structure of the literature review
in Howell et al. (2007)? Look at Section 2 of the
article and complete the pyramid diagram by
adding subsection titles. Then decide: Has the
literature review been organized according to the
methodology of previous studies, the chronology of
previous studies or the conceptual focus of previous
studies?
 Task 2 focuses on the overall structure and
function of one stage of the text.
review of
literature
b.
a.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
Task 3
Read the first paragraph of the literature review.
a Which sentence identifies a gap in the previous
research?
b Which sentence uses the identification of a
knowledge gap to justify the study?
 Task 3 focuses on rhetorical construction at the
paragraph and sentence level.
Task 4
Look at the first sentences of subsections 2.1.1, 2.1.2
and 2.1.3. What purpose do these sentences serve in
the text?
 Task 4 focuses on rhetorical construction at the
paragraph and sentence level.
Task 5
Let us look at patterns of subject + verb in the literature
review. Below are two tables containing parts of
sentences from that section. In some cases, verbs are
missing, in other cases, subjects are missing. Look in
the text to complete the missing boxes then write a
short answer to 3 question below Table 9.2.
 Task 5 focuses on patterns in grammar and lexis.
 The focus was receptive discourse skills:
understanding and deconstructing texts.
Question related to task 5(Tables 9.1 and 9.2):
Do you notice any patterns in the language? How do the two
tables differ?
Objective of the Activities
 The main objective of the activities was to expose
students to a range of discourse features relevant to
their university studies.
Key Features of the Materials
context - understanding how the text links to context
but also to users, producers and the learner
him/herself.
purpose - understanding the functional motivations
of the overall text and of its specific parts
Staging- understanding how the text typically
unfolds and the extent to which the stage are
variable
lexis and grammar- understanding patterns in
wording that typically occur within the text type.
authenticity- understanding what real texts are like
in contexts likely to be encountered