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03 - Discourse Analysis
03 - Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis
ORGANISATION: - the arrangement of ideas and the relationship within them in a script
coherence: not all cues are present in the text, background knowledge is required
Coherence
the logical progression of the ideas from the beginning to the end of a script or a paragraph
in a coherent text: each paragraph leads into another and each idea within a paragraph leads into the
the logical arrangement of the ideas varies according to the writer’s purpose
1. A coherent text has an overarching theme or topic. All sentences in the text must be related to
2. Concept of continuity: sentences and paragraphs are logically connected with logical
co-ordination (restatements)
3. Information structure: emphasizing important info, presenting new info, choosing a pace to
Unity
contributes to the smooth flow of the ideas and is usually assessed together with coherence
in a unified paragraph all the sentences relate to the topic of the paragraph, and in a unified script
the explicit marking of the grammatical and lexical relationships between parts of a sentence,
can be established with several techniques: cohesive devices (formal links between sentences and
between clauses)
1. REFERENCE
the writer can refer back to something mentioned earlier (called anaphoric
reference)
cataphoric: Although she was the youngest, Sheila thought she was the smartest.
2. SUBSTITUTION
the words typically used to replaced in other word(s) are one, do, or so
o nominal: one/ones
o verbal: do (so)
3. ELLIPSIS
the words referred to are replaced with nothing because the sentences can be
understood as the missing words have already been mentioned and consequently are
unnecessary
4. CONJUNCTION
conjunctions have a meaning of their own
adversative (but)
causal (so)
5. LEXICAL COHESION
nouns involved in lexical cohesion may have the same common referent (red and crimson both
can be expressed via repetition, use of synonym, a superordinate, a general word, an antonym, a
meronym (saying wheel instead of car), an opposite (question vs answer), words in ordered series
(days of the week), unordered lexical sets (parts of the body) and collocates (bee and honey =
o Importance:
Genre: texts that are related to certain situations of use + share distinct external characteristics (e.g a poem’s
text is aligned in the middle, lines don’t necessarily have to have punctuation lines at the end, etc). Genre
denotes a class of conventionalized texts that have similar communicative purposes, structure, content, style
Complex genres: they unite different genres in a comprehensive whole. E.g. church service mixture of
Part genre: sections of a genre that may stand alone (research article abstract) OR have been studied separately
from the genre to which they belong (the intro or conclusion of a research article).
Sub genre: shared features but different communicative purposes (letter: inquiry, complaint, etc) or different
reports.
- text type: closed set. Genres are made up of different text types.
Text type: a class of texts that have similar internal linguistic features and rhetorical structure to fulfil shared
purposes. You can’t recognize text types just by looking at them, you need to read and understand them.
- narrative
- descriptive
- argumentative
- instructive
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GENRE AND TEXT TXPE: genres are a larger unit and text types are the
constituents of this unit. Text types don’t belong to one genre only. One genre contains several text types. A
novel contains narration and description, maybe comparison and contrast. A review article can be descriptive,
expository and argumentative. However, in most texts, one text type is the most prominent dominant text
- determining what kind of information we have and check organization options based on that
Organizational patterns help with written text production, improves reading and preparing written summaries.
1. Organizing content based on text types
1.1. Narrative
This text type is typically used to give an account of events in an orderly manner. E.g. in narrative essays,
reports and research papers (especially in History). Organizational principle: strict chronological order
writing down what happened from start to finish. Adverbs can help (first, second, last, soon), adverbial clauses
of time (before the questionnaire was handed out..) and verbs in various tense forms.
Helping questions for narrative text types: What happened? With who? Where? How? When?
1.2. Descriptive
Capturing characteristics of a given object. As a text type, the organizational principle can be spatial order (top-
to-bottom, inside-to-outside) or non-spatial. In terms of lexico-grammatical features, this text uses nouns,
Static description:
- subjective description: writers’ personal response to something (e.g. impressions on a literary work)
Helping questions: what does it look like? what are its characteristics?
1.3. Argumentative
Asserting a position, belief or conclusion in a reasoned and logical position. Usually the dominant text type of
academic texts. Organizational pattern: claim/support (info that no one can question) first. Typical elements:
qualifiers (definitely, probably) to indicate the strength of the claim. Conclusion indicators (therefore,
1.4. Expository
Several text types (sub-patterns) with the aim to reveal and explain.
How sg is done, explaining the fixed steps. Strict chronological order. E.g. explaining the data collection in a
research paper.
Presenting reasons why something happened / making predictions. E.g. in medical research papers. 2 patterns:
cause-to-effect or effect-to-cause.
Cause-to-effect: the cause is known and the writer has to establish the effects.
1.4.3. Exemplification
development of the content: general statement is presented first and then is illustrated and supported by
examples. In order for it to be effective, the general statement must be followed by a sufficient number of
typical, accurate, relevant and documented examples. Phrases: for instance, for example, to illustrate..
Reveals relationships between a whole and its parts. Different logic pattern:
Two functions: to show the similarity and the difference between two thins. Organizational patterns:
Block-by-block=clustered (listing 2 entities and compare them by each characteristic feature) or point-by-
1.4.6. Definition
Explaining the meaning of a term or idea. Long definition- = extended definition. Organizational principle:
exemplification, comparison, contrast… any text type (or a combo of them) can be a definition strategy. In
an academic text, a definition can be isolated or dispersed. Isolated: a particular part of the text provides an
explanation for the concept which the writer will use. Dispersed: extended definition, can range from
A set of organization patters whose members consist of a minimum of two main parts that are compulsory,
Elements: situation, problem, solution, evaluation. Common terms are “unfortunately, lack of…, incomplete”
or any other terms indicating that there is a problem that needs to be solved.
Elements: situation, goal, method of achievement, evaluation and/or result. There is a goal that writers want to
achieve, and they present how it can be done. Terms: want to, aim, objective, etc.
Elements: situation, gap in the knowledge, filling the gap, evaluation. Writing about something that is not
known or undecided.
Elements: situation, question, answer and evaluation. Models the active reading process readers also have
- if the further options were not suitable for the writing purpose, writers have to analyze what kind of
information they have, and then invent an organizational principle that suits the purpose. Some
examples are…
Organizing ideas based on how specific or general they are. One possible way: introducing a general statement
first and then presenting particular details (explanations or illustrations). This order can be reversed.
3.2. Enumeration
Transforming a list of related items into continuous text. Fact, features, examples, reasons and connectors (first,
Ordering content from most frequent to least frequent or in reverse. E.g. when discussing changes (e.g. in
internet usage trends), writers can start with least frequent to most frequent to emphasize the last item.
Most-to-least important or vice versa. Terms: most importantly, even more, etc.
Celce-Murcia, M., & Olshtain, E. (2000). Discourse and context in language teaching.
Discourse
Formal definition: a unit of coherent language consisting of more than one sentence.
Functional definition: language in use.
Both are deficient on their own:
“No smoking” can be discourse – really short
we don’t always need the notion of sentences
language in use is far too vague
it presupposes that we know what language is.
we need to combine the two
discourse – “A piece of discourse is an instance of spoken or written language that has describable internal
relationships of form and meaning (e.g., words, structures, cohesion) that relate coherently to an external
communicative function or purpose and a given audience/interlocutor.”
We need context and information on participants to specify the communicative function or purpose.
1960s-1970s:
text linguistics – mostly dealt with written discourse
discourse analysis – a more cognitive and social perspective on language use and communication exchange,
included spoken & written discourse
trends in discourse analysis:
extension of grammatical analysis to include functional goals
o theoretical approach
o can be related to:
formal linguistics
systemic linguistics
the study of institutionalized language use within specific cultural setting
o actual conversations in institutionalized situations (contracts, doctor-patient interaction)
in this book: discourse analysis is "an umbrella-term for all issues that have been dealt with in the linguistic
study of text and discourse” (ÖSTMAN & VIRTANEN)
Classifying discourse
- by medium / channel: written or spoken
- written or spoken
- by discourse planning:
planned (letters)
unplanned (most conversations, personal letters, etc.)
- by context:
context-embedded (interlocutors rely heavily on their knowledge of the situation)
o usually unplanned ones
context-reduced / decontextualized (discourse is removed from its context, relies more heavily on linguistic
knowledge)
o usually planned, usually literate spoken or written texts
- by function:
transactional (goal: transmit information, exchange of goods/services)
interactional (goal: maintain social relationships)
Information structure
theme / topic (old information –what the discourse is going to be about)
rheme / comment (new information – what the discourse shares about the theme /topic)
One sentence’s topic might become a comment in the next one (and vice versa)
Turn taking
It may be different in different (sub)cultures.
The conversational turn-taking system of any language includes conventions governing matters such as:
how conversations open and close
who speaks when and for how long
who can interrupt (and how this is done)
how topics get changed
how much time can elapse between turns or between speakers
whether or not speakers can overlap
and whether or not speakers can complete or repair each other's utterances
adjacency pairs – the first speaker says something that conventionally requires of the interlocutor a response
that is often partly predictable.
E.g. greetings
1. Hello, how are you?
2. Fine, thanks.
They might have two options for the second part (e.g. invitation + refusal/acceptance; request for
confirmation + confirmation, disconfirmation).
Context
"the events that are going on around when people speak (and write)." HALLIDAY
Discourse analysis of context: entails the linguistic and cognitive choices made relevant to the interaction at
hand.
Pragmatic analysis of context: the participants taking part in the interaction, the relevant sociocultural
background, any physical-situational elements that may have some bearing on the exchange.
Shared knowledge
most important in everyday speech
In informal contexts shared knowledge can make the discourse almost non-understandable for “outsiders”.
In formal situations, participants rely more heavily on physical context.
Where context is not available (e.g. written discourse) we rely very heavily on the text itself and our prior
knowledge.
In classrooms context-reduced texts are rarely presented along with the necessary background to help
students interpret it. It’d have benefits though:
learning to interpret more difficult texts
learning about the background (often history, culture, etc.)
Contextualized and interactive language use can be acquired in 2-3 years with optimal circumstances.
Decontextualized uses take 5-7 years (higher level of proficiency is required).