Definition of Discourse
Discourse can be defined as a unit of expression in verbal or written mode.
Cameron's definition: Discourse can be defined as “language in use: language used to do something and mean something,
language produced and interpreted in a real-world context” (Cameron, 2001, p. 13).
Definition of Discourse Analysis
1. Brown and Yule (1983): Discourse analysis is the analysis of language in use, which cannot be restricted to the description of
linguistic forms independent of their purposes or functions in human affairs.
2. Stubbs (1983a): Discourse analysis consists of attempts to study the organization of language above the sentence or above the
clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written texts.
Text and Texture
Text
A text is everything that is meaningful in a particular situation. It has to make sense.
Characteristics of Text
1. Meaning: A text has to be meaningful.
- Example: A shopping list with items like "milk", "spaghetti", and "tomatoes" is meaningful because it conveys a specific
purpose.
2. Choice: A text is based on choices made from a set of alternatives.
- Example: Choosing to write "milk" instead of "juice" on a shopping list.
3. Relationships: A text is characterized by relationships between words, sentences, and other elements.
- Example: The words "milk", "spaghetti", and "tomatoes" are related because they are all items on a shopping list.
Texture
Texture refers to the quality that makes a particular set of words or sentences a text, rather than a random collection of linguistic
items.
Features of Texture
1. Internal Features: Features inherent in the language itself, such as grammatical rules.
- Example: The use of conjunctions like "and" to connect items on a shopping list.
2. External Features: Conventions of communication in a given society, which help us to work out relationships among words,
sentences, and other textual elements.
- Example: The convention of using a list format for shopping lists.
Types of Relationships
1. Cohesion: Relationships between words, sentences, or other elements inside the text.
- Example: The use of repetition, such as using "I" throughout a personal essay.
2. Coherence: Relationships between the text and the person who is reading it or using it in some way.
- Example: Understanding the purpose of a shopping list and how it relates to one's daily life.
3. Intertextuality: Relationships between one text and other texts in the world.
- Example: A recipe book that references other cookbooks or websites.
Text and their social function
Texts are not just random collections of words, but are shaped by social contexts and purposes.
Genre Analysis
The study of the social functions of different kinds of texts is called genre analysis.
Definition of Genre
A genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purposes identified and mutually
understood by members of the community in which it occurs.
Key Aspects of Genre
1. Communicative Event: Genres are not defined as types of texts, but rather as types of communicative events.
2. Constraints: Genres are characterized by constraints on what can and cannot be done within them.
3. Creative Exploitation: Expert users often exploit these constraints in creative and unexpected ways.
Examples of Genres
1. Newspaper articles 2. Film genres (e.g. westerns, love stories, horror movies) 3. Academic texts (e.g. essays, research
papers)
Importance of Genre
Understanding genre helps us to understand the social contexts and purposes of texts, and how they are used to communicate
meaning.
Quote from Vijay Bhatia
"A genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purposes identified and mutually
understood by members of the community in which it occurs." (Bhatia 1993:13)
Genres as Communicative Events
Genres are not just types of texts, but rather communicative events that involve people doing things with or to other people.
Texts as Events
Seeing texts as events highlights the fact that all texts are instances of people communicating with each other to achieve a
particular purpose.
Examples of Texts as Events
1. A newspaper article is an instance of someone informing someone else about a recent event.
2. A recipe is an instance of someone instructing another person how to prepare a particular kind of food.
3. A job application letter is an instance of someone requesting that another person give him or her a job.
Quote from Martin (1985)
"Genres are how things get done, when language is used to accomplish them."
Multiple and Complex Communicative Purposes
Most texts are not just trying to achieve one thing, but rather have multiple and complex communicative purposes.
Examples of Multiple Purposes
1. A recipe may be persuading you to make a certain dish as much as it is instructing you how to do it.
2. A newspaper article might be attempting not just to inform you about a particular event, but also to affect your opinion about it.
Different Purposes for Different Users
The different people using the text might also have different purposes in mind.
Example of Different Purposes for Different Users
1. A job applicant sees his or her application letter as a way to convince a prospective employer to hire him or her.
2. The employer might see the very same application letter as a means of "weeding out" unsuitable candidates.
Conventions and Constraints
Genres come with built-in constraints on what kinds of things they can include and what kinds of things they cannot, based on the
activity they are trying to accomplish.
Examples of Constraints
1. A job application letter would not typically include a recipe for chocolate brownies or an opinion about a current event.
2. The information in a job application letter should be presented in a certain order, beginning with the post being applied for,
followed by qualifications and experience, and ending with a request for an interview.
Move Structure
The order in which things are done in a genre, known as the move structure, often determines how successfully the
communicative purpose of the genre is fulfilled.
Importance of Conventions and Constraints
1. Efficiency: Conventions and constraints make communicative events more efficient.
2. Demonstration of Knowledge: Following conventions and constraints demonstrates that the person producing the text knows
"how we do things".
Social Implications
The ability to successfully produce a particular genre following certain conventions is taken as an indication that the writer is a
"certain kind of person" with a certain level of education who "knows how to communicate like us".
Creativity
Definition
Creativity involves breaking the rules, defying conventions, and pushing the boundaries of constraints to produce successful texts.
Key Features
- Expert producers of texts can mix different kinds of texts together, embed one genre into another, or alter the moves that are
included or the order in which they are presented.
- There are limitations to how much a genre can be altered and still be successful.
- Creativity would not be possible without the existence of conventions and constraints.
- Innovations are effective because they "play off" or exploit previously formed expectations.
Relationship to Communicative Purpose and Context
Creativity must have some relationship to the communicative purpose of the genre and the context in which it is used. For
example, writing a job application letter in the form of a sonnet may be more effective for a job as an editor at a literary magazine
than as a software engineer.
Expertise
Being able to successfully "bend" and "blend" genres is a marker of expertise. To break the rules effectively, one must also be
able to show that they have mastered the rules.
Discourse Communities
Definition
Discourse communities are groups of people who share common goals and common means of reaching those goals (genres).
Key Features
- Genres are associated with certain groups of people that have certain common goals and common ways of reaching those goals.
- Members of discourse communities have common goals and common means of reaching those goals (genres).
Characteristics
- Expert members who socialize new members into "how things are done".
- Members have ways of regularly communicating with and providing feedback to one another.
- Members tend to share a certain vocabulary or "jargon".
Regulation and Control
Genres help regulate and control what people can do and who people can be in various contexts. The goals of the community and
the ways those goals are to be accomplished are "built-in" to the texts that members of a discourse community use on a daily
basis. Mastery of the genre is a requirement for membership, and texts always create certain kinds of relationships between those
who have produced them and those who are using them.
Language and 'Social Practice'
The third aspect of discourse has to do with the role of language in 'social practice'.
Language as Part of Larger Systems
Language is seen not just as a system for making meaning, but as part of larger systems through which people construct social
identities and social realities.
Different Language Use
Different people use language in different ways, which helps to show who we are and reflects our different ideas about the world,
different beliefs, and different values.
Michel Foucault's View
Michel Foucault argued that discourse is the main tool through which we construct 'knowledge' and exert power over other
people.
Different Discourses
Different kinds of discourse (or 'discourses') are associated with different kinds of people and different 'systems of knowledge'.
James Gee's View
James Gee uses a capital 'D' to distinguish this view of discourse from others, and defines 'Discourses' as 'ways of being in the
world, or forms of life which integrate words, acts, values, beliefs, attitudes, and social identities'.
Exploring Discourse
This aspect of discourse leads us to explore how people use language to advance certain versions of reality and certain
relationships of power, and also how our beliefs, values, and social institutions are constructed through and supported by
discourse.
Ideological Discourse
A central principle of this view of discourse is that discourse is always 'ideological', meaning that discourse always has 'an
agenda', that it always ends up serving the interests of certain people over those of others.
Importance of Multiple Perspectives
It is difficult to look at discourse in any meaningful way from only one perspective, and broad statements about 'power' or
'ideology' in a text cannot be made without first understanding some basic things about how the text is put together and how
people are actually using it in specific social contexts to perform specific actions.
Discourse Markers
Definition: A, discourse marker is a word or a phrase that plays a role in managing the flow and structure of discourse. Since
their main function is at the level of discourse rather than at the level of utterances or sentences, discourse markers are
relatively syntax-independent and usually do not change the truth conditional meaning of the sentence.
* Discourse markers could be used to 'stabilize conversation with different meanings so that there is no vacuum 'period' during
the conversation, and it makes the flow of conversation run smoothly.
* The term discourse marker was coined by Deborah Schiffrin in her 1988 bookDiscourse Markers.
*Discourse markers are words and phrases used in speaking and writing to'signpost' discourse. Discourse markers do this by
showing turns, joining ideas together, showing attitude, and generally controlling communication.
Some people regard discourse markers as a feature of spoken language only.
* These Discourse markers are the words and phrases outside of the clause structure, that function to link segments of the
discourse to one another in ways which reflect choices of monitoring, organization and management exercised by the speaker.
* Discourse markers are used less frequently in speech, unless the speech is very formal.
Use of Discourse Markers
* The use of discourse markers could make conversation more interesting, more understandable, and even more polite, and
more powerful, though it won't change its grammatical meaning.
* It can be read from Fraser's statement: 'the absence of the discourse marker does not render a sentence ungrammatical
and /or unintelligible. It does, however, remove a powerful clue about what commitment the speaker makes regarding the
relationship between the current utterance and the prior discourse' (Fraser, 1988:22).
* From that statement,we can see that discourse marker can makeconversation easier, and more interesting to be discussed.
Common discourse markers
Discourse markersoften come from different word classes,suchas adverbs ("well") or prepositional phrases ("in fact").
* The most common discourse markers in everyday informal spoken language:
* Single words: anyway, cos, fine, good, great, like, now, oh, okay, right, so, well
* Phrasal and clausal items: you know, I mean, as I say. for a start, mind you.
* Items such as well and right were within the top 50 most frequently occurring words because of their high frequency as
discourse markers in conversation.
Basic features of Discourse Markers
Hulker (1991: 78-79) draws attention that there are four basic features that characterize discourse markers:
(1) they do not affect the truth conditions of an utterance;
(2) they do not add anything to the propositional content of an utterance;
(3) they are related to the speech situation and not to the situation talked about; and
(4) they have an emotive, expressive function rather than a referential, denotative, or cognitive function.
(5) For that reason, the use of discourse markers can make discourse to be explored widely, since the use of them has different
functions.
Characteristics of discourse markers, according to Brinton (1996) and Jucker & Ziv (1998) are:
a. Discourse markers are predominantly a feature of oral rather than of written discourse.
b. They appear with high frequency in oral discourse.
c. They are short and phonologically reduced items.
d. They may occur sentence initially, sentence medially and finally as well.
e. They are considered to have little or no prepositional meaning, or at least to be difficult to specify lexically.
f. As discourse markers may occur outside the syntactic structure or loosely attached to it, they have no clear grammatical
function.
g. They seem to be optional rather than obligatory features of discourse. Their absence "does not render a sentence
ungrammatical and/or unintelligible but does "remove a powerful clue" (Fraser,
1988, p. 22 as cited by Brinton, 1996. p. 34).
h. They may be multifunctional, operating on the local and global levels simultaneously though it is difficult to differentiate a
pragmatically motivated from a non pragmatically motivated use of the form.
Discourse markers in spoken English
Discourse markers are linking words or phrases used in speaking and writing that direct the flow of the conversation or discourse
in various ways.
The following is a comprehensive list of examples.
* To start and to end conversation: So,.. Right,. Well,.. Now, ... Ok,...
* To change topic or return to the topic: By the way/incidentally,.... Well, anyway...
* To repeat what I said before: Like / said..... As / say....
* To continue with the same topic: that reminds me,...
* Ordering or sequencing what we say: In general,... And then,.... First (of all)/firstly
* Saying something in another way: Well,... I mean,.... In other words,..
*Shared knowledge: You know... You know what I mean... You see,... ete.