Discourse and discourse analysis

The need to be able to use language that is

appropriate to the social context has become a
central focus for teachers and researchers.

Using a language :
involves something beyond the acquisition of
structure and the ability to make appropriate
choices in the realization of particular language
functions;
depends crucially on the ability to produce
utterances that fit or make sense within a given
stretch of discourse, and the ability to interpret the
meaning of utterances thus produced by others.
 Discourse and discourse analysis
 1. the use of “utterance” instead of “sentence”.
 “Utterance” is used to describe what people actually say or
write in connected discourse.
 (in DISCOURSE)what is said by any one person before or
after another person begins to speak. For example, an
utterance may consist of:
 a. one word b. one sentence c. more than one sentence

 “Sentence” the largest unit of grammatical organization

within which parts of speech(e.g. nouns, verbs,adverbs)
and grammatical classes (e.g. word, phrase, clause)are
said to function. In English a sentence normally contains
one independent clause with a FINITE VERB. Units which
are larger than the sentence(e.g. paragraph)are regarded
as examples of DISCOURSE.
 Discourse and discourse analysis
 2. the importance of context in interpreting ideational ( 达意
的） or propositional （命题的） meaning as well as
functional meaning.

When people speak or write they express a proposition (a

statement, an assertion about something or other), and at
the same time they perform an illocutionary act
(requesting, refusing, approving, insisting, and so on).This
illocutionary act may or may not be specified but it is
always performed. We are always speaking (or writing)
intentionally.

We are generally required to use our knowledge of the

language system in order to achieve some kind of
communicative purpose. That is to say, we are generally
called upon to produce instances of language use: we do
not simply manifest the abstract system of the language
[as instances of usage], we at the same time realize it as
meaningful communicative behaviour. (Widdowson 1978:3)
Discourse and discourse analysis
♦ Discourse: a general term for examples of
language use, i.e. language which has been
produced as the result of an act of
communication.
♦ Discourse analysis: the study of how
senteces in spoken and written language
form larger meaninful units such as
paragraphs, conversations, interview, etc.
Discourse and discourse analysis
Discourse analysis deals with:
♦ how the choice of articles, pronouns, and tenses affects the
structure of the discourse;( 冠词、代名 词和时态的选择如
何影响话语的结构）
♦ the relationship between utterances in a discourse; （话语
内语句之间的关系）
♦ the MOVES made by speakers to introduce a new topic,
change the topic, or assert a higher ROLE RELATIONSHIP
to the other participants （说话者为引入新的话题，改变话
题或同其他参与者保持更高的角色关系所作的话步 )
♦ the study of discourse must involve a study of every aspect
of language ： distinctions between semantics and
pragmatics, between “sentence” grammar and “text”
grammar, etc.
Discourse and discourse analysis
Second language acquisition research: a fresh
approach.(Not fresh any more.)

Language education and discourse analysis:

Capacity(Widdowson): the ability to use a knowledge
of language as a resource for the creation of
meaning.
Competence: what the grammarian represents as
language knowledge, but not to the language
user’s mode of knowing.
 schema
 An active organisation of past reactions, or of past
experiences, which must always be supposed to
be operating in any well-adapted organic
response. That is, wherever there is any order or
regularity of behaviour, a particular response is
possible only because it is related to other similar
responses which have been serially organized, yet
which operate, not simply as individual members
coming
one after another, but as a unitary mass.
 schema
 A schema is a mental framework based on past
experience developed as a means of
accommodating new facts, and hence making
sense of them.
 Schiffrin(1994): a view of the means by which …
presuppositions are externally constructed and
impose external constraints on the ways in which
we understand messages.
 the organised background knowledge which leads
us to expect or predict aspects in our interpretation
of discourse
 Schema/schemata (Widdowson 1983)
 Schema: a stereotypic pattern derived from
instances of past experience which
organizes language in preparation for use.
 Schemata can be thought of in two ways: in
relation to the propositional content of
discourse, as frames of reference; in
relation to the illocutionary content, as
rhetorical( 修辞的 ) routines.
 Cooperative principle (Grice 1975)
 Conversational maxim( 会话准则 ): an unwritten rule
about conversatoin which people know and which
influences the form of conversational exchanges. The
use of conversational maxims to imply meaning during
conversation is called conversational implicature, and
the “co-operation” between speakers in using the
maxims is sometimes called the cooperative principle.
 Quantity: make your contribution as informative as
possible. Do not be more informative than required.
 Quality: Do not say what you believe to be false. Do
not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
 Relation: Be relevant.
 Manner: Be perspicuous （意思明白的，表达清楚
的） , Avoid obscurity （朦胧） and ambiguity （意义
不明确，歧义） . Be brief, orderly, and polite.
 Conversational maxim ( 会话准则）
 An unwritten rule about conversation which
people know and which influences the form
of conversational exchanges.
 Quantity: give as much information as is
needed.
 Quality:speak truthfully.
 Relevance: say things that are relevant.
 Manner: say things clearly and briefly.
 Subfields of discourse analysis
 Conversational analysis studies:
a. how speakers decide when to speak
during a conversation(i.e. rules of TURN-
TAKING 话轮转换 );
b. how the sentences of two or more
speakers are related;
c. The different functions that conversation is
used for.
 Discourse features
 Connectives;
 Other linguistic devices of cohesion;
 Discourse “markers” （标记） (such as “next,”
“finally”, “on the other hand”) that signal the
arrangement of meaning in the text have been
described and categorized for English, and the
descriptions have been much used in the teaching
of reading and writing, and in devising materials
for teaching students to take lecture notes.
 Coherence
 The relationships which link the meanings of
UTTERANCES in a DISCOURSE or of the
sentences in a text. These links may be
based on the speakers’ shared knowledge.
 Generally a PARAGRAPH has coherence if
it is a series of sentences that develop a
main idea.
 Contrastive studies
 Contrastive analysis: the comparison of the
linguistic systems of two languages, for example
the sound system or the grammatical system.
 A. the main difficulties in learning a new language
are caused by interference from the first language.
 B. these difficulties can be predicted by contrastive
analysis.
 C. teaching materials can make use of contrastive
analysis to reduce the effects of interference.