¡Descarga Unit 11: DIscourse analysis y más Apuntes en PDF de Lingüística solo en Docsity! UNIT 11: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Discourse The word “discourse” is usually defined as “language beyond the sentence” and so the analysis of discourse is typically concerned with the study of language in texts and conversation (we interpret discourse oral and written). We have the ability to create complex discourse interpretation of fragmentary linguistic messages, trying to make sense out of texts. Interpreting discourse Rather than simply reject a text as ungrammatical, we try to make sense of it. That is, we attempt to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of what the writer intended to convey. It is this effort to interpret (or to be interpreted), and how we accomplish it, that are the key elements in the study of discourse. Cohesion Cohesion is the ties and connections that exist within texts, a certain structure to the text. An appropriate number of cohesive ties may be a crucial factor in our judgements on whether something is well written or not. It is the references to people or things throughout a text; general connections, between words, of time, events, elements sharing the same meaning. However, by itself, cohesion would not be sufficient to enable us to make sense of what we read. There must be another factor that helps us distinguish connected texts that make sense from those that do not. This factor is usually described as “coherence”. Coherence The key to the concept of coherence (“everything fitting together well”) is not something that exists in words or structures, but something that exists in people. It is people who “make sense” of what they read and hear. They try to arrive at an interpretation that is in line with their experience of the way the world is. It’s the meaning from the context, the meaning beyond linguistic content, conventionally. Speech event In exploring what it is we know about taking part in conversation, or any other speech event (e.g. debate, interview, various types of discussions), we quickly realize that there is enormous variation in what people say and do in different circumstances. Criteria: depends on the roles of speaker and listener, their relationship, gender, age, hierarchy… Even when we have described all these factors, we will still not have analysed the actual structure of the conversation itself. As language-users, in a particular culture, we clearly have quite sophisticated knowledge of how conversation works. Conversation analysis Unit 11, Discourse analysis 1 In simple terms, English conversation can be described as an activity in which, for the most part, two or more people take turns at speaking. Typically, only one person speaks at a time and there tends to be an avoidance of silence between speaking turns. For the most part, participants wait until one speaker indicates that he or she has finished, usually by signalling a completion point. Turn-taking Silence, overlapping phrases, signalling a completion point, pause, body language, facial expressions. There are different expectations of conversational style and different strategies of participation in conversation, which may result in slightly different conventions of turn-taking. One strategy is designed to avoid having normal completion points occur. If the normal expectation is that completion points are marked by the end of a sentence and a pause, then one way to “keep the turn” is to avoid having those two markers occur together. That is, don’t pause at the end of sentences, make your sentences run on by using connectors, place your pauses at points where the message is clearly incomplete and preferably “fill” the pause with a hesitation marker (filled pauses). We recognise these subtle indicators as ways of organising our turns and negotiating the intricate business of social interaction via language. In fact, one of the most noticeable features of conversational discourse in English is that it is generally very “co-operative.” This observation has been formulated as a principle of conversation. The co-operative principle The co-operative principle is presented in the following way (people partaking in a conversation, conversational exchanges, cooperating in the process…), together with what are often called the “Gricean maxims”, described by the philosopher Paul Grice. Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged. • The Quantity maxim: Make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more, or less, than is required. (Succinct). • The Quality maxim: Do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack adequate evidence. (Honest). • The Relation maxim: Be relevant. • The Manner maxim: Be clear, brief and orderly. Oh, a sandwich is a sandwich. Tautology: Repetition of a phrase that adds nothing. Hedges Unit 11, Discourse analysis 2
