What is Discourse Analysis By Lubna Riyadh Abdul

What is Discourse Analysis? By Lubna Riyadh Abdul Jabbar

The History of Discourse Analysis § In the period up to the late 60 s there were only two isolated attempts to study suprasentential structure, They were presented by § Harris (1952) § Mitchell (1957) (Coulthard 1985: 3 ).

Features of Harris ‘Approach § Harris ‘article is called Discourse Analysis § The Title of the article is a promising one , but it is very disappointing § Working with the Bloomfieldian tradition , he sets out to produce a formal method 'for the analysis of connected speech or writing' which 'does not depend on the analyst's knowledge of the particular meaning of each morpheme § Harris suggests that a distributional analysis can be successfully done above the rank of sentence

§ Discourse, according to Zellig Harris (1951), He observes that: § “Stretches longer than one utterance are not usually considered in current descriptive linguistics. […] the linguist usually considers the interrelations of elements only within one utterance at a time. This yields a possible description of the material, since the interrelations of elements within each utterance (or utterance type) are worked out, and any longer discourse is describable as succession of utterances, i. e. a succession of elements having the stated interrelations. This restriction means that nothing is generally said about the interrelations among whole utterances within a sequence. ”

The Application of Harris Approach § As an example he creates a text containing the following four sentences: The trees turn here about the middle of autumn. The trees turn here about the end of October. The first frost comes after the middle of autumn. We start heating after the end of October. The aim of the analysis is to isolate units of text which are distributionally equivalent though not necessarily similar in meaning; that is equivalences which have validity for that text alone.

§ Grenoble (2000), explaining Harris’s definition of discourse, states that: § “Harris interestingly enough ruled out the kind of study which discourse analysis aims to do. He is of the view that linguistic research focuses on the elements within an utterance; discourse can be considered as a sequence of utterance. Harris argues that the study of the interrelations between utterances within a discourse; the scope of a discourse analysis required much more information than theoretical apparatus of that time could handle. While this held true for 1950 s and 1960 s, roughly, but 1970 s saw an emerging body of different approaches including pragmatics, conversation analysis, textual linguistics, and relevance theory. ”

Features of Mitchell’s Approach § Mitchell's article is called 'Buying and selling § § § in Cyrenaica' It presents a semantically motivated analysis. Working in the Firthian tradition he specifies the relevant participants and elements of situation in detail He divides the buying –selling process into stages purely on content criteria, admitting that 'stage is an abstract category and the numbering of stages does not necessarily imply sequence in time'.

Application of Mitchell’s Approach He describes three major categories of transaction : market auction § other market transaction § shop transaction § The second and third are distinguished mainly by situation because they share the following five stages : 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. salutation enquiry as to the object of sale investigation of the object of sale 4. bargaining 5. conclusion.

§ In the 1964, Dell Hymes provided a sociological perspective with the study of speech in its social setting. § According to Hymes (1964, cited in Brown, 1983: 38), any speech event contains specific components, and the analysis of these components can influence the identification the meaning in specific discourse. These components are grouped under the name "speaking" and they are as follows: §

§ S refers to the setting (i. e. the time , place , physical § § § § circumstances , and psychological setting or scene). P refers to participants (i. e. speaker, addressor , hearer, and addressee) E refers to the ends (i. e. purpose, out comes, and goals) A refers to act sequence (i. e. message contend and message form) K refers to keys (i. e. manner / spirit in which something is said ) I refers to instrumentalities (i. e. channels and forms ) N refers to norms (i. e. norms of interaction and interpretation ) G refers to genres ( i. e. categories of communication ).

§ British discourse analysis was greatly influenced by M. A. K. Halliday’s functional approach to language (e. g. Halliday 1973), Halliday’s framework emphasizes the social functions of language and thematic and informational structure of speech and writing.

§ Halliday distinguishes 3 functions: § Ideational § Interpersonal § Textual

§ ideational function is "the use of language to inform" (1973: 37); § The interpersonal function is "the use of language to express social and personal relations, including all forms of the speaker's intrusion § into the speech situation and the speech act" (1973: 41); § The textual function "fills the requirement that language should be operationally relevant - that it should have texture, in real contexts of situation, that distinguishes a living message from a mere entry in a grammar or dictionary" (1973: 42). Under this last function heincludes the structures 'theme and rheme' and 'given and newinformation'.

§ Also important in Britain were Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) at the University of Birmingham, who developed a model for the description of teacher –pupil talk, based on a hierarchy of discourse units.

§ The basic structure is Lesson Transaction Exchange Move Act

DEFINITIONS OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Definition (1) § Discourse, in Collins dictionary of English, is defined as “verbal communication; talk or conversation” § This shows the discipline – discourse analysis - major concern with analysing real conversation

Definition 2 § Discourse, according to Stubbs (1983: 1), i “language above the sentence or above the clause” and ‘the study of discourse is the study of any aspect of language use.

Definition 3 In simple words, discourse analysis is “the study of language in use”. (Fasold 1990: 65).

Definition 4 § Discourse Analysis is "the linguistic analysis of stretches of language longer than the sentence with the aim of finding sequences of utterances with similar environments ( equivalence class) and of establishing regularities in their distribution. "

Definition 5 § “Discourse constitutes the social. Three dimensions of the social are distinguished – knowledge, social relations, and social identity – and these correspond respectively to three major functions of language … Discourse is shaped by relations of power, and invested ideologies. ” (Fairclough 1992: 8)

The Relationship of Discourse with other disciplines § Discourse analysis, being a relative social phenomenon solely depends on the wide range of disciplines, such as sociology, anthropology, cognitive and social psychology, philosophy, for knowledge and methodologies § it is difficult to draw a clear line of demarcation between certain linguistic fields, such as anthropological linguistics, psycholinguistic, discourse analysis and cognitive linguistics, as the approaches to “ study of language in use” are borrowed from these sub fields.

§ Discourse analysis, in turn, is composed of a wide range of sub-disciplines, such as pragmatics, conversational analysis, speech act theory and ethnography of speaking. The discipline studies language used in the context, so its subject matter is language as a whole, either written or spoken, in terms of transcriptions, larger texts, audio or video recordings, which provides an opportunity to the analyst to work with language rather than a single sentence.

Data used for Discourse Analysis § Discourse analysis insist on the use of naturally § § occurring data, not invented data. Typically based on the linguistic output of someone other than the analyst. Typically taken from written texts or tape-recordings. Rarely in the form of single sentence, but in the form of a stretch of conversation or text. Performance data containing features like hesitations, slips, and non-standard forms which a linguist like Chomsky believed should not have to accounted for in the grammar of a language.

Discourse is Different from linguistic disciplines: § not focus on a specific/definable scope of inquiry, or on systems of linguistic symbols or rules for sequencing words or inferring meanings. § but focus on language use motivated by real communicative needs and language as a means through which we accomplish various actions and interactions

Discourse Analysis seeks to § describe and explain linguistic phenomena in terms of the affective, cognitive, situational, and cultural contexts of their use § To identify linguistic resources through which we (re)construct our life (our identify, role, activity, community, emotion, knowledge, belief, ideology).

Conclusions § Defining discourse: § Discourse is: ‘langauge above the sentence or above the clause. § The study of discourse is the study of any aspect of language use. § Discourse is for me more than just language use: it is language use, whether speech or writing, seen as a type of social practice § Discourse is language use relative to social, political and cultural formation—it is language reflecting social order but also language shaping social order, and shaping individuals’ interaction with society… it is an inescapable important concept for understanding society and human responses to it, as well as for understanding language itself.