Discourse analysis

1. Is it discourse analysis
Or Text analysis?

2.  There has been some confusion in the
literature regarding the distinction between
‘discourse analysis’ and ‘text analysis’.
 It is a result of the confusion in the terms
‘discourse’ and ‘text’.

3.  Some researchers label their analysis
‘discourse analysis’, while others claim they
are doing ‘text analysis’, but the difference is
often inconsistent.
 Some claim to make clear distinctions
between ‘discourse’ and ‘text’, but a closer
look reveals that their distinctions do not
hold.

4.  Text:
is made up of
sentences.
- A text is made up
of sentences having
the property of
grammatical
cohesion.
-Text Analysis: deals
with cohesion.
 Discourse:
is the use of such
sentences.
- A discourse is made
up of utterances
having the property
of coherence.
- Discourse analysis:
investigates
coherence.

5.  It contradicts the known and well-established
distinction between ‘sentence’ and ‘utterance’
in the literature.
 Widdowson did not maintain this distinction
himself: In 1978 he argued that ‘discourse’ is
made up of sentences having the properties
of cohesion & coherence!

6.  Text:
 Text is defined in
terms of its being a
physical product.
 Meaning is not
found in text.
 Discourse:
 Discourse is viewed
as a process.
 Meaning is derived
through the
reader’s interaction
with the text 
discourse.

7.  There is considerable overlap between the
findings of studies claiming to look at text
as ‘product’ and of those claiming to
investigate discourse as ‘process’.
 Thus, it is not necessary to maintain a
distinction between discourse analysis and
text analysis on the basis of investigating a
process as opposed investigating a product.

8.  Text:
 written
 Text analysis:
investigates
written form
 Discourse:
 Spoken
 Discourse analysis:
analyzes spoken
form.

9.  Many studies have used models originally
developed for studying spoken form to
investigate written form (Tadros 1981), and
vice versa (Hoey 1983).
 Thus, such a distinction is not necessary.

10.  Early text linguists concentrated on the
development of various paradigms for the
study of how sentences interconnect. They
have drawn attention to the various linguistic
devices that can be used to ensure that a text
"hangs together" (cf. the concept of textual
cohesion). Such devices include the use of
articles, lexical repetition and personal
pronouns to refer back to entities mentioned
earlier in a text and the use of linking words to
establish a particular logical relationship of,
say, contrast, concession or addition between
two or more sentences in a text.

11. ◦ the study of how sentences functionally
interrelate within particular rhetorical
schemata (e.g. types of textual sequencing
such as top-down and bottom-up methods of
proceeding; an example of the former is a
sequence consisting of a general claim > a
specific application > listing arguments >
giving examples; an example of a bottom-up
way of proceeding is: an example > analysis
> next example > analysis > a conclusion).

12. discourse analysis is defined as
a) concerned with language use beyond the
boundaries of a sentence/utterance,
b) concerned with the interrelationships
between language and society and
c) as concerned with the interactive or dialogic
properties of everyday communication.

13. Text Analysis
 Needs linguistic analysis
 Interpretation is based on linguistic evidence
 Text analysts need the right ‘knife’ to cut the right
‘bread’
 Different ‘knives’ for different ‘bread’
Discourse Analysis
 How texts relate to contexts of situation and
context of culture
 How texts are produced as a social practice
 What texts tell us about happenings, what people
think, believe etc.
 How texts represent ideology (power struggle etc.)

14.  Text analysis is the study of formal linguistic
devices that distinguish a text from random
sentences.
 Discourse analysts study these text-forming devices
with reference to the purposes and functions for
which the discourse was produced, and the context
within which the discourse was created. The
ultimate goal is to show how the linguistic elements
enable language users to communicate.

15.  The term discourse analysis is very ambiguous.
 It will be used here to refer mainly to the linguistic
analysis of naturally occurring connected speech or
written discourse.
 Roughly speaking, it refers to attempts to study the
organisation of language above the sentence or
above the clause, and therefore to study larger
linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges
or written texts.
 It follows that discourse analysis is also concerned
with language use in social contexts, and in
particular with interaction or dialogue between
speakers.

16.  Discourse is a term that can be described in a
number of ways. In language studies, it refers to
the speech patterns and how language, dialects,
and acceptable statements are used in a particular
community. Discourse is a subject of study
particularly in peoples who reside in secluded areas
and share the same speech conventions.
 Sociologists and philosophers use the term
discourse in a different way. They use it to describe
the conversations and its underlying meanings by a
group of people who have common ideas.

17.  This is one definition forwarded by the philosopher
Michel Foucault. He maintains that discourse is the
acceptable statements that are formed by a
particular kind of discourse community.
 A discourse community is explained as people who
have the same thoughts and ideas. The fans of a
particular book series can be considered as what
might constitute a discourse community. Within
this group there will be some attitudes that will be
seen as unacceptable and considered contradictory
to what the community believes in.

18.  The ideology defines what is allowed to be
discussed.
 Discourse seen in this light is able to exist
over time and represent all of the thoughts
that the community has adopted or is
attributed to it. When the discourse is applied
to a more expansive philosophical ideal, all of
the exchange of ideas, systems of thought,
analysis and history will become part of the
community.

19.  Discourse is:
 language above the sentence or above the clause
 a continuous stretch of spoken language larger
than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit
 a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful
unified, and purposive; language in use
 (viewed) as social practice determined by social
structures

20.  In the study of language, discourse often
refers to the speech patterns and usage of
language, dialects, and acceptable
statements, within a community. It is a
subject of study in peoples who live in
secluded areas and share similar speech
conventions.

21.  Sociologists and philosophers tend to use the
term discourse to describe the conversations
and the meaning behind them by a group of
people who hold certain ideas in common.
Such is the definitions by philosopher Michel
Foucault, who holds discourse to be the
acceptable statements made by a certain type
of discourse community. This explanation will
primarily consider the definition pertaining to
sociology.

22.  Structural or textual definition of discourse:
Discourse is a particular unit of language
(above the sentence).
 Functional definition of discourse: Discourse
is a particular focus of language use.

23.  Find the constituents that have particular
relationships with each other and that can occur in
a restricted number of arrangements;
 Problems: units in which people speak do not
always look like sentences, or grammatically
correct sentences.
Example 1
(From “The Colour Purple”, Alice Wharton)
Jack is tall and kind and don't hardly say anything.
Love children. Respect his wife, Odessa, and all
Odessa Amazon sisters (Celie’s Diary)

24.  Examples, like Colourless green ideas sleep furiously
(Chomsky);
 Solving the problem: adopt Lyons’s distinction
between system-sentences and text – sentences.
System sentences are well-formed abstract
theoretical sentences generated according to the
existing grammar rules; text-sentences are context-
dependent utterances or parts of utterances which
occur in everyday life.
 The discourse analysis will be concerned with text-
sentences.

25.  Roman Jakobson: language performs six
functions:
Addressor(emotive);
Context (referential)
Addressee (conative);
Contact (phatic);
Message (poetic);
Code (metalinguistic).

26.  If in traditional studies discourses were
analysed in relation to social processes that
form them, then recently researchers started
talking about bidirectional and complex
relations between discourses and social
practices:
Discourses of food Social
Practice
“Healthy Food” Healthy lifestyle

27.  The study of how stretches of language used in
communication assume meaning, purpose and
unity for their users: the quality of COHERENCE
 A general consensus: COHERENCE does not
derive solely from the linguistic forms and
propositional content of a text, though these
may contribute to it.

28.  COHERENCE derives from an interaction of
text with given participants (context)
 Context: participants’ knowledge and
perception of paralanguage, other texts, the
situation, the culture, the world in general
and the role, intentions and relationships of
participants.

29.  COHERENCE derives from an interaction of text
with given participants (context)
 Context: participants’ knowledge and
perception of paralanguage, other texts, the
situation, the culture, the world in general and
the role, intentions and relationships of
participants.
 Discourse analysis examines how stretches of
language, considered in their full contextual,
social, and psychological context, become
meaningful and unified for their users.

30. There's two types of favors, the big favor and
the small favor. You can measure the size of
the favor by the pause that a person takes
after they ask you to" Do me a favor." Small
favor - small pause. "Can you do me a favor,
hand me that pencil " No pause at all. Big
favors are, "Could you do me a favor, .." Eight
seconds go by. "Yeah? What?" ". . . well " The
longer it takes them to get to it, the bigger the
pain it's going to be.

31. Humans are the only species that do favors.
Animals don't do favors. A lizard doesn't go up
to a cockroach and say, "Could you do me a
favor and hold still, I'd like to eat you a live,"
That's a big favor even with no pause. Jerry
Seinfeld (1993)

32.  In the study of language , some of the most
interesting questions arise in connection with the
way language is 'used', rather than what its
components are. We were, in effect, asking how it
is that language-users interpret what other
language-users intend to convey. When we carry
this investigation further and ask' how it is that we,
as language users , make sense of what we read in
texts, understand what speakers mean despite
what they say, recognize connected as opposed to
jumbled or incoherent discourse, and successfully
take part in that complex activity called
conversation, we are undertaking what is known as
discourse analysis.

33.  When we concentrate on the description of a particular
language, we are normally concerned with the accurate
representation of the forms and structures used in that
language. However, as language-users, we are capable of
more than simply recognizing correct versus incorrect form
and structure. We can cope with fragments such as “Trains
collide, two die,” a newspaper headline, and know, for
example, that a causal relation exists between the two
phrases. We can also make sense of notices like “No shoes,
no service,” on shop windows in summer, understanding
that a conditional relation exists between the two phrases
('If you are wearing no shoes, you will receive no service').

34. Moreover, we can encounter examples of texts, written
in English, which appear to break a lot of the 'rules' of
the English language.
 The following example, from an essay by a Saudi
Arabian student learning English, contains all kinds of '
errors', yet it can be understood.
My Town
My natal was in a small town, very close to Riyadh
capital of Saudi Arabia. The distant between my town
and Riyadh 7 miles exactly. The name of this Almasani
that means in English Factories. It takes this name from
the people's career . In my childhood I remember the
people live. It was very simple, most the people was
farmer.

35.  This example may serve to illustrate an interesting point
about the way we react to language which contains
ungrammatical forms. Rather than simply rejecting the
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. (Most people say
they understand the 'My Town' text quite easily.) It is this
effort to interpret (and to be interpreted), and how we
accomplish it, that are the key elements investigated in
the study of discourse. To arrive at an interpretation, and
to make our messages interpretable, we certainly rely on
what we know about linguistic form and structure. But,
as language-users, we have more knowledge than that.

36.  Once the general theoretical notion of discourse has
been achieved, attention turns to specific discourses
in which socially established sense is encountered and
contested. These range from media discourses like
television and news, to institutionalized discourses
like medicine, literature and science. Discourses are
structured and interrelated; some are more
prestigious, legitimated and hence 'more obvious'
than others, while there are discourses that have an
uphill struggle to win any recognition at all. Thus
discourses are power relations.

37.  It follows that much of the social sense-making
we're subjected to - in the media, at school, in
conversation - is the working through of
ideological struggle between discourses: a good
contemporary example is that between the
discourses of (legitimated, naturalized) patriarchy
and (emergent, marginalized) feminism.

38.  Textual analysis can be employed to follow the
moves in this struggle, by showing how particular
texts take up elements of different discourses and
articulate them (that is, 'knit them together').
 However, though discourses may be traced in
texts, and though texts may be the means by
which discursive knowledges are circulated,
established or suppressed, discourses are not
themselves textual.

39.  Many researchers have come to this
conclusion:
 Discourse analysis includes all studies
investigating the supra-sentential structure
of any stretch of language, spoken or written.
 The terms ‘text’ / ‘text analysis’ lead to
confusion.
 Therefore, the term ‘text’ should be
abandoned unless it is used to refer to the
physical arrangement of linguistic signals on
paper (Tadros, 1981).