Defining discourse Discourse analysis The scope of discourse analysis Sentence and utterance Discourse and the sentence

2.  Discourse is the creation and organization of the
segments of a language above as well as below the
sentence. It is segments of language which may be bigger
or smaller than a single sentence but the adduced
meaning is always beyond the sentence.
 The term discourse applies to both spoken and written
language, in fact to any sample of language used for any
purpose. Any series of speech events or any combination
of sentences in written form wherein successive
sentences or utterances hang together is discourse.
 Discourse can not be confined to sentential boundaries.
It is something that goes beyond the limits of sentence.
 In another words discourse is 'any coherent succession of
sentences, spoken or written' (Matthews, 2005:100). The
links between sentences in connected discourse are as
much important as the links between clauses in a
sentence.

3.  One starting point is the following quotation
from M. Stubbs' textbook (Stubbs 1983:1), in
which 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,
 C: as concerned with the interactive or dialogic
properties of everyday communication.

4.  The term discourse analysis is very ambiguous. I
will use it in this book 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.

5.  Discourse analysis does not presuppose a bias
towards the study of either spoken or written
language. In fact, the monolithic character of the
categories of speech and writing has been widely
challenged, especially as the gaze of analysts turns
to multi-media texts and practices on the Internet.
 Similarly, one must ultimately object to the
reduction of the discursive to the so-called "outer
layer" of language use, although such a reduction
reveals quite a bit about how particular versions of
the discursive have been both enabled and
bracketed by forms of hierarchical reasoning which
are specific to the history of linguistics as a
discipline
 e.g. discourse analysis as a reaction against and as
taking enquiry beyond the clause-bound "objects" of
grammar and semantics to the level of analysing
"utterances", "texts" and "speech events"; see also:
discourse analysis as engaging itself with meaning
that cannot be located in the "linguistic system".

6.  Another inroad into the development of a discourse
perspective is more radically antithetical to the
concerns of linguistics "proper".
 Here the focus is on the situatedness of language
use, as well as its inalienably social and interactive
nature - even in the case of written communication.
Coming from this end, the sentence/clause as a
primary unit of analysis is dislocated irredeemably
and "moving beyond the sentence" becomes a
metaphor for a critique of a philological tradition in
which the written has been reified as paradigmatic
of language use in general. In this version, discourse
analysis foregrounds language use as social action,
language use as situated performance, language use
as tied to social relations and identities, power,
inequality and social struggle, language use as
essentially a matter of "practices" rather than just
"structures", etc.

7.  Discourse analysis has grown into a wide-ranging
and heterogeneous discipline which finds its unity in
the description of language above as well as below
the sentence and an interest in the contexts and
cultural influences which affect language in use.
 For example A asks; 'why are you weeping?' B
replies; 'shocked.' The reply of B is not a sentence
according to the standard sentence pattern but the
meaning is clear and it is context that leaves no
doubt in the mind of A about the cause and effect of
B's being shocked thus discourse is the creation and
organization of language above as well as below the
sentence.

8.  It is segments of language which may be bigger
or smaller than a single sentence but the
adduced meaning is always beyond the
sentence. It is not only concerned with the
description and analysis of spoken interaction
but it deals with written discourse. People daily
encounter hundreds of written and printed
words: newspapers, recipes, stories, letters,
comics, notices, instructions, leaflets pushed
through the door, and so on. They usually
expect them to be coherent, meaningful
communications in which the words and/or
sentences are linked to one another in a fashion
that corresponds to conventional formulae, just
they we do with speech.

9.  Discourse analysis has received ever-increasing
attention from different disciplines. It includes
taxonomy, speech act theory, interactional
sociolinguistics, ethnographies of
communication, pragmatics, conversation
analysis, and variationist discourse analysis and
ranges from philosophy to linguistics to
semiotics to sociology to anthropology, and so
on.
 Such a wide range of its fields indicates that the
notion of discourse is itself quite broad. This
may also suggest why discourse analysis has
emerged as a special interest in the past few
decades—the fact that diverse fields find the
study of discourse useful indicates larger
cultural and epistemological shifts.

10.  Although there might appear little difference
in the kind of information which is presented
in these alternative formulations, there is
considerable difference in the purpose for
which these formulations are made.
 A sentence is an exemplificatory device and
that its function is simply to give concrete
realization to the abstract features of the
system of language. Sentences are an
exemplification of linguistic rules while
utterances are a direct realization of
linguistic rules.

11.  It is an important point to make clear the
relationship between them: utterances being
'derived' from sentences, or sentences
'underlying' utterances.
 Sentences are simply construct devised by
linguists to exemplify the rules of the language
system and that a speaker therefore may have
no knowledge of the sentences as such at all. An
illiterate speaker has an innate knowledge of
the rules of the language system acquired
through his natural linguistic development and
he composes his utterances by direct reference
to them and not by reference to sentences.

12.  One might say that sentences exemplify the
rules which the speaker realizes in the making
of utterances. The knowledge one has of one's
language can be expressed in the form of
sentences since a grammar is defined as a
description of the sentences of language. What
the speaker of a language knows is sentences.
This comes out clearly when Chomsky speaks of
language acquisition; 'Clearly, a child who has
learned a language has developed an internal
representation of a system of rules that
determine how sentences are formed, used, and
understood.' (Chomsky 1965:25)

13.  We have, then, two different kinds of language
as potential objects for study: one abstracted in
order to teach a language or literacy, or to study
how the rules of language work, and another
which has been used to communicate something
and is felt to be coherent This latter kind of
language – language in use, for communication-
is called discourse; and the search for what gives
discourse coherence is discourse analysis.
 It is important to notice that the distinction
between these two kinds of language ) is often
more a question of the way we use or think
about a particular stretch of language which
someone has used in communication and treat it
as a sentence for a translation exercise, or an
object for grammatical analysis.

14.  Conversely, it is possible to take a sentence
from a language teaching or linguistic textbook,
go to the country where the language is spoken,
say it to someone in an appropriate situation
and achieve something by saying it.
 Discourse may be composed of one or more
well-formed sentences – indeed it often is- but
it does not have to be. It can have grammatical
“mistakes” in it, and often does. Discourse
treats the rules of grammar as a resource,
conforming to them when it needs to, but
departing from them when it does not.
Discourse can be anything from a grunt or single
expletive, through short conversation and
scribbled notes, or a lengthy legal case.

15.  What matters is not its conformity to rules, but
the fact that it communicates and is recognized
by its receivers as coherent. This leads us to the
disturbing conclusion that there is a degree of
subjectivity in identifying a stretch of language
as discourse- it may be meaningful and thus
communicate to one person in a way which
another person does not have the necessary
knowledge to make sense of- yet in practice we
find that discourse is usually perceived as such
by groups, rather than individuals.