The document defines discourse and discusses various aspects of discourse analysis. It defines discourse as language beyond the sentence level, linked to social practices, and as a system of thought. It discusses constructions of discourse through linguistic, cognitive, and interactional processes. Discourse analysis focuses on patterns of sentences and units in texts constructed through social interactions. The goals, types, and structures of spoken and written discourse are examined, including sequential/distributional analysis, repair/recipient design, adjacency pairs, narratives, and registers.

1. Discourse

2. What is discourse?
Discourse can be defined in three ways:
 1. Language beyond the level of a sentence
 2. Language behaviors linked to social practices
 3. Language as a system of thought.

3. Constructions
of discourse
linguistic processes:
Arranging sentences and
conveying meanings
cognitive
processes:
Organization
of thoughts
into verbal
form
Discourse
process:
that draw on
interactional
roles

4. Discourse analysis
 Discourse analysis focuses on the patterns in which
sentences (and other units such as acts and turns)
appear in the texts that are constructed as people
interact with one another in social contexts.

5. Basic ideas in Discourse
analysis
 Text analysis ( written discourse)
 Conversation analysis (spoken discourse)

6. Goals of speaking
 1. Verbalize thoughts
 2. Introduce new information
 3. Repair errors
 4. Take turns
 5. Think of others
 6. Perform acts

7. Spoken discourse
 Sequential and distributional analysis
 Repair and recipient design
 Adjacency pairs
 Participation frameworks
 Narratives

8. Sequential and distributional analysis
Readings which focuses on:
 Sequential analysis:
the sequence of what happens
 Distributional analysis:
the distribution of specific features or qualities of language in
the discourse

9. Repair and recipient design
 Repair :
a term for ways in which errors, unintended form or
misunderstandings are corrected by the speaker.
 Recipient design:
The process whereby a speaker takes the listener into account
when presenting information.

10. Adjacency pairs
 Conversation is an activity where two or more people take
turns at speaking. The relationship between two utterances in
discourse

11. Participation frameworks
 The ways that people interacting with one another take
responsibility for speaking, listening, and acting are part of the
participation framework.
 Turn transition place / transition relevance place:
A place where another speaker can take a turn
o Other-repair:
a repair at problematic item in another speakers’ utterance

12. Narratives
 Narratives organize information differently than other genres, such as
descriptions, explanations, and lists. For example, narratives present
events in temporal order of occurrence, but lists need not

13. Narrative structure
 •Abstract: a summary of the experience or its point
 •Orientation: background description
 •Complicating action: “what happened,” a series of temporally ordered
events that have beginning and end points
 •Evaluation: syntactic, prosodic, textual alterations of the narrative norm
that highlight important parts of the story and/or help convey why the
story is being told
 •Coda: closure that brings the “past” of the narrative to the “present” of
the interaction in which it was told

14. Schemas and scripts
 Schema is a conventional knowledge which exists in
memory.(school, office….)
 Script is essentially a dynamic schema in which conventional
actions take place.(taking the train, traveling on an airplane,
eating at a restaurant

15. Cohesion
cohesion is the grammatical and/or lexical relationships
between the different elements of a text. For Example:
My father once bought a Lincoln convertible. He did it by saving every
penny he could. That car would be worth a fortune nowadays.
However, he sold it to help pay for my college education. Sometimes I
think I‟d rather have the convertible.
Cohesive ties ( In reference):
Father- he- he- he;
“A” Lincoln convertible- that car- it- “the” convertible

16. Cohesive Devices
Pronouns or Substitution:
In order to avoid repeating the same words several times in one paragraph
it is replaced, most often by one, do or so.
Ellipsis:
It is very similar to substitution, however, it replaces a phrase by a gap.
(Omission of noun, verb, or a clause on the assumption)
Conjunctions:
Specifies the relationship between clauses or sentences. Most frequent
relations of sentences are: addition (and, moreover), temporality
(afterwards, next) and causality (because, or since).

17.  Reference:
The use of words which do not have meanings of their own, such as
pronouns and articles.
 Lexical cohesion:
Denotes links between words which carry meanings: verbs, nouns,
adjectives. There are two types of lexical cohesion namely
reiteration and collocation

18. Coherence
Coherence is the relationships which link the meanings of
utterances in a discourse or of the sentences in a text.
Example:
HER: That‟s the telephone
HIM: I‟m in the bath
HER: O.K.
There are certainly no cohesive ties within this fragment of discourse.
Here we see coherence but no cohesion.

19. Cohesion and coherence
Cohesion helps to create coherence.
Cohesion does not entail coherence
Coherence can be made with/out cohesive ties/ devises.

20. Written discourse
Learning to write is a formal explicit process includes:
1. Graphic conventions
2. Technology
3. Punctuation
4. Rules of correct grammar
 Fragmentation and integration
 written to be read

21. Fragmentation and integration
 Fragmentation:
the segmentation of information into small, syntactically simple
chunks of language that present roughly one idea at a time.
 Integration:
the arrangement of information into long, syntactically complex
chunks of language that present more than one idea at a time.

22. Written to be read
In written discourse:
 The writer has to anticipate
the informational need
 The writer anticipates what
maintains the readers
interests
In spoken discourse:
 Provides feedback
 Has a chance to speak

23. Register and register variation:
 Registers:
ways of using the language that reflects different facets of its context
 Register variation:
language variation according to situation

24. Values to describe a situation:
 Setting
Physical location and social significance
 Participant
Respective social status, local roles in interaction
 Ends
Purpose of the event, respective goals of the participants
 Act sequences
Speech acts that are functionally or conventionally appropriate to the
situation

25. Values to describe a situation:
 Key
Tone or mood (e.g. serious, ironic)
 Instrumentalities
Mode of communication (e.g. spoken, written, via telephone)
 Norms
Expectations of behavior and their interpretation
 Genres
Type of event (e.g. conversation, lecture, sermon)

26. The ethnography of communication
 Speech act:
an action performed by one person through speech.
 Speech event:
an interaction between two or more people in which more than
one speech act occurs.
 Speech situation:
a social occasion with more than one speech event. during the
occasion , speech contributes to what happens, but it is not
necessarily all that happens

27. Differences between spoken and written
discourse
Written discourse
 1.-----
 2.-----
 3.writers have to
anticipate informational
needs of recipient
 4.more integrated
 5.writer uses standard
language
 6.writers have luxury of
more time
Spoken discourse
 1.recipient provides
feedback
 2.recipient gets chance to
become speaker
 3.-----
 4.more fragmented
 5.----
 6.speakers have chance
to continuously adjust
what they say

28. Language function
 All approaches to discourse analysis address the functions of language, the
structures of texts, and the relationship between text and context. A main
function of language is referential. Other functions are social and expressive
functions .

29. Language function
 Referential function:
sentences focusing on aspects of the speech situation mainly serve
a referential function.
 Phatic function
sentences focusing on the relationship (CONTACT) between
participants mainly serve a phatic function.
 Poetic function
sentences that focus on the MESSAGE itself serve mainly
a poetic function.

30. Language function
 Emotive function
sentences that express the impact of some facet of the external
world (context) or internal world (feelings, sensations) on the
ADDRESSOR mainly serve the emotive function.
 Conative function
sentences that focus on the relation of the ADDRESSEE to the
context or the interaction mainly serve the conative function.
 Metalinguistic function
sentences focusing on the relation between code and situation
serve mainly a metalinguistic function.

31. Planes of discourse
 An utterance expresses far more meaning than the sentence it contains.
Focusing on utterances allows us to see how several planes of context are
related to, and expressed through, the language used in an utterance.

32. Planes of discourse
 Participation framework
is the way that people organize and maintain an interaction by
adopting and adapting roles, identities, and ways of acting and
interacting.
 Exchange structure
It concerns the way people take turns in talk: how do we know
when to start talking? Do we ever overlap, and if so, where,
when, how and why?

33. Planes of discourse
 Act structures:
Act structures are ordered sequences of actions performed through
speech
 Information state
It is the distribution of knowledge among people inter-acting with
one another. Speakers take into account their listeners’
informational needs as they construct their utterances
 Idea structure
It concerns the organization of information within a sentence and
the organization of propositions in a text

34. Thanks