This document discusses two views of discourse structure - as a product and as a process. It describes how discourse can be analyzed by looking at its hierarchical rank structure with different levels like lessons, transactions, exchanges, moves and acts. It also examines turn-taking in conversations and how speakers negotiate turns through mechanisms like pauses and intonation which can vary between cultures. Finally, it characterizes conversation as a mutually constructed process where participants feel their way forward together through established patterns and repair.

1. Two views of discourse structure :
as product and as process
BY AHMAD YOUSSEF

3. Rank structure ‫الترتيب‬ ‫هيكل‬
 One way of representing the relationship of parts to a whole is
a rank structure, in which each rank is made up of one or more
of the rank below.
The ranks of grammar are :
 • Sentence
 • Clause
 • Phrase
 • Word

5. 4.2 The Birmingham School of Discourse
Analysis
 A pioneering and influential study in this field was carried out at the
University of Birmingham by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975).
 The discourse type it chose to analyze was school lessons.
 They recorded a number of British primary school lessons. On the basis
of these data they proposed a rank structure for these lessons as follows:
 • Lesson • Transaction • Exchange • Move • Act

6.  They then drew up rules, based on the data, showing how these
acts combine together to form moves and how moves combine to
form various kinds of exchange
 grammarians formulate rules describing how words combine into
phrases, or phrases into clauses. One kind of exchange, for
example, consisted of between one and three moves:
 Opening (answering) (follow up)

7. 4.3 Discourse typology:
spoken and written; formal and informal:
 Traditionally, language teaching has divided discourse into two major categories, the
spoken and the written, further divided into the four skills of speaking and listening,
writing and reading.
 The traditional division of language into the spoken and the written is clearly and
sensibly based on a difference in production and reception: we use our mouths and
ears for one, and ours hands and eyes for the other.
 the modern foreign language learners prefer to learn informal spoken discourse for
traveling and social contact.

8. Discourse typology

9. 4.4 Conversation as a discourse type:
 The term `Conversation´ is widely used, in a non-technical sense, usually with the implication
that the talk is less formal. We shall define the term as follows:
 Talk may be classed as conversation when:
 It is not primarily necessitated by a practical task.
 Any unequal power of participants is partially suspended.
 The number of participants is small.
 Turns are short.
 Talk is primarily for the participants and not for an outside audience.

10. 4.5 Turn – Taking :
 Overlap of turns occurs in only about 5 per cent of conversation
or less, strongly suggesting that speakers somehow know exactly
when and where to enter.
 Where there is overlap between turns it has some particular
significance: signaling , annoyance, urgency, or a desire to
correct what is being said.

11.  Conversely, pauses between turns also carry particular meaning.
 The significance of this approach for the language learner is
considerable.
 Turn-taking mechanisms, the way in which speakers hold or pass the
floor, vary between cultures and between languages.

12.  Efficient turn-taking also involves factors which are not linguistic. Eye
contact is one strong means of signaling,
 Body position and movement also play and important part. Intonation
and volume contribute to turn-taking too.
 In formal situations roles can clearly give people special rights. E.g.
Students fall silent when the professor speaks – in the bar as well as in the
seminar.

13. 4.6 Turn types:
 adjacency pair: This occurs when the utterance of one speaker makes
a particular kind of response very likely ( very possible ).
 A greeting, for example, is likely to be answered by another greeting.
 But in an adjacency pair, there is often a choice of two likely responses.
 A request is most likely to be followed by either an acceptance or a
refusal.
 In such cases, one of the responses is a preferred response and the
other a dispreferred response.

15.  1. Offer : Acceptance (preferred) Refusal (dispreferred)
 2. Assessment : Agreement (preferred) Disagreement (dispreferred)
 3. Blame: Denial (pr.) Admission (dispr.)
 4. Question: Expected answer (pr.) Unexpected ans. (dispr.)

16.  e.g.
A: Did you enjoy the meal?
B: (Did you?
A: yes)
B: So did I.
 This is known as an insertion sequence. Q Q A A

17.  Insertion and sequences draw attention to the fact that conversation is
discourse mutually constructed and negotiated in time.
 Unlike lectures, broadcasts, and speeches, a conversation is
constructed and executed as it happens, by two people, feeling their
way forward together. There is no going back, crossing out, rewriting
and restructuring.
 repair, in which participants correct either their own words or those of
another participant.

18. 4.7 Discourse as a process:
 Ethnomethodology depicts ( describe ) conversation as discourse
constructed and negotiated between the participants, following pre-
established patterns, and marking the direction they are taking in
particular ways: with pauses, laughter, intonations, filler words, and
established formulae.

19.  Culture and turn-taking provide ample (enough ) ground for misunderstanding:
 Entering and leaving conversation,
 bidding for a longer turn,
 refusing without appearing rude,
 changing the topic,
 are all notoriously difficult for foreign learners:
 In the classroom, turns are patiently organized and controlled by the teacher.
 Indeed the teacher who constantly interrupts the students´ discourse to correct every
grammatical mistake not only violates usual turn-taking procedures but may also hinder the
students´ acquisition of them.

20. THE END