This document provides an overview of key concepts in discourse analysis including power and community, indexicality, stance and style, social roles and participant structure, audience, politeness and accommodation, social identity and identification, and the linguistic individual in discourse. It discusses how relationships, roles, and identities are expressed and negotiated through language use and how discourse helps construct social meanings.

1. Participants in Discourse:
Relationships, Roles, Identities
Mary Anne Colico
College of Liberal Arts and Communications
Dela Salle University – Dasmariñas

2. Topics for Discussion:
Power and Community
Indexicality
Stance and Style
Social Roles and Participant Structure
Audience, Politeness and Accomodation
Social Identity and Identification
Personal Identity: Discourse and the Self
The Linguistic Individual in Discourse
Reference: Johnstone, B. (2008) Discourse Analysis, Second Edition. USA:Blackwell Publishing.

3. Participants in Discourse
Author/Speaker (active) - Decoder/Hearer (passive)

4. Incorrect interpretative strategies of the hearer

5. Correct interpretative strategies of the
hearer

6. Power and Community
Two important aspects of social relatedness
that are expressed and created in discourse are
power and solidarity.

7. Power vs. Solidarity
Power – has to do with the respects in which
relationships are asymmetrical, with some
participants more able than others to shape
what occurs or how it is interpreted.
Solidarity – has to do with relatively
symmetrical aspects of human relationships.

8. Example: Asymmetric use of names and
address terms is often a clear indicator of a
power differential
o Teacher and student
o In the past, white people addressing black
people
o People addressing the Queen or the
President

9. Power and solidarity are both always at play in
any relationship (Tannen, 1994)

10. Power
Power comes with social status
Example:
US President has the power to declare war
Chairperson of a committee has the power
to adjourn a meeting
Some religious leader has a power to decide
a marriage
*The examples are power which is institutionally
defined.

11. But power is also negotiable, as people compete for the
ability to make things happen.
Example:
 In US politics, the legislature can and does try to
limit the President’s power to declare war
 Other committee members can suggest that the chair
adjourn a meeting, or they can cause a de facto
adjournment by simply getting up and leaving.
*The examples are situationally negotiated power

12. Power as an agency
Power is not necessarily dominance, but rather more
like agency: an individual’s ebbing and flowing
ability to shape the activity at hand.
Institutionally conferred power and situationally
negotiated power are often both in play.
Power not ‘held’ by one person or group forever, but
exists as a circuit, or something to be ‘exercised’ by
each of us in different situations.

13. Thus, where there is power, there is
always resistance
We might not say certain things in
certain situations, but there is always
the potential for us to do so
So, by ‘breaking the rules’ we have the
potential to re-define the limits of
discourse
By playing by the rules, we re-affirm the
‘truth’ in discourse
This re-definition of the limits of discourse is
what is productive about power: it enables
us to redefine ‘truth’ and what is valid
(and valuable)

15. Speech community
Communities seen through the lens of
discourse have been called “speech
communities,” “discourse communities,”
or “communities of practice.”
“Discourse community” might be
constituted by a group of people who
regularly talk to one another about a
particular topic or in a particular situation
Example: researchers in an academic discipline
Staff of a company

16. Indexicality
Indexicality – refer to “indexical forms” or
“indexicals” or “indexes” or “indices”
- these are strategies that people use to set
social alignment which is relevant at the
moment
Indexical form is a linguistic form or action
points to and helps establish “social”
meaning
Example: engaging in joint discourse activity
can index - that is create/ affirm – shared
membership in a “community of practice”

17. Common ways of doing things with language,
such as telling stories (Johnstone, 1990),
having arguments (Schiffrin, 1984), or
following the necessary events in an airplane
cockpit (Neville, 2006) can index common
affiliation.
All of these modes of indexicality can function
both signals of group solidarity and claims
to group membership.

18. Stance and Style
Stance (or stancetaking) - the methods,
linguistic and other, by which interactants
create and signal relationships with the
propositions they utter and with the people
they interact with.

20. Evidentiality and Affect
Early work focused on “evidentiality” and “affect”
(Biber and Finnegan, 1989)
Evidentiality – textual feature that signal the speaker’s
knowledge and their degree of certainty
Affect – speaker’s attitude about the propositions they
utter

21. Evaluation
Hunston and Thompson (2000) have explored the
linguistics of “evaluation”
Evaluation – the expression of the speaker or writer’s
attitude or stance, viewpoint on, or feelings about the
entities or propositions that he or she is talking about.

22. Evaluation - Functions
According to Hunston and Thompson, evaluation has
three functions:
Expressing the opinion of the speaker/writer vis-à-vis
the propositions being expressed
Manipulating the hearer/ reader’s attitude vis-à-vis
these propositions
Organizing the discourse

23. Examples of language of evaluation:
Use of modals including might or could/
must or must not
Sentence adverbs such as “apparently” or
“in my opinion”
Conjunctions and structures

24. Ochs (1992) models how particular linguistic
forms can index evidential stances such as
certainty, interpersonal stances such as
friendliness or intensity, or social identities
such as gender.
Example: the phrase “I believe…”

26. Stancetaking
Stancetaking can index social identities.
Example: the use of tag question may index
uncertainty or powerless interactional identity.
So, a witness in court might use more tag
questions than the attorney questioning her
(O’Barr and Atkins, 1980; Conley and
O’Barr, 1998) or a student might use more
tag questions than the teacher.

27. Styles
Styles- repeated sets of stancetaking moves that became
stabilized repertoire associated with situations or social
identities. Style associated with participant roles are
sometimes referred to under the rubric of “footing.”
Style associated with socio-demographic identity is sometimes
referred to as a “dialect” or a “variety” or “accents”
Example: a person’s style in talk among peers is different
from person’s style when reading aloud in front of the
strangers

28. Styles associated with a particular set of contextual factors
that confront a speaker with a particular set of rhetorical
requirements are sometimes called “registers” (Biber and
Finnegan, 1994, Finnegan and Biber, 2001).
Register – is usually defined as a set of lexical (vocabulary)
and grammatical features that help to identify discourse that
occurs in a particular recurrent situation
Example: legal language or “legalese” or a set of words,
structural choices and interactional patterns that tend to occur
in discourse in legal situations (Melinkoff, 1963; Bowers,
1989; Bhatia, 1993)

29. Social Roles and Participant Structure
Common pair of discourse roles: Server and client
Example: service crew and customer
teacher and student
parent and child

30. One of the ways in which social identities and
discourse roles can be indexed is via forms
of address.
Choices include first name or nickname; last
name only; title plus last name; title only;
terms for family members like Dad, Mom, Sis
or quasi-family members; or numerous
forms like luv, honey, bro, sweetie, old man,
mate and so on.

31. Every time a form of address is used, it helps
create, change or reaffirm a social
relationship, in addition to indexing a set of
conventional expectations.
Example: a student is expected to call his/her
teacher by “Ma’am” or “Sir” in a
conventional way

32. Choices among forms of address are complex
and often difficult.
Example:
“We’re all on a first-name basis around here” is never
simply a statement of fact, but an attempt to shape the
beliefs and behaviors of others.

33. Discourse roles are indexed via choices of words to use
and what words to say
Note the difference of the two utterances:
a) (a teacher in school) Well, today I thought we’d do
three quizzes
b) (in casual conversation) Well, today I thought we’d
talk about my Holiday in France
The first utterance is fairly usual because the teacher is
expected to decide interactions while the second one
might be rude.

34. People create roles for one another and
reinforce the difference between roles as
they speak in ways their roles require.
Example: teacher and students
Teachers only exist because there are
students, and vice versa.

35. Teacher: What does the food give you?
Student 1: Strength
Teacher: Not only strength, we have another
word for it.
Student 2: Energy.
Teacher: Good girl, energy, yes.

36. Footing
One useful way of thinking about how people
orient to their own and others’ roles is in
terms of “footing” (Goffman, 1981 [1979]).
For Erving Goffman:
“ a change in footing implies a change in the
alignment we take up to ourselves and the
others present as expressed in the way we
manage the production or reception of an
utterance.”

37. A footing may be associated with a conventional
, named role such as “teacher” or
“journalist” or it may signal an alignment to
gender.
Shifts in linguistic style can index shifts in
footing.
Example: a bilingual interpreter in a beauty
pageant who acts as an interpreter between the
contestant and the interviewer
*Subtle shifts in footing can cause trouble in interaction.

38. A person who utters a sentence may have one or more roles:
1) Principal – the person/group who has decided what to say
and responsible for its having been said; or
2) Author- the person who planned the actual words; or
3) Animator – the person who wrote down or spoke the
words
Example: a speech writer for a politician
Principal: politician
Author: speech writer
Animator: Politician/ spokesperson

39. Audience, Politeness and Accomodation
An audience may be imagined as a collection
of actual people or as an image in the mind
of a speaker or a writer.
Audience may be passive listeners or active co-
participants in the meaning making process
of discourse
Example: jointly constructed, highly interactive
discourse is highly valued and audience is
considered as co-authors

40. Politeness
As discourse is shaped by audience and speakers and
interlocutors have their social needs, both participants
behave according to the “rules” to proceed with
smooth interaction. These rules are Lakoff’s three
“rules of politeness” (1973, 1974b):
1) Formality (Distance): Do not impose on others; be
sufficiently aloof.
2) Hesitancy (Deference): Allow the addressee options
about whether or not to respond and about how to
respond
3) Equality (Camaraderie): Act as if you and the
addressee are equal; make the addressee feel good

41. Lakoff claimed that:
Three rules must be balanced since they
cannot all be maximized at once
Example:
More formality = less equality/ camaraderie
More equality = less hesitancy
Speech act or behavior may be perceived as
rude, odd inappropriate when the balance is
off. Hence, a misunderstanding may result in
an interaction.

42. “Positive-face” and “negative-face”
Politeness works in terms of “positive face” and
“negative face” (Brown and Levinson, 1987).
Face is defined as “the negotiated public image
mutually granted to each other by participants in a
communicative event” (Scollon et al, 2012).

43. In social interactions, humans have social needs: the
need to be liked (positive face) and the need to be
respected (not being imposed on - referred to as
negative face)
Whenever a “Face-Threatening Act” or FTA must be
performed – a speech action which poses a threat to
addressee’s positive or negative face – speakers must
employ strategies that mitigate or redress the threat

44. Involvement strategies – those that we use to
establish or maintain closeness with the
people with whom we are interacting – to
show them that we consider them as friends.
Independence strategies - those that we use
to establish or maintain distance from the
people with whom we are interacting either
because we are not friends or we want to
show them respect by not imposing on them

45. Face strategies
Involvement strategies Independence strategies
Using first names or nicknames (Hey,
Rodders!)
Using title (Good afternoon, Professor
Jones.)
Expressing interest (What have you been
up to lately?)
Apologising (I’m terribly sorry to bother
you.)
Claiming a common point of view (I
know exactly what you mean.)
Admitting differences (Of course, you
know much more about it than I do)
Making assumptions (I know you have
lots of sugar in your coffee.)
Not making assumptions (How would you
like your coffee today?)
Using informal language (Gotta minute?) Using formal language (Pardon me, can
you spare a few moments?)
Being direct (Will you come?) Being indirect and hedging (I wonder if
you might possibly drop by.)
Being optimistic (I’m sure you’ll have a
great time.)
Being pessimistic (I’m afraid you’ll find
it a bit boring.)
Being voluble (talking a lot) Being taciturn (not talking much)
Talking about ‘us’ Talking about things other than ‘us’

46. Social Identity and Identification
Everyday interaction requires
“performances” Goffman (1959) of selves
strategically geared to interactional demands
at hand. The term “identity” has been
used to describe these performances.
Identity refers to the outcome of processes
by which people index their similarity to and
difference from others (the process might be
called “identification)

47. Social identities are associated with race,
gender, ethnicity and nationality.
Identities can be also associated with
participant role in discourse like author or
overhearer, or social cliques in some school.

48. Social identities can be indexed by styles of
discourse.
Example: a person want to identify with a
certain category of women, she (or he) can
adopt ways of talking that are conventionally
associated with this group

49. Personal Identity: Discourse and the Self
This can involve adopting a consistent personal style, or
conversely, it can involve calling attention to the fact
that one is always flexible, across modes of behavior
and situations (Johnstone, 1996).
Three characteristics of personal identity (Linde, 1993):
1) Represent the experience of continuity of the self
over time
2) Represent the relationship of the self to others
3) Represent the experience of one’s own life as a
meaningful whole.

50. The Linguistic Individual in Discourse
Participants in discourse are individual human
beings therefore, discourse is fundamentally
creative.
Creative, because no two people speak the
same language and humans are individual
agents. Different people experience the
world through different eyes, different
bodies; they have different stories. Concepts
of the self vary widely across cultures and
others have free will to make their moral
choices.

52. References
Johnstone, B. (2008) Discourse Analysis, Second
Edition. USA:Blackwell Publishing.
Machin, D. & Mayr, A. (2012) How to Do Critical
Discourse Analysis A Multimodal Introduction.
London: Sage.
Jones, R. (2012) Discourse analysis: a resource book for
students. London and New York: Routledge