About discourse

1. Faculty: Foreign philology 421 group
Student: Nurshina Zhasmina
The emergency of the notion
“discourse” and “text”

2. 01 02 03
04 05 06
Table of contents
Emergency of
discourse
Examples of
discourse
A list of
discourse types
Example Information
about text
Conclusion

3. It is a
stretch of
language
longer than
a sentence
It
communicat
es and has a
purpose. It
may be
spoken or
written.
It is
meaningful
and
coherent
What is
discourse?
A continuous
stretch of
language larger
than a sentence,
often
constituting a
coherent unit,
such as sermon,
argument, joke
or narrative.
01 02 03
Common
Features
Introduction

4. Emergence of discourse
When did the study of
discourse begin?
What is the difference
between text and
discourse?
In the 1970s. The English word “discourse”
is derived from a Latin word “DISCURSUS”
meaning
“run about”. In linguistics, discourse is
generally considered to be the use of
written or spoken language in a social
context.
Some linguists define discourse as “ the
study of texts in contexts”. In this view,
discourse is language in action and text is
the grammatical and meaningful record of
that interaction.
Main Part

5. Eexamples of discourse
Spoken
DIscourse
Written Discourse
Conversations
Interviews
Reports
Political texts
Lectures
Jokes
Legal texts
Literature
Sermons
Speeches
Newspaper articles
Newspaper headlines

6. Emergence of discourse analysis
Discourse analysis emerged
in the 1970s as a reaction
to the exclusive concern
with the idealized native
speaker-hearer knowledge
in Chomsky’s tradition to
the exclusive of
considerations of context.
There was a new interest in
conversation and meaning
beyond language.

7. An attempt to understand the
term
discourse + analysis= discourse
analysis

8. Consider this…
For at least ten years now, discourse
has been a fashionable term. In
scientific texts and debates, it is used
indiscriminately, often without being
defined. The concept has become
vague, either meaning almost nothing,
or being used with more precise.
(Jorgensen & Phillips, 2002, p. 1)
The term discourse is
notorious for the arguments
surrounding it and the
confusion it can cause. A
major source of potential
confusion is that the meaning
of the term tends to vary
quite significantly depending
on the academic discipline
and the theoretical
preferences of the person
who uses it.
(Cameron, 2001, p. 10)
And this…

9. Why is discourse vague ?
discourse = text
discourse =
genre
discourse =
conversation
discourse = talk
In other words…
Deborah Cameron
(2001) establishes
that in almost all
literatures on
discourse analysis,
discourse
is frequently
interchanged
with(arguably)
related, yet different
terms, such as
conversation, talk,
text and genre.
If discourse is vague, then
discourse analysis must be
vague, too…
discourse analysis =
conversation analysis
discourse analysis =
analysis of talk
discourse analysis
= textual analysis
discourse analysis
= genre analysis

10. A list of
discourse types
menu
letter
chat
song
squabble
speech
lecture
recipe joke
seminar
novel
consolation
story
manual
report
manifesto
notice
sign
article
prescription

11. Example
A: That’s the
telephone
B: I am in the
bath
A: OK
How do both the
speakers manage
to make sense of
what the other
says ?
The 1st speaker makes a
request for the 2nd speaker
to perform action
The 2nd speaker state reason
why he cannot comply with
the request
The 1st speaker undertakes to
perform the action
Thus language users must
have a lot of knowledge (non-
linguistic) of how
conversation works that is not
simply ‘linguistic’ knowledge

12. Previous investigation
- Background for analyses of
stylistic investigation of different
words, phrases, clauses.
Modern investigations
background for investigation
of different functional styles
- Is not a sphere or background for
functioning
different language units
- Integrated communicative unit that has the
integration of:
- structural-semantic
- composition-stylistic
- functional properties
text
categories
- Informativeness
- Integrativity
- Recurrency
- Completeness
General/Common/Surface-external
representation through the set of:
- Sentences
- Paragraphs
- Other different fragments
- Text elements/fragments
tex
t
TEXT

13. ● 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.)
● Discourse analysts study these text-
forming devices with reference to the
purposes and functions for which the
discourse was produced, and the
Text and Discourse Analysis
Phase 1
● 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’.
● Text analysis is the study of
formal linguistic devices that
distinguish a text from
random sentences.
Phase 2
Conclusion

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