from the book Discourse by Guy COOK

1. DISCOURSE AS DIALOGUE
BY AHMAD YOUSSEF

2. OUTLINE
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Dialogue in communicative development
5.3 Discourse typology: reciprocity
5.4 Reciprocity, dialogue, and word order
5.5 Information structure in discourse

3. INTRODUCTION
Dialogue is one of the fundamental structuring principles of all discourse,
written and spoken alike.
Paradoxically, this is true in discourse which appears to be created by one
person alone (monologue) as in discourse which is created by two or more
(dialogue).

4. DIALOGUE IN COMMUNICATIVE DEVELOPMENT
 There is no hard evidence of the originates of language in prehistoric
communities, but it seems reasonable to assume that speech precedes
writing and
dialogue precedes monologue.
 Turn-taking and interaction are among the first communicative skills.
 Parents hold ‘conversations’, even with very young babies. They make a
dialogue with their babies and try to interpret their earliest noises as turns.

5. DISCOURSE TYPOLOGY: RECIPROCITY
 Two fundamental types of discourse: reciprocal, non-reciprocal
 Reciprocal: there is at least a potential for interaction ‫,تفاعل‬ the sender can
monitor and adjust to it or to put it another way, where the receiver can
influence the development of what is being said.
prototype: face-to-face conversation
 Non-reciprocal: sender and receiver may have no opportunity for
interaction .
prototype: a book by a dead author
 Pay attention: all discourse is more or less reciprocal, because it is based on
assumptions about receivers.

6. RECIPROCITY, DIALOGUE, AND WORD ORDER
 Talking about the reciprocity, connecting it to the mechanism of monologues
are often constructed with the receiver in mind.
 A kind of formal connection in monologic discourse is very intimately related
to
dialogue with an imagined receiver.
 we might even be justified as regarding the end of each sentence as the
point at
which the sender assess the effect on a potential receiver, imagines a reply,
and adjusts the next sentence accordingly.

7. WORD ORDER
 There are many ways of saying the same thing:
• John ate fish and chips.
• It was John who ate fish and chips.
• Fish and chips John ate.
• Fish is what John ate – and chips.
• John, he eats fish and chips.
 these are different ways of arranging the same information. Some of them
seem odd, but actual discourse provides a surprising number.

8. INFORMATION STRUCTURE IN DISCOURSE
 We can divide information into two types: given and new
given information: the sender thinks the receiver already knows.
new information: the sender thinks the receiver doesn’t already know.
Given information (topic) precedes new information (comment).
 Given information:
Previously mentioned in the text
Inferable from the text or content
Shared world knowledge of writer and reader

9.  There was a man called Ernest Hemingway.
Given new
 Ernest Hemingway was born in 1899 at Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago.
Given new
 So what was new in one sentence, becomes given in the next precisely,
because it has just been said.
 Communication might be defined as the conversion of new information into
given information, and a successful communicator as a person who correctly
assesses the state of knowledge of his or her interlocutor.

10.  If we misjudge and treat what is given as new, we will be boring; in the reverse case
when we assume the new as given, we will be incomprehensible.
 The choices we make about the order of the information in discourse reveal our
assumptions about the world and about the people we are trying to communicate
with.
 The truth of those assumptions gives unity to our discourse and success to our
communication. Their falsehood puts it in danger of collapse.

11. THE END