Introduction to Discourse

06-07-2019
 Objective
• Students will be introduced to
(Category: 01)
1. What is Discourse?
2. Features of discourse
3. Text and discourse
4. Types of discourse: Written, spoken, media,
politics etc.
 1: What is Discourse
• Dictionary meaning:
1. The linguistic, cognitive and social processes whereby
meanings are expressed and intentions interpreted in
human interaction
2. The historically and culturally embedded sets of
conventions which constitute and regulate such processes.
3. A particular event in which such processes are instantiated
4. The product of such an event, especially in the form of
visible text, whether originally spoken and subsequently
transcribed or originally written (linguist 1).
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1. The linguistic, cognitive and social processes whereby meanings
are expressed and intentions interpreted in human interaction
“Where a Linguist sees the text and the event but then beyond
both to the performance being enacted, the drama being played
out between the two girls: what has happened, who is
responsible, how the girls evaluate these facts (relate them to
some existing framework of beliefs and attitudes about how the
world – their world – works), how they respond to them, what
each is trying to achieve, their strategies for attempting to
achieve these objectives, etc. This linguist is mainly interested in
the dynamics of the process that makes the event happen”.
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2: The historically and culturally embedded sets of
conventions which constitute and regulate such
processes.
• Where a Linguist sees the text, the event, and the
drama; but beyond these, and focally, the
framework of knowledge and power which, if
properly understood, will explain how it is possible
for the two children, individually and jointly, to
enact and interpret their drama in the way they do.
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3: A particular event in which such processes are
instantiated.
1. Where Linguist sees beyond the text to the event of
which it is the verbal record.
2. Where Linguist is most likely the person who collected
the data; and who made the following note describing
some features of the situation in which the exchange
took place: [sunny Sunday afternoon, Edinburgh Botanic
Garden, two girls, both aged 7 or 8, on a path; one of
them has kicked the ball they are playing with into the
bushes]
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4: The product of such an event, especially in the form
of visible text, whether originally spoken and
subsequently transcribed or originally written
Where Linguist sees a text – the verbal record of a
speech event, something visible, palpable and
portable, consisting of various bits of linguistic
meaning (words, clauses, prosodic features, etc.).
This linguist is mainly interested in the way the parts
of the text relate to each other to constitute a unit of
meaning.
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• Van Dijk (1997) points out that the term discourse
is commonly used to refer to a particular form of
language use (egg, public speeches) or more
generally to spoken language or ways of speaking.
• A more professional definition of discourse
includes a particular focus on the actual language
used in a communicative event.
• ( A discourse analyst is essentially interested in
“who uses the language? How, why? And when?)
 2: Features of Discourse
• There are two features of Discourse
• Cohesion: Cohesion means links and ties with
in the text.
• Coherence: Coherence in linguistics is what
makes a text semantically meaningful.
Grammar within and beyond the sentence

• What makes a text?

• Types of text which we can engage can be:
• Radio news (spoken receptive).
• Pages of a novel (written receptive).
• Reading and responding to an email
• Making shopping lists (written products)
• Writing a paragraph (written product)
• Texts are:
• Self- oriented
• Well-formed
• Hang together
• Make sense
• Have a clear communication purpose recognizable text
types.
• Appropriate to their context
 Cohesion
Cohesive devices

Levels

Lexical cohesion Grammatical cohesion

Direct repetition, word families, Substitutions of clause elements,
Rhetorical cohesion
synonyms, antonyms, words from the ellipsis of clause elements ,
semantic field, lexical chains and lists. conjuncts (linkers), comparative Questionnaire parallelism
Substitutions. tenses.
 References
Cataphoric reference
Types of The referencing word
anticipate the
reference referent

Anaphoric
reference
Back reference
 Nominalization
• It is a process to make reference less focused, more
general way, using certain nouns.
• Conjuncts:
• Contribute to the unity and relate between parts of the
texts.
• Categories
• Addictive
• Adversative
• Casual
• Temporal
 What makes a text make sense?
• Coherence:
• Capacity of the text to make sense, it is
divided into two perspectives.
• Micro-level: Topic and comment
• Macro level: Topic
• Micro level: topic and comment
• Topic: Given information
• Comment: New information
• End-weight: It is the placement of new
information in the letter part of the clause.
• Passive construction: To place the object in
the topic slot and placing new information in
the comment slot.
• Cleft sentence:
• These sentences are used to alter the normal
order of sentences elements to place special
emphasis on the new information.
• Macro-level Coherence:
• At the macro level texts achieved coherence
because they are obviously about something.
Which is identifiable as
• Key words:
• Are words that occur with frequently of there
same words.
• Script:
• Are the ways in which we expect things to
happen.
• Schema:
• Is the knowledge represented mentally.
 Spoken Texts
• Text in context:
• To take into consideration at the time of
creating texts.
• Text type audience, topic, mode, purpose.
• Pragmatics
• Study of language in its contexts in use, and
how there contexts impact on the way use
produce and interpret.
• Context, text type, and text

Context

Text type

Text
• Text function
• Michael Halliday defined text as “Language
that is functional”
• Macro Functions
Referencing Expressing Regulating Interacting Playing

Using language Feeling: saying Using language Using language Using language
to convey or what you like or to influence to maintain imaginatively
solicit dislike people and get social relations. and playfully.
information things done,
such as
requesting
ordering,
promising,
warning
 Context and register
• Possible components of the contexts that
might impact the language choices in texts
production.
• Field:
• The what of the situation.
• What kind of social activity is doing on, and
about what kind of topic.
• Tenor: The who of the situation.
• Mode
• The how of the situation
• The means by which the text is being created.
• These contextual dimensions determine the
register of the something text.
 Classroom texts
• Text Needs To be intelligent

• The writer should keep audience in mind, h

should respect the “tenor”

• Disagree of simplification(in terms of syntax

and vocabulary)
• Authentic
Types of
authentic texts

Authentic texts adapted

for classroom use

Grading the tasks

Completely contrived
 • Authentic tasks

• Purpose of the classroom text

Level of difficulty of text

will depend on
Linguistics
For skill development or
strategies
 Classroom Application

Task- Task designing

Adaptation strategies

Pre-teaching
Shortening Brainstorming
Predicting
Segmenting Initial skimming
Well-reading/Well-listening
 Designing Tasks
• TAVI
• Text as a vehicle of information
• The information within the text is seen as more
important than language
• TALO
• Text is used for language work, especially
vocabulary or grammar.
• A good strategy is to combine both purposes in the
one text.
 Text based syllabus
• This approach focuses on texts rather then
language structure.

• These criterions should be follow for selecting

material.

• Frequency usefulness difficulty

 Literary Text
• Literary text
Have aesthetic function
Seduce through expressing
Provoke feelings
Produce effects
They are a type of text that Playful
are neither intended, neither
to display nor to inform
Thank you