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Introduction
- Working concepts
- Theoretical approaches
- Linguistic tools
- Genres
main topics:
- Subjectivity: who is writing and speaking? Study of evaluation and modality
- Intertextuality: dialogism and enunciative heterogeneity
Sometimes we have implicit tools in the text we have to identify.
Discourse:
- markers
- relations
What Discourse is? Discourse can be a public discussion. Discourse can be something related to spoken language.
Which is the difference between oral text and discourse.
Context (Who, when, with what intention) is the key to make a distinction, I cannot remove the production from its context.
Discourse analysis is the study of language in use. It is the study of the meanings we give language and the actions we carry out when we use language in specific contexts.
When I assume something I’m conceptualizing.
What is context?
When I start writing the first thing I ask to myself is: what do the people already know (shared knowledge).
Contextualization “an active process of negotiation” that creates meaning.
Principle of cooperation: interaction typically involves cooperation, but not necessary.
If there’s a lack of cooperation, maybe it's manipulation, a lie or something else.
If I cooperate I’ll probably say something relevant and what I believe to be true.
Context as a dialogic process.
Knowledge: is justified belief shared by the members of an (epistemic) community.
Difference between Knowledge and Belief.
Lezione uno: What is Discourse? Discourse is usually referred to a form of language use, public speech, spoken language/ways of speaking.
Discourse is a form of “language use”, discourse analysts want to include also who speaks, why, when and how.
Communicative event: specific situation in which the discourse is declared.
Discourse presupposes interaction.
3 main dimensions of Discourse analysis: a) language use (linguistic) b) communication of beliefs/cognition (psychology: for the study of belief and how they’re communicated) c) interaction in social situations (social sciences)
Discourse Analysis is the study of language in use:
- how we use language in specific context and situations
- how we create sentences and utterances
- how actions are linked to the language (ex. of marriage)
Discourse can be intended as text and talk in context.
Different levels of interfacing a discourse
Utterance type meaning: concerns the range of possible meanings. Utterance-token-meanings\situated meaning task: specific meanings in actual contexts of use (situated meanings, topic-like) = comprende il significato specifico dell’utilizzo di “una parola” tenendo conto del contesto specifico in cui viene utilizzata → applica l’utterance-type-meaning (quindi lo studio del rapporto tra la forma e la funzione applicandola al contesto specifico). Utterance-type-meaning: it studies the correlation between forms and functions.
Discourse analysis can undertake two tasks: one related to the general meaning and one related to the situated meaning. Task is what we intend for the purpose of the meaning of a specific utterance (che cosa vogliamo intendere con il significato di un enunciato specifico?).
Form
Subjectivity
Meaning is related to:
- Representation: the discourse represents aspects of the physical, mental and social world
- Action: discourse as action and interaction with others
- Identification: discourse as the textual construction of identities
Subjectivity is the search for linguistic processes by which the speaker imprints his mark on the utterance, inscribes himself in the message and positions himself in relation to it.
Sub. is related to:
- Deixis (here, i, we, now)
- Markers of evaluation (what is desirable or not, good\bad)
- Markers of modality (what is true and necessary)
Sub. can be:
- explicit: I think this is beautiful
- implicit: This is beautiful
Evaluation
a) subjective nouns b) subjective adjectives
- affective adjectives
- evaluative adjectives c) adverbs d) verbs
Subjectivity may also be expressed through the selection of:
- parts of the situation
- parts of the reported speech
Modality: what is true and necessary.
What authors commit themselves to in texts is an important part of how they identify themselves → modality is the way to express, linguistically, attitudes and opinions of the speakers about the content of their utterances.
Modality means the speaker’s judgement of the probabilities or the obligations involved in what he’s saying → factuality, degrees of certainty or doubt, vagueness, possibility, necessity, permission and obligation.
There is a dialectical relation between:
- action
- representation
- identification
Modality have a different value if we use different modal verbs: should must would could may Modal values need to be evaluated in relation to a specific point of view.
- Who establishes an obligation (SM)
- Over whom is an obligation established
- How is the obligation presented (imposed by an entity, by laws, by rules, is an external obligation). → Modal values: a - Epistemic (position regarding the truth value) = evidential (indicates the source to support the epistemic position) b - Deontic (leads to an action) ❖ commissive (commitments, threats) ❖ External to the participant (necessity) c - Internal to the participant (capacity and necessity) d - Volition (desire, wish, fear)
- Who considers that something is true, possible or impossible?
- How is the attitude presented linguistically?
a - Epistemic Modality (certainty, probability, possibility) with epistemic modality speakers express their judgments about the factual status of the propositions, whereas with evidential modality they indicate the evidence they have for its factual status
Ex. He won the election.
Evidential modality:
Ex. He won the election, according to the official results. According to the newspapers, he won the election. I heard that he won the election.
The newspaper is the source of modality.
b - Deontic (obligation, permission)
Ex. Finish your work! He has to finish his work He may leave earlier
b1 - Commissive (promises, threats)
THE PARENTS (SM2) ALLOWING THEIR DAUGHTERS (™2) → the parents have no control on the situation, this is not a volitive decision, they have no choice. External deontic modality = their faith obliged them = there’s a necessity for the girls to take the class, might be a necessity for the girls to learn to swim, but they have to do it somewhere else.
When we have several modal verbs, usually the first one is epistemic and the following have other values.
He might have to leave early
EPISTEMIC (the SM is given by the speaker) DEONTIC
We could have different sources depending on the modal verbs.
MOOD [referring to the verbal system] è il modo dei verbi. There’s something related to modality in the verbal system. Ex. if we talk about the indicatif we’re talking about something factual (reality). Subjunctive = hypothetical
Example of Ethos in President Cavaco Silva’s inauguration speech.
Example of Ethos in the tex by Francisco Teixeira da Mota: daydream ardent refused claiming
In the first paragraph he tries to stay neutral but in the second paragraph we see that while he reports indirect speech giving voice to parents’ words he’s being judgmental by the use of verbs and adjectives and the use of “daydream”.
The secondary locutor (parents) is always depending on the primary one (what the parents say is mediated by the judgment of Francisco 1 locutor and author).
The ethos is usually valid for the main locutor. Example 3: Netanyahu speech at the UN
pre-ethos: imagine we have before the speech starts.
In the case of Francisco there’s no pre-ethos, but in this case Netanyahu we have a pre-idea, that doesn’t mean that we all have the same idea, but we all have an idea.
Intertextuality due to the use of poetry, why do he use poetry?
Ethos is the result of many things in the text.
Example 4: ethos of institutional discourse (Maingueneau):
Legitimacy creates the ethos.
18 Marzo
Different perspectives in the text.
- Dialogism: a. Interactional dialogism: dialogue between two perspectives b. Intertextual dialogism: dialogue between different texts
- marked
- implicit (allusion, pastiche) → it is very important that the other person understands the reference (importance of knowledge) Ex. Nonita (Umberto Eco), you can understand it if you know Lolita. c. Reported speech
These entities create an entity.
“For masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common…”
We are determined by what people have said before.
Lexical Banners? When we look at language we repeat a lot of structures, we are not as innovative as we think.
10 Aprile
Modal markers!!!!!!!!
- question
if = epistemic source: external circumstances birmingham organization
deemed = epistemic source: birmingham organization necessary = external modality source: circumstances
different modal markers can point to different sources
Presupposition ≠ Inferences not depending on the context depending on the context determined by linguistic elements variable illimited
Inference = meaning : it is not certain it depends on the situation while the presupposition has a modalized value (it’s something we’re sure about).
Inferring is the process of extrapolating information from a text.
→ When we talk about presupposition we have to identify:
- what triggers the P. (factive verb/definite description)
- new information/old information
● Semantic presupposition: there is implicit information triggered by a linguistic element (not the situational context), and considered true to a specific speech source ● Pragmatic inferences: an inference is pragmatically calculated based on the meaning of what is said, on the context of production, and our knowledge of the world
Particular conversational implicatures: cases when the speaker implies an additional meaning (there is an intention) that needs to be inferred (Grice).
The speaker is counting on the addressee’s capacity to extract inferences. Implicatures in general stand in opposition to “what is said”, as components of a more inclusive “what is meant”.
(Cruse (2004) Meaning in Language, defining Grice’s implicatures)
Implicature
Accomodation of presupposition!
Implicature counts on the cooperation of the speaker and the listener to cover the meaning gap that is created. Principles of cooperation:
- Maxim of quality: speakers should produce utterances that are true.
- Maxim of relevance: the utterance is related to a previous utterance (the utterance should be relevant to the interaction)
- Maxim of quantity: not providing less nor more information than what is needed.
- Maxim of mode: the utterance should be clear → be clear, be orderly, avoid obscurity and ambiguity.
Conversational implicature can be calculated based on:
- the meaning of what is said the context
- the assumption that the speaker will follow the Cooperative Principle and its Conversational Maxims.
Other implicita:
- Vagueness
- Omission of the agent
- Euphemism
- Situational irony
- Verbal irony (contrast, the presence of an attitude, an evaluation, intentionality)
As-if theory Irony is not a case of flouting the maxim of quality, but rather a mismatch between the literal meaning of the utterance and the speaker’s motivation belief (the primary belief that he intends to communicate).
Theory of echoes What is implied recovers the discourse of another entity, known by the participants in the interaction, or the discourse of a group, or shared knowledge (relation with polyphony).
Incongruity theories According to Kierkegaard humour and irony are the products of a discrepancy between what may be expected and what actually occurs.
“We have come to expect certain patterns, properties and events in what we experience as a fairly orderly world. When something does not fit those patterns, we laugh.” (Curcó 1997:29)
Irony involves three elements:
- speaker
- addressee
- public (in general other participant to the conversation)
Markers of irony:
- Kinesic: gestures, smiles, bows, straight looks
- Graphic markers: exclamation mark, quotation marks, points of suspension
- Phonic markers: prosody, tone of voice, false cough, pauses
- Lexical markers: intensifying adverbs, adjectives used for hyperbole, concessive\contrastive structures
- Text\image
Power
Foucault → We are subjected to the production of truth through power and we cannot exercise power except through the production of truth. = there is a link between knowledge (what we believe as truth) and power.
c) if you apply negation, the p. is not affected
3. Identify the semantic value of the discourse relation that holds between the segment in italic and the segment in bold, using the PDTB typology. Justify briefly. Not making it available in Russia constitutes a very, very tiny bit of pressure against ongoing aggression in Ukraine. But I believe that every bit counts. (lines 18-20)
- At first we have an explicit relation because we do have a “But” → there is a connective.
- Semantic value: relation of concession
- expected result [implicit argument]: not relevant → no restriction to Russia But → negates the expected result → it is relevant = there should be a restriction = INFERENCE
5. Analyse what discourse relations are used in the answers lines 2-5, and then 16-20.
A public statement by Miloš Jakubíček, CEO of Lexical Computing, on Sketch Engine
unavailability in Russia and Belarus.
published on 3 March 2022
https://www.sketchengine.eu/news/no-business-as-usual-with-russia-anymore/
“science should not be political” This, I admit, I find completely ridiculous. Anyone having a job in science, sport or culture and thinking they are apolitical, please have a look at your payroll and where the money is coming from. Have a look at your government’s website how proud the country is of its scientists, athletes or artists? In these areas, you represent your country more than in others, willingly or not. “but I’m against Putin” Me too. You are unfortunate in that you live in an economic area that Putin (absolutely) controls and used its gains to initiate an invasion of your neighbouring country, Ukraine, committing atrocities and killing many people equally innocent as you claim to be. All the sanctions punish the guilty ones, the innocent ones as well as those initiating the sanctions, otherwise they would not be effective. We all need to make sacrifices now. If you live in Russia, now is the time when you need to act and do what you can to prevent the otherwise inevitable: Russia becoming the second North Korea, completely isolated from the outside world, completely cut off from any type of collaboration in business, science, culture or sport. “and you think Putin will stop because of Sketch Engine?” Surely not. Sketch Engine is not the bread and butter people need for everyday living. But it is the bread and butter for corpus linguistics. It is a high-tech premium product that enables people to take part in state-of-the-art research and science in some fields. Not making it available in Russia constitutes a very, very tiny bit of pressure against ongoing aggression in Ukraine. But I believe that every bit counts.
- [you’re punishing me] = previous argument is implicit → we have to infer this info I’m against Putin = I shouldn’t be affected
- This is ridiculous (obvious information) → (1) anyone having a job, look at where the money comes from, (2) you represent your country. → there is no connective (the dr is implicit) → the relation is justification or subjective cause
This is ridiculous (because) anyone having a job […] (so) you represent your country (conclusion).
