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LINGUA E LINGUISTICA INGLESE:
LEZIONE 1 - 25/09/
Discourse analysis examines authentic forms of language as they occur in real life (while researchers using other methods are more likely to create their own samples and examples).
Cosa vuol dire metodologia di ricerca? Cos’è una ricerca? First of all: ● Define a research question:What do you want to investigate?What do you believe is different from what you studied before? Si parte da un argomento e mi faccio la domanda “quando questo caso non accade?” ● Analytical approach—> la metodologia che io scelgo e che poi devo seguire. Es. voglio studiare l’interazione tra due persone,devo studiare l’interaction analysis. Devo studiare prima mille interazioni. Su cosa applico questa metodologia? I miei dati riguardano solo quei due persone. Utilizzando la conversation analysis,si analizza l'interazione tra soggetto 1 e soggetto 2 in diversi settings. ● Collect data; ● Define context —> localizzazione,mezzo di comunicazione,cultura. Il lettore deve sapere cosa sto facendo. ● Code data —> l’interazione deve essere letta da tutti. Se faccio mille interpretazioni,dobbiamo ordinare questi avvenimenti. Es. cronologico, ecc… ● Look for patterns:quando loro parlano,ci sono dei patterns che si ripetono? Se lui inizia una discussione,inizia sempre ciao? Quando è maleducato,ci sono sempre espressioni a cui ricorre?Bisogna sempre trovare il pattern affinché si svolga un buon lavoro. ● Analyse language use:formale,informale,se appartiene ad una varietà linguistica;c’è code switching? ● Interpretation:la nostra parte,dove inseriamo le nostre idee. ● Summarize (conclusions):dalla mia interpretazione,sicuramente influenzate da credo religioso,cultura ecc… scattano le conclusioni.
● Discourse analysis utilizes a unique methodology designed to reveal the underlying significance of both written and spoken language. This methodology is often a focal point of study in higher education courses related to humanities,linguistics or social sciences. ● Discourse analysis can reveal deep motivations and meanings behind written and spoken language. ● As a research method,discourse analysis does not simply analyze language. ● Instead,it’s a tool that can reveal how language is used to express meaning and or to achieve specific communication goals. ● Discourse analysis is not the only methodology that studies language.However,it substantially differs from other methods,like grammar analysis. ● While the latter is concerned with grammatical or syntactical structure,discourse analysis helps the researcher or student dig deep under such structures. ● Another difference is that language-focused analysis techniques tend to study language components in isolation,whereas discourse analysis takes those elements and evaluates them considering the context in which they happen. ● In addition,discourse analysis examines authentic forms of language as they occur in real life,while researchers or students using other methods are more likely to create their own samples and examples.
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LEZIONE 2 - 28/09/
Seniors and images in politics: Being seniors in 1992 was depicted more positively (31 %) than negatively (7 %,as victims and dependent),but portrayals have been stereotypical,with health care and welfare issues as the main concerns.The setting is generally nursing or retirement homes (in line with the idea that older citizen are expected to live a marginal life,not in working-class settings).
Bush compaign in 2000 marked a change in the attitude of candidates to older adults,with a more positive image (happy and vibrant portrayals).
Critical discourse analysis to identify the main discursive strategies: Kress and Van Leeuwen’s social semiotic approach (2001) to examine how multimodal elements convey authority. Multimodal critical discourse discourse analysis refers to how both verbal and nonverbal semiotic resources contribute to communicating meanings (Ledin/Machin 2017).
Seniors these days: ● The highest voter turnout was adults age 65 and older.61 % of seniors voted.
Reforms > active aging ● Reducing incentives for early retirement in tax and benefits systems. ● Providing financial incentives (such as reduced social contributions) to seniors who continue work. ● Promoting lifelong learning and training for older workers. ● Developing new roles involving intergenerational teams and mentoring or coaching roles. ● Making work organization more flexible to meet the needs of seniors,including flexibility,part-time work and temporary employment.
Because of the increasing number of older adults in today’s society,the notion of aging has received significant attention in the public sphere,where common assumptions and stereotypes are challenged and potential scenarios are presented.
A person is considered to be “old” at 57 (es. in Slovakia) or at 70 (es. Netherlands) and this age may be lowered/increased in base of the working activity/context ( Eurobarometer survey).
Anti-discrimination policies : social protection,social inclusion,research and accessibility as well as new technologies. National laws provide financial incentives to seniors who continue work,reducing incentives for early retirements,promoting intergenerational working groups,intergenerational solidarity and accessibility.
Legitimation Theory (Van Leeuwen 2008): ● By reference to personal authority because the utterer is recognized as an expert,as a role model,or as the interpreter of tradition,as referent of laws and regulation (impersonal authority) or to habits (authority of conformity) ● By moral evaluation that is by reference to values:the quality of actions can be evaluated (evaluation) or compared to activities that belong to a certain social practice (analogy). ● By rationalization that is the reference to goals or actions endowed with cognitive validity ● By mythopoesis that is explained as legitimation conveyed through storytelling.
2nd video: it is an advertisement,it is about politics,the theme is against someone,the topic is about senior people,there is an old lady,she is complaining about something someone has said.
Differences: old people in these videos,they are there to vote,they exist,they appear on a screen,they use different strategies.They said having a house is important… older people are people who I care a lot.Why old people are important in politics? They are a huge part of society so politics need their votes. When we analyze a text we must look at the settings: in a video there are no lights,there is dramatic music,there is a house represented. The lady is locked in the house (emphasis on the dramatic tone). In the other video the sweet old lady .The lady is in a park,there is light,the music is captivating,she is using bad words.She is not supposed to use those words because she is not a bad person. At the end of the video she is sweet when she is speaking with the child. The stereotype of old people is like the first one,this is the image of being old. In the USA stereotypes are important, that's why in ad they try to collect any ideas to being old. They work on new types of stereotypes (such as in the video of the sweet old lady).
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LEZIONE 4 - 5/10/ ● Membership categorization —--> classify into groups —-collectivization (ex. Erasmus student) —-criminalization (ex. sicilian are mafias) —-politicization (ex.a political group) —-professionalization (ex. teachers) —-regionalization —-medicalization (ex. gynecologist) ● Individualization —-- > to refer individually —-> formalization,informalization ● Depersonalization —-> dehumanizing metaphors —-> for naming participants when you want to stress negative aspects of someone ● Suppression —-> exclude participants by avoiding naming them —-
passivization —->nominalization
● threat and abuse: let’s beat her ● image manipulation (ex.memes by using pictures and decontextualized them for irony)
Conversation analysis: ● CA is concerned with examining different conversation structures and how they are used to achieve interactive goals in various social situations. ● It is the study of recorded,naturally occuring talk-in-interaction. ● why? because it aims to discover how participants understand and respond to one another in their turns at talk,with a central focus on how sequences of action are generated. ● it uncovers tacit reasoning procedures and sociolinguistic competencies underlying the production and interpretation of talk in organized sequences of interaction. ● Spoken interaction is orders which means that speakers follow a systematic structure that speakers follow.This structure can be separated from the specific information being conveyed.
CA: Utterance and goals: An utterance is not only a way to communicate an idea,but rather a tool used by the speaker to achieve a social goal (a complaint,a request,a greeting)
Hi,what’s up? Hi,how is it going? different utterances but same goal
● Recording ● Transcribing ● Analysis for patterns (using data-driven methods) ● Sequential analysis
Things to be considered when we have an exchange: ● turn taking ● adjacency pairs ● repair ● preference organization
Turn taking: ● In conversation analysis,turn-taking is a term for the manner in which orderly conversation normally takes place.A basic understanding can come right from the term itself:it’s the notion that people in a conversation take turns in speaking.When studied by sociologists,however,the analysis goes deeper,into topics such as how people know when it’s their turn to speak,how much overlap there is between speakers,when it’s ok to have overlap,and how to consider regional or gender differences, ● competitive vs. cooperative overlap in conversations,such as how that affects the balance of power of those in the conversation and how much rapport the speakers have.For example,in competitive overlaps,researchers might look at how one person dominates a conversation or how a listener might take some power back with different ways of interrupting. ● In cooperative overlap,a listener might ask for clarification on a point or add to the conversation with further examples that support the speaker’s point.These kinds of overlaps help move the conversation forward and aid in communicating the full meaning to all who are listening.Or overlaps might be more benign and just show that the listener understands,such as by saying “Uh-nuh”.Overlap like this also moves the speaker forward. ● Interrupting vs. interjecting:interrupting is not a violation if it doesn’t steal the floor.If your uncle is telling a long story at dinner,you may cut in to ask him to pass the salt.Most (but not all) people would say you aren’t really interrupting;you just asked for a temporary pause. A speaker who stops talking because another has begun: “You are not interested in hearing what I have to say” “You are a boor who only wants to hear yourself talk”
ALSO
“You are unfriendly and are making me do all the conversational work here”.
“(T)he two-way nature of cross.cultural differences typically eludes participants in the throes of conversation.A speaker who stops talking because another has begun is unlikely to think,”I guess we have different attitudes toward cooperative overlap “. Instead,such a speaker will probably think,”You are not interested in hearing what I have to say” or even “You are a boor who only wants to hear yourself talk”. And the cooperative overlapper is probably concluding.
Asymmetry: ● An imbalance in the relationship between speaker and hearer as a result of social and institutional factors. (ex.teacher and student) ● Medical encounters. ● Doctors exert control over the concerns expressed within the consultation,and patients defer to the authority of the doctor by refraining from battling for such control.
Indexicality: It encompasses the features of a language that refer directly to the circumstances or context in which an utterance takes place.
An indexical expression (such as today,that,here,utterance and you) is a word or phrase that is associated with different meanings (or referents) on different occasions. In conversation,interpretation of indexical expressions may in part depend on a variety of paralinguistic and non-linguistic features,such as hand gestures and the shared experiences of the participants,
Deictic expressions,place,and time adverbs,and pronouns are just particularly clear illustrations of a general fact about situated language”.
The most frequently noted indexicals are personal pronouns (I,we,you,etc.), demonstratives (“this”, “that”), deictics (“here" ," there" ,"now"),and tense and other forms of time positioning (“smiles”,”smiled”,”will smile”). Our understanding of both spoken utterances and written texts must be anchored in the material world. To understand a sentence such as,”Would you take this over there”,we need a provisional location for myself (the speaker-a meaning for here–),for “you” (my addressee),for the object (“this”),and for the goal intended (“there”).
● Direct indexicality Direct indexicality is a meaning relationship that holds directly between language and the stance,act,activity,or identity indexed”. An illustration of this process can be seen in the American-English address term dude (Kiesling 2004). Dude is used most frequently by young white men and indexes a stance of casual solidarity:a friendly,but crucially not intimate,relationship with the addressee.This stance of casual solidarity is a stance habitually taken more by young white American men than other identity groups. Dude thus indirectly indexes young,white masculinity as well.
Explicature:
● An explicature consists of the explicit assumptions communicated by an utterance. ● Degrees of explicitness: (6 a ) Alan Jones: Do you want to join us for supper? (6 b) Lisa: No,thanks.I’ve eaten. (6 c) Lisa: No,thanks.I’ve already eaten supper (6 d) Lisa: No,thanks.I’ve already eaten tonight. (6 e) Lisa: No,thanks.I’ve already eaten supper tonight.
All four answers communicate not only the same overall meaning but also the same explicature and implicatures… Although all four answers in (6 b)-(6 e) convey the same explicature,there is a clear sense in which Lisa’s meaning is least explicit in (6b) and most explicit in (6e),with (6c) and (6d) falling in between.These differences in degree of explicitness are analysable in terms of the relative proportions of decoding and inference involved.
Implicature: Husband: How much longer will you be? Wife: Mix yourself a drink.
To interpret the utterance in Sentence 9,the husband must go through a series of inferences based on principles that he knows the other speaker is using.The conversational response to the husband’s question would be a direct answer where the wife indicated some time frame in which she would be ready.This would be a conventional implicature with a literal answer to a literal question.But the husband assumes that she heard his question,that she believes that he was genuinely asking how long she would be,and that she is capable of indicating when she would be ready.The wife…chooses not to extend the topic by ignoring the relevancy maxim.The husband then searches for a plausible interpretation of her utterance and concludes that what she is doing is telling him that she is not going to offer a particular time,or doesn’t know,but she will be long enough yet for him to have a drink.She may also be saying,”Relax,I’ll be ready in plenty of time”.
Discourse analysis: ● “It’s the study of real language use,by real speakers in real situations,” explains Teun A. van Gijk,a noted author and scholar in the field. ● In discourse analysis,the context of a conversation is taken into account as well as what’s being said.This context may encompass a social and cultural framework,including the location of a speaker at the time of the discourse,as well as nonverbal cues such as body language,and,in the case of textual communication,it may also include images and symbols. ● Misunderstanding relayed information can lead to problems-big or small.Being able to distinguish subtle subtext in order to differentiate between factual reporting and fake news,editorials or propaganda is crucial to interpreting true meaning and intent.This is the reason that having well- developed skills in the critical analysis of discourse-to be able to “read between the lines” of verbal and or written communication-is of utmost importance.
Passive forms are more used in technical texts. Technical words are difficult to grasp and are not transparent because it is opaque. When dealing with ESP we do not understand because we do not have knowledge in the field and we refer to a model that distinguishes intra specialist level,interspecialist level,didactic/pedagogical level and popular level.
Model by Cloitre and Shinn (1985): ● Intraspecialist level: communication from specialist to specialist within the same disciplinary field —> for example a linguist who goes to a conference about linguistics and talks to other linguists and deals with a technical language that occurs in his/her field and he/her does not have to explain herself because the others are specialists in the field. ● Interspecialist level: communication from specialist to specialist across disciplinary fields —-> I go to a conference and I’am a specialist in discourse analysis but the conference is about sociology or history.I’m not a specialist in those fields but I can use a language that is specialistic enough to be understood by other specialists.I’m not sure that specialized words that I use in my field are understood by the others. ● Didactic/pedagogical level: communication from specialist to pupil or trainee —-> the professor talks about “sintagma” and the students understand that word because they have studied it,even if they are not specialists yet. ● Popular level: communication from specialist to layperson —> the expert talks with someone who does not have a background knowledge so he needs to readapt and refrain what he says —> audience is important when dealing with ESP. ● The field of discourse: the type of social action that is taking place,its topic and participants and the purpose of the communicative event. I’m a classroom doing a lesson to a class of postgraduate students so the fact that we are not in the “triennale” has a meaning (this type of lesson determines the level. ● The tenor of discourse: the role of participants,their relationship. Roles are very important because they mark the specialistic text that I’m using. The professor can make examples and can use humor and make fun of herself because she is a teacher and his role is empowered by the fact that she has power and the students cannot make fun of her. Ad esempio il bugiardino è una testo specialistico ma non c’è una relazione tra chi scrive e chi legge. The language is characterized by a general tendency to neutral aspects. The professor uses pronouns like me and you and expresses a text to the students. ● The mode of discourse: the way in which the text functions in relation to the situation,related to the medium (written,oral or a combination of them),the channel (face to face etc.) and the genre. The lesson is the social action and the genre at the same time. The relationship changes because of time and place so for example in other countries you don’t need to call the professor “professor”.
Specialized lexicon: ● The lexical component is in actual fact the linguistic element that sets special languages most evidently apart from general language. ● It is not arbitrary: the term is introduced because of a deliberative choice to meet the needs of new concepts or discovery of new phenomena. Specialists need to label a new idea > for example the term “climate change” some years ago meant a change in the climate but now it means that we must pay attention to our habits and the world we are living in,it is not just the weather. ● Terms are monosemic/mono referential. In poetry we use metaphors while in specialized texts there are not. ● Lexical units do not have connotations i.e.emotional associations. ● No semantic ambiguity or vagueness > you can not be misinterpreted. ● Terms come up from semantic conventions among the discourse community. It takes into account the audience because the discourse community is a group of people sharing the same background knowledge,the same intent,goals and methodology.If we share the same idea we become a discourse community. ● But there is a historical dimension so the notion of mono referentiality cannot be applied in rigorous terms.Terminologies are shaped and altered through the voluntary action of an individual or a group.
● Lack of emotion ● Transparency ● Coinciness ● Conservatism ● Definitions: x is y; x can be defined as y;appositions etc… ● Parallel lexicon inventories: myocardial infarction / heart attack; stroke /apoplexy mal di testa/ cefalea > this causes some problems in translation since in Italian there is a tendency to use specialized words more extensively than in English.We would say more often “infarto” that “attacco di cuore”.
● Coinciness means the use of expressions that are as short as possible for the sake of brevity and efficacy.This determines the use of: ● acronyms (AIDS,acquired immunodeficiency disorder);
● 2. hyphenated: half-life ● 3. open: blood stream When translating: the translator has to be careful because not always the target language has correspondents. Heartbeat: battito cardiaco Nerve cell: cellula nervosa In English the determiner always precedes the determined,while in Italian the reverse is generally the case as in noun phrases (carta di credito > credit card). Owing to the interference of English,today new words are sometimes produced on the English blueprint: termo coperta,calcio mercato >which have been adapted because of their use in the language.
Non transparent lexical items: ● Eponyms: created from a proper - name.They are created by conversion (ampere),or by derivation (bentonite,a clay derived by the place where it was first found),or by the creation of a noun group (Parkinson’s disease).
● Abbreviations:acronyms (the sequence of the initial letters is pronounced as a single word,sonar > sound navigation and ranging;REM,rapid eye movement,aids,acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) and initialisms (reflect the separate pronunciation of the initial alphabet letters > HIV,Human Immunodeficiency Virus).
● Ct scan is translated into Italian by means of the acronym TAC > so caution in transferring these abbreviated forms! ● Blendwords :infomercial (information +commercial)
Terminology: ● Its purpose is to prescribe/describe the correct usage of terms but it also contributes to the understanding of the nature of scientific thinking. ● Terms are units of specialized knowledge that represent and transmit specialized knowledge. ● Temmerman (2000)terminology can be summarized as: ● Starts from concepts,within each discipline,without considering language. ● A concept is clear-cut and can be placed logically in a system. ● A concept is defined in an intensional definition. ● A concept is referred to by one term, and only one term designates its concept.
● The study of concepts is synchronous and the term is permanent.
But the study of terminology has been criticized as being too dogmatic. From the late 1980s socio terminology studies the actual use of terms in specialized discourse,in a more dynamic conception. Synonyms designate the same concept (scale and balance) with polysemy (multiple meanings of the same word) and homonyms (different words that have the same spelling or pronunciation but different meanings,plane from airplane;a tree;a geometrical surface).
Diagrams: The tree chart is based on logical relationships so it is important when defining things; a bracket diagram shows the relationship between a whole and its parts.
Defining concepts: ● Definitions are descriptions of concepts.They are of three types:
- Intensional definition (definition by intention) states the superordinate concept and lists the characteristics to differentiate the concept in its system.
Term = superordinate + restricting characteristics
Es. balloon= a non-power-driven lighter-than-air aircraft
- Extensional definition (definition by extension) consists of the enumeration of all species which are at the same level of abstraction.
Es. aircraft are: airplanes,gliders,kites,balloons etc.
- Part-whole definition describes a superordinate concept in a partitive concept system by listing all the parts that make up the whole. Es. an airplane is composed of the following parts: fuselage,engine,wings,fin,landing gear,flight instruments.
Syntactic peculiarities:nominalization ● high lexical density
Metadiscourse:the linguistic resources a writer uses to guide the receiver’s perception of a text (let’s now consider,furthermore etc) (see pg 118 for metadiscourse)
● Hedging: mitigates or reduces the speaker’s commitment,also used for politeness,or vagueness,or to save the face (see also epistemic or evidential adverbs).
L’autore decide di mitigare la propria posizione all’interno del testo soprattutto quando ci sono nuovi concetti.Può essere utilizzato in termini manipolatori soprattutto quando è un testo specialistico che riguarda un concetto il quale è frutto di un pensiero. E’ una strategia linguistica che viene utilizzata con obiettivi comunicativi molto diversi (per politeness o per manipolatorio) Opposto al hedging c’è il booster dove si esagera ma in un linguaggio specialistico non si usa. Più è il livello di specializzazione più non ci sono certezze.
Genres: ● Recurrent text formats are called genres. ● They are established on the basis on some set of stylistic criteria ● Swales says: Genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purposes identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community where it regularly occurs. Emphasis on goal-oriented and conventionalised structure (linguistic patterns and clusters of rhetorical features,or text patterning (high frequency of noun phrases, verb forms in the passive etc) and lexico-grammatical features (based on the communicative purposes)
● Texts are deconstructed in terms of moves,the different cognitive and rhetorical actions performed through discourse,which are sequentially organized:
A CEO’s letter has:
- evaluating/commenting the Company’s performance and results
- a narrative of salient facts
- outlooks and priorities for the future
The research article:
● The main vehicle for dissemination of knowledge
● The typical structure is:
- introduction,problem,solution,conclusion or
- Introduction theory,problem,experiment,comment,conclusions ● IMRAD pattern The abstract: introduces a purpose,describes methodology,summarizes results, presents conclusions
● What can linguistic approaches bring to English for Specific Purposes? ● What is a linguistic approach in the field of ESP? ● What are the most relevant language skills needed to learn ESP?
What are the most relevant language skills needed to learn ESP? ● This question can be framed either in terms of communication skills (oral/ written comprehension,oral/written production,etc.),or in terms of language forms and systems (terminology,lexis,grammar,rhetorical structure,etc.). ● it is necessary to adopt a systematic framework when describing the architecture of language ● A key tenet of the context-oriented approach is that students need direct experience of working not only with authentic texts as exemplars of a particular type of discourse,but also with large ‘bodies’ of interrelated texts (‘corpus’).
What features of language do we typically find in ESP? ● In a typical ESP text: specialized words (terminology) and specialized combinations of words (phraseology) Es: the gene was expressed in middle ear mucosa
The context-oriented approach: ● A concern for the analysis of language in its cultural or social context
