Scarica Riassunto Discourse Analysis (cap. 1-3-6) e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity!
1. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
The term "discourse analysis" was first introduces by Harris. It is used to denote a number of approaches to analyse written, vocal or sign language use, or any significant semiotic event.
It also considers the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour , that is to say the relationship between the language and the contexts in which it is used. It is not about what people say, it is about what they mean , so we need to examinate the language in order to understand what someone says or writes, according to the situation they are in.
CONTEXT Contexts are not objective conditions but rather (inter)subjective constructs. ➔ It is not the situation that influences (or is influenced by) discourse, but the way the participants define the situation in their interactions with each other.
REGISTER Halliday describes register as a variety of language, corresponding to a variety of situation, with situation interpreted by means of a conceptual framework using the terms:
FIELD IDEATIONAL FUNCTION It refers to the topic of the situation (what is happening, where / when / why it is happening and so on).
TENOR INTERPERSONAL FUNCTION It refers to the social relation between the interactants in a speech situation, that may be a relation of power (manager / client) or affect (father / son).ù
MODE TEXTUAL FUNCTION It describes the way language is being used in the speech interaction. It refers to the medium (spoken, written, etc) as well as the rethorical mode (expository, instructive, etc).
THE DISCOURSE STRUCTURE OF TEXTS Mitchell was one of the first researchers of discourse structure of texts. He introduced the notion of stages , that is the steps that language users go through as they carry out particular interactions. There is, thus, no neat one-to-one correspondence between the structural elements of texts and the ways in which they are expressed through language.
E.G. He looked at what people say in buying and selling interactions. For example, a purchaser could say "Could you show me...?" or "Have you got..?". The ways in which these elements are expressed will vary, further, depending on the age of the people involved in the interaction, where the interaction takes place and whether the service encounter is face-to-face or on the phone, etc.
CULTURAL WAYS OF SPEAKING AND WRITING
Hymes introduced the notion of ethnography of communication , stating that different cultures often have different ways of doing things through language.
E.G. In an English-speaking country there is greater ritual use of Please and Thanks , whereas in Japan people may indeed say nothing. This does not mean that by saying nothing the Japanese customer is being rude. It simply means that there are culturally different ways of doing things with language in different cultures.
DISCOURSE AS THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY Discourse was considered as a social construction of reality, since it shapes and is shaped by the world at the same time. It shapes and is shaped by language, people, medium, purpose, and so on. Discourses involve social identities, which are not pre-given, but are formed in the use of language and the various other ways we display who we are, what we think, value and feel, etc. There are different styles of language that we use to recognize these identities and their different social languages.
E.G. The princess of Wales, knows that in an interview not only she is expected to speak in the particular place and at the particular time, but she also knows how she should dress, how she can use body language, etc.
DISCOURSE AND INTERTEXUALITY All texts are in an intertextual relationship with other texts. ➔ All texts, whether they are spoken or written, make their meanings against the background of other texts and things that have been said on other occasions. Texts may more or less implicitly or explicitly cite other texts; they may refer to other texts, or they may allude to other past, or future, texts.
3. PRAGMATICS
Pragmatics is the study of meaning in relation to the context in which a person is speaking or writing. This includes:
- SITUATIONAL CONTEXT What people know about what they can see around them.
- CO-TEXTUAL CONTEXT What people know about what they have been saying.
- BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE CONTEXT What people know about each other and the world, but also what they know about the norms and expectations of the particular discourse community in which the communication is taking place. ➔ Pragmatics assumes that when people communicate with each other they normally follow some kind of cooperative principle , that is, they know how they should cooperate in their communications. However, the ways in which people do this varies across cultures. What may be a culturally appropriate way of saying or doing something in one culture may not be the same in another culture. The study of this use of language across cultures is called cross-cultural pragmatics.
The communication must be carried out by the right person, in the right place, at the right time and, normally, with a certain intention or it will not work. Searle took Austin’s work further by arguing that the felicity conditions of an utterance are constitutive rules. Thomas critiques this notion of constitutive rules and suggests that they are better defined by the notion of principles. She points out that it is extremely difficult to devise rules which will satisfactorily account for the complexity of speech act behaviour.
She presents 5 differences between rules and principles to support her argument:
RULES PRINCIPLES
"ALL OR NOTHING" They can be either applied or not.
"MORE OR LESS" They can also be applied partially. EXCLUSIVE Using one rule precludes another.
THEY CAN CO-OCCUR They might apply at the same time. DEFINE SPEECH ACTS DESCRIBE WHAT PEOPLE DO DEFINITE They describe something which either does or does not apply.
PROBABILISTIC They describe what is more or less likely to be the case. ARBITRARY That is to say, they are absolute.
MOTIVATED People follow them for a reason, or purpose, to achieve a particular goal.
PRESUPPOSITION
Presupposition refers to the common ground that is assumed to exist between language users such as assumed knowledge of a situation and/or of the world, that may come from sources such as books, television and the internet, or through personal experiences. A speaker says something based on their presupposition of what the hearer is likely to know, and what they will infer from what they say.
Two main kinds of presupposition are discussed in the area of pragmatics:
- Conventional presuppositions They are less context-dependent than pragmatic presuppositions and are typically linked to particular linguistic forms. E.G. "Would you like some coffee?" suggests the coffee is already prepared whereas " Would you like anything to drink?" does not suggest a drink has already been prepared.
- Pragmatic presuppositions They are context-dependent and arise from the use of an utterance in a particular context. E.G. The customers of a delicatessen know they need to take a ticket from the ticket machine and wait their turn to be served. When one of the workers says "Customer number two!" then the person with the ticket ‘2’ interprets what the person has said as an offer of service to them (alone).
THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE
Grice suggested that the conversation is based on a shared principle of cooperation. Grice based his cooperative principle on 4 MAXIMS:
MAXIM OF QUALITY People should only say what they believe to be true and what they have evidence for. MAXIM OF QUANTITY We should make our contribution as informative as is required for the particular purpose (and not make it more or less informative than required). MAXIM OF RELATION We should make our contribution relevant to the interaction, or we should indicate in what way it is not. MAXIM OF MANNER We should be clear in what we say, we should avoid ambiguity or obscurity and we should be brief and orderly in our contribution to the interaction.
Grice argues that we assume a speaker is following these maxims and combine this with our knowledge of the world to work out what they mean by what they say.
FLOUTING THE COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES “Flouting” occurs when the speaker is not observing a maxim on purpose and expects the hearer to know that.
E.G. A student goes to the library to collect the books that he asked to be put on hold for him. When the student sees they are only a few he asks “Is that all?” and the librarian answers “Do you want to borrow all the books in the library?”. The librarian knows that what he is saying is not true, that is, he is intentionally flouting the maxim of quality, and expects the student to know that.
***** There is also often overlap between maxims , that is to say, the speaker may be flouting two or more maxims at the same time.
_____ DIFFERENCES BETWEEN _____ ↓ ↓
FLOUTING VIOLATING
- A speaker does not observe a maxim, but has no intention of misleading the other person.
- The speaker wants the hearer to notice that.
- The speaker wants to persuade their listeners to derive the hidden meaning behind what is said. - A speaker does not observe a maxim in order to mislead the other person. - The speaker doesn't want the hearer to notice. - Violating a maxim rather prevents or discourages the hearer from seeking for implicatures.
Different languages and cultures often have different ways of observing Grice’s maxims.
E.G. When English speakers ask questions such as ‘How are you?’ or ‘Did you have a good weekend?’ they expect short, standard answers such as ‘Fine thanks’. However, French speakers see the questions as real requests for information and they may start talking at length about their health or what they did at the weekend. So, in the English speakers’ eyes, they are flouting the maxim of quantity.
Studies which investigate the cross-cultural use of speech acts are commonly referred to as cross-cultural pragmatics. Different pragmatic norms reflect different cultural values which are, in turn, reflected in what people say.
E.G. In Japanese culture it is normal to start a formal letter saying something about the weather or season, whereas it may be seen as weird in the English speaking world. Also, Japanese speakers would say “sorry” rather than “thank you” when receiving a favour, because there is so much stress on social hierarchy and repayment of favours in their culture. So, in the case of Japanese, a debt not yet repaid calls for an apology from the debtor.
CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURE
A conversational implicature is a pragmatic phenomena , that is to say, it is generated by general rules of conversation. It refers to the inference a hearer makes about a speaker’s intended meaning, which is not expressed by their literal words.
E.G. If I say ‘There’s nothing on at the movies’ I do not mean that there are no movies at the cinema, but rather that there is nothing that I'm interested in seeing.
However, implicature is not the same as inference:
➔ An implicature is generated intentionally by the speaker and may (or may not) be understood by the hearer; ➔ An inference is produced by the hearer himself and may not be the same as what a speaker intends.
CONVENTIONAL IMPLICATURE
A conventional implicature is a semantic phenomena , that is to say, it is generated by meanings of words. No particular context is required to derive a conventional implicature.
E.G. The words “but, even, yet” are conventionally used to express contrast and we don't need to put them into a sentence to know that.
PARTICULARIZED CONVERSATIONAL IMPLICATURES Particularized conversational implicatures are derived from a particular context, rather than from the use of the words alone.
E.G. I say I ran out of coffee and someone tells me “Don’t worry, there’s a shop on the corner”. From this answer I can derive that I can buy coffee from the shop on the corner.
SCALAR IMPLICATURES
Scalar implicatures are derived when a person uses a word from a set of words that express a scale of values. A speaker may choose one item from a scale, then correct it while speaking to cancel out another item in the scale.
E.G. During an interview Princess Diana was asked if she were taking responsibility for the difficulties in her marriage and she answered “I take full responsibility, I take some responsibility that our marriage went the way it did. I’ll take half of it, but I won’t take any more than that, because it takes two to get in this situation”. → Here Diana cancels out ‘full’ with ‘some’ , then cancels ‘some’ with ‘half of’.
POLITENESS AND FACE
Two further key notions of pragmatics and discourse are politeness and face.
*The notion of ‘face’ comes from the English ‘folk’ notion of face in the common expression ‘losing face’ , that means being embarassed or humiliated. More simply, it refers to our public self image.
Politeness and face are important for understanding why people choose to say things in a particular way in spoken and written discourse. Politeness principles and cooperative principles, however, are often in conflict with each other, because in some situations one principle might become more important than another.
E.G. In an emergency there is less need to be polite than in a normal situation.
Politeness involves us showing an awareness of other people's FACE WANTS , that is, their self-image. There are 2 aspects to this self-image:
- INVOLVEMENT or POSITIVE FACE The term involvement refers to the people's need to be involved with others, that is a person’s right and need to be considered as a member of a group. E.G. We might show this involvement by showing our interest in someone, by agreeing with them, by approving what they are doing or by using in-group identity markers such as given names, or nicknames.
- INDEPENDENCE or NEGATIVE FACE The independence part of face refers to a person’s right not be dominated by others and to be able to act with autonomy. E.G. We do this by not imposing on other people and by apologizing for interruptions.
So in order to maintain their social relationships, people need also to maintain each other’s involvement and independence.
POLITENESS AND GENDER
Politeness strategies have also been shown to vary according to gender. While research shows that, overall, women are more polite than men, but actually it depends more on the context in which the man or woman is speaking.
E.G. If I say ‘Hello gorgeous’ to a long-time friend when I see her, this can be taken as an expression of intimacy and rapport; that is, as a positive politeness, or involvement strategy. If, however, someone says this to woman walking by this can have the opposite effect. For the woman, it may be an act of harassment.
It may not always depend on a person’s gendered identity but perhaps on some other aspect of their identity that more influences their linguistic behaviour, such as which women and men are being compared and if they belong to a community of practice. ➔ A community of practice is a group of people who come together to carry out certain activities together. For example, a group of friends, Members of Parliament, etc. Each community has a range of norms and views on politeness and they usually express their group identity in the same way, that however may be considered wrong by other communities or people.
6. DISCOURSE GRAMMAR
In recent years discussions of grammar have moved from sentence-based perspectives to more of a discourse-based perspective. Traditional explanations of grammar do not always work adequately in longer, real-world texts, because some linguistic items show quite different patterns of use when looked at from a discourse perspective.
E.G. It, this and that have been shown to have quite different patterns of use when looked at from a discourse. It often signals reference to a continuing or ongoing topic in a text, rather than just something inside or outside the text. This and that do not only function as demonstrative pronouns. This often indicates the raising of a new topic or a new focus in the current topic, and that has a distancing or marginalizing function in a text.
There are 2 crucial attributes of texts which are important for the analysis of discourse. These are:
UNITY OF STRUCTURE
It refers to patterns which combine together to create the schematic structure of a text, including focus and flow of the text.
When speaking about the information focus , we distinguish theme and rheme. Theme is the starting point of a clause, while what remains of the sentence is called rheme and it expresses what the clause has to say about the theme.
There are different kinds of themes. ◦ Topical theme It introduces what the clause is about. E.G. Genre is a word in widespread use. ◦ Textual theme It occurs when the clause starts with structural elements such as conjunctions. E.G. But several uses of the term can be identified. ◦ Interpersonal theme It indicates the relationship between participants in the text. E.G. Perhaps, sometimes, generally, etc. ◦ Multiple theme It occurs when there is more than a single thematic element in a clause. E.G. But, generally, the term is used... But → Textual theme Generally → Interpersonal theme The term → Topical theme
THEMATIC PROGRESSION
It refers to the way in which the theme of a clause may pick up, or repeat, a meaning from a preceding theme or rheme. This is a key way in which information flow is created in a text.
There are different kinds of progression:
- Constant theme (or theme reiteration) It occurs when the theme is picked up and repeated at the beginning of the next clause, signalling that each clause will have something to say about the theme.
E.G. The book is beautiful. It is very famous.
- Linear theme (or zigzag theme) It occurs when the subject matter in the rheme of one clause is taken up in the theme of a following clause.
E.G. The book was written by J.K. Rowling. Probably J.K. Rowling didn't expect all this success.
- Multiple theme (or split rheme) It occurs when a rheme includes different pieces of information, each of which may be taken up as the theme in a number of subsequent clauses.
E.G. When Japanese people write their language they use a combination of two separate alphabets as well as ideograms borrowed from Chinese. The two alphabets are called … The Chinese ideograms are called …
E.G. “It seems that everyone has read that beautiful book: Harry Potter.” In this case, the reader knows the item being referred to is yet to come in the text and reads forward to find the meaning of ‘that’. ◦ Exophoric reference It refers to an item whose identity can be found looking outside the text to the situation in which the text occurs. E.G. The waiter says “Where would you like it sir?” and the customer replies “Just a little on the meat, thanks”. They don't say the specific item, but they both know what 'it' refers to. ◦ Homophoric reference It occurs when the identity of the item can be retrieved by reference to cultural knowledge, in general, rather than the specific context of the text. E.G. “Harry Potter was a success, first in the UK, then all over the world.” We know, however, from our cultural knowledge which United Kingdom and which world are being referred to in the text. ◦ Comparative reference The identity of the item is retrieved not because it has already been mentioned or will be mentioned in the text, but because an item with which it is being compared has been mentioned. E.G. “ The book assumes all men are confident. The opposite is true.” ◦ Bridging reference The item refers to something that has to be inferentially derived from the text or situation, that is, it has to be presumed indirectly. E.G. “I'm not one of those blokes that finds approaching women easy.” We are not told which blokes he is referring to, but we can derive it.
_______DIFFERENCES_______ ↓ ↓ ELLIPSIS AND SUBSTITUTION REFERENCE They are limited to the immediately preceding clause.
It can reach a long way back in the text.
There is always some difference between the two items. *If a speaker or writer wants to refer to something different they use ellipsis or substitution.
Both items typically refer to the same thing. *If a speaker or writer wants to refer to the same thing they use reference.
LEXICAL COHESION
It refers to the way related words are chosen to link elements in the text. We have different kinds of lexical cohesion.
• REPETITION
It refers to words which are repeated in a text. E.G. “The main character is Augustus. Gus is quiet and shy.” Although the form of these two items is (slightly) different, the author is certain that it will be clear that she is still referring to the same person.
• SYNONYMY
It refers to words which are similar in meaning. E.G. “The book assumes all men are confident, but I'm not one of those blokes that finds approaching women easy.” Men and blokes are two different words but they are referring to the same concept.
- ANTONYMY It describes opposite or contrastive meanings. E.G. “The book assumes all men are bold, but I'm actually pretty shy.”
- HYPONYMY It refers to classes of lexical items that are in a ‘general-specific’ relationship with each other. The general categories are called superordinates. Each superordinate has several hyponyms and the hyponyms that have the same superordinate are called co-hyponyms. E.G. Fruit → apple, banana, orange, etc.
- MERONYMY It occurs when lexical items are in a ‘whole to part’ relationship with each other. E.G. Hand → finger
- COLLOCATION It describes associations between vocabulary items which have a tendency to co-occur, that is to say that they typically go together. E.G. If we find expressions such as “On one hand” we know that there will be automatically “On the other hand”. Further kinds of relationship, related to collocation, are: ◦ Expectancy relations This occurs where there is a predictable relationship between a verb and either the subject or the object of the verb. So, these relations link nominal elements with verbal elements. E.G. Waste time ◦ Lexical bundles They are multi-word combinations that are repeated without change. E.G. As a result of, that is to say, as can be seen, etc.
ATTITUDE AND GRAMMAR
Relations between participants influence language choices in a text. In particular, we use the resources of appraisal to negotiate relationships, that is, to tell people what our attitudes are to them, their feelings and things. Attitude refers to resources used to make either a positive or negative evaluation of phenomena; that is, the ways in which writers and speakers position themselves in relation to others, what they believe, how they feel, and what they believe that they know.
Appraisal theory divides attitude into 3 main categories: affect, judgement and appreciation. They may be expressed either explicitly through the use of individual lexical items or implicitly through the process of implicature.
GRAMMATICAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SPOKEN AND
WRITTEN DISCOURSE There are no absolute, one-dimensional differences between spoken and written discourse. They rather represent different dimensions of variation that may occur, so they are mostly seen as being on a scale.
However, we can commonly find differences when speaking about:
● GRAMMATICAL INTRICACY
A commonly held view is that writing is more structurally complex and elaborate than speech. But Halliday introduces the notion of grammatical intricacy to explain the way in which the relationship between clauses in spoken discourse can be much more spread out and with more complex relations between them than in writing, yet we still manage to keep track of these relations.
● LEXICAL DENSITY
Lexical density refers to the ratio of content words (nouns and verbs) to grammatical or function words (prepositions, pronouns, articles, etc.) within a clause. According to Halliday , written discourse tends to be more lexically dense than spoken discourse, because content words are usually packed into individual clauses, whereas in the spoken language they tend to be spread out over a number of clauses.
● NOMINALIZATION AND GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR
Nominalization occurs when actions and events are presented as nouns rather than as verbs or adjectives. Halliday calls this phenomenon grammatical metaphor, that is, where a language item is transferred from a more expected grammatical class to another. Written texts also typically include longer noun groups than spoken texts. This leads to a situation where the information in the text is more tightly packed into fewer words and less spread out than in spoken texts.
E.G. “The story has got a wow finish” 'Finish' is an event that is generally expressed with a verb, but here it is used as a noun, whereas when writing we would rather use it in a way such as “The story finishes in a way that leaves you speechless”.
We distinguish:
- Experiential metaphors It occurs when something that would congruently be expressed by a verb such as criticize is expressed by a noun, as in criticism.
- Interpersonal metaphors It arises when an item such as perhaps that would congruently be expressed by a modal item is ‘regrammaticised’ as a noun, as in possibility.
