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1.1 What is discourse analysis?
Discourse analysis focuses on knowledge abuul language bevond the word. clause, phrase and sentence tlut is needed for successful communication. It looks at patterns of language across texts and considers the relationship between language and the social and cultural contexts in which it is used. Discourse analysis also considers the ways that the use of language presents different views of the world and different understandings. It examines how the use of language is influenced by relationships between participants as well as the effects the use of language has upon social identities and relations. It also considers how views of the world, and identities, are constructed through the use of discourse. Discourse analysis examines both spoken and written texts. The term discourse analysis was first introduced by Zellig Harris in 1952 as a way of analysing connected speech and writing. Harris had two main interests: the examination of language beyond the level of the sentence and the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour. He examined the first of these in more detail, aiming to provide a way for describing how language features are distributed within texts and the ways in which they are combined in particular kinds and styles of texts. An early, and important, observation he made Was that: connected discourse occurs within a particular situation whether of a person speaking. or of a conversation. nr of someone sitting down occasionally over the period of months to write a particular kind of book in a particular literary or scientific tradition (Harris 1952: 3) There are thus, typical ways of using language in particular situations. These discourses, he argued, not only share particular meanings, they also have characteristic linguistic features associated with them. What these meanings are, and how they are realized in language, is of central interest to the area of discourse analysis.
I. The relationship between language and context By ‘the relationship between linguistic and nun-linguistic behaviour' Harris means how people know, from the situation that they zero in, how to interpret what someone says. If, for example, an air traffic controller says to a pilot The runway 1s full at the moment, the most likely means it is not possible to land the plane at the moment. This may seem obvious to a native speaker of English but a nua-native speaker pilot, of which there are many in the world, needs to understand the relationship between what is said and what is meant, in order to understand that they cannot land their plane at that lime. Harris's point is that the expression The runway is full at the moment has a particular meaning in a particular situation (10 in this case the landing of a plane) and may mean something different in another situation. If [ say The runway is full at the moment to a friend who is waiting with me to pick up someone at the airport this 18 now an explanation of why the plane is late landing (however | may know this). not an instruction to not land the plane. Discourse analysis, then, is interested in ‘what happens when people draw on the knowledge they have about language ... to do things in the world' (Johnstone 2002: 3). It is, thus, the analysis ol language in use. Discourse analysis considers the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used and is concerned with the description and analysis of both spoken and written interactions. Its primary purpose, as Chimomba and Roseberry (1998) argue, is to provide a deeper understanding and appreciation of texts and how they become meaningful to their users.
II. Discourse analysis and pragmatics
A number of aspects of language use that are discussed why people working in the area of discourse analysis are also discussed in the area of pragmatics. Pragmatics is concerned with how the interpretation of language depends on knowledge of the real world, such as how the runway is full at the moment is understood as an instruction not to land a plane, rather than just a statement of fact. Pragmatics is interested in what people mean by what they say, rather than what words in their most literal sense might mean by themselves. It is sometimes contrasted with semantics which deals with literal (rather than pragmatic) meaning; that is, meaning without reference to users or the purpose of communication (Richards and Schmidt 2002). The view of discourse analysis presented in this book will include work in the area of pragmatics; that is. a consideration of the ways in which people mean more than what they say in spoken and written discourse.
III. The discourse structure of texts Discourse analysts are also interested in how people organize what they say in the sense of what they typically say first, and what they say next and su vi in a conversation or in a piece of writing. This is something (at various across cultures and is by no means the same across languages. An email. fut exasuple, tu nie from a Japanese academic or a member of the administrative still'at a Japanese university, may start with reference to the weather saying, inunediutely aller Deur Ur Paltridge something like Greetings from a hot and sizzling T'okvo ur Greetings! It's such a beautiful day today here in Kvoto. l, of course, may also say this in an email to an overseas colleague but is it not a natural requirement in English. as it is in Japanese. There are, thus, particular things we say, and particular ways of ordering what we say in particular spoken and written situations and in particular languages and cultures. Mitchell (1957) was one the first researchers to examine the discourse structure of texts. He looked at the ways in which people order what they say in buying and selling interactions. He looked at the overall structure of these kinds of texts, introducing the notion of stages into discourse analysis: that is the steps that language users go through as they carry out particular interactions. His interest was more in the ways in which interactions are organized at an overall textual level than the ways in which language is used in each of the stages of a text. Mitchell discusses how language is used as, what he calls, competitive action and how the meaning of language lies in the situational context in which it is used and in the context of the text as a whole. If, then, I am walking along the street in Shanghai near a market and someone says to me Hello Mister, DVD, I know from the situation that [am in that they are wanting to sell one (most likely fake) DVDs. If then go into a market and someone asks what seems to me to be a very high price for a shirt, I know from my experience with this kind of interaction that the price they are telling mo is just a starting point in the buying and selling exchange and that I can quite easily end up buying the shirt for at least half the original price. I know, from my experience, how the interaction will typically start, what language will typically be used in US interaction, and how the interaction will typically end. I also started to learn other typical characteristics of the interaction. For example, a person will normallv only say Hello Mister, DVD (or Hello Mister, Louis Vuitton, etc.) when I am between stalls, not when I am in a stall and have started a buying and selling interaction with someone. Other researchers have also investigated recurring patterns in spoken interactions, although in a somewhat different way from Mitchell and others following in that tradition. Researchers working in the arcs known as conversation analysis have looked at how people open and close conversations and how people take turns and overlap their speech in conversations, for example ‘They have looked at casual conversations, chat, as well as
different speech acts: that is how, for example, to apologize vr unike a request, as well as how to respond to an apology or a request, in a particulu language or culture. All of this involves taking account of ti sucial and cultural setting in which the speaking or writing occurs, speakurs' and writers relationships with each other, and the community's norms, values and expectations tor the kund of interaction, or speech event. When | buy something in a shop. for example, | take account of the cultural settiny I am in, the kind of shop I am in and the retatronship between me and the person working there as I carry out the particular interaction. I do this at the level of language in terms of grammar, vocabulary, discourse structures and politeness strategies, as well as how | behave physicaliy in the particular situation. Communicative competence is often described as being made up of four underlying components: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competenca:; that is, mastery of the language code (grammatical competence). knowledge of appropriate language use (sociolinguistic competence). knowledge of how to connect utterances in a text so it is both cohesive and coheront (discourse competonco) and mastery of the strategios that speakers use to componsato for broakdowns in communication as well es the strategies thoy use to enhance the effectivencss of the commu nications (strategic competence) (Canale and Swain 1980; Canalo 19603).
VI. Discursive competence A further way of lovking at cultural ways uf speuzking und writing is through the notion of discursive competence (Bhatia 2004). Discursive competence draws together the notions of fextual competence, generic competence and social competence. Textual competence refers to the ability to produce and interpret contextually appropriate texts. To do this we draw on our linguistic, textual, contextual and pragmatic knowledge of what typically occurs in a particular text, how it is typically organized and how 1t is typically interpreted. An example of this is how people use the Internet to communicate with each other. Someone using MSN Messenger, tor example. leams sets of abbreviations that are commonlv used in this sort of communication as well as how they are interpreted, such as OC to mean VA I see and bb to mean Bve bye. They also learn that starting a sentenco without a capital letter is acceptabie on MSN Messenger (as it is in text messaging) and that they should keep their exchanges short so thev are easy to read at the other end. Generic competence describes how we are able to respond to both recurring and new communicative situations by constructing. interpreting. using and exploiting conventions associated with the use of particular kinds of texts. or genres. much as I do when I send an email ta a colleague or a text message to a friand. If I am an experienced text messager I do this with ease. If I am new to toxt messaging. however, I have to learn how to do this. what the ‘rules’ are for this kind of interaction. and what the possibilities and limitations are in terms of what I can say and how I can say it. Social competence describes how wo uso language to tako part in social and institutional intoractions in a way that enables us to express our social identity, within tho constraints of tho particular social situation and communicative interaction. An example of this is how I present myself at a meeting at work, whether I want to be seen as someone who always has something to say about a point, or whether! want to keop my opinion to myself in this sort of situation. | may use language to show that I am in charge of the meeting, or [ may use language to mako it cloar that | am not. That is, within the constraints of the particular
situation, | may use language to show who [am end what my role is (and is not) in the particular social (and cultural) setting. Discursive competence, then, incudcs not only language related and text-level knowledge. It also includes complex (and often changing) factors outside of the text which need to be taken account of for effective communication. As a user of MSN Messenger, | need to learn how to use language in this hind of event. how it is typically interpreted in this kind of event, the ways can express who I am (or want someone to think I am) in this kind of event, as well as how factors outside of the text, such as the technology I am using, impacts oa what 1 say and how I can say it. [ will also learn that as the ter hnulogy changes, or | discover more advanced technology (such as a more recent version otf MSN Messonger, or a more expensive mobile phone), what I say and how [ can say at will change even further.
1.2 Different views of discourse analysis
There are in fact a number of differing views on what discourse analysis actually is. Social science researchers, for example, might argue that al) their work is concerned with the analysis of discourse, yet often take up the term in their own, sometimes different, ways (Fairclough 2003). Mills (1997) makes a similar observation showing how, through its relatively short histary, the term discourse analvsis has shifted from highlighting one aspect of language usage to another, as well as being used in different ways by different researchers. Cazden (1998) dascribes two main views on discourse analysis: those which focus on the analysis of stretches of naturally occurring language. and those which considor different ways of talking and understanding. Fairclough (2003) contrasts what he calls ‘textually oriented discourse analysis’ with approaches to discourse analysis that have moro of a social theoretical orientation. He does not see these two views as mutually exclusive, however, arguing for an analysis of discourse that is both linguistic and social in its orientation. Cameron and Kulick (2003) presont a similar view. Thoy do not take these two perspectives to be incompatible with each other, arguing that the instances of language in use that are studied under a textually oriontod view uf discourse are still socially situated and need to be interpreted in terms of thuit social meanings and functions. We can see then, that discourse analysis is a view of language at the level of text. Discoursa analysis is also a view of language in use: that is, how, through the use of language. people achieve certain communicative goals, perform certain communicative acts, participate in certain communicative events and present themselves to others. Discourse analysis considers how people manage interactions with each other, how people communicate within particular groups and socicties, as well as how they communicate with other groups, and with other cultures. It also focuscs on how people do things beyond language, and the ideas and beliefs that they communicate as they use language.
I. Discourse as the social construction of reality The view of discourse as the social construction of reality soe texts as communicative units which are embedded in social and cultural practices. The texts we write and spcak both shape and are shaped by these practices. Discourse, then, is both shaped by the world as well as shaping the world. Discourse is shaped by language as well as shaping language. It is shaped by the people who use the language as well as shaping the language that people use. Discourse is shaped, as well, by the discourse that has preceded it as well that which
We cannot understand the significance of any word unless we attend closely to its relationship to other words and to the discourse (indeed, the competing discourses) in which words are always embedded. And we must bear in mind that discourse shifts and changes constantly, which is why arguments abaut words and their meanings are never settled once and tor all.
II. Discourse and socially situated identities When we speak or write we use more than just language to display who we are, and how wo want poople to sce us. The way we dress, the gestures we use, and the way/s we act and interact also influence how wo display social identity. Other factors which influence this include the ways we think, the attitudes we display, and the things we value, foel and believe. As Gee (2005) argues, the ways we make visibly and recognizable who we are and what we ate duiny always invulves more than just language. It invulves acting, iuteructiug and thinking in certain ways. It alsu involves valuing and talking (or reading and writing) in appropriate ways with appropriate ‘props’, at appropriate times, in appropriate places. Princess Diana, for example, knows in the Panorama taterview, not only how she is expected to speak 1n the particular place and at the particular time, but also how she should dross, how she can use body language to achieve the effect that she wants, as well as the values, attitudes, beliefs and emotions it is appropriate for her to express (as weil as those it is not appropriate for her to express) in this situation. ‘That is, she knows how to enact the discourse of a Princess being interviewed about her private life in the open and public medium of television. This discourse, of course, may be different from, but related to, the discourses she participated in in her role as mother of her children, and the public and private roles and identities she had as wife of the Prince of Wales. A given discourse, thus, can involve more than just the one single identity (Gee 2004). Discourses, then. involve the socially situated identities that we enact and recognize in the different settings that we interact in. Thoy include culture-specific ways of performing and culture-spacific ways of recognizing identities and artivitias. Discourses also include the differant styles of language that we use to enact and recognize these identities, that is, different social languages (Gee 1006). Discourses also involve characteristic ways of acting, interacting and feeling, and characteristic ways of showing emotion. gesturing. dressing and posturing. They also involve particular ways of valuing. thinking. believing, knowing, speaking and listening. reading and writing (Gee 2005).
III. Discourse ond performance As Gee explains: a Discourse is a ‘dance’ that exists in tho abstract as a coordinated pattern of words, deeds, valuos, baliefs, symbols, tools, objects, times, and places in the here and now as a performance that is recognizable as just such a coordination Like a dance. the performance here and now is naver exactly the same It all comes down, oftan, to what the ‘masters of the dance’ will allow to be recognised or will be forced to recognize as a possible instantiation of the dance. (Gee 2005: 19) This notion of performance and, in particular, perforimutivity, is taken up by authors such as Butler (1890, 2004), Cameron (1999), and Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2003). the notion of performativity derives from speech act theory and the work of the Jinguistic philosuophes Austin. It is based on the view that in saying something, we do it (Cameron and Kulick 2003). That is, we bring states of affairs into being as a result of what we say and what we do. Examples of this are [ promise and I now pronounce you man and wife. Once | have said I
promise [have committed myself to doing something. Once a priest, or a marriage celebrant, says I now pronounce you man and wife, the couple have ‘become’ man and wife. Butler, Cameron and others talk about doing gender in much the way that Gee talks about discourse as performance. Discourses, then, like the performance of gendered identities, are socially constructed, rather than ‘natural’. People ‘are who they are because of (among other things) the way they talk’ not ‘because of who they (already) are’ (Cameron 1999: 144) Social identities are. thus. not pre-given, but are formed in the use of language and the various other ways we display who wo are, what we think, value and feel, atc. The way, for example, a rap singer usos language, what they rap about and how they present themselves as they do this, all contributes to their performance and creation of thomselves as a rap singor. They may do this in a particular way on the streets of New York, in another way in a show in Quebec, and yet anuther way in a night club in Scoul. As they do being a rap singer, they biiug into existence, or repeat, their social persona as a rap singer.
IV. Discourse and intertextvality All texts, whether they are spoken or written, make thelr meanings against dhe background of other texts and things that have been said on uther occasions (Lemke 1992). 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. We thus ‘make sense of every word, every utterance, or act against the background of (some) other words, utterances, acts of a similar kind’ (Lemke 1995: 23). All texts are, thus, in an intertextual relationship with other texts. Umberto Eco (1987) provides an interesting discussion of intertextuality in his chapter ‘Casablanca: Cult movies and intertextual collage’. Eco points out that the film Casablanca was made on a very small budget and in a very short time. As a result its creators were forced to improvise the plot. mixing a little of everything they knew worked in a movie as they went. The result is what Eco describes as an ‘intertextual collage’. For Eco, Casablanca has been so successful because it is not, in fact, an instance of a single kind of film genre but a mixing of stereotyped situations that are drawn from a numbor of different kinds of film genres. As the film proceeds. he argues, we recognize the film genres that they recall. We also recognize the pleasures we have exporienced when we have watched thasa kinds of films. The first few scenes of Casohlanen. for example. recall film genres such as the adventure movie, the patriotic movie, newsreels, war propaganda movies, gangster movies, action movies, spy movies and finally, with the appearance of Ingrid Bergman, a romance. The poster for this movie suggests a numbor of these film genres, but people who have seen the movie would most likely describo it as a romance. As Brown (1902: 7) obsorves, the chemistry between its two sters Humphroy Bogard and Ingrid Bergman ‘was so thick it would make movie history’ and defines Casablanca as movie romance for all time. It is not, however, just a romance. It is, rather, a mixing of types of fila, in which one of the major themes is the relativuship between the two lead players, set in a world uf actiun, adventure, spies, ganysters and of Luusse, rUlmance.
1.3 Differences between spoken and written discourse There are a number of important differences between spoken and written language which have implications for discourse analysis. Biber (1086, 1088) discusses a number of commonly held views on differences between spoken and written language. sume of which aro teve for some spoken and written gonres, but are false fur others.
from an analysis of Casablanca by Corliss (1992: 293) illustrates this. The first two examples highlighted in text show long noun groups which ae typical of inuch written discuutse. The thicd exanple includes an exauple of grdinmatical metaphor. Here, the adjective ‘turgid’ (its more ‘expected’ grammatical class) is changed Into the noun ‘turgidity’, an example of nominalization: Although Casablanca dofinos Bogoy for all time as the existentialham-in-spite-nf-himaelf, aaveral of hia roles juct preceding thie one {notably High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon) had prepared his fans for the misanthropy and climatic selflessness he would embody as Rick Blaine. Bergman (as Iisa Lund) and Henreid (as Victor Laszlo) are hardly incandescent lovers - neither are Bergman and Bogart, for that matter — but their turgidity as sexual partners works, intentionally or not, to the film's advantage. This extract also includes two exauples uf quulifiers (Halliday 1985) following a noun which are also typical of much written discourse. In the following illustration of this extract, the first highlighted section of the text qualifies the noun group ‘several of his roles’. The second highlighted section qualifies the noun group ‘their turgidity’. This use of qualifiers is also typical of much written scientific discourse (Conduit and Modesto 1990) and adds to the length of noun groups in written discourse.
IV. Explicitness in spoken and written discourse A further commonly held view is that writing is more explicit than speech. This depends on the purpose of the text and. again, is not an absolute. A person can state something directly. or infer something, in both speaking and writing, depending upon what they want the listener or radar ta undarstand, and how direct they wish to be In the following extract from Casablanca (Koch 1996: 55), Yvonne asks if she will see Rick that evening. Rick clearly wishes her to infer ‘probably not’. He has not said this explicitly, but it is most likely what he means: Yvonne: Will I see you tonight? Rock: (matter-of-factly) | never make plans that far ahead. (TM & © Turner Entertainment Co.) Yvonne has to work out Rick's intended meaning from the situation she is in, what she knows about Rick, and the fact thal she asked a ‘yes/ nu’ question bul has nut been given a ‘yes/no’ answer. That is, she works out what Rick means from tha situational context they are in, from her background knowledge of this context. including what she knows about her relationship with Rick, and the textual context of what she has said.
V. Contextualization in spoken and written discourse Another commonly held view is that writing is more decontextualized than speech. This view ts based on the perception that speech depends on a shared situation and background for interpretation whereas writing does not depend on such a shared context. This is generally true of conversation but is not true of speech and writing in general (Tannen 1982). Spoken genres, such as academic lectures, for example, do not generally show a high dependence on a shared context. while written genres such as personal letters or memos do. Both written fiction and non-fiction may also depend on background information supplied by the reader and an active role of the reader to enter into the world of the text. The opening lines in the best-seller Eats, Shoots & Leaves (Truss 2003) illustrates the role of the reader in providing the context to a piece of writing, in this case the author's horror at seeing signs that misuse the apostrophe: Either this will ring bells for vou, or it won't. A printed banner has appeared on the concourse of a petrol station near to where I live.
‘Come inside,’ it says, ‘for CD's, VIVEO s, DVL's, and BUOUK's’.
VI. The spontaneous nature of spoken discourse A further view is that speaking is disorganized and ungrammatical. whereas writing is organized and grammatical. As we have seen. spoken discourse is organized, but it is organized differently from written discourse. Spoken discourse dons, however, contain more halfcompleted and reformulated utterances than written discourse. This is because spoken discourse is often produced spontaneously and we are able to see the process of its production as someone speaks. This is not to say that written discourse is not at some stage half completed or reformulated. It is just that the text wo sce (apart from synchronous online chat and discussion boards) is simply the finished product end as Halliday (1989: 100) points out, ‘a highly idealised version of the writing process.’ With spoken discourse, topics can also be changed and speakers can interrupt and overlap with each other as they speak. Speakers can ask for clarification and they can correct what they have said. Misunderstanding. further, can be cleared up immediately. Also, spoken discourse is able to use intonation, gesture and body language to convey meaning whereas written discourse is more constrained in that ways of conveying meaning are more limited.
VII. Repetition, hesitation and redundancy in spoken discourse Speaking also uses much more repetition, hesitation and redundancy than written discourse. This is because it is produced in real time, with speakers working out what they want to say at the same time as they are saying it. A further characteristic of spoken discourse is the use of pauses and ‘fillers’ Ike ‘hhh’, ‘er’ and ‘you know’. Speakers do this to give them time to think about what they want to say while they are speaking. They also do this to hold on to their turn in the conversation while they are thinking about what they want to say. and how they will say it. The following extracts from the BBC Panorama interview between Princess Diana and Martian Bashir illustrate this. Here pauses are shown in Lockets. The number in brackets indicates the length of the pause in seconds and (.) indicates a micro pause that is too small to count: Bashir _—at this carly stage would you say that you were happily married Diana: very much so (1) er the pressure on - on both as a couple (.) with the media was phenomenal (1) and misunderstood by a great many people (1) we'd be going round Australia for instance. bhb (2) and (.) you all you could hear was oh (.) she's on the other side (1) now if you're a man (1) like my husband a proud man (.J you mind about that if you hear it every day for four weeks (.) and you feel (.) low about it y know instead of feeling happy and sharing it.
