DISCOURSE ANALYSIS September 6th, 2012 Name : Syilvia Wenny NIM : 1103757

Chapter I Introduction

Discourse studies are the discipline devoted to the investigation of the relationship between form and function in verbal communication. The aim of discourse studies is to provide an explanatory description of the intricate relations between forms of discourse elements and their function in communication. Discourse phenomena cannot be studied adequately from just one of these perspectives. Because the concepts dealing with phenomena that are taken from many disciplines, a common ground is necessary. The aim of this Renkemas book is to familiarize the prospective students with the most important concepts and the major issues in the field of discourse studies.

Chapter II Communication as Action

2.1 The Organon Model Organon model is an instrument with which objectives can be achieved and that this instrument cannot considered to be separate from speakers and listeners, or writers and readers, in performing communicative acts. Language and therefore discourse is a two way instrument, an instrument for a speaker and a listeners or a writer and a reader. One general principle of collective activity is cooperation and an often-used strategy to achieve this is politeness. On the basis of this cooperation principle and guided by so-called politeness strategies the communicators have to perform their communicative acts.

2.2 Speech Act Theory

In speech act theory, language is seen as a form of acting. An apology is an act in which a justification is given. By studying how people perform speech act such as apologizing, promising, ordering, etc, these philosophers of ordinary language wished to contribute to the solution of philosophical problems. Speech act theory has had a strong influence on the field of discourse studies of what people are doing when they use language. Austin distinguished three kinds of action within each utterance. First, there is the locution. Second, there is the illocution. And the third is the perlocution. In speech act theory, the illocution is the focus of attention. John Searle (1969) formulated four felicity conditions that illocution must meet. These four conditions are illustrated below using the illocution to promise. the propositional content the preparatory condition the sincerity condition the essential condition

Searle used these felicity conditions to show that the successful exchange of illocutions is also bound by certain rules. Habermas (1981) claims on Buhlers Organon model and the three aspects that can be distinguished in language signs: symbol, symptom and signal. Illocution is only successful when the addressee acknowledges the claim to validity. Habermas defines three main types of illocution: constatives (with a symbol aspect), expressive (with a symptoms aspect) and regulative (with a signal aspect). 2.3 Illocution in Discourse There are a number of cases in which the utterance itself, the locution, provides an indication of the intended illocutions. John Searle calls these indications IFIDS, illocutionary force indicating devices. IFIDS include performative verbs, word order, intonation, accent, certain adverbs, and the mode of the verb. If an IFID is present, the utterance is said to have an explicit illocution. IFIDS do not always provide a definitive answer regarding illocutionary intent.

2. 4 The Cooperative Principle

An utterance often conveys more than the literal meaning of the words uttered. In discourse studies the cooperative principle and its maxims are often referred to as they provide a lucid description of how listeners can distill information from an utterance eventhough that information has not been mentioned outright. Grice have a number of additional comments concerning the cooperative principle. First, the maxims are only valid for language use that is meant to be informative. Second, there are, from the esthetic or social point of view, other possible maxims. Third, another principle is at work here. Consider the quantity maxim. In addition the Gricean maxims have been criticized for several reasons. Some maxims are rather vague. The four maxims have been presented as being of equal importance, but there are situations in which the maxim of quality is more important than the maxim of manner, and vice versa.

2.5 Relevance Theory Every reaction can be construed as being relevant. It is possible to imagine contributions to conversations that would, at first sight, appear to be irrelevant, but these usually end up sounding like excerpts from a comedy routine. Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson (1995) took a different starting point, and made the relevance concept the cornerstone of their view of communication while abandoning the other three maxims. They turned the disadvantages of the vagueness of relevance to the benefit of a clearer theory of what we mean by under standing each other. Sparber and Wilson argue that such ambiguities are dissolved in the right context on the basis of the relevance concept. While an addressee interprets the meaning of utterance. Sparber and Wilson added two important notions to studying the way people understand each other: explicature and degree of relevance. Utterances cannot be divided into relevant or irrelevant utterances. There is a degree of relevance. It is determined by two factors: contextual effects and processing efforts. Contextual effects concern the way new information can interact with what is already known. Processing efforts pertains to the effort of decoding linguistic information and the effort of accessing information in the context to link the new information.

2.6 Politeness Theory Politeness prevents or repairs the damage caused by FTAs. The greater the threat to stability, the more politeness, face work technique, is necessary. Just as there are two types of face, there are two types of politeness. Face work that is aimed at positive face is called solidarity politeness; this kind of politeness is achieved by giving compliments. Face work that deals with negative face is known as respect politeness, and can be achieved by not infringing anothers domain in the communication.

Chapter III Discourse in Communication

3.1 The Pragmatic Perspective Pragmatic is the study of acts that is a part of a philosophical approach to the phenomenon sign, specifically the question of how signs, and therefore also linguistic sign, function. This is known as semiotics. The central concept in semiotics is the notion of sign. Peirce distinguished three types of signs. A sign can be an icon, which means that the sign resembles some object. A sign can be an index, which means that it directs attention to the object. The third sign is the symbol. A symbol is associated with an object by rule. It is important to note that many signs are mixed signs. Morris (1938) distinguished three areas in the field of semiotics. First is syntax which is the relationships between signs within a sign system. The second is semantics which is the relationships between signs and the objects they refer to. And the third is pragmatics which is the relationship between signs and the people who use them. Pragmatics is concerned with such questions as why an individual uses a specific signs, which circumstances call for the use of a specific sign and how we interpret signs. Pragmatics, in other words, deals with questions about how signs function. Applied to discourse, the pragmatic approach deals with the question of how discourse is produced and interpreted in context, in specific situations. When the focus is on discourse in context, in specific situations we are in the research area of language and institutions and language and culture.

3.2 Rules for Symbolic Interaction

Pragmatics is about the social rules for the interchange of symbols. These rules differ from rules in physics or logic. Social rules have six characteristics which are acquired, usually not applied consciously, communal, a framework for understanding and judging an illocution, can be violated and liable to change. In relation to the above-mentioned characteristics of social rules, an often-used pair of concepts must be broached, namely descriptive and prescriptive. These concepts are of help in explaining the nature of rules, an in clarifying the difference between a rule and a norm. By using rules it is possible to describe how language is used, but the same rules can also indicate how language must be used. As long as one purely describes, it is matter of descriptive rules. If one prescribes or dictates, it is a matter of prescriptive rules. One rule can thus be viewed from both a descriptive and a prescriptive perspective.

3.3 Messages Between Sender and Receiver The use of the terms sender and receiver presupposes that there is an information package that has to be transmitted from one person to another. The general communication model has often been applied to discourse. The message is coded into words. This is then transported through a communication channel, voice, paper or screen, to the receiver. The receiver decoded the message, after which the message arrives at the final destination, the readers mind. Discourse is more than a message from sender to receiver. In fact, sender and receiver are metaphors that obfuscate what is really going on in communication. how the sender-receiver metaphor obfuscates what is really going on in communication is very insightfully demonstrated in a study by the psycholinguist.

3.4 The Discourse Situation The situation in which discourse is produced and processed can be analyzed and defined using a large number of factors that can have an influence on possible objectives and effects of discourse. Hymes distinguished sixteen components, which grouped using the word speaking as an acronym. S P E = setting/scene = Participants = ends

A K I N G

= act sequences = keys = Instumentalities = norms = genres

The remaining factors comprising the speaking model clarify the discourse situation as well. These factors deal with the relationship between function and forma s mentioned earlier. A very important point to remember is that discourse is not only a part of the situation, but can change the situation or even create a context as well.