DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Applied Modern Languages

1st year 2014-2015 English-French
Morariu Maria-Magdalena

In his last speech, Gabriel Garcia Marquez emphasized some aspects that should be the
most important in our lives. He was conscious about the fact that people have different beliefs
concerning the world and most of them are not aware of the things that really matter for them but
he did not want to judge them. He wanted to teach them that people make mistakes every time
but they need to live and learn that all things have a sense.
This discourse is based on representation which is combined with positioning or point of
view because the addresser shares his own opinion concerning the reality by communicating us
his stance and suppositions.
The structure is well-balanced because it follows the structure of a discourse that takes
place in a given context. In this case, the analyst will have in view to identify all aspects that are
related to a point of view. And the addressee should take into consideration the fact that the
writer has his own position throughout the discourse what means that he has a position and a
personal point of view.
The domain of this discourse is compound from genre which is given by Gabriel Garcia
Marquezs last words and a social practice which is represented by the addressers own ideas
which can be positive or negative. In this text, the addresser is well-intentioned and his views are
well-defined.
The setting of this discourse is Mexico City and the date when it was elaborated was on
April 2014. The discourse was written and not read this aspect referring to the mode of the
discourse. Medium is written to be read because the addresser wrote a farewell letter to his
beloved ones and to general public especially to people who believed and who recovered in his
books. The participants are represented by the writer of the letter and people who read it. Each of
them has his/her own role in the act of discourse. For example, the writer of the letter was a wellknown author while at home he has another role because he was husband and father. We can
consider the same "change" of roles regarding the addressees of the letter who are readers at the
time of reading and ordinary people which follow a daily routine in the rest of their time.
The main topic of this speech is given by the way the addresser presents the significant
things in his life and the major theme refers to the meaning of relevant things people should have
in mind concerning their existence and to the way they should put price on them.

The writer of the speech wants the audience to become conscious about the value of the
aspects that have a major relevance for people who read his speech but he does not endeavor to
influence or persuade the addressees. This point represents the purpose of the discourse. The
dynamics of the situation consists of the attitude of the writer during his speech and his
organized ideas which offer him a support for the communicative purposes of the topic
presented. The genre is represented by Gabriel Garcia Marquezs last speech and its
communicative purpose is to offer a real context for a given situation.
At the macro-level the structure of the discourse gives the reader a general view of the
given topic. Regarding the communicative purpose we can note that is a well-defined one. This
is clearly expressed because it informs the reader with the intentions of the writer. Authorial
stance is clear, exact and determined.
At the micro-level, we can realize an analysis at the level of language. There are used
positive words such as: "value", "life", "love", "happiness", "embrace", "opportunity", "smile",
"kiss", "thank you", "friends". The employment of these words stands for a positive thinking
because the writer encourages readers to have an optimistic perspective of life. The use of the
first person pronouns together with some modal verbs denote the subjectivity of the text. There
are also used verbs which describe mental processes: "think", "understand", "learn", "love",
"feel", "hear" and verbal processes: "say", "tell", "ask", "express".
The discourse which I analyzed reflects a particular opinion regarding to some aspects
that existed in society for many generations. Gabriel Garcia Marquezs main purpose was to
advise readers to have time for everything and respect themselves.
Available at:

http://bergerkiss.com/en/publications/translations/gabriel-garciamarquez-last-words