UNIT 11: DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

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DISCOURSE: the analysis of discourse is concerned with the study of language in texts and conversations.
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Interpreting discourse: we can cope with texts which appear to break a lot of the rules of the English
language. Yet we can build an interpretation. The following example, provided by Eric Nelson, contains all
kind of errors, yet it can be understood:
! My town.
My natal was in a small town, very close to Riyadh capital of Saudi Arabia. The distant between
my town and Riyadh 7 miles exactly. The name of this Almasani that means in English Factories. It
takes this name from the peopls carrer. In my childhood I remember the people live. It was very
simple. Most the people was farmer.
! Rather than simply reject the text as ungrammatical, we try to make sense of it. Its this effort to interpret
and how we accomplish it that are the key elements investigated in the study of discourse.
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Cohesion: cohesion is formed by the ties and connections that exist between texts. For example:
! My father once brought a Lincoln convertible. He did it by saving every penny he could. That car
would be worth a fortune nowadays. However, he sold it to help pay for my college education.
Sometimes I think Id rather have the convertible.
! There are connections here in the use of words to maintain reference to the same people and things
throughout: father he he he; my my I; Lincoln it.
Analysis of these cohesive ties within a text gives us some insight into how writers structure what they
want to say. However, by itself, cohesion would not sufficient to enable us to make sense of what we
read.
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Coherence: the key to the concept of coherence isnt something that exists in words or structures, but
something that exists in people. Its people who make sense of what they read and hear. For example:
! MATT: Have you ever seen Titanic?
! KAT: I hate Leonardo DiCrapio.
! MATT: Oh, okay then
! There are no cohesive ties within this fragment of discourse, so how does each of these people manage
to make sense of what the other says? They do use the information contained in the sentences expressed,
but there must be something else involved in the interpretation. Matt asks Kat if she has ever seen
Titanic and she answers that she hates Leonardo DiCaprio; since DiCaprio is the main actor of the
movie, Matt understands that she hasnt seen it.
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Speech events: there is enormous variation in what people say and do in different circumstances. For
example, we would have to specify the roles of speaker and hearer and their relatioship (whether they
are friends, strangers, men, women, young, old, of equal status or not, etc).
! Communicative competences: its a concept that was created by Dell Hymes. According to
him, when we use language we find four different parameters:
! 1. Possibility: this means that it has to be gramatically correct. For example: Green
ideas sleep furiously. This sentence is gramatically correct but it doesnt make any sense.
So this sentence is not possible.
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 2. Feasability: apart from possible, it has to be feasable. For example: He is older than
his mom. Its impossible for someone to be older than their own mother, so this
sentence is not feasable.
! 3. Appropiateness: this is about pronouncing something in the correct context and
moment.
! 4. It should be used: we need to put the language into use (communicaton).
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CONVERSATION ANALYSIS: English conversation can be described as an activity in which two or more people
take turns at speaking. Typically, only one person speaks at a time and there tends to be an avoidance of silence
between speaking turns. If more than one participant tries to talk at the same time, one fo them usually stops. For
the most part, participants wait until one speaker indicates that he or she has finished, usually by signaling a
completion point which can be indicated in a number of ways: by asking a question, by pausing, etc. Other
participants can indicate that they want to take the speaking turn in a number of ways too: they can start to
make short sounds, use body shifts os facial expressions to indicate that they have something to say, etc.
! Turn-taking: there are different expectations of conversational style and different strategies of
participation in conversation, which may result in slightly different conventions of turn-taking. We all use
this strategy to some extent, usually in situations where we have to work out what we are trying to say
while actually saying it. Its preferably to fill the pause with a hesitation marker such as er, em, uh, ah
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THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE: the co-operative principle is presented in the following way, together with
what are often called the Gricean maxims:
! 1. The Quantity maxim: make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more, or
less, than is required.
! 2. The Quality maxim: do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack
adequate evidence.
3. The Relation maxim: be relevant.
! 4. The Manner maxim: be clear, brief and orderly.
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Hedges: hedges can be described as words or phrases used to indicate that were not really sure that
what were saying is sufficiently correct or complete. For example: this book cover is sort of black (these
are examples of hedges for the Quantity maxim because were giving the information required, but were
letting know that were not 100% sure about it). Other hedges would be as far as I know; Im not
absolutely sure, but; correct me if Im worng, but; etc.
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Implicatures: when we try to analyze how hedges work, we usually talk about speakers implying
something that is not said. For example:
! RAMIN: Are you coming to the party tonight?
! SIERRA: Ive got an exam tomorrow
! At first sight, Sierras statement is not an aswer to Ramins question. Yet Ramin will interpret the statement
as meaning no or probably not, because if she has an exam tomorrow then shell probably be studying
tonight.
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BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE: the background knowledge is the use of some knowledge we already know to
understand something that is not clearly implicit in a sentence (the example of Ramin and Sierra is a good
example of it. Ramin uses some background knowledge to understand that Sierra wont go to the party).
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 Schemas and scripts: a schema is a general term for a conventional knowledge structure that exists in
memory. We have many schemas that are used in the inerpretation of what we experience and what we
hear or read about. If your hear someone describe what happened during a visit to a supermarket, you
dont have to be told what is in a supermarket because you already have a supermarket schema.
Similar in many ways to a schema is a script. A script is essentially a dynamic schema. That is, instead of
the set of typical fixed features in a schema, a script has a series of conventional actions that take place.
You have a script for going to the cinema and another script for going to the dentist.
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