DA F2F Classes Reprinted

Abdelghanie ENNAM, Ph.D.

In view of the Covid-19 situation, these are the contents we have covered in class F2F,
reprinted here and provided for the students who could not attend or did not take notes
properly. Best of luck,

Central Course Contents

• This course introduces you to the study of discourse, i.e. discourse analysis.
Basically, we will be going to know:

a) What discourse analysis is,

(b) How to analyze discourse using the different frameworks of DA, such as Text
Linguistics (grammar, semantics), Pragmatics and Critical Discourse Analysis,

(c) How different kinds of discourse are structured, and

(d) How discourse is used to both enact/exert/ and resist power.

These (a, b, c, and d) are designed to equip you with basic knowledge on discourse, how
it is used by humans, and how it can be analyzed/studied.

1) We provide definitional and operational answers to the question “What is discourse

analysis?”

2) We accordingly try and elucidate such complex notions as text, discourse and
context.

3) We focus on the goals of discourse analysis. These will be recurrent themes of the
course and it is important to establish working definitions and understandings of
them to refer to at later points.

4) We consider the ideas of cohesion and coherence, facets that provide unity to a
text and allow one part to be interpreted in relation to another.

5) We consider the notion of planning in text production. In some circumstances we

produce spoken and written texts that we have time to plan, craft and revise. This
leads to specific textual features. In other circumstances we do not have planning
time and we produce texts spontaneously or with very little planning.

1 What is discourse analysis from different perspectives?

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2 goals of discourse analysis   

3 cohesion and coherence 

4 corpus analytical techniques and the features of planned/unplanned discourse 

By the end of this course, you should be:

 1 aware of ways in which texts are organized

 2 aware of major approaches to the analysis of discourse

 3 able to analyze texts using a range of approaches

 4 able to use approaches and findings from discourse analysis

Discourse Analysis (DA): An Introduction

• Aims of this introductory simplified unit: Students should be able to:

1) Origin of Discourse Analysis,

2) Define D and DA,

3) Determine and state what DA does,

4) Get initiated in DA analytical practices

Historical Origins of Discourse Analysis

 As a term, Discourse Analysis first appeared in a research paper published by Zellig Harris
in 1952.

 But Harris, an American structural linguist, did not use the terming DA as it used nowadays.
No linguistic and critical interdisciplinarity as used by such discourse analysts as Halliday and
Van Dijk.

 In the 1960s and 1970s, Humanities scholars started to use the term DA to describe their
approach to the study and analysis of social interaction.

 The earliest discourse analysts belonged to such fields as ethnography, anthropology and
sociology.

 Not language use as such but social interaction was the main focus of study in these three
fields.

 Ethnomethodology was adopted as method to investigate that interaction and Harold

Grafinkel, an American sociologist, was the a proponent user.

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  Ethnomethodologists inspired other scholars who developed another method called
“Conversational Analysis,” which focuses on how conversations are ordered and structured.

 Major conversation analysts, Emmanuel Schegloff, Harvey Sacksand, and Gail Jeffesons,
observe, describe, and analyze the sequential patterning of conversations.

 In sum, since the 1950s through 1960s and 1970s to date, DA has developed along the
development of linguistics and other social and human sciences as well as the development of
the relationship between language, man and society.

Defining the word “discourse”: narrow and wide definitions

 Etymologically, the word “discourse” comes from the Latin word “discursus” which
basically denotes conversation and speech.

 “Discourse: a continuous stretch (especially spoken) of language larger than a sentence,

often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative”
(Crystal 1992: 25).

 Novels as well as short conversations might be equally be see as types of discourse.

 Discourse can also be seen as “parole” (in reference to Ferdinand de Saussure), a set of
utterances produced in given context. It can also be seen as “langue”.

 “ a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, purposive; language in use

(viewed) as social practice determined by social structures”.

• Two basic approaches/conceptions of DA:

Discourse Analysis can have:

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  Before the advent of Discourse Analysis, language, both spoken and written, was mostly
analyzed as a structure without much importance given to the context and other meaning-
shaping elements.

 In the beginning, DA focused on speech, especially naturally-occurring conversation.

 Unlike traditional linguistic analysis, DA examines naturally-occurring uses of language,

which extends beyond the sentence in its grammatical/syntactic sense.

 Underscoring the importance of context in language use.

 Broadly, formalism and functionalism are two major approaches to language identified by
early linguists.

 Formalism defines language as a “mental phenomenon and tends to explain linguistic

universals as deriving from a common genetic linguistic inheritance of the human species.
Formalists are inclined to explain children’s acquisition of language in terms of a built-in
human capacity to learn language”.

 “Functionalists regard language primarily as a societal phenomenon and tend to explain it in

relation to the social institution from where the language derives”.

 The approach to DA is functionalist, basically. (social institution: home, school, workplace,

etc.

What is Discourse Analysis?

1) DA is generally viewed as “language above the sentence or the clause. It is the aspect of
linguistics that is concerned with how we build up meaning in larger communicative,
rather than grammatical units. It studies meaning in text, paragraph and conversation,
rather than in single sentences”. Stubbs (1983:1)

2) Being a complex enterprise, DA is taken in this course to mean the study of how
language is used/composed above the sentence or above the clause, focusing therefore on
larger linguistic combinations like conversations, exchanges, or written texts.

3) More, DA considers language as used in social contexts, particularly as regards interaction

or dialogues.

4) Brown and Yule (1983) contend that DA investigates “how addressers construct
linguistic messages for addressees and how addressees work on linguistic messages in
order to interpret them.”

 So, based on Stubbs (1983), we can sum up the major mission of DA as follows:

 (a) DA studies naturally-occurring connected speech or written discourse

 (b) DA studies language above the sentence or clause

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  (c) DA is concerned with language use in social context

Detailed analysis:

a) The occurring and situating of a spoken or written message in a particular social context
shapes the meaning(s) wished to be communicated.

b) These contextual shaping features include the interactants, their communication/discourse

roles, the physical environment of the discourse, the worldview and cultural practices,
etc.

c) Discourse analysis focuses on complex utterances by speakers, turn-taking, the linguistic

rules and conventions governing discourses in given context, etc.

d) The main mission of DA is to examine, explain, and analyze how speakers and writers use
language to construct and interpret different meanings.

Applications:

Types of texts usually studied by discourse analysts:

1) Conversations: casual talk, telephone talks, gossip, etc.

2) Speeches: campaigns, formal speeches delivered by political figures, etc.

3) Written discourse: novels, plays, news, written speeches, editorials, etc.

Transcription Conventions & Conversation

Analysis
Transcription:

It is a symbolic representation of a speech into a written form, using sign language,

sociolinguistics, dialectology, conversation analysis, phonetics, etc.

Elements considered in transcription of conversation or “talk-in-interaction”

1. Identity of speakers

2. Simultaneous pronunciation

3. Characteristics of speech

4. Transcription symbols

5. Metatranscription

– Repetition

– Non verbal activity

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 – Pause

Elements of Discourse Analysis

• Key Elements of/in Discourse Analysis:

• Language: Spoken, written, signed. (Linguistics & semiotics) + (Formal & informal, direct &
indirect, explicit & implicit, covert & overt, said & unsaid, voiced & unvoiced, crypted/cryptic
& decrypted/ decryptic coded/encoded & decoded/ uncoded, scripted & unscripted.

Paralanguage elements: Tone, pitch, stress, accent, intonation, pace, rhythm, facial
expressions, etc.

• Communication: Verbal, non-verbal, interpersonal, intrapersonal, actional,

interactional, transactional, and conversational human daily exchanges: monologues,
dialogues, multilogues.

• Context: Situation and setting (space, time, people: conditions of communication:

felicity conditions)

• Text: What is written and/or what is spoken: short or long.

• Meaning: What is understood or what is assumed to be understood: clarity, ambiguity,

reference, etc.

Discourse must have the following features.

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 a) Cohesion: grammatical relationship between parts of a sentence essential for its
interpretation;

b) Coherence: the order of statements relates one another by sense.

c) Intentionality: the message has to be conveyed deliberately and consciously;

d) Acceptability: indicates that the communicative product needs to be satisfactory in that the
audience approves it;

e) Informativeness: some new information has to be included in the discourse;

f) Situationality: circumstances in which the discourse is made are important;

g) Intertextuality: reference to the world outside the text or the interpreters' schemata

How to Do a Discourse Analysis?

Things to look for when doing a discourse analysis
a) Hidden relations of power present in the articles

b) Who is exercising the power, that is, whose discourses are being presented.

c) Who are consulted for the article(who are the spokespeople).

d) Who is the ‘ideal subject’ or audience for the article.

e) What is left unspecified or unsaid.

f) The use of passive voice, or processes expressed as ‘things’ (reification).

g) The use of colorful, descriptive language (adjectives) to indicate a strong discourse.

h) Ask these questions: When doing a discourse analysis

i) Would alternative wording of the same information have resulted in a different discourse
being privileged?

j) How are the events presented? How are people in the article characterized?

k) What message does the author intend you to get from the article?

l) Why was this particular picture chosen to accompany the article (if applicable)?

m) What repetition exists (a) within the article and (b) between different articles on the same
topic?

Example of Analysis:

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• Text taken from the Daily Mail Online (accessed 11 August 2009). The
main headline reads: “Baby Peter's father tries to cash in with
demand for £200,000 compensation”

Let's try to deconstruct this headline - this means, simply, let's use our
knowledge of how English is used to unpack the meaning of the text.

 First, let's begin with “Baby Peter”: The newspaper writers and editors are
relying on the fact that this is a well-known case, which is often just
referred to in the media as, Baby Peter. However, the text refers to the
father of Baby Peter.

 Next, the term “tries to cash in” is used. In common language this refers
to the act of trying to take advantage of a situation (either for money or in
a metaphoric sense, as in trying to take praise for someone else's
endeavors).

 However, the next few words “with demand for £200,000” let’s us know
that this is not a metaphor but a literal claim for money and in an
opportunistic way.

 Baby Peter's father tries to cash in with demand for £200,000 compensation

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 The use of the term “cash” implies that the writer is unsympathetic with the father and there
is the hint that the writer believes that the father is an opportunist rather than a grieving
parent.

 The sentence ends with the word compensation. This might seem to contradict the notion of
cashing-in as compensation is associated with genuine loss.

 However, the word is most likely being used to refer to the legal process required to receive
such a payment. (Baby Peter's father tries to cash in with demand for £200,000 compensation).

 Finally, the word “demand” is quite a forceful choice of word. To demand compensation
implies that the father believes he has this right but that he may receive some resistance
(from the judicial system or crime perpetrators, ex.)