Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Discourse
Written Discourse
Summary
In this input we will start by looking at what discourse analysis is. We will go on to focus on
different categories of cohesive devices. We will then be looking at written discourse and in
particular at the characteristics of different genres in different contexts.
Objectives
By the end of this input you will have:
Contents
1. What is Discourse?
2. Cohesive Devices
2.1.1. Reference
2.1.2. Substitution
2.1.3. Ellipsis
2.2. Conjunctions
2.3.2. Repetition
2.4. Parallelism
3. Coherence
4. Written Genres
6. Terminology Review
Reading
1. What is Discourse?
Historically, language study focused on the sentence as the basic unit of discourse.
Sentences such as ‘There are three cats in front of the house’ were used for translation
practice. The main problem with this is that there is no context, making it hard to see the
relevance of the cats and the house. In addition, it could be argued that these types of
sentences are contrived and unnatural, although of course, it can be useful to study isolated
sentences from a grammatical point of view.
Discourse Analysis as a separate field of study evolved in the 1960s and 1970s. It focused on
stretches of authentic language produced in context and used for real communication,
rather than decontextualised single sentences.
More recently, Discourse Analysis has also evolved to include the study of how language use
and speech acts vary between cultures as well as between different contexts within the
same culture, and how the interpretation and production of language is affected by
environmental and situational concerns.
Many people find the term ‘Discourse Analysis’ hard to define. What we are really
concerned with is whole texts e.g. letters, conversations, reports, etc., and the links between
utterances and sentences (in spoken and written English respectively). This means that
elements below and above sentence level are involved. So, under the wide heading of
discourse we look at:
How we make texts and conversations ‘hang together’ through using, for example,
words like pronouns, demonstrative adjectives, definite articles and certain kinds of
conjunction. (See Section 2 on cohesive devices).
How we interact in conversations, for example, how we show that we want to speak e.g.
by leaning forward, how we compete with other people to speak e.g. ‘Yes, but…’ and
how we introduce new topics into a conversation e.g. ‘Anyway, after that I…’.
How we vary the language we use, and how we interpret what we hear, according to
who we are speaking to, where, and for what purpose. ‘Who’s serving?’, for example,
means very different things on a tennis court, at a dinner table and when spoken by a
customer in a department store.
2. Cohesive Devices
In this section we will be looking at features of discourse that help texts hang together
through the use of formal links called cohesive devices. A cohesive device is one that
contributes to the coherence of a written or spoken text, and provides the listener or reader
with the means to see the relationships within and outside the text. These devices can be
put into four main categories:
Grammatical Cohesion
Conjunctions
Lexical Cohesion
Parallelism
The film was incredibly boring. In fact it was so tedious that I fell asleep. (lexical)
Pisces: Are you excited? You should be. Are you inspired? You will be, soon. Are you
ready for a different kind of experience? You had better be. (parallelism)
2.1.1. Reference
A referent is a device that refers to something which has been mentioned before or will
come later or is even outside the discourse but is something all parties are expected to
know. Pronouns are typically used for reference, as are demonstratives and articles. There
are three main types of referents:
Anaphoric Reference
The word 'it' in the second sentence refers back to the word 'flat' in the first sentence.
Cataphoric Reference
She had been complaining again. Mrs Jones never hesitated in calling the police when they
had a party.
In this case ‘she’ refers forward to Mrs Jones because they are one and the same. Cataphoric
reference is often used by writers to create interest in the story and encourage the reader to
continue reading. Rather than naming Mrs Jones first, the writer has chosen to refer to her
as ‘she’ first so that the reader wants to read on to find out who ‘she’ is.
Exophoric Reference
The Queen has not been mentioned before in this piece of discourse and no further
clarification follows. This is because it is assumed that the person to whom this comment
has been addressed knows very well which queen is being referred to. Something referred
to outside the discourse is called exophoric reference.
2.1.2. Substitution
'There' is used as a substitute for the new Armani shop. 'Then' is used as a substitute for 8
o'clock.
2.1.3. Ellipsis
Ellipsis is another device that is used for shortening words or phrases. In this case they are
simply omitted.
B Yes, I would.
Here the reply has been shortened from 'Yes, I would like a cup of tea,’ to ' Yes, I would'.
2.2. Conjunctions
Also known as linking words or phrases, these are used to show logical relationships
between and within sentences and also between paragraphs. They give coherence to a text
enabling the reader or listener to make sense of what they are reading or hearing. Some
examples are: however, firstly, if, for example.
As an experienced teacher, you will already be familiar with a range of these link words, so
we will not go into detail here. In the Distance Delta input on Spoken Discourse we look at
the wider area of Discourse Markers.
E.g. The audience were very appreciative. The crowd gave the orchestra a standing ovation
at the end of the concert.
In the second sentence 'the crowd' is used as a substitute for 'the audience’. They are partial
synonyms (people watching an event) and are used to avoid repetition. Below is a
coursebook example (Naunton, J. 1996), which aims to introduce learners to the principles
of this.
2.3.2. Repetition
E.g. Pasta is one of the most famous Italian foods. In fact, most Italians eat pasta three or
four times a week.
Key words may be repeated throughout the text, especially when we want to emphasise
something.
This is medical register. If the text continued: ‘He has a consistent bellyache,’ we would find
the use of ‘bellyache’ inconsistent with this register and the result would not be cohesive.
2.4. Parallelism
This relates to a repetition of form, rhyme, rhythm or sound, which is used to create a link
between clauses or sentences and can be used to reinforce a message. Consider the
following examples:
Election Pledges
We will reduce taxes.
In this case an election manifesto repeatedly uses the structure we + will + infinitive to
reinforce the promises that the politician makes.
They are rich. They are famous. They are young. They are Hollywood’s new stars.
The first three sentences use the pattern they + are + adjective, a grammatical and
rhythmical pattern, to create interest in the reader’s mind as to who these people are.
Consolidation
Look at the first paragraph in the text below and identify and comment on each type of
cohesive device used.
Suggested Answers
There are two categories of cohesive devices used in the paragraph:
Line 7/8 - Cataphoric reference ‘one of the strengths of the web’ refers cataphorically to
‘that’ it is very easy to publish’.
Line 10 - Anaphoric reference ‘this’ refers anaphorically to the fact ‘that it is very easy to
publish’.
1.3 Conjunctions
Conjunctions of addition
Conjunctions of consequence
1.4 Ellipsis
There are two feature of parallelism/consistent feature of register found in the text.
Feature 1:
Feature 2:
Line 3 - ‘Internet’
Line 8 - ‘web’
3. Coherence
3.1 What is Coherence?
Scott Thornbury (2005) defines coherence as ‘the capacity of a text to make sense’. For
example,
My grandmother loves pickled eggs. They are always on the stairs in her house. She keeps us
all well-dressed. Also oranges cost a pound a kilo.
Grammatically there is nothing wrong with this text as all the pronouns agree. It is all in
present tense and there is a useful conjunction ‘also’. However it is meaningless overall and
no amount cohesive devices will help it make much sense.
While cohesion relies on the devices examined above, coherence appears to depend on our
expectations of a particular sequence of discourse. In this sense coherence depends on the
viewpoint of the receiver/reader and largely they shared context.
Similarly, it could be preceded by, ‘It’s strange what some people like to eat.’
In each case, the topic has been established and there are lexical clues as to what might
come before or after.
‘Ice cream sales have rocketed. Analysts say that this is because of the hot weather.’
We often put new information at the end of a sentence for impact and this enables us to
continue talking about it. In the example above, the writer goes on to talk about the fact
that sales have ‘rocketed’.
floods, water levels, river, roads, sandbags, rescue workers, rise, rain, flow, pumping station,
Surrey, Home Counties, to subside, forecast, reaction, environment agency, government,
residents, funding
It is possible to deduce that the above list of words comes from an article about flooding in
southern England. Keywords can help understand what the text is about. Much of the
meaning of texts is carried in lexis and keywords are typically although not exclusively
nouns.
Imagining the same article, it is possible to see two threads of lexis. One thread appears to
be about water and flooding and the second thread appears to be about response to the
flood. These are lexical chains. (see Cohesive Devices above) Although the article is about
flooding we can tell that it provides two strands of information, about the floods themselves
and about flood response.
Clearly the sequencing of these words is also important. In a situation where more rain is
expected and roads are cut off we might expect the article to start with information about
water levels, about location and about expected impact. The words, water levels, river, rise,
Home Counties would come early in the article and words like ‘government’, ‘residents’,
‘reaction’, would take second place coming towards the end of the article. This kind of
internal patterning meets with our expectations that subjects will be dealt with one at a
time and in priority order.
Scripts are the order in which we expect things to happen. For example, get up in the
morning, have breakfast, go to work. Where this script is not followed, for example in some
societies you might have breakfast at work or after an hour of work, there may be
misunderstandings.
I‘ve just bought a car. It’s a 1990 Mazda MX5 Eunos. It’s red with the old-style flip-up
headlights and black soft top. Obviously, it’s got only two seats but there’s a small space in
the back where you can put your coats and some small possessions but the boot is a
reasonable size for the sort of car it is. The engine is in good condition and it’s only done
50,000 miles but there is a little bit of rust on the bottom of the doors and I’ll have to deal
with that soon so it’s as good as new.
In this brief description of car we can see that the following expectations are met:
The description starts from the general to the specific and from the whole to the part,
i.e. that it is a car, the kind of car and next the features of the car.
The exterior of the car is described before the interior and those items closer and in
front of the new owner are described before those items which are further and behind.
So the colour, headlights and soft top come first, then the interior space which
surrounds the driver and next the back of the car and the boot.
The current condition is described first, the engine and the rust on the bottom of the
doors, and its future condition is described next. It will be as good as new.
In each case this fits in with what we expect of the text. Any deviation in organisation, the
script, would cause difficulty in following the text.
For a very clear exposition of coherence read Chapter 2 and 3 of Thornbury S 2005 Beyond
the Sentence Macmillan.
4. Written Genres
In this section we will concentrate on features of written discourse.
Generally we can distinguish one piece of writing from another by the characteristics of that
writing. For example, it is possible to distinguish an extract from a formal letter from an
extract from a novel because they are laid out differently, the content is organised
differently and they use different kinds of language; the novel may contain direct speech
whereas the letter probably will not, and so on. We can say these are two different text
types or genres.
These terms are used rather loosely in ELT literature; in some books a text type is a broad
category e.g. a letter; and genre is a sub category of that e.g. a letter of complaint. Other
books refer to genres and sub-genres. Because of the apparent ‘interchangeability’ of these
words it is best to give examples of what you mean when using them. Our main concern,
though, is the differences between texts and how these can be useful in teaching.
Tricia Hedge classifies writing into six types: (Hedge, 1988 Writing, OUP 25)
We ourselves may have little experience of writing some of these genres, but we may need
to prepare our learners to write them either for professional reasons or as a requirement in
public examinations.
If we are teaching our learners how to produce these different genres we need to be familiar
with their typical features and have teaching ideas for dealing with them. Some genres may
be more ‘formulaic’ than others. However, we will need to take the following factors into
consideration:
Content: What type of information is included e.g. factual, opinions, personal etc.?
Organisation: How are the ideas organised and in what order? Is there are any typical
pattern to the organisation which reflects the genre? How are the paragraphs divided? What
type of cohesive devices are used?
Grammar: Are any particular tenses / structures used e.g. passives in a type of scientific
report?
Lexis: What kinds of words are used e.g. adjectives in an advertisement? Are any words or
fixed lexical expressions common in this genre?
Layout: How does the text look on the page? Are there headings or addresses? Is there a
title? Are points numbered? Are bullet points used?
What are some of the key features of a book or film review? Authentic examples may vary
and some magazines develop a highly idiosyncratic style in their reviews but a possible
‘model’ of the genre may include:
Content
Brief description of the plot without saying what happens at the end
Comments/evaluation of the film, actors, director, effects etc., good and bad points
Organisation
A beginning that grabs attention by witty comment, shocking statement, interesting fact
etc.
Style
The language should be neutral in style, and relatively impersonal even though it is
subjective it should not be presented as such.
Layout
Consolidation
Look at the following genres and consider the key features of each kind of text type in terms
of content and organisation, style and language, and layout.
Discursive essay
Report
Suggested Answers
Short story
Descriptive language, interesting and varied vocabulary and idioms, varied adjectives
and adverbs
Layout
Reason for writing, reference to advertisement (where and when seen), background
information about self, why interested in the job, skills, request for further information
Formal style i.e. no contractions, use of fixed formulaic phrases e.g. ‘I am writing with
reference to...’, ‘as you will see from the enclosed CV’, ‘my duties have included…’, ‘I
look forward to hearing from you.’
Layout
Address top right, address of receiver above opening salutation on left, date etc.
Discursive essay
Ideas for
Ideas against
Clear organisation within paragraphs, topic sentence comes first then further sentences
expand on the point. Connections between ideas are important.
Layout
Report
Depends who it is for: neutral or formal, probably a lot of present tenses, connecting
words
Layout
In this section we will consider the role that context has to play in language use. In our daily
lives, almost all language we encounter or produce is contextualised. We rarely hear, read,
say or write anything having little idea of the subject matter, what went before, or who and
where the people involved are. Exceptions might include the initial seconds after switching
on the TV or radio, or overhearing someone speaking on a mobile phone, but these
situations are few and far between. Almost always, language taken out of context is
meaningless, or at least puzzling. If I ring a friend and say ‘Shall we split the bill?’, I risk
confusing or puzzling (or even insulting) him; saying the same thing as we finish our meal in
a restaurant, I can be certain that he knows I am suggesting that we each pay half of the bill.
In the section above, we saw how genre governs features of texts such as layout and
organisation, content and selection of appropriate grammatical structures and lexis. This can
be summarised in this way:
(Socio-cultural) context
Style / register
Language chosen
Text
Therefore, selecting a portion of a text at random and looking at the aspects lower down the
diagram, it would be possible to infer elements of the context for which the text had been
produced, and what genre it belonged to; similarly, giving someone details of a context
would allow them to make very educated guesses about what type of language and what
texts they would probably encounter therein. This has important implications for the
classroom, where learners tend to focus on the bottom features of the table and neglect the
importance of those at the top. To some extent, this is a result of the teaching they receive
which focuses on the accuracy of the text produced and its ability to communicate a
message accurately, rather than considering aspects of context.
The function of a text, essentially, fits in to one of the following five categories:
expressing feelings
The language chosen to perform these functions, and the conventions observed, vary from
language to language, which can lead to non-standard utterances from learners or
utterances which are inappropriate to the context. For example, English tends to use quite
flowery language to perform some regulatory functions e.g. ‘I’m very sorry to bother you,
but I was just wondering whether you might be able to…’, which can cause difficulties for
learners whose language performs this function using more direct language.
6. Terminology Review
The terms below all refer to aspects of discourse. Can you define them all? There is an
example provided.
In discourse analysis, the use of pronouns, determiners, synonyms and so on to refer back to
something already mentioned e.g.
1. Ellipsis
2. Discourse markers
3. Register
4. Cataphoric reference
5. Genre
6. Exophoric reference
Suggested Answers
1. Ellipsis: leaving out elements of a sentence because they are unnecessary, or because
context makes meaning clear. For example, the offer ‘Coffee?’ is a reduction of ‘Would
you like a coffee?’ The context makes the four initial words redundant.
2. Discourse markers: in spoken language, language items used to either indicate some
kind of change of direction in the discourse e.g. ‘anyway’, ‘actually’, ‘well’ or to appeal to
the listener in some way e.g. ‘Yukon?’ ‘Right?’ A set of discourse markers are also used
to organise ideas e.g. ‘and’, ‘therefore’, ‘because’ and so on. This latter group are also
referred to as linkers, conjunctions or conjuncts.
3. Register: the way in which language use varies depending on context. The forms we
select differ depending on cultural, social and contextual factors.
4. Cataphoric reference: referring forwards to a portion of a text which has not previously
been mentioned. In ‘It’s brilliant, this song’, ‘It’ refers (forwards) to ‘this song’.
5. Genre: any piece of spoken or written text which conforms to the expectations of the
reader in terms of content, stylistic devices and language used. For example, the
features of a postcard to friends are very different from those of a radio news bulletin.
Reading:
Although not essential to your Module 1 preparation, if you would like to explore this area
further we suggest the following:
Suggested Reading
Cook, G. 1989 Discourse Oxford University Press
Additional Reading
Allison, D. 1999 ‘Key Concepts in ELT: Genre’ in ELT Journal 53/2 Oxford University Press
Baigent, M. 2004 Natural English: Reading and Writing Skills Upper-Intermediate Oxford
University Press
Byrne, D. 1979 Teaching Writing Skills Longman Handbooks for Language Teachers,
Appendix 1, Cohesive Devices
Clementson, T. 2005 Natural English: Reading and Writing Skills Pre-Intermediate Oxford
University Press
Cory, H. 1996 Advanced Writing with English in Use - CAE Oxford University Press, Cohesion
Hopkins, A. & Tribble, C. 1989 Outlines Longman, Unit 12 for teaching ideas
McCarthy, M. 1993, Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers Cambridge University Press
Naylor, H. & Hagger, S. 1999 Cambridge First Certificate Handbook Cambridge University
Press, Chapter 2 Unit 7 for teaching ideas
O’Dell, F. 1996 CAE Writing Skills Cambridge University Press Unit 10 on teaching ideas
Parrot, M. 1993 Tasks For Language Teachers Cambridge University Press, Classroom-based
Task 11
Philpot, S. & Curnick, L. 2007 New Headway Academic Skills Oxford University Press
Richards, J. 1990 The Language Teaching Matrix Cambridge University Press, From Meaning
Into Words
Scott, M. & Tribble, C. 2006 Textual Patterns John Benjamin Publishing Company