REQUIRED READING: FAIRCLOUGH’S DISCOURSE & TEXT

(in the repository)

COMPREHENSION CHECK UP and ARTICLE ANALYSIS

Name: Ainosalam H. Serad

Arvie Gail Escasinas

1. What could be studied using Discourse Analysis (DA)? Your answers

should be some corpora (source/s of discourse cited in the article)

Discourse Analysis is common in many humanities and social sciences disciplines. It is

used as a method and approach that seeks to explore the functions of language that are
created in different contexts. Fairclough (1992) argues how textual analysis is part of
discourse analysis and how linguistic and intertextual analysis goes hand in hand to
further elaborate a discourse not only to its linguistic features but also to its dependency
in social discourses. It expands to how texts transform these social resources according
to social circumstances. It addresses how both detailed linguistic and intertextual
analysis strengthens discourse analysis as a method and approach. Discourse analysis,
thus, can be used to study the linguistic and narrative structures of texts, discourse
strategies of dialogues, and intertextuality of texts.

An example from the article (Fisher, 1991) shows how discourse analysis explores the
interactions organized by individuals in different discourses that are linguistically
realized. The article studied about the differences of interactions orchestrated from two
different medical practitioners—nurse and doctor. Fisher (1991) highlighted how the
nurse practitioner constructs a different way of interacting with the patient. Accordingly,
the nurse is more engaging and is rather conversational than the doctor who limits his
responses to medical issues. This claim is supported by the presence of cues or
markers and the lexicalization of texts.

Discourse Analysis also studies the different decoding strategies of texts. This is
illustrated in the paper by Liebes and Ribak (1991), which discusses how text is
decoded differently by two people—the former drawn upon its interpretation from the
dominant reality while the latter realizes texts based on personal experiences.

The articles used by Fairlough (1992) bring light to the significance of discourse
analysis not only in the academe but also in interpreting social realities and
acknowledge the differences of viewpoints of people that are influenced based on their
social practices and circumstances.

2. Describe the italicized/underlined response from the utterances below. You can
express your views about the response of person B in the context of the
conversation between person A and B. How do you find the response?

A: “You know, just the normal things that I’ve already been doing. I don’t know, I'm just
tired. I don’t know if I need vitamins or what?”

B. ​“And then you fall face forward on the floor!”

Reading this exchange and detaching it from the context it was taken gives me a sense
of comfortability between the two especially because person A would appear to be a
mixture of worried and confused, lethargic and maybe even panicked but person B was
able to respond lightly and simultaneously being humorous about it. However, if I were
to consider the context this was from, I would applaud at how the nurse practitioner is
able to connect with their patients despite, of course, the anonymity between them.
While the patient does seem to be unable to gather a coherent response or atleast the
response that would discuss in detail how the patient typically spent their day, the nurse
was able to pick up on it showing no sign of dismissal of how they retold their day and
even balanced it out with lighthearted humor.

3. Does the sentence:

“​Exactly how and why a student protest become a k​ iller riot may not be known until the
conclusion of an elaborate inquiry that will be carried out by Justice Cillie.” ​show a
multiplicity of voice in texts- that of the journalist and of other voice like an external
authority? How are the students being ​framed​ in this sentence?

If it did show multiplicity, the other voice involved would have been passive or serving
as a mouthpiece of something bigger which would then include concealment. However,
if one were to read the sentence without much thought, the multiplicity of voice would
remain unnoticed.
Protest was followed after the noun functioning as an adjective ​student t​ hat would then
enforce the thought that the protest was carried out by the students or that the protest
was characterized by the students’ involvement. It then literally transitions to ​killer riot
and with the lack of other groups mentioned (i.e, police, authority) it consequently would
pin the fatal occasion on the students. This framing technique would also be effective
especially if the reader already has a preexisting idea of the kind of things that could
ensure during protests in general that is, it almost always ends up violent and fatal. With
that in mind, it would make sense that protest would turn into a riot and again, with the
mention of only the students, the responsibility of such an event would naturally be
placed on them.

4. On the sub-topic “Interactional Analysis”, what is ANACOLUTHA?” Give a

hypothetical example of a conversation between two persons where you show
the presence of Anacolutha.

Anacolutha as defined by Fairclough (1992), is a “grammatical construction abandoned

before completion in favour of other grammatical constructions.” The use of this strategy
neglects the grammatical sequence of a sentence. This is especially prevalent in
conversational type of texts. It would appear as a signal for confusion or an attempt to
gather one’s thoughts as one would in the process of formulating a solid and logical
sentence.

Example: An excerpt from Little Women Movie (2019) by Greta Gerwig.

Laurie: You don’t have to stay here, Jo.

Jo: Why? Should we run off and join a pirate ship?

(stops)

Laurie: No. It’s no use Jo. We gotta have it out. I have loved you ever since I’ve
known you, Jo. I couldn’t help it. I tried to show and you wouldn’t let me but it's
fine but I must make you hear Jo and give me an answer because I cannot go on
like this any longer. I gave up billiards. I gave up everything you didn’t like. I’m
happy I did. It’s fine, and I waited, and I never complained because I… you know,
I figured you’d love me, Jo, and I realized that I’m not this great—man.

Jo: No! Yes, you are.

 The example above shows how Laurie was eager to tell Jo his feelings that he
couldn’t find the right words to say and ended up uttering everything without
keeping an eye on the grammatical sequence.

5. ​The following are just a few key concepts under Discourse Analysis. Choose

three (3) and do the following:

5.1. Write a theoretical or conceptual definition of each topic and cite its source.

5.2. Construct a sample utterance (may or may not involve 2 persons) or

sentences based on how you understand the ways of doing DA. Alternatively,
you may extract a real example of your chosen topic or concept of DA.

A. ​Topicalization - Fairclough (1992) defines topicalization as the fronting of a topic at

the beginning of a sentence to place emphasis on it and therefore entice the reader’s
attention. It is a syntactic process that moves a syntactic element to the front of the
sentence (Fromkin and Rodman as cited by Akaruese, 2015) and functions as its theme
(Crystal, 1977).

Example:

1.​ That boy​, he couldn’t even look at me.

​

2.​ As for Johnny,​ he will definitely nail the game.

​

References: ​Discourse and Text: Linguistic and Intertextual Analysis Within Discourse
Analysis by Norman Fairlough (1992)

B. ​Presupposition is widely known in the study of semantics and pragmatics. It is an

implicit assumption of truth where the truth is disregarded in the utterance but is
implicitly realized. The projection of truth is shall be mutually known for it to be
appropriate in a given context.

Example:

a. My friends came over to my house.

>The speaker has friends.

 b. Mark Lee became friends with Hendery.

> They weren’t friends before.

References: An Introduction to English Semantics and Pragmatics by Patrick Griffiths

(2006)

c. Lexicalization​, in its most basic definition, is an act or process of lexicalizing or

symbolizing concepts. In linguistics, it is when we represent a set of semantic features
to a lexical item. Rather than describing a concept with phrases or sentences, we
respond to the creation of its representation in a single word or unit. Lexicalization may
be as simple as the involvement of compounding, blending, and abbreviation but could
go as complicated as the creation of a word that is no longer subject to its individual
element and sometimes differ from speech communities. Peter Honenhaus regards
lexicalization as a cover term of long range phenomena to a single lexical item while
Laurel J. Brinton and Elizabeth Closs Traugott regard lexicalization as idiomatization. In
the paper by Fisher (1991), he describes how the genre of counseling and self is
lexically realized by the use of collocation ​growth step. ​Other examples of lexicalization
is the use of loanwords in conversations like the use of ​“kilig”, or “barkada” i​ n sentences
or the use of ​freelancer ​to pertain to a person whose work is determined by projects.

References:

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-lexicalization-1691119

https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/5105/1/5105.pdf