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MODULE 1: Introduction to Spoken

and Written Discourse
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Independent Activity:
Essay
1. Define discourse as a third year AB English Student.
2. Differentiate Spoken and Written Discourse.
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MODULE 2: Similarities and Differences

between Spoken and Written discourse
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Independent Activity:

1. List down the differences between spoken and written discourse

2. Explain the commonly held view and its rebuttal (own words), if
any of the following spoken and written discourse similarities and
differences: Lexical Density, Contextualization, Spontaneity
3. Explain McCarthy’s view of a continuum through giving a sample
scenario.
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MODULE 3: Register variables, field, mode, and

tenor
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Independent Activity:
Essay

1. What is Register? When and how did it start?

2. List down the Register Variables, explain each their usage, and give
three examples for each.
3. Differentiate field, tenor and mode and discuss their roles in
Language.
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MODULE 4: Features of spoken discourse,

reference, ellipsis, discourse, markers, etc.

I. FEATURES OF SPOKEN DISCOURSE

Spoken language is different from written language for many reasons. One important reason is
that it usually has to be understood immediately whereas written language can be read many times. For
that reason, spoken language has many different features.

Spoken language has the following characteristics (Halliday, 1989, p. 31):

 Variation in speed - but it is generally faster than writing

 Loudness or quietness

 Gestures - body language

 Intonation

 Stress

 Rhythm

 Pitch range

 Pausing and phrasing

As well as this, there are differences in the actual language used (Biber, 1988; Biber, Johansson,
Leech, Conrad & Finegan, 1999; Chafe, 1982; Cook, 1997; Halliday,1989).

Less Complex

Spoken language is less complex than written language.

Spoken language is grammatically less complex than written language. It has fewer subordinate clauses,
fewer "that/to" complement clauses, fewer sequences of prepositional phrases, fewer attributive
adjectives and more active verbs than written language.

Spoken texts are longer. This means that there is more repetition. According to Ure (1971), the
percentage of different words in a text is generally below 40% for spoken texts and above 40% for
written texts.

Spoken texts also have shorter, less complex words and phrases. They have fewer nominalisations, more
verb based phrases, and a more limited vocabulary. Spoken texts are lexically less dense than written
language - they have proportionately more grammatical words than lexical words.

Spoken language has more words that refer to the speaker, more quantifiers and hedges, and less
abstractness.

Spoken language has:

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 more verb based phrases

(e.g. having treatment (W), being treated (S), hospital care (W), go to hospital (S))

 more predicative adjectives

(misleading statistics (W), statistics are misleading (S))

 more pronouns (it, they, you, we)

 more lexical repetition

 more first person reference (I)

 more active verbs than written language

 fewer complex words and phrases

Spoken texts are:

 more fragmented - more simple sentences and more use of coordination and, but, so,
because rather than subordination (embedding)

 lexically less dense

 longer

Halliday (1989, p.79) compares a sentence from a written text:

The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster train running in the most
adverse weather conditions.

with a typical spoken variant:

If this method of control is used trains will unquestionably (be able to) run more safely and faster
(even) when the weather conditions are most adverse

and a more natural spoken version:

You can control the trains this way and if you do that you can be quite sure that they'll be able to
run more safely and more quickly than they would otherwise, no matter how bad the weather gets.

The main difference is the grammar, not the vocabulary.

Another example from (Halliday, 1996, p. 347).

The written text:

Obviously the government is frightened of union reaction to its move to impose proper behaviour
on unions.

is more lexically dense than the spoken version:

Obviously the government is frightened how the unions will react if it tries to make them behave
properly.
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Active verbs

In formal written English, we often use a passive when we do not want to specify who the agent is.
In spoken English we can use a subject such as "people", "somebody", "they", "we", or "you".

Compare:

They're installing the new computer system next month.

The new computer system is being installed next month. (more formal)

II. DISCOURSE

Discourse

Discourse is a set of utterances which constitute any recognizable speech unit and it is a
behavioural unit which has pre-theoretical status in linguistics. It is a general term used in
pragmatics to refer to language that has been produced as the result of an act of communication. In
another words, it stands for a stretch of language which is unified, meaningful and purposive.

Example: conversations, interviews, compositions etc.

Discourse can be both spoken and written. The study of spoken and sometimes written discourse is
called discourse analysis.

To some extents, discourse analysis is considered with –

a.            The impact of the selection of grammatical items.

b.            The relationship between utterances/sentences in the discourse.

c.              The speaker to change, introduce or assert a topic.

III. Features of Discourse analysis:

The discourse analyst describes what the speaker and the hearer do rather than the relationship
existing between sentences. To do so, he/she has to consider four discoursal features as discussed
below-  

A.    Reference: According to Lyons (1968) reference is the ‘words refer to things’. Here, the speaker
refers by using vocabulary to refer something with appropriate expressions. It is an act on the part
of the speaker. In short, reference is something that someone can use an expression to do.

Example:

Speaker I: My uncle’s coming home from Canada on Sunday +he’s due in+

Speaker II: How long has he been away for or has he just been away?

Speaker I: Oh no they lived in Canada he was married to my mother’s sister++well she’s been dead
for a number of years.
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Here, ‘he’ is used to refer to ‘my uncle’ and ‘she’ to my mother’s sister.

B.     Presupposition: To Given (1979) presupposition is “defined in terms of assumptions the

speaker makes about what the hearer is likely to accept without challenge”. It means, accepting
something without challenge is defined through the term of assumption. To Selinker, presupposition
is the common ground of the participants in the conversation.

Example:

a.            My uncle is coming home from Canada.

b.            My uncle is not coming home from Canada

c.              I have an uncle.

Here, sentence (b) is unnecessary, while sentence (c) is presupposition of the speaker in uttering
sentence (a).

C.    Implicature: The term implicature is used by Grice (1975) account for what a speaker can imply,
suggest or mean, as distinct from what the speaker literary says. There are two types of implicature:

a.            Conventional: It is determined by the conventional meaning of the words used, for example:
He is an English man, he is therefore, brave.

b.            Conversational: It is derived from a general principle plus a number of maxims which
speakers will normally obey. The general principle is called the co-operative principles. The
conversational conventions which support co-operative principle are as follows:

                                                                                        i.            Quantity: Make your contribution as is required. Do not

make your contribution informative than it required.

                                                                                      ii.            Quality: Do not say what you believe to be false. Do not

say which you lack adequate relevance.

                                                                                    iii.            Relation: should be relevant.

                                                                                    iv.            Manner: be perspicuous, brief, orderly & avoid ambiguity

and obscurity of expression.

D.    Inferences: The process is used to arrive at an interpretation for utterances or for the
connection between utterances-

Example: In the kitchen there was a huge dresser and when anyone went in you see + the hats and
coats were all dumped on this dresser.
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Here the inferences are:

a.            The hats and coats belong to the visitor to the house.

b.            The house has the dresser and

c.              The dresser is in the kitchen.

IV. ELLIPSES

Ellipsis is the omission of a word or series of words. There are two slightly different definitions
of ellipsis which are pertinent to literature. The first definition of ellipsis is the commonly used series
of three dots, which can be place at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end of a sentence or
clause. These three dots can stand in for whole sections of text that are omitted that do not change
the overall meaning. The dots can also indicate a mysterious or unfinished thought, a leading
sentence, or a pause or silence. This punctuation is also referred to as a suspension point, points of
ellipsis, periods of ellipsis, or in speech may be called, “dot-dot-dot.”

The usage of three dots as an ellipsis is incredibly popular in texting and social media in this day
and age. Many people use ellipses to signal confusion, disapproval, hesitation, or to show more is to
come when writing in a chat-based application (indeed, some messaging applications use the image
of three dots to show that the other person is typing). People also use ellipses in the previously
defined way of showing that their thoughts are unfinished or that they are expecting a response
from their interlocutors. Here are some examples of ellipsis that you might recognize or have used
yourself:

 So…what happened?

 Um…I’m not sure that’s true.

 …sure.

 You went to the restaurant. And…?

 But I thought we were meeting on Tuesday…?

It’s similar easy to think of examples of ellipsis in which words are omitted because they are
unnecessary. Here are some more examples, with their linguistic terms (and words omitted in
brackets):

 Gapping: I ordered the linguini, and he [ordered] the lobster.

 Stripping: I ordered the linguini, [I did] not [order] lobster.

 Verb phrase ellipsis: I’ll order the linguini and you can [order the linguini], too.

 Answer ellipsis: Who ordered the linguini? I did [order the linguini].

 Sluicing: I’ll get something to drink, but I’m not sure what [I’ll get to drink].

 Nominal ellipsis: I ordered two drinks, and Bill [ordered] one.

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V. DISCOURSE MARKERS

English, like any other language, has a number of such discourse markers including well, yes,
surely, on the contrary, so and nevertheless. They are lexical items or grammatical forms
typically serve to relate one utterance to another in discourse.

Discourse markers are considered as cues or signals for the reader or the hearer that make
cohesion and coherence, In fact, these markers are found in various grammatical forms such as
interjections, linking adverbials, greetings and farewells….etc. Discourse markers. Play a very
important role, not only in conversation, but in written text as well.

Types of Discourse Markers

Various Suggestions have been made for classifying discourse markers, However, different
classifications are possible because each study focuses on certain aspects of these markers.
Biber et al.s' (1999:1095) classification is adopted as it proves to be typical and comprehensive.
They (ibid) offer the following types of discourse markers .

1-Interjections This type of discourse markers has been described in most books of grammars.
Interjections are words or set of sounds used as a sudden remark to express feelings (Thomas
and Martinet 2002: 19).

Leech and Svartvik (1994: 152), offer a Survey of common

English interjections which are used to express emotions:

Oh [oʊ ] Surprise:

1- Oh what a beautiful present!

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2- Greeting and Farewells Expressions.

Greetings and Farewells occur in special discourse situations and constitute

conventionalized responses to these situations, despite their phatic use (Schourup, 1985:11)
argues, these markers can be used as an instrument to maintain a link among people.

In general, greeting can very in formality, hi and hello are used in informal situations. They
are less formal than "good" forms: good morning, good afternoon and good evening (Biber et
at, 1999: 1088).

8- Good morning, Gary Tones speaking, can I help you ?

9- A- Goodbye.

B- Goodbye. (ibid: 93)

3- Linking Adverbials

Levinson (1983:87) indicates that there are words and phrases in English, and in most
languages, are used to indicate the relationship between an utterance and the prior discourse
shch as the initial position of therefore, in conclusion, to the contrary, still, however, well,
besides and after all

10- A- Layla has gone home.

B- After all, she was sick . (Fraser, 1990: 187)

4- Stance Adverbials

This type of discourse markers is defined as a lexical item that behaves semantically as an
operator upon the entire sentence, to express modality, illocutionary force and evaluation.
(Trask, 1993: 251)

Stance adverbials are called sentence adverbials by Leech and Svartvik (1994), Celce –
Murcia and Larsen – Freeman (1999), disjuncts by Quirk et al. (1985). In this respect, Halliday
(1985: 82) Suggests four- Categories for Sentence –initial adverbs:

Probability: maybe, perhaps, certainly, surely.

Presumption: of course, obviously, clearly, evidently.

Usuality: usually, typically, occasionally.

Desirability: un(fortunately), luckily,hopefully, regrettably.

Stance adverbials; appear in different grammatical structures single adverb like honestly, or
fortunately, or prepositional phrase like of course or noun like the fact is, adjective such as it is
likely to or model verbs such as maybe and perhaps and the large number of these adverbials
are comment clauses like
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Independent Activity:
Essay

1. Enumerate the features of Spoken Discourse and describe how it

affects spoken language.
2. Describe the function of discourse analysis, reference, ellipsis and
markers in spoken language and give at least 5 examples for each.
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MODULE 5: Generic structures and patterns of spoken

discourse

*Generic Structure: the way in which elements of a text are arranged to match its purpose. This structure
can be observed by readers, and writers will use this knowledge to structure their writing, depending on
their purpose.

* The discourse pattern (the logical arrangement of ideas) of an expository text or. of an oral
presentation for informational purposes will vary depending on the. culture and the native language of
the writer/speaker.

Introduction

The relationship between language and context is a rich field of study (Halliday 1973,1978, Thibault
and van Leeuwen 1996). Hasan (1999), for example, argues ‘that to describe the nature of human
language we need to place it in its social environment; that this environment – call it context – must be
taken as an integral part of linguistic theory […]’ (1999:224).

There seem to be two distinctly different views on how to approach the analysis of texts in relation
to context. One starts with an examination of context, folk-terminology for genres, perceived distance
between the speakers and social factors of the participants. Goffman (1964: 133) for example lists ‘age,
sex, class, caste, country of origin, generation, schooling […]’ as social variables which determine
linguistic variation. The other view is more text-based, and as Sinclair (1992) states, ‘is to expect the text
to supply everything necessary for its own interpretation; what we need is not an external knowledge
base but a better understanding of text structure. If we do not rely on the text itself to indicate its own
interpretation, then we invoke mysterious processes for which it is difficult to find evidence’ (1992: 82).

The first view is based not only on the distinction between text internal and text external criteria but
also the traditional division between syntax, semantics and pragmatics, whereby speech acts ‘belong in
a separate ‘pragmatics’ of utterances in their contextsof-use’ (Thibault and Van Leeuwen 1996). The
meaning of a speech act is here inferred by reference to context, rather than implicated in the text. The
view taken in this paper, sees the meaning of speech acts as an integral part of grammar and text.

Text and context

Approaches to the analysis and description of contextual categories vary enormously in current
research on texts in context. The term ‘genre’ has emerged over the past 20 years as a powerful tool in
language description as well as in areas of applied linguistics, such as the language pedagogy (see
Hammond and Derewianka 2001). The power of the concept of ‘genre’ lies in ‘the attractiveness of its
potential to formalise generic aspects of the structure of texts […]’ (Knapp 1997:113). Genre theory,
then, is based on the ‘view that texts can be classifiable and have understandable and predictable forms,
structures and purposes’ (Knapp 1997: 113).

The description of ‘a genre’ is not straighforward and various approaches have been suggested with
regard to possible categories of definition. Hasan (1985), for example, sees genre in relation to semantic
choices in texts. She argues that ‘the statement of genre specific language is best given in terms of the
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semantic categories, rather than the lexico-grammatical ones, since (1) the range of meanings have
variant realisation; and (2) the more delicate choices within the general area are not a matter of generic
ambience’ (1985:113). Others differentiate between ‘genres’ and ‘text-types’ (Biber and Finegan 1986).

The former is characterised on the basis of text external criteria, i.e. recognisable discourse genres,
such as ‘adventure fiction’ or ‘press reviews’, while the latter is a statistically derived notion, based on
lexico-grammatical features. This type of approach, it could be argued, is too crude and too reliant on a
manner of classifying texts which disregards their structures and goal-types. McCarthy (1998) is able to
capture part of this aspect of discourse structure by checking texts for ‘goal-types’. Goal–types are
related to the activity that the speakers are engaged in and are often manifested in the structure of
texts, in that a goal-type such as ‘providing information’ will be reflected at a discourse level as
unidirectional. McCarthy analyses a number of linguistic concepts, such as deixis and formulations, in a
set of CANCODE1 texts, and finds that ‘extracts controlled for variables such as goal type and context-
type can be seen to display similarities at the lexico-grammatical level which fit in the higher-order
features of generically oriented activity.’ (1998:46). Bhatia (1993) proposes a similar approach to the
analysis of texts which takes into account lexico-grammatical features, text-patterning and an
interpretation of text structure. The brief overview above shows that there are different ways of
approaching the relationship between text and context, some involving the analysis of lexico-grammar,
and others relying on goal-types as clues to generic activity. The approach taken in this study combines
these two methodologies in an analysis of indirect speech act formulae in discourse.

Lexico-grammar, speech acts and context Aijmer (1996: 26) argues that ‘all routines are to some extent
constrained by the situation. They can be restricted with regard to the antecedent event, the setting, the
participants in the conversation, etc.’. Levinson (1983), in a discussion of speech acts in context,
mentions the term ‘frame’ as a possible analytical notion to capture the intricate relationship between
individual speech acts and the environment in which they occur. A frame, he points out,

is a body of knowledge that is evoked in order to provide an inferential base for the understanding
of an utterance […] and we may suggest that in the attribution of force or function […] reference is
made, as relevant, to the frames for teaching, shopping, participating in committee meetings, lecturing
and other speech events (see e.g. Gumperz 1977). (Levinson 1983: 281)

The phenomenon described by Levinson above has received a lot of attention. Discussions of ‘frames’
(Aijmer 1996), ‘speech events’ (Hymes 1986), ‘activity types’ (Levinson 1992), ‘speech activity’ (Gumperz
1982) and ‘schemata’ (Cook 1994) all highlight the way speakers orient themselves to a ‘higher-order
framework’ (McCarthy 1998). This includes knowledge about certain contexts and the restrictions and
constraints that such contexts pose on possible contributions, as well as the structural progression of
discourse.

In an attempt to relate surface structure to context, a number of functionally motivated linguistic

features have been isolated in the past. Gumperz (1982: 131) refers to these as ‘contextualisation cues’,
a concept that describes surface features that signal ‘contextual presuppositions’. Contextualisation
cues can be lexical, linguistic, paralinguistic or prosodic, and operate on different discourse levels. As
such, these cues are related to the notion of ‘frame’ used by Aijmer (1996). Tannen (1993) also discusses
linguistic features which can be seen as a realisation of the participants orientation to a particular type
of discourse. She mentions, among other features, ‘negative statements’, ‘modals’ and ‘false starts’.
These features all encode the speaker’s expectations about the upcoming discourse. McCarthy (1998:
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32-8) discusses ‘expectations’, ‘recollections’, ‘instantiations’ and ‘formulations’, and some of their
linguistic realisations, as evidence of speaker goals. Formulations are explained as ‘paraphrases of
previous talk or summaries of positions reached in the ongoing talk’ (McCarthy 1998: 32). Formulations
that refer to subsequent talk, on the other hand, have been described as pre-sequences (Levinson 1983)
and metastatements. The following extract illustrates the speaker’s use of a metastatement:

(S1) Because what I was going to suggest was that erm you went along to the class. If if he lets you go

Here speaker 1 introduces his/her speech act by naming it. McCarthy argues that ‘suggestions by
individuals are an important part of the goal-orientation and are realised both in formulaic and more
indirect ways’ (1998: 43). Gumperz (1992) also finds that formulaic expressions at the beginning of a
sequence trigger inferential processes which link the discourse to the context.

While the importance of metastatements has been widely accepted (Schegloff and Sacks 1973), it will
be demonstrated below that the use of speech act prefabs similarly relates to the participants’
interpretations of discourse, as well as their expectations regarding the goal-type and text-type. They
are not related to context in the routinised way suggested by Halliday, such as phrases like ‘once upon a
time’ (1985: 37) which indicate that the speaker is about to relate a fairy-tale, but they nevertheless
carry generic information. Another difference between speech act prefabs and metastatements is that
the latter is associated mainly with sequence initial position. While it is not always easy to determine the
notion of ‘sequence’, it is clear that speech act prefabs can occur at any place in an ongoing discourse,
occupying ‘initiation’ as well as ‘response’ slots in the overall discourse model.

The review above yields the following question which Hasan puts as follows: ‘can definite statements
be made about the linguistic selections in a text-type that are genre motivated, so that every text
belonging to a genre would display those linguistic properties?’ (1985: 108). To answer this question
Hasan discusses three texts which are structurally similar but are verbally different. She comes to the
conclusion that ‘it is not possible to claim that […] if two texts are structurally identical, then they must
be verbally identical (…)’. (1985: 112). By building this important claim into her theory, Hasan is able to
maintain that ‘only certain aspects of texts are sensitive to context’, which means that she ‘has rejected
the crude determinism whereby each text and its context are utterly predictive of each other’ (Hasan
1985: 112).

Hasan examines this claim by looking at individual speech acts and finds that a demand, for example,
can have varying lexical realisations, probably related to the relationship between the speakers. In a
given genre, such as a ‘service encounter’, the differences in lexical form that the speech act takes does
not influence or change the genre as such. However, wording must effect genre at some level as
otherwise there would be no relation between the two. Hasan therefore suggests that genres are
realised through meanings, or processes, which are realised through a specific class of verbs.

It is curious that Hasan’s rejection of a determinant relationship between verbal identity of a text and
genre is based on a discussion of three short texts only. This makes it difficult to ascertain whether there
are any lexico-grammatical patterns which emerge from a relationship to a certain genre. The conclusion
that may be drawn from Hasan’s discussion is thus not so much that lexico-grammar is not directly
related to genre, but rather that more corpus data and analysis is needed to determine the type of
relationship that might exist between the two. It is also noteworthy that Hasan starts her analysis with
lexico-grammatical different entities in a supposedly similar context. An analysis that keeps both the
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linguistic and the contextual unit constant is better equipped to draw conclusions about the relationship
between language and context.

Genre and text-type

The two notions that have been used to describe the difference between text-based and context-based
descriptions of recurring situations are ‘text-type’ and ‘genre’.

In the following section the notion of text-type and its role in the framework of context will be
explored. The emphasis, however, is not on determining various genres or texttypes as such, but rather
on the relationship between social processes, such as ‘explaining’, ‘arguing’ and ‘narrating’3 , their
relation to goal-categories, such as ‘decision-making’, and the relationship between social processes and
context. Social processes, in the framework proposed here, are identical to text-types, yet the levels of
description are different. While ‘social processes’ are a general descriptive category, recognisable by
members of a culture, the term ‘text-type’ is used to account for the structure of social processes.
Similarly, goal-types, such as ‘problem-solving’, can be explained from the perspective of social
processes, as well as from the perspective of text-type. To see ‘problem-solving’ as a social process
would invoke a folk understanding of the process involved, such as presenting a problem, attending to a
problem, finding possible solutions, discussing such solutions, etc. From a text-type point of view, on the
other hand, the ‘problem-solving goal type’ is seen in terms of textual structures and turn options. The
three perspectives, goal-sub-type, text-type and social process, represent distinct points of departure in
the model.

Askehave and Swales (2001) distinguish between a text-driven and context-driven definition of genre
which are associated with two different layers of analysis. Where genres are generally determined on
the basis of external criteria (Biber 1988) and identified by their function and communicative purpose
(Swales 1990), text-types are similar in linguistic form to each other and identified by text internal
criteria (Biber 1988). Genres are therefore linked more readily to culturally recognisable categories such
as ‘the research article’ (Swales 1990), or ‘fiction’. Text-types on the other hand are more of an analyst’s
category (Köster 2001) and can be described in terms of the processes they fulfill, such as arguing,
discussing, etc. Genres tend to be closely related to the discourse community in which they occur
(Swales 1990). Hence, certain genres, such as ‘service encounters’, will be defined differently by people
living in different countries in which the procedures and constraints of such encounters differ. The
relationship between genres and text-types is maybe closest when the interaction is highly structured,
such as in a ‘court-hearing’. Here, the textual structures are more easily described as the genre
constraints are at a maximum. The same applies for written genres, such as recipes.

However, considering the conversations in the CANCODE corpus, the relationship between genre and
text-type is not as clear-cut. The relationship between genre and texttype ranges from very fixed to
negotiable. It is because of this ‘negotiable’ character of most conversation, that the units of description
need to be much smaller than the whole text.

The difference between genre and text-type is thus therefore twofold. Firstly, text-types are based on
linguistic description, while genres are often based on folk-categories. Secondly, text-types are
associated with social processes while genres are associated with products. However, Harrison (2001)
argues that recurrence of a particular text-type in a genre defines this genre: ‘If narrative is
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probabilistically of high frequency in conversational argumentation, then its level of probability becomes
part of the definition of the genre itself’.

Speech acts and genre

Speech acts have always played an important part in categorising genre as well as texttypes (Longacre
1983, Hasan 1978, Dudley-Evans 1994). Thus, the stages of a certain genre, for example a ‘service
encounter’, are realised by certain obligatory and optional elements (Hasan 1985). These are, in turn,
describable in terms of speech acts. The first stage of a service encounter, could be described as
‘Salutation’ (Mitchell 1957), realised at a speech act level as ‘greeting’. Harrison (2001), in an analysis of
the text-type ‘discussion’, argues that if specific kinds of speech acts are recurring they are defining for
this text-type. Hoey (1983), in a discussion of decision-making discourse identifies a number of lexical
signals for the various stages in this type of discourse. Hence the word ‘problem’ often occurs in the
beginning of a decision-making process. While Hoey relates the use of the word ‘problem’ to a particular
stage within a specific (problem-solution) textual pattern, Gumperz (1982) argues that there are lexical
formulations in discourses which reveal speaker goals (see also Craig 1990). This means that certain
speech acts reveal the discourse goals of the speakers. A presequence such as ‘I want to make a
suggestion’ signals the speaker’s desire for his or her utterance to be understood as such. Again, no
exhaustive list of lexico-grammatical features exist that is related to particular goals.

Notes:

*CANCODE stands for Cambridge and Nottingham Corpus of Discourse in English, a 5 million word
corpus of naturally occurring conversation. The project was sponsored by Cambridge University Press
with whom sole copyright resides.

* It is important to note that text-type and genre are often used synonymously and that what is referred
to here as social process has elsewhere been described in terms of genre (see Longacre (1976) on
narrative, procedural, expository and hortatory discourse). However, while the term ‘genre’ has
traditionally been associated predominantly with literary conventions, the notion of ‘text-type’ has been
used in relation to textlinguistic models (see Esser 1993 for a discussion).

Independent Activity:
Essay

1. Discuss in your own personal view the generic structure of

spoken discourse.
2. How do you define spoken discourse patterns?
3. State the importance of knowing the generic structure and
patterns of spoken discourse.
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MODULE 6: Features of written discourse, focusing on

Appraisal analysis prosody, and
cohesion.
Discourse analysis in terms of both spoken and written language is believed to be helpful
for both linguists and language teachers. It is simply “the study of language in use” (Gee & Handford,
2013:1). Written texts are considered an important aspect that needs to be analysed. Doing so means
that writers gain the ability to make their writing more cohesive and easier to read. Cohesion,
coherence, clause relations and text patterns are all parts of written texts.

If you are studying the relationship between language and the context it is utilised in, then
you are analysing the discourse. Discourse can be either written, such as in books, essays, newspapers,
magazines, road signs or invoices, or spoken, such as in conversations, verbal interactions and TV
programmes. Discourse analysts study language in either spoken or written use. According to Gee and
Handford (2013:5), the importance of discourse analysis “lies in the fact that, through speaking and
writing in the world, we make the world meaningful in certain ways and not in others”. Although
Coulthard (2014) makes a distinction between spoken discourse and written texts, this distinction is by
no means universally accepted. Recently, the scope of linguists has switched from analysing single
sentences to the distribution of linguistic elements in extended texts and the relationship between texts
and social situations. This paper’s focus will be devoted to written texts in order to afford an
understanding of how natural written discourse looks and sounds. This understanding will boost the
production of teaching materials (McCarthy, 1991). By taking the scope of this paper into account,
discussing written texts normally includes the consideration of cohesion, coherence and text patterns.
Thus, each aspect will be discussed in the following sections.

What do we mean by texts?

The term “text” refers to “a passage, either spoken or written, that does form a unified
whole” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:1). In other words, a text is the ability to distinguish a particular
sequence of sentences, whether connected or not. It is also a semantic unit of meaning in the language.
For instance, Halliday and Hasan (1976) coined the term “ties”, which refers to a single instance of
cohesion. Such ties mean that written texts can be analysed by investigating the relationship between
cohesion and the organisation of written texts into sentences and paragraphs. Failure to make writing
fully understood, even on the part of advanced learners, due to either the overuse of conjunctions or
the inability to achieve cohesive texts, is a common problem among non-native speakers of English
(Basturkmen, 2002).

Cohesion and coherence

A text’s cohesion and coherence are pivotal. The more coherent a sequence of sentences, the
better they are understood (Todirascu et al., 2013). According to Bublitz (2011:37), cohesion and
coherence are “(linguistically encoded or just assumed) connectedness of spoken as well as written
discourse or text”. However, they are “descriptive categories which differ in kind”. In detail, cohesion
relates to “inter-sentential semantic relations” whereas coherence is a “kind of textual prosody” (Bublitz
 31

(2011:37). Cohesive texts could be partly coherent (Grabe, 1984). Cohesion means the relationship
between meaning within a particular written text and the way the reader interprets several elements in
the discourse (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). According to Martin (2015), the term “cohesion” is inspired by
the work of Halliday (1964) and Hasan (1968). Cohesion befalls through “the stratal organisation of
language” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:5). It is the means through which ideas and content are linked and
ordered (Basturkmen, 2002). In simple terms, cohesion is explained by meaning, form and expression.
By the same token, Grabe (1984:110) states that it is “the means available in the surface forms of the
text to signal relations that hold between sentences or clausal units in the text”. Cohesion occurs “where
the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another”. Because cohesion
is articulated either through grammar or vocabulary, Halliday and Hasan (1976) divide it into
grammatical and lexical devices.

Cohesion relations . There are five cohesive devices: reference; substitution; ellipsis;
conjunction; and lexis. In this section, four types of grammatical cohesion will be discussed in turn. After
that, lexical cohesion will be addressed. Grammatical cohesion 1- Reference In any language, there are
some items that refer to something else for their interpretation rather than being interpreted on their
own. This process is called “reference” in that the information is signalled for retrieving the referential
meaning. Reference can be personals (including pronouns - possessive adjectives - possessive
pronouns), demonstratives (verbal pointing) and comparatives (deictic or non-deictic) that function as
cohesive ties (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). For instance, “Three blind mice, three blind mice. See how they
run! See how they run!” is an example of personal reference, where the pronoun they refer to three
blind mice. An example of demonstrative reference is “Doctor Foster went to Gloucester in a shower of
rain. He stopped in a puddle right up to his middle and never went there again”. There in this example
refers to Gloucester. A comparative reference is ‘There were two wrens upon a tree. Another came, and
there were three”, where another refers to wrens (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:31).

Reference could be established either with a textual endophoric within the text, such as
“Doris likes him very much” or with a situational exophoric outside the text, such as “Would you like to
join me for a cup of tea this afternoon?” (Bublitz, 2011). Endophora may be anaphoric or cataphoric. The
most important issue with reference and whether a word is endophoric or exophoric is that “the thing
referred to has to be identifiable somehow” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:33).

2- Substitution

This cohesive relation is in contrast with the former (reference), in which reference is a
relation in terms of the meaning (semantic) while substitution is a relation in terms of the wording
(grammatical). In other words, this is a relationship between linguistic items. It is “the replacement of
one item by another” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:88). Substitution is used instead of repeating a particular
item; for example, “My axe is too blunt. I must get a sharp one”, in which one is the substitute for axe
(Halliday and Hasan, 1976:88). There are three types of substitution: nominal, verbal and clausal. The
substitute of one, ones or the same is a nominal substitution. For instance, “I have heard some strange
stories in my time. But this one was perhaps the strangest one of all”, where one is a substitute for
stories (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:92). The second type is the verbal substitution (do). For instance, “the
words did not come the same as they used to do”, where do is the substitute for come (Halliday &
Hasan, 1976:112). The third type is the clausal (so - not). For example, “Is there going to be an
earthquake? – it says so”, where so presupposes the clause there is going to be an earthquake.
 32

3- Ellipsis

Ellipsis is similar to substitution as it “can be interpreted as that form of substitution in

which the item is replaced by nothing” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:88). Nevertheless, ellipsis and
substitution differ in terms of their structural mechanisms. It is substitution by zero, as it is not
articulated or written and something is left unsaid. It is a presupposition at the level of words and
structures (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). Just like substitution, ellipses can be established within the nominal,
verbal and clausal groups.

4- Conjunction

The fourth cohesive device It is employed to connect clauses using conjunctive relations
whether addictive (and), adversative (yet), causal (so) or temporal (then) (Halliday & Hasan, 1976).

Lexical cohesion

In order to cover all types of cohesion relationships, this section will address lexical cohesion.
Lexical cohesion can be achieved through reiteration—that is, saying something again or multiple times
for the purpose of emphasis or clarity. Pedagogically speaking, it is the most common element to be
learned by language learners and taught by teachers. Consequently, it is a must for language teachers.
Yet McCarthy (1991) argues that it is negligent to consider lexical cohesion out of their discourse.
Although lexical cohesion play an important role in verbal interaction, they are mostly abandoned in
English description. Lexical cohesion includes repetition, synonym, near-synonym, antonym,
superordinate, general words and metonymy. For instance, “Henry’s bought himself a new Jaguar. He
practically lives in the car” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:278); the word “car” refers to “Jaguar”, which is
the superordinate of Jaguar. However, Stotsky (1983) argues that Halliday and Hasan (1976) do not
provide a consistent reason for combining types of reiterated items together in one category. This
argument is not adequate because Halliday and Hasan declare that reiterated items are linked via a
common referent.

In addition, lexical cohesion can be achieved through collocation. Lewis and Conzett (2000)
define collocation as the words that are placed or found together in a predictable pattern. The functions
of general nouns are similar to reiteration. A lexical item is an open set, while a grammatical item is a
member of a closed system. For instance, in the following example, the cohesive function of the general
noun goes together with the reference “the” in “We all kept quiet. That seemed the best move”
(Halliday and Hasan, 1976:275).

Clause relations and text patterns

It is worth noting that when we talk about grammatical and lexical cohesion, clause
relations and macro text patterns should be considered. One clause or sentence’s relation to another
can be interpreted through either matching relations or logical sequence relations (Winter, 1994).
Additionally, the most common macro patterns in a text are those that Hoey (2001) identifies as follows:

1- Problem solution

2- 2- General particular

3- 3- Hypothetical real (claim-counterclaim pattern)

 33

The problem solution pattern is the most common pattern (Hoey, 2001). Due to the limited
space in this paper, only problem solution patterns will be discussed in detail. This pattern includes four
functions: situation, problem, response and evaluation (SPRE). The first function should afford
background information. The second function raises a particular problem. The third function is to
provide a response (counterclaim) to the problem that has arisen. Finally, an evaluation deals with
whether the response to the problem is positive or negative. If a negative evaluation is achieved, the
pattern should be repeated until a positive evaluation (result) is attained. An example of this pattern,
which McCarthy (1991:30) mentions, is as follows:

“(1) Most people like to take a camera with them when they travel abroad. (2) But all
airports nowadays have x-ray security screening and x-rays can damage film. (3) One solution to this
problem is to purchase a specially designed lead-lined pouch. (4) These are cheap and can protect film
from all but the strongest x rays”.

The example above covers the four functions of a problem solution pattern. The first
sentence presents a particular situation; the second raises a problem; the third provides a response to
the problem raised; and the fourth sentence positively evaluates the proposed solution. They are the
‘situation, problem, response and evaluation pattern (SPRE)’.

To conclude this section, all the cohesion devices, clause relations and text patterns
mentioned above afford means for connecting the apparent text structure. As Grabe (1984:110) notes,
they “reflect both the communicative intents and choices by the authors”.

Reasons for choosing written discourse analysis

Written texts need to be properly connected and linked. Cohesion is the most important
property of writing quality. The author agrees with Witte and Faigley (1981:201) who state that, “if
cohesion is better understood, it can be better taught”. Nonetheless, cohesion is not employed in the
English language teaching (EFL) classrooms with which the author is familiar. Hence, teachers ought to
teach learners how to utilise cohesive devices (references, substitution, ellipsis and conjunctions) and
lexical ties (repetition, synonyms, antonyms and superordinates) both explicitly and implicitly
(Basturkmen, 2002). Most classroom exercises are not designed to teach cohesion but they do demand
that students form cohesive ties (Witte & Faigley, 1981). It has been argued that teaching often
concentrates on conjunctions rather than on any other cohesive device, such as lexical cohesion (Liu,
2000). Some studies that have been conducted regarding the use of conjunctions in written texts have
revealed that non-native learners tend to use them more than they should. Basturkmen (2002)
examined the writing of two non-native advanced learners with a focus on the use of conjunctions. She
found that both students misused conjunctions. Therefore, the author would argue that this dilemma
could be resolved by teaching this aspect in the classroom. Neglecting this issue will result in more
fragmented texts.

Similar to cohesion devices, Basturkmen (2002) recommends that English language teachers
should make their students aware of typical clause relations and macro text patterns in English .
Needless to say, that problem solution is the most common pattern. It is important to ensure that
“questions spell out the relationship between sentences” (Hoey, 2001:123). Moreover, the dialogue
ought to be properly connected and meaningful.
 34

The analysis of several written texts

Written discourse analysis is a growing field of study. It allows researchers to follow different
lines of investigation. Grabe (1984:101) states that the analysis of discourse involves “the study of
literary texts” and “the study of form-function relationships within language segments”. In other words,
it is the study of both oral and written language.

In this section, several written discourses will be presented and analysed. The analysis will
consider references in the first extract, conjunctions in the second, lexical cohesion in the third and both
references and problem solution macro patterns in the fourth extract.

1- “Hale knew, before he had been in Brighton three hours, that they meant to murder him … That,
as it happens, is the opening of Brighton Rock, but turn up the opening lines of the rest of his
books and they won’t disappoint you. Graham Greene, who died yesterday, rich in years and
rich in honour, was first of all a storyteller…” (Thornbury, 1997:122).

2- 2- In the above text, reference has been employed seven times. In the first line, “he” refers to
Hale and “they” in the same line is a forward reference. “Him” in the second line refers to Hale
and “that” in the same line refers to the preceding sentence. In the third line, “his” refers to
Graham Greene, “they” refers to Greene’s books and “who” refers to Graham Greene again. The
use of these references helps the text to be more cohesive.

3- 3- “These two forms of dissent coalesced in the demand for a stronger approach to the Tory
nostrum of tariff reform. In addition, trouble threatened from the mercurial figure of Winston
Churchill, who had resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in January 1931 in protest at Baldwin's
acceptance of eventual self-government for India”
(http://www.uefap.com/reading/exercise/refer/refer.htm).

The above extract contains two sentences. In line two, the second sentence starts with “in
addition” in order to link the second sentence to the first. This conjunction makes the whole extract
more cohesive.

4- “The clamour of complaint about teaching in higher education and, more especially, about
teaching methods in universities and technical colleges, serves to direct attention away from the
important reorientation which has recently begun. The complaints, of course, are not
unjustified. In dealing piece-meal with problems arising from rapidly developing subject matter,
many teachers have allowed courses to become over-crowded, or too specialized, or they have
presented students with a number of apparently unrelated courses failing to stress common
principles. Many, again, have not developed new teaching methods to deal adequately with
larger numbers of students, and the new audiovisual techniques tend to remain in the province
of relatively few enthusiasts despite their great potential for class and individual teaching”
(http://www.uefap.com/reading/exercise/refer/refer.htm).

In this extract, the term “complaint” has been used twice. In the fourth line, “complaint” is
repeated again as it is the focus of the extract. The other phrase “teaching methods” has been used as a
 35

collocation. This collocation has also been repeated. Also, the phrase “audio-visual techniques” has been
employed as a synonym for “teaching methods”.

5- “(1) Tony and Sheila’s first home was a terraced house, one of a line houses all connected. (2)
But several years later when they had a small child, they found it rather cramped for three
people. (3) They wanted something more spacious and so decided to move. (4) They went to an
estate agent and looked at details of the houses he had to offer. (5) They looked at a semi-
detached house (one of a pair attached to each other), liked it, and asked a surveyor to inspect it
for them. (6) He said that it was in good condition and they therefore decided to buy it. (7)
Luckily, they sold their house quickly and soon a removals firm was taking all their furniture and
other possessions to their new home. (8) But already, after a couple of years, they are hoping to
move again. (9) Tony’s business is doing well and they want to get an architect to design a
modern, detached house for them, and a builder to build it” (Thomas, 1995:13).

6- In the above extract, as expected, references are the most cohesive devices employed in the
passage. For instance, Tony and Sheila are referred to nine times by the pronoun “they” as they
are the focus of the passage. It is used in sentences two (twice), three, four, five, six, seven,
eight and nine. Likewise, “their” is used three times in sentence seven. The first time this refers
to their current house, the second time this refers to the furniture and the third time this refers
to the new home. “It” is used six times in sentence two, which refers to the current house, in
sentence five (twice) as a reference to the new house, in sentence six (twice) referring to the
new house and in sentence nine, which refers to their future house. “Them” is used twice in
sentences five and nine. “He” is used twice in sentences four and six as a reference to the estate
agent.

In addition to the reference cohesion device analysed in the above passage, the text pattern
will be analysed. The above passage is a good example of a problem solution pattern (SPRE). The first
sentence begins by providing a background to the situation. Then, a problem is raised in the second
sentence. An outline of the problem, along with several recommendations, is presented before the
response. After that, a response is offered in the seventh sentence as a reaction to the problem that was
raised in the earlier sentences. A negative evaluation is achieved in the eighth sentence, because Tony
and Sheila want to move again. This negative evaluation prompts a recycling of the pattern until they
achieve a positive evaluation in the ninth sentence, in that they are going to consult with an architect in
order to build another house. The problem solution pattern in the text above, according to Hoey’s
(2001) diagram, is as follows:
Situation → Tony and Sheila live in a terraced house
↓
Problem → The house becomes too small after having a
child
↓
Response → They sold their house and bought a new and bigger
house
↓
Evaluation (negative) → After several years, they wanted to move again to an even bigger
house
↓
Recycling the pattern because a negative result was
achieved
↓
Second response → They consulted an architect to design a bigger house for them
↓
Second evaluation (positive) → Their architect should design a suitable house for their needs
 36

MODULE 7: An analysis of discourse semantic features

found in written texts

A semantic feature is an element of meaning. Some semantic features are indicated by cues
from syntactic (elements of spelling) and grammatical (elements of organisation) features . Others might
be determined by attributed root meanings. Still other features can be determined from contexts (in
particular, extensions and/or variation of the root meaning).

Some general examples of semantic features include: gender (masculine, feminine, neuter, etc),
count (singular, plural, indeterminate, specific,etc), agency, possession cues, “person” (first, second, or
third party), root meanings, precisions, reference cues (this, that, the other, etc), locators, temporal
indicators, etc.

Where semantic features and grammatical features code a message for transmission from one
person to the other, semantic features determine what we actually understand a message to mean.
Sometimes, the coding might be ambiguous, so we need contextual cues to help us extract more of the
“correct” meaning. We assemble all of the semantic features to determine what a message means.(
Mikkel Haaheim, PhD in Cognitive Linguistics, 2018).

Whereas, Semantics on the other hand is concerned with the conventional meaning of words
and sentences. The word mean is used in English to convey intention (I didn’t mean to hurt you), to
indicate a sign (those black clouds mean rain) and to the sense of words and sentences (“dog” means
“cane”). Semantics is concerned with the last of these three and lexical semantics is concerned with the
meaning of words. However word and sentence meaning is not the only kind of meaning with which we
are concerned in this module.

The Semantic Feature Analysis strategy engages students in reading assignments by asking them
to relate selected vocabulary to key features of the text. This technique uses a matrix to help students
discover how one set of things is related to one another. Use this strategy to help students:

 understand the meaning of selected vocabulary words

 group vocabulary words into logical categories

 analyze the completed matrix

Benefits

A Semantic Feature Analysis improves students' comprehension, vocabulary, and content

retention. This strategy helps students to examine related features or concepts and make distinctions
among them. By analyzing the completed matrix, students are able to visualize connections, make
predictions, and better understand important concepts.
 37

Teachers can use this strategy with the whole class, small groups, or individually. Monitoring
each student's matrix provides teachers with information about how much the students know about the
topic. This allows teachers to tailor instruction accordingly.

Create and use the strategy

Select a passage of text for students. Model the procedure for using the matrix as a tool for
recording reading observations. Provide students with key vocabulary words and important features
related to the topic. Assist students as they prepare their matrix. Vocabulary words should be listed
down the left hand column and the features of the topic across the top row of the chart. Once the
matrix outline is complete, review all the words and features with the students and have them carefully
read the text selection.

Follow the steps below for using the Semantic Feature Analysis strategy:

1. Have students read the assigned text.

2. As they read, have students place a "+" sign in the matrix when a vocabulary word aligns with a
particular feature of the topic. If the word does not align students may put a "-" in the grid. If
students are unable to determine a relationship they may leave it blank.

3. After reading and completing the matrix, have students analyze their completed graphics by:

o sharing their observations;

o discussing differing results; and/or

o writing a summary of what they learned

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MODULE 8: Variation across professional genres

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REFERENCES

Jones, R. “ Discourse Analysis: A Resource Book for Students.” Routledge 250 Pages 31 B/W Illustrations.
ISBN 9781138669673.Published October 29, 2018

https://www.slideshare.net/FarooqNiazi2/register-theory

http://englishstudyhelp.blogspot.com/2012/05/discourse-spoken-and-written-language.html

http://www.literarydevices.com/ellipsis/

file:///C:/Users/acer/Downloads/TheDiscourseMarkersinSpokenLanguage.pdf

Svenja Adolphs,’Genre and Spoken Discourse: Probabilities and Predictions’ adolphs.PDF

Alisaawi, A. Written Discourse Analysis and Its Application in English Language Teaching Article in SSRN
Electronic Journal · January 2016VII. A

The Routledge Handbook of Language and Professional Communication.

https://books.google.com.ph/books?hl=en&lr=&id=nbLpAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=englis
h+discourse+variation+acros
s+professional+genres&ots=Rl6LRuaVTn&sig=MK39aHqW5OtY8f6fFeYVszYigw&redir_esc=y#v=o
nepage&q=english%20discourse%20variation%20across%20professional%20genres&f=false