What is Discourse

Analysis?
Natalia Cuevas Pereira
Focus on knowledge about language beyond the
word, clause, phrase and sentence that is needed
for a successful communication.
 1952

Zelling Harris
 Relationship between
language and Context

relationship between what is said and

what is meant in order to understand

The analysis if language in use

Spoken + Written
interaction
Discourse analysis
and pragmatics

It is concerned with
how the interpretation
of language depends
on knowledge of the
real world
 Discourse structure of texts
How people organize what they say; this varies across cultures.
 Gramatical Competence
Sociolinguistic Competence
knowledge of lexical items,
sociocultural of use and rule of
morphology, syntax, semantics
discourse
and phonology

COMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

Strategic Competence Discourse Competence

overcome language gaps, achieve how ideas are connected

conversational fluency and modify through patterns of
text for audience organisation, cohesive and
traditional devices
 Different views of
discourse analysis

as the social construction of reality

socially situated identities

Performance

Intertextuality
Difference between spoken and
written discourse
Grammatical intricacy

Lexical density

Nominalisation

Explicitness

Contextualisation

Spontaneity

Repetition, hesitations, and redundancy