DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (B)

CONTEXTUAL PHENOMENA
SURYA ANDI NUGRAHA (121511223008)
TYA RIZKA RACHMANIA (121611223023)
FEBRIAN FALENTINO FREDRIKTHO
(121411231017)
ALTHAFFINA CAHYANI (121411231060)
 7.1 DEIXIS
 Inspired by Karl Buhler
 Derived from Greek word  “to show” ; “to
indicate”
 Used to denote elements in a language
which refer directly to the discourse situation
 Deictic words  words with a reference point
that is speaker or writer dependent and is
determined by the speaker’s or writer’s
position in space and time.
I am now standing on the
roof
• I  the person uttering the
sentence
• Now  denotes is dependent on
the moment the statement is
uttered
• Roof  remains more or less
constant in different situations
 PERSON DEIXIS
 Deixis to person is realized using personal
pronouns
 Can also contain other meaning
elements  gender of the 3rd person
 Provide an insight into the relationship
between the 1st and the 2nd person 
social deixis
Do we have time for
that?
• 1st person plural  being
directed at the group in
general
• Inclusive ‘we’  asking
someone else for advice
• Exclusive ‘we’  asked by a
mother who sees her children
taking out a new toy before
bed
 PLACE DEIXIS
Mary is standing in front of
 A speaker can refer to something that is in the car.
the vicinity or further away  this-that ;
• Mary is standing between the
these-those
car and the speaker.
 Can be realized not only by the use of
demonstrative pronouns, but also by the
• Mary is standing in front of
use of adverbs of place  here and there the car’s front end.
 Interesting phenomenon  ambiguity that
arises because reference can take place The difference between speaker-
from different spatial positions
oriented and object oriented
deixis.
 7.2 STAGING

 The phenomenon of foreground and background information 

theater metaphor  staging
 The head-tail principle
 Left  head  more important  foreground
 Right  tail  less important  background

1. Every year I go to Aruba for two weeks on vacation.

 “Aruba” is in the middle position, less important than “every year”, and more
important than “vacation”

2. Aruba is where I go on vacation for two weeks every year.

 “Aruba” is in the foreground  the most important information
 Methods of staging

 Neutral order
 I asked her to marry me in the middle of an autumn storm
 Topicalization
 In the middle of an autumn storm I asked her to marry me
 Cleft construction
 It was in the middle of an autumn storm that I asked her to marry me

The head-tail principle is also work in paragraphs and longer passages

of text.
(see example 13 in the book)
 To what degree the main-subordinate clause distinction reflects the foreground –
background relationship?
 To what extent the head or tail position of the clause is of influence?

• It was already dark when our hero awoke.

• Our hero awoke after it had already become dark.

• The information in the main clause is more foregrounded

than that in the subordinate clause.
• Discourse proceeds with the foregrounded element.
 7.3 Perspectivization
 Perspective is used to described the different points of
view
 in discourse study three approaches are importance
 (a) the more sociologically-inspired research into the
ideological perspective or Vision
 (b) the more literary-oriented research into the
narrator's perspective or Focalization
 (c) the syntactically-oriented research into the
speaker's attitude called Empathy
The Example of Vision
With 400.000 demonstrators
participating, double that of the
organizers' highest estimates, the
peace demonstration in Amsterdam
has already been labeled an
important political event
In those statement with the central
question in the research on vision is
how an ideology affect language
The Example of Focalization

A. Pete gave a start when he heard

the man coming up the stairs
b. Mary felt that pete startled when he
heard the man coming up the stairs
in a there is a character bound
focalizer and b pete is embbeded in
mary's object of focalization as a
focalizer
The Example of Empathy

Expressed in the synthetic

structure of a sentence
John hit marry
John hit his wife
Mary's husband hit her
7.4 Given-new management
The idea of given/new information is closely connected to definite and
indefinite expressions. Indefinite expressions generally mark new info:

A. Indefinite/definite expressions
Indefinite expressions mark the first mention of a referent, i.e. the
introduction of new referents which are not known to the
listener/reader. Definite expressions enable individuals to be identified
by listeners.

B. Definite/indefinite expressions in speech

Speakers tend to use definite expressions when they believe information
is mutually shared, Speakers tend to use indefinite expressions when
they believe information is not mutually shared.
 Given-new management
 Ways of introducing individuals (places, objects, people) into
discourse (NEW INFORMATION)
Using an indefinite expression How known to reader
1. a, an + (adj.) + noun, e.g. a dog not known

Using a definite expression

1. the + (adj.) + noun
e.g. the Pope world knowledge the headmaster
con nnference (the school)

2. Proper Name
e.g. Calcutta, Hercules world knowledge
7.5 Presuppositions
• Examples were given in 7.4 that indicate that listeners and readers can
sometimes infer information from the discourse. In fact, this is a more general
characteristic of discourse: more can be derived from discourse than is
explicitly stated. For example: It took John seven years to complete his
studies.
• The following information can be derived from this sentence.
a. There is a person named John.
b. John was a student.
c. John was not a brilliant student.
• The information that there is an individual named John is not stated explicitly
in (36), but can be derived from the fact that a person is mentioned who is
called by that name.
• The fact that John was a student is likewise not stated explicitly, but this can
be derived from the statement that he took seven years to finish his studies.
• Depending on the concrete situation, more information could be derived.
Sentence (36) could contain (36c) as implicit information if it had just been
stated that the program John was in usually takes four years to complete.
 Presuppositions
 A special type of implicit information is called presupposition, meaning "to
assume beforehand': a term which originated in the philosophy of logic.
 Information which is explicitly stated is referred to as a claim or an assertion.
The example in the previous slide makes it clear that all kinds of information
can be derived from a sentence.
 The term presupposition is reserved for the implicit information which must be
true for the sentence in question to be itself true or false.
 A sentence such as "I have stopped smoking" can only be true or false if the
person saying it in fact used to smoke. The presupposition of this sentence is
thus "I used to smoke“.
 Put another way: a presupposition is the only type of information that is
unaffected by denial of the original sentence.
 Examples:
(37) John is (not) opening the window.
a. The window is closed.
(38) Democracy must (not) be restored in Surinam.
a. Surinam was once a democracy.
 Presuppositions
 The a-sentences given here are presuppositions because they are also true
if (37) and (38) are denied. Of course, the whole sentence has to be denied,
and not just one or more constituents, for its presuppositions to be
maintained.
 Note that a negative sentence can be denied; the result is then a positive
sentence. In a more formal notation, the presupposition is written out as
follows.
(39) Bis a presupposition of A if and only if (A→ B) and (¬A → B).
 The symbol → is the implication sign for "if-then" and the symbol ¬, is the
symbol for negation. The definition given in (39) is known as the negation
test.
 A presupposition is thus the implicit information that must be true for the
sentence to be either true or false and which is not affected by a negation.
 The implicit information can be derived from different elements in a
sentence. In (37) and (38) it is derived from the meaning of the words. In
(37), use of the verb "to open" suggests the window is now closed, and in
(38) the word "restored" can lead to the conclusion that at one point or
another there was a democracy in Surinam.
 Presuppositions
 Presuppositions can be prompted by the words themselves or by
the sentence structure:
(40) Carl has the flu again.
a. Carl has had the flu before.
(41) Carl is a better linguist than Pete.
a. Pete is a linguist.
 Presupposition (40a) can be derived from the word "again". In (41)
the comparison implies that Pete has the same profession as Carl.
 Emphasis also plays an important role in deriving presuppositions.
Sometimes the emphasis is already clear owing to the syntactical
structure as in cleft constructions, for example, one in which "x is
doing y" is given the structure "it is x who is doing y". This puts extra
emphasis on x, as in the following example.
(42) It was Pete who pointed out the problem to me.
a. Somebody pointed out the problem to me.
 Presuppositions
 In the following sentence there are four possibilities, depending on
which word receives extra stress.
(43) Pete sells paintings to museums.
a. (Pete) Pete, and no one else.
b. (sells) Pete does not give them away.
c. (paintings) Pete does not sell sculptures.
d. (museums) Pete does not sell paintings to individuals.
 Similarly, a certain presupposition can be prompted by a specific
emphasis in (41) and (42). If in (41) "linguist" is stressed, then this
implies (4lb) below. If in (42) "pointed out" is heavily stressed, then
(42b) is a n1ore obvious presupposition than (42a).
 Presuppositions can, therefore, be prompted not only by lexical
and syntactical elements but also by intonation phenomena.
(41) b. Carl is in other areas inferior to Pete.
(42) b. I solved the problem myself.
 Presuppositions
 One of the best-known sentences in presupposition research was
originally used in an article published at the beginning of the last
century by the philosopher Bertrand Russell. The sentence reads as
follows.
(44) The king of France is bald.
 This sentence has the following existential presupposition, that is, a
presupposition which can be derived from a proper name or a
nominal constituent containing a definite article.
(44) a. There is one and only one king of France.
 Following the definition of presupposition, there is an opposite
claim with the same presupposition.
(45) The king of France is not bald.
 In the case of (45), the same presupposition, (44a), is presumed to
be true. These sentences pose a difficult problem for philosophers
and logicians. If it is assumed that either a claim or its negation is
true, so either (44) or ( 45) must be true, and if it is also assumed
that (44a) can be derived from (44) or ( 45), then a presupposition
can be deduced which is logical but untrue: France is, after all, a
republic.
 Presuppositions
 Although Russell suggested a way of getting around this problem, the
solution remained unsatisfactory. A half-century later the issue became
a topic in presupposition research.
 In 1950 the philosopher Peter Strawson provided a pragmatic analysis,
the gist of which is the following: sentences can only be true or false if
their presuppositions are met (i.e., are true).
 Only in the situation before the French Revolution was (44a) true;
thereafter it was no longer true. So, only before the French Revolution
were the presuppositions of either (44) or ( 45) met and could they
have a truth value (be either true or false).
 The debate between Russell and Strawson played an important role in
launching the research into presuppositions. If the situation in which an
utterance takes place is taken into account, then the research
becomes far more complex. And yet, this extension is a natural one.
 A strict approach using the results of the negation test is only a partial
mapping-out of the information implicit in an utterance. From sentence
(46), for example, much more can be deduced than just the existential
presupposition (46a)  next slide.
 Presuppositions
(46) Go to the student advisor.
a. There is a student advisor.
 Since (46) is an order, it can be deduced that the speaker is in a
position to give orders to the addressee. The problem is, however,
that much unspoken information can be derived from language
in use.
 A presupposition can even be instantly denied. Example (45) has
(44a) as a presupposition. Language in use, on the other hand, is
not hampered by the conclusion that there is a king of France.
 The following utterance is acceptable, at least for some
language users.
(47) The king of France is not bald; there is no king of France.
 When discourse is looked at in a specific situation, it is not just the
implicit information derived from the negation test, the
presupposition, that is available; other implicit information is also
derivable from a given sentence. The term for this is inference.
7.6 Inferences

 Inference is the collective term for all possible implicit

information which can be derived from a discourse. The
term inference (from the Latin "inferre" meaning "to carry
in") is used to denote the phenomenon that discourse
summons up knowledge or information which can be
used to understand the information.

 The most significant cases of this, besides presupposition,

are entailment, conventional implicature,
conversational implicature, and connotation
 Entailment is a term taken from logic. If A is greater than .B and
B is greater than
C, then it can be concluded that A is greater than C. In discourse
studies the term can be used more broadly. Look at the following
example.
(48) Pete bought oranges.
a. Pete bought fruit.

 The term conventional implicature was coined by Grice. Grice

gave the following example:
He is an Englishman; he is therefore brave.

 Grice calls this type of implicature "conventional" in order to

distinguish it from conversational implicature. An example of
the latter is given in the following conversation.
A: Did you already buy fruit?
B: The oranges are already in the refrigerator.
• The term inference covers quite a broad area of meaning. A number
of attempt shave been made in the literature to develop a
classification system. The two main distinctions made are those
between "necessary" and "possible" and between "forward“ and
"backward".

Compare the following examples.

A. No longer able to control his anger, the husband threw the delicate
porcelain
vase against the wall. It cost him over one hundred dollars to replace the
vase.
B. No longer able to control his anger, the husband threw the delicate
porcelain
vase against the wall. He had been feeling angry for weeks, but had
refused to
seek help.