PhD Mercedes Pérez Agustín

TEFL systems (Unit 8)

What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom?

Discourse Analysis (DA) studies language in communication taking

into account the social context and how the meaning of a sentence
affects. According to Teun Van Dijk (1998), “discourse usually refers
to a form of language use, public speeches or more generally to
spoken language or ways of speaking.” Discourse analysis grew up in
different disciplines: Linguistics, semiotics, philosophy, anthropology
and sociology. The emergence of semiotics through Dell Hymes in
1964, gave a sociological perspective, more focused on the study of
language as a social act, later developed by Austin and Searle
reflected in speech act theory. 

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What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom?
(II)
Van Dijk (1998) distinguishes three main dimensions of discourse:
Language use involves written texts and spoken language.
The communication of beliefs (cognition). Shared knowledge about
sociocultural beliefs and ideologies. Van Dijk mentions the importance
of sociocultural cognition in discourse analysis.
Interaction in social situations like greeting, agreeing, disagreeing,
taking turn and other types of interactions.
We will now analyze discourse analysis in the field of linguistics,
which is mainly concerned with the study of grammar as small units of
meaning composed of sounds (phonetics and phonology), parts of
words (morphology), meaning (semantics) and the order of words in
the sentence (syntax).
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What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom? (III)

Language does not only depend on the social position but adapts to
the different situations. Halliday and Hassan (1976, p. 11) views
register as “configuration of the semantic resource which members of
a culture associate with a situation type which correspond to the
configuration of features in the context of situation.” 
Mode. What role is language playing? That includes the channel,
which can either be oral or written and rhetorical which involves
persuasion, exposition, etc.
Tenor. Who is taking part? If the discourse takes place between a
mother and a child or a teacher and a student.
Field. What is actually taking place? Having to do with particular
domains like science, religion, literature, etc.
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What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom? (III)

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What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (IV)

Applied to a written format we find different types of texts that are

reduced into five categories:
Argumentative texts.
Narrative texts.
Descriptive texts.
Expository texts.
Instructive texts.
Pragmatics
As a subdiscipline of DA, we find pragmatics that can be defined as
the relation between language use and the language user in a context.

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (V)

Presuppositions
Are related to implicit meaning dimensions that include meanings
entailed in a given structure. In the following paragraph we can find an
example of a "taken for granted" meaning. What presupposition can
you find?

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (VI)
"The UK will not join during the lifetime of this parliament," you are
presupposing that Britain may join the parliament in the future.
Face and politeness phenomena
Pragmatics mainly focuses on indirect speech acts where social
interactions have the main goal of exchanging information.
Reference
Reference focuses on how speakers link utterances and elements in a
situational context. Also known as deictic elements, they are words or
phrases (this, that, these, those, now, then, here, there, etc.) to specify
time, place and a situation. In the following sentence, “Have you every
been to this country?” the deictic element is this which refers to a
country that has been previously mentioned and should be known by the
speaker and the listener.
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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (VII)
Grice's Cooperative Principles
As we have previously seen, many factors keep conversation flowing.
We will now present Grice's Cooperative Principles to keep conversation
going (Grice, 1975):
Maxim of quality. Where the speaker has to tell the truth or something
that is probable by adequate evidence.
Maxim of quantity. We should not say more or less, we should be as
informative as required.
Maxim of relation. Our response is expected to be relevant for the topic
of discussion.
Maxim of manner. We should avoid ambiguity and be direct and
straightforward.

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (VII)
What Cooperative Principles are used?
1-Where did you go yesterday?
Somewhere on this earth
2-(The weather is stormy and bad outside)
Someone says: Nice weather!
3-Person 1: Do you love me?
Person 2: I think we should have a drink

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (VII)
Speech Acts

When a speaker utters a sentence, he/she performs a speech act. John

R. Searle (1999, p.18) stated: “The speech act or acts performed in the
utterance of a sentence are in general a function of the meaning of the
sentence. The meaning of a sentence does not in all cases uniquely
determine what speech act is performed in a given utterance of that
sentence, for a speaker may mean more than what he actually says.

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (VII)
Speech Acts

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (IX)
Speech Acts
The following sentences have a direct correspondence between clause
types (grammatical category) and speech acts (semantic-pragmatic
category).

         I love this beautiful garden. – Statement/Declarative

         Do you feel like having ice cream? - Question/Interrogative
         Go and grab that chair. - Directive/ imperative
         What a lovely day! - Exclamation/Exclamative

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (IX)
Speech Acts
In the following chart we see there is not always a direct
correspondence, this is known as indirect speech acts.

        

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (X)
Conversation Interaction
It is an activity where two or more people take turns to speak. Generally
speaking, one person speaks at a time and silence is avoided however
in some cultures speakers tend to interrupt each other.
We can find different ways to indicate that a turn is going to change:
Formal method. Selecting another speaker by the name or with the
hand.
Adjacency pairs. A question requires an answer.
Gestures. Changing the gaze or sitting position.
Gaze direction.

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (XI)
Conversation Interaction
Through turn taking we find responses called minimal because rather
than interrupting, expressions like mmm, yeah, ok are used. These are
also very commonly used in phone conversation to state that the listener
is following the conversation and agrees with everything.
A: I was… was comin’ out out of the shop when-
B: Before I saw-
A: [pause] Yeah, I was comin’ out the shop when you called-
B: Ha, yeah.
A: But it weren’t what you-
B: I know! I know!
A: Yeah, you didn’t-

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom (XII)
Conversation Interaction

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 What is discourse analysis in the TEFL classroom
(XIII)
Conversation Interaction

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 Coherence and Cohesion

Coherence is a key concept that exists between people not specifically

in language. Language is adapted to the speakers’ way of interpreting
the world around them and their experience. 
According to Van Dijk (1998, p. 9) coherence is “how do the meanings
of sentences-that is, propositions- in a discourse ‘hang together.’” The
discourse is divided into:
Macro level of analysis: The meaning as a whole.
Micro level of analysis: Coherence relations for sentences that
immediately follow each other.

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 Coherence and Cohesion (I-II)

In day-to-day conversations, due to speed, much of what is meant is not

actually said. Here we can find an example by Widdowson (1978):
         Her: That’s the telephone
         Him: I’m in the bath
         Her: O.K.
This dialogue lacks cohesive ties, however speakers need to derive to
speech acts to interpret the information. We now describe the
corresponding speech acts for the previous example:
She makes a request to perform an action.
He explains why he cannot perform the action.
She undertakes to perform the action.

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 Coherence and Cohesion (II)
In Cohesion in English, first published in 1976, Halliday and Hassan
regard the text as a “semantic unit: a unit not of form but of meaning.”
For them, “a text does not consist of sentences; it is realized by, or
encoded in sentences” (2013, p. 2). They focus on four main cohesive
devices that provide the unity of a text:
Reference. The speaker uses a word to help the listener identify the
referent.
Those books are mine. (The demonstrative those refers to the location
of the books.)
Ellipsis. The absence of a linguistic element.
My two sisters play the piano. Both are very talented.

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 Coherence and Cohesion (III)
Substitution. An element can be replaced by another in the text.
A. I will go the party on Saturday.
B. So will I. (Clausal substitution. The auxiliary verb will substitutes the A
clause.)
Conjunction. Marks the relationship between segments of the text.
I am studying English, because I would like to find a better job.

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 Lexical cohesion and modality. Register and Textual
Pattern
We propose an activity focused on sentence order, addressed to B2
students. They should write the numbers in the provided boxes.

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 Lexical cohesion and modality. Register and Textual
Pattern (II)
Modality is related to the speaker or writer’s attitude about the world.
Through the use of modal verbs or expressions, many different functions
can be expressed: Certainty, possibility, probability, ability, obligation,
permission, etc. The main modal verbs are can, could, will, would, must,
should, may, might but there are a number of expressions that can also
express these functions as we can find in the table below.

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 Lexical cohesion and modality. Register and Textual
Pattern (IV)
Once students are familiarized with the different functions through
specific examples, we could introduce some sentences and they will
have to change the function for example, from prediction to obligation or
from ability to inability.
My son is not very good at language, he is not able to pass any
language subjects. (This sentence expresses a lack of ability through a
semi-modal be able to). How could you turn the sentence into a positive
tone to express ability?

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 Lexical cohesion and modality. Register and Textual
Pattern (V)
My son is not very good at language, however he was able to pass/he
could pass some language subjects.

“As the price of five dollars was reasonable, I decided to purchase it.”
Students are expected to know this is formal register due to words like
reasonable, purchase, also lack of contractions, and sentence structure.
How could you turn this sentence into an informal register?
“It was like 5 bucks, but it was OK.”
We are conveying the same message, but some features characteristic
of informal language can be found: Bucks referring to dollars, OK
replacing decided. Another feature inherent to informal language are
shorter sentences. Also, the adverb of manner like is a filler which does
not add any specific meaning, but it is typical of informal language.

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 Lexical cohesion and modality. Register and Textual
Pattern (VI)
Another activity to work different registers could be to introduce two
written texts with an informal and a formal register, respectively.
Students should identify the different vocabulary and grammatical
features of each register.
Example 1
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We are gathered here today to
discuss some minor matters relating to the company's operation. The
first point on the agenda relates to the remote log-in system for our
company's computer network. Pleased be informed that from the coming
Monday, you must use the new security number on the card with which
you have recently been issued. Failure to use the card correctly will
result in an inability to log in. So please be reminded to carry your card
with you at all times.

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 Lexical cohesion and modality. Register and Textual
Pattern (VII)
Students should get in pairs and fill in the different columns regarding
formal and informal register.

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Lexical cohesion and modality. Register and Textual
Pattern (IX)

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 Lexical cohesion and modality. Register and Textual
Pattern (XI)

Students who have an intermediate/advanced level of English are

supposed to deduce it is a descriptive text that explains the rules of
soccer.

Another activity also focused to intermediate+ students is introducing

this text (see image below) and ask students to work in pairs on the
causes and effects. Once they infer it from the text, they write the
answers down on the board.

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Lexical cohesion and modality. Register and Textual
Pattern (XI)

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