Course Diploma in Speech and Drama Level Certificate Level

Module DSDTC 120 Discourse Analysis I Topic Approaches to discourse

analysis
• Concept of politeness. Leech on Pragmatics
• Politeness is another level to conversational interaction besides the rules of the cooperative
principle.
• Leech’s view of politeness involves a set of politeness maxims.
Tact maxim Generosity maxim Approbation maxim Modesty maxim Agreement maxim Sympathy maxim

• Minimize cost to • Minimize • Minimize • Minimize praise • Minimize • Minimize

others. benefit to self. dispraise of of self. disagreement antipathy
• Maximize • Maximize cost other. • Maximize between self between self
benefit to to self. • Maximize praise dispraise of self. and other. and other.
others. of other. • Maximize • Maximize
Eg: You must come Eg: How stupid of agreement sympathy
Eg: Have another and have dinner Eg: Her me! between self between self
sandwich with us. performance was How clever of me! and other and other.
Hand me the We must come and outstanding. Eg: A: It is an Eg: I'm terribly
newspaper have dinner with Her performance interesting sorry to hear that
you. was not so good as exhibition, wasn’t your cat died.
it might have been. it? *I'm terribly
B: Yes, definitely. pleased to hear
C: *NO, it was that your cat died.
uninteresting.
 Brown and Levinson on pragmatics
• Theory of “face” into a theory of politeness: “positive and negative faces”
• Having regard for another person’s “face” or image is an important aspect
of politeness.
• We want to guard our face against possible damage when we interact with
others. So, they distinguish between ‘positive and negative face’
• Negative face is the want of every competent adult member of a
community that their actions be unimposed by others.
• Positive face is the want of every member that their wants be desirable to
at least some others.
• It is useful to distinguish two types of politeness.
1. Negative politeness
2. Positive politeness.
Negative politeness
• An action, phrase or utterance that indicates attention is being paid to
the negative face wants of an interlocutor.
Eg; saying “excuse me” before asking for something.

Positive politeness
• An action, phrase or utterances that indicates attention is being paid
to the positive face wants of an interlocutor.
Eg; what a lovely dress!
Conversational Analysis (CA)
• Introduced by Harold Garfinkle 1960-1970.
• Focus on investigating language and social interaction.
• Systematic analysis of the talk produced in everyday situations of
human interaction: talk in interaction.
• It is the study of recorded, naturally occurring talk-in-interaction.
• It looks at ordinary everyday spoken discourse.
• Looks how social interactions are developed through the use of
spoken discourse.
• CA is an approach to the analysis of spoken discourse that examines;
• How spoken discourse is organized.
• How conversations develop as people carryout everyday interactions.

• Sequence and structure: opening and closing, turn taking, and adjacency
pairs.

Adjacency pairs
• Utterances produced by two speakers in a way that the second utterance is
identified as related to the first one and expected to follow-up to it.
• Holds the view that ordinary conversations are the most basic form of
communication and establishing social relations.
 Opening and closing
• Conversations are organized.

Opening conversations
• Speakers use adjacency pairs to open a conversation such as (greeting)
Eg.: A: What’s up?
B: Not much, what’s up with you?
A: I’m fine, I’m just upset because of this new manager at
the office …
• The first topic is held back until the conversation develops from opening to
a point where it can be introduced.
Closing conversation
• Standard closing
Eg; “okay” or “alright” and falling intonation.

• Two-turns units closing

Eg: A: “Bye, Bye”
B: “Bye, Bye”

• Pre-closing sequences
Eg; A: Ah you know, its very demanding
B: Yeah, well, things always work out for the best.
A: Oh certainly, all right
B: uh huh
A: Okay
B: Good bye
Turn taking
• One person speaks at a time, after which they nominate another
speaker, or another speaker may take up the turn without being
nominated.
Eg; A: Did you hear the news! It……
B: She got engaged! To a doctor…..
A: Yes, you know that? I just …..
B: Her sister is my best friend…
Other notions in CA
• Overlap – when two voices are going on at the same time
• Interruption- violation of turn-taking rules of conversation.
• Repairs- trying to repair a violation of turn taking.
Exercises
THANK YOU!