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Difference Between Text and Discourse

The main difference between text and discourse is that a text does not specify an agent, whereas discourse is necessarily interactive and specifies an agent. A text is non-interactive, containing only information, while discourse depicts the social usage of language through interactive communication between agents. While texts and discourses can both contain sentences, texts are analyzed based on grammatical structure and coherence, whereas discourses are analyzed based on the agents, social purpose, and medium of communication.

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9K views4 pages

Difference Between Text and Discourse

The main difference between text and discourse is that a text does not specify an agent, whereas discourse is necessarily interactive and specifies an agent. A text is non-interactive, containing only information, while discourse depicts the social usage of language through interactive communication between agents. While texts and discourses can both contain sentences, texts are analyzed based on grammatical structure and coherence, whereas discourses are analyzed based on the agents, social purpose, and medium of communication.

Uploaded by

Benjamin Paner
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Difference Between Text and Discourse

The main difference between text and discourse is that the text does not specify an


agent whereas the discourse specifies the agent of the information. Thus, a text is
necessarily non-interactive while discourse is necessarily interactive.
Even though the two terms text and discourse are used interchangeably with concern to
literary analytical studies, these two are two diverging subjects. This confusion arises due to
the similar nature of the two in their literary analytical studies as textual analysis
and discourse analysis.
Key Areas Covered
1. What is a Text
      – Definition,  Features, Examples
2. What is Discourse
      – Definition, Features, Examples
3. What is the Similarity Between Text and Discourse
      – Outline of Common Features
4. What is the Difference Between Text and Discourse
      – Comparison of Key Differences
What is a Text
A text includes some information, specifically in the written form or printed form. Thus, it is
noteworthy that the agent of a text is not crucial: there may or may not be an agent. And the
agent has no direct impact of the content to the reader. For example, consider the text in a
subject textbook, an essay, or a press release where the information is merely reported with
or without an agent or the speaker. The information present in a text is usually non-
interactive, or it does not contain an indication of conversational speech. Thus, the reader
only reads and becomes aware of the facts presents. As defined by the Linguistic glossary
terms, text is “a sequence of paragraphs that represents an extended unit of speech.”
Therefore, the grammatical cohesion is a fundamental factor in a text.
In order to analyze the content of a text, one should be aware of the linguistic and
grammatical categories of the language, and the information provided according to the
meaning, grammatical devices used, structure, meaning, etc. Therefore, by analyzing the
overall structure of the text, one is able to grasp the meaning of the text. Thus, textual
analysis, in brief, is the analysis of these grammatically cohesive sentences, imparting some
information.

However, in literary studies, there are several text types: narrative texts, descriptive
texts, expository texts, etc. in which discourse can be included as well.

What is Discourse
A discourse is necessarily interactive, which means there is always an agent to the information
in discourse. In simple terms, discourse is often conversational communications between
people. Therefore, under linguistics and literary theory, discourse is defined as “a social event
of multi-layered communication in a variety of media: verbal, textual, visual and audial, that
has an interactive social purpose.”
Thus, interactive quality is a primary requirement in discourse. In other words, the existence
of an agent to the information defines what discourse means. Therefore, unlike a text, a
discourse can have cohesive sentences as well as utterances of the communicating agents. In
other words, discourse depicts the usage of language in for social purposes. This is the basic
difference between text and discourse.

Therefore, to analyze a discourse, one should study the persons or the agents involved in the
communication (who to whom), the purpose of them (the social purpose), and medium used
(verbal, written, audio or visual). Thus, to grasp the meaning of discourse, one should analyze
all these three basic elements in the discourse.

Similarity Between Text and Discourse


 Both text and discourse usually consist of sentences which communication
information.

Difference Between Text and Discourse


Definition
Text is usually a written form of communication information, which is a non-interactive
nature. In contrast, discourse can be from spoken, written, visual and audial form,
communicating information that is interactive in nature.
Agent
The agent is not crucial for the text. However, the agent is crucial, and it is that what makes up
a discourse. This is the main difference between text and discourse.

Nature
Also, the text is non-interactive in nature; on the contrary, discourse is interactive in nature.

Analysis Parts
In a text, the grammatical cohesion and the structure of sentences are analyzed whereas, in
discourse, the agents involved in the communication, the social purpose and the medium
utilized are analyzed to comprehend the meaning of it. This is an important difference
between text and discourse.

Medium or Form
Furthermore, the text is usually in written form whereas discourse can be either in written,
verbal, visual or audio form.

Examples
Examples of texts include press reports, street signs, documents, etc. whereas discourse can
be dialogues, conversations, interactions in audio-visual programmes, etc, anything that
depicts the social usage of the language.

Conclusion
Text and discourse create varied confusion due to the interchangeable use of these two terms
in varied contexts. However, these two are distinctive aspects of linguistics and
communication studies. A text is necessarily non-interactive while discourse is necessarily
interactive. Therefore, a text does not necessarily indicate an agent whereas the agent is a
crucial element in a discourse. This is the main difference between text and discourse.

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