Unit One: Discourse Analysis

1. Introduction:
The term discourse analysis is very ambiguous. The term “discourse analysis” is polysemic.
Discourse analysis does not presuppose a bias towards the study of either spoken or written
language. On the one hand, it refers to the close linguistic study, from different perspectives, of
texts in use. On the other hand, discourse refers to socially shared habits of thought, perception,
and behavior reflected in numerous texts belonging to different genres.
Discourse is being extended at all areas as linguistics. It is the text linguistics perspective. Text
linguistics as a different discipline has mainly been associated with written text. Discourse is the
umbrella term for either spoken or written communication beyond the sentence. Any more
detailed spelling out of such a definition typically involves reference to concepts of language in
use, language above or beyond the sentence, language as meaning in interaction, and language in
situational and cultural context.
Definitions of discourse analysis
Discourse analysis is defined as (1) concerned with language use beyond the boundaries of a
sentence/utterance, (2) concerned with the interrelationships between language and society and
(3) as concerned with the interactive or dialogic properties of everyday communication.
In linguistics discourse analysis is naturally connected with speech or written discourse.
Roughly speaking, it attempts to study the organization of language above the sentence or above
the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or
written texts. It follows that discourse analysis is also concerned with language use in social
contexts, and in particular with interaction or dialogue between speakers.
Discourse analysis is sometimes defined as the analysis of language 'beyond the sentence.
In linguistics, the term “discourse” refers to a structural unit larger than the sentence. Discourse
minimally involves more than one sentence, and the sentences must be contingent. Just as every
string of words is not a sentence, not every sequence of utterances is considered a “text.” For
discourse, there are requirements of relevance in form and especially in meaning. Texts can be
created by more than one participant, as in conversation, or in various forms of monologue, most
notably narrative and exposition.
Discourse analysis is part of applied linguistics; it is a multi-disciplinary field, and highly diverse
in the range of its interests.

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(Jaworski & Coupland, 1999: 3) stated that discourse is not merely beyond “language use
relative to social, political and cultural formations; language reflecting social order, but also
language shaping social order and shaping individuals’ interaction with society.”
Jaworski & Coupland 1999: 1–7.) Generalized the definition of discourse here:
1. The linguistic, cognitive and social processes whereby meanings are expressed and intentions
interpreted in human interaction;
2. The historical and cultural embedded sets of conventions which constitute and regulate
processes;
3. A particular event in which processes are instantiated;
4. The product of an event, especially in the form of visible text, whether originally spoken and
subsequently transcribed or originally written.
1.2.Approaches to discourse analysis
Approach means the adoption of one or more combination of the ways to certain aspects of the
total discourse reality.
Discourse Analysis can be categorized into internal and external approaches.
The internal approach focuses on: looking for internal rules that native speakers use to
generate grammatically correct sentences. Isolated sentences, grammatically well-formed,
without context and Invented or idealized.
The external approach focuses on: asking how we use language to communicate, any stretch of
language felt to be unified, achieving meaning, in context and observed.
In discourse Analysis there are varieties types of approaches developed from various sources.
These are analyzed under four main headings: rules and principles, contexts and cultures,
functions and structures, and power and politics.
12Rules and principles:
These include speech act theory, politeness theory and conversation analysis.
Develop speech acts or the communicative functions of sentences in conversation. For example;
using utterances to report events, make statements about the requested information or action, or
to prohibit action.
Adjust one’s language to fit the social context of the conversation in keeping with cultural
conventions and social roles. Emerge conversational skill in face-to-face verbal interaction.

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These include knowing when and how to take a turn in conversation; how to initiate, elaborate,
or terminate a topic, and how to respond to a speaker in keeping with the pragmatic constraints
set by the preceding utterance.
These involve issues of politeness, formality, and the age or status of one’s listener in what have
been called “styles” or “registers” of speech.
1.2.2. Contexts and cultures:
These are focused on ethnography of communication and interactional sociolinguistics.
In cultural differences ethnography of communication offers a framework for the study of speech
events, seeking to describe the ways of speaking associated with particular speech communities
and to understand the role of language in the making of societies and cultures.
It involves both (verbal and non-verbal) understanding of culturally specified ways of
communicating and the various beliefs and attitudes.
Interactional sociolinguistics aims at replicable analysis that accounts for our ability to interpret
what participants intend to convey in everyday communicative practice.
It pays particular attention to culturally specified contextual presuppositions, to the signals of
“contextualization cues” such as code and style switching, and prosodic and lexical choices.
1.2.3. Functions and structures:
These are grouped as text models of language and grammar approaches to text in systemic-
functional linguistics. It provides a comprehensive theory of text analysis.
Language is not seen as an autonomous system but as part of the wider socio-cultural context, as
“social semiotic”; the aim is to look into language from the outside and specifically, to interpret
linguistic processes from the standpoint of the social order.
Grammar is seen as meaning potential a “potential” that is functionally determined by the need
of speakers and writers to simultaneously represent experience (the ideational function), manage
their relationship with their co-participants (the interpersonal function) and produce dialogue or
monologue, whether spoken or written, which is cohesive and coherent (the textual function).
1.2.4. Power and politics:
These approaches focus on critical analysis and necessarily share with the concern of Pragmatic
and sociolinguistic approaches.

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Aims to lay the “hidden effects of power,” the kind of effects may stigmatize the vulnerable,
exclude the marginal, naturalize privilege and, through the simple contrivance of presenting
ideology as common sense, define the terms of reference of political debate and subvert
resistance.
Concerns with issues of identity, dominance, resistance, and with seeking out evidence in text
especially to media and advertising texts, political documents and speeches of class, gender,
ethnic and other kinds of bias.
1.3. Discourse as Action
In real life we do not produce and participate in the same kinds of discourse all the time. Our
communication takes various forms to orient ourselves in different ways. All different activities
are predictably associated with certain situations and speech events that is discourse structure,
which exhibit conventional speech acts, settings, topics, participants’ purpose and other context
features. Different speech events are associated with different topics. The more conventionalized
speech act or event is the more expectations we seem to have about setting, participant role and
internal structure within a given culture too; discourse structure varies in different social,
professional, age, gender group, etc. The situational, social, and cultural varieties of speech acts
and events have been mainly documented by sociolinguistic research on the expression of
politeness theory.
1.3.1. Identifying Speech act theory:
Speech act is the smallest unit of meaning. It is distinguished from speech event by tone or style.
Speech event is the larger social recognized of speech activity conversation, discussion and
lecture. Speech in social interaction does not have just one function.
The conceptual schema of speech act has different purposes or functions. The first category
common to most schemes recognize that a speech act serves to express the speaker’s personal
state of mind or attitude.
The other function of speech act is to bring the participants in contact or in relationship each
other; it maintains social contacts, or phatic communition. (Austin 2003: 4) describes distinctive
performatives, i.e. utterances which are either true or false but which bring about a particular
social effect being uttered for a performative function to have the desired effect; it has to meet
certain social and cultural criteria, also called felicity conditions.

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A speech act in linguistics and philosophy of language is an utterance that has performative
function in language and communication. According to Kent Bach, "almost any speech act is
really the performance of several acts at once, distinguished by different aspects of the speaker's
intention: there is the act of saying something, what one does in saying it, such as requesting or
promising, and how one is trying to affect one's audience." The contemporary use of the term
goes back to J. L. Austin's development of performative utterances and his theory of locutionary,
illocutionary, and perlocutionary acts. Speech acts are commonly taken to include such acts as
promising, ordering, greeting, warning, inviting and congratulating.
Austin abandons the distinction between constatives and performatives and replaced by a new
distinction between three different "aspects" of an utterance against the background of
generalized claim that all utterances are really performatives. This generalized claim is the key
assumption of speech act theory (the theory of "how to do things with words") by making an
utterance, language users perform one or more social acts. These are called 'speech acts'.
The threefold distinction is that between different types of action. For instance, by speaking an
utterance (locution), you may perform the social act of making a promise (illocution - what the
speaker does by using the utterance) and as a result, convince your audience of your commitment
(per locution - what the speaker's done, having made the utterance).
Locution: is personal style of speech.
Illocution: is the inherent function of speech act or an action performed by saying / writing
something. The concept of an illocutionary act is central to the concept of a speech act.
Although there are numerous opinions regarding how to define 'illocutionary acts', there are
some kinds of acts which are widely accepted as illocutionary, as for example promising,
ordering someone, and bequeathing. The idea of an "illocutionary act" can be captured by
emphasizing that "by saying something, we do something", as when someone issues an order to
someone to go by saying "Go!” An interesting type of illocutionary speech act is that performed
in the utterance of what Austin calls performatives.
perlocution: is the effect of the act, whether intended or actual. The effects may be fighting,
winning, playing and enjoying oneself or passing the time.
Generally, based on the purpose of utterances Speech act divided into seven kinds.

 Assertive utterances
 Commissive utterance

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  Phatic utterances
 Directive utterance
 Expressive utterance
 Performative utterance
 Verdictive utterance

1) Assertive utterance
In the assertive function speakers and writers use language to tell what they know or believe;
assertive language is concerned with facts. The purpose is to inform.
Assertive utterances are either true or false, and generally they can be verified or falsified not
necessarily at the time of the utterance or by those who hear them, but in a general sense they are
subject to empirical investigation.
2) Commissive utterance
Speech acts that commit a speaker to a course of action are called commissive utterances. These
include promises, pledges, threats and vows. Commissive verbs are illustrated by agree, ask,
offer, refuse, swear, all with following infinitives. They are prospective and concerned with the
speaker’s commitment to future action.
3) Phatic utterances
No one is likely to think that questions like “How are you?,” “How’re you doing?” are really
meant to get information. We don’t assume that statements such as “I’m glad to meet you” or
“So nice to see you again” are necessarily expressions of deep feeling on the part of the speaker.
The purpose of utterances like these, phatic utterances, is to establish rapport between members
of the same society. Phatic language has a less obvious function than the six types discussed
above but it is no less important. Phatic utterances include greetings, farewells, polite formulas
such as “Thank you,” “You’re welcome,”
“Excuse me” when these are not really verdictive or expressive. They also include all sorts of
comments on the weather, asking about one’s health, and whatever is usual, and therefore
expected, in a particular society. Stereotyped phrases are common for conveying good wishes to
someone starting to eat a meal, beginning a voyage, undertaking a new venture, or celebrating a
personal or social holiday.

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4) Directive utterance
Directive utterances are those in which the speaker tries to get the addressee to perform some act
or refrain from performing an act. Thus a directive utterance has the pronoun you as actor,
whether that word is actually present in the utterance or not. Three kinds of directive utterances
can be recognized: commands, requests and suggestions. A command is effective only if the
speaker has some degree of control over the actions of the addressee. A request is an expression
of what the speaker wants the addressee to do or refrain from doing. A request does not assume
the speaker’s control over the person addressed.
Suggestions are the utterances we make to other persons to give our opinions as to what they
should or should not do.
5) Expressive utterance
Expressive utterances are thus retrospective and speaker-involved.
The most common expressive verbs (in the sense of ‘expressive’) are: acknowledge, admit,
confess, deny and apologize.
6) Performative utterance
Speech acts that bring about the state of affairs they name are called performative: bids,
blessings, firings, baptisms, arrests, marrying, declaring a mistrial. Performative utterances are
valid if spoken by someone whose right to make them is accepted and in circumstances which
are accepted as appropriate. The verbs include bet, declare, baptize, name, nominate, pronounce.
7) Verdictive utterance
Verdictives are speech acts in which the speaker makes an assessment or judgement about the
acts of another, usually the addressee. These include ranking, assessing, appraising, condoning.
Verdictive verbs include accuse, charge, excuse, thank in the explicit frame.
1.3.2. Relevance theory and Politeness theory
Politeness is described as a social norm, or a set of prescriptive social 'rules'. Many linguists have
aimed to research politeness, including Brown and Levinson (1987), who developed their 'face
theory' based on the principles of our desire to be liked and not to be imposed upon.
It is first important to understand the concept of 'face'.
Face is defined as the public self-image every adult portrays, which must be attended to in
interaction.

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There are two aspects of face: positive and negative.
 Positive face is the desire to be appreciated and liked.
 Negative face is the desire to have freedom and not to be imposed upon.
Politeness is defined as using communicative strategies to create and maintain social
harmony. This can be done in various ways:
 being contextually appropriate
 following social and cultural norms
 being socially positive by addressing face needs
Our aim in conversation is generally cooperative, so the more 'dangerous' we perceive our Face
threating act to be the higher number strategy we use.

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Unit Two: Discourse in communication:
People primarily and essentially communicate through combinations of language units that
themselves constitute distinct units of expression; these are called combinations of language
units or texts. The combination of speech, writing, gesture, posture and these whole integral
linguistic organization and action can be defined as texts. The text that must be combinations of
meaningful units derived from the rules of a specific language suggests the combination of sound
(phonemes), form (morphemes), syntax and semantic of a language.
Notice: - the following combination of well formed sentences.
A: Excuse me, could you tell me where forth street is?
B: Thank you, so much.
Thank you so much is not the answer by any means; the answer you expect from stranger in the
street when asking for direction in such context the combination of the sentence could not be
meaningful. This leads us to a fundamental tenet of linguistics combination is not only say things
with language, we also do thongs or we perform actions. Our sentences utterance is not just
grammatically complete units in isolation, but communicative units are used in context to
perform functions.
2.1. Differentiating the discourse situation and the socio-semiotic approach
Language has supernatural power; when we speak or write we craft what we have to say to fit
the situation or context in which we are communicating. But, at the same time, how we speak or
write creates that very situation or context.
It seems, then, that we fit our language to a situation or context that our language in turn helped
to create in the first place.
We continually and actively build and rebuild our worlds not just through language, but through
language used in tandem with actions, interactions, non-linguistic symbol systems, objects, tools,
technologies, and distinctive ways of thinking, valuing, feeling, and believing. Sometimes what
we build is quite similar to what we have built before; sometimes it is not. But language in action
always and everywhere is an active building process.

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Whenever we speak or write, we always and simultaneously construct six things or six areas of
reality:
1. The meaning and value of aspects of the material world: give the material world certain
meanings,
2. Activities: We talk and act in one way and we are engaged in formally opening a committee
meeting; we talk and act in another way and we are engaged in “chit-chat” before the official
start of the meeting.
3. Identities and relationships: we talk and act in one way one moment and we are speaking and
acting as “chair’’ of the committee; the next moment we speak and talk in a different way and we
are speaking and acting with peer/colleague to another.
4. Politics (the distribution of social goods): distribute social goods in a certain way.
5. Connections: we talk and act so as to make what we are saying here and now in this way we
should admit more minority listeners connected to or relevant to what we said previously.
6. Semiotics: we talk and act what and how different symbol systems and different forms of
knowledge count, so as to make the knowledge and language of lawyers relevant (privileged), or
not, over everyday language.
There are also tools of inquiry relevant to how we build identities and activities and recognize
the identities and activities that are being built around us. The tools of inquiry introduced here
are most certainly caught up with all the other building tasks:
1. Situated identities: that is, different identities or social positions we enact and recognize in
different settings.
2. Social languages: that is, different styles of language that we use to enact and recognize
different identities in different settings and different sorts of things make certain sorts of
meaningful connections in our experience.
3. Discourses: in which we humans integrate language with non-language matter such as
different ways of thinking, acting, interacting, valuing, feeling, believing, and using symbols,
tools, and objects in the right places and at the right times so as to enact and recognize different
identities and activities.
4. Conversations: that is, long-running and important themes that have been the focus of a
variety of different texts and interactions (in different social languages and Discourses) through a
significant stretch of time and across an array of institutions.

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2.2. Discourse types:
There are traditionally four different types of discourse, namely argument, narration, description,
and exposition. Discourse is generally understood to encompass almost any type of
communication whether written or oral, and there are some cases in which entire papers or
speeches depend on just one style; most of the time, though, authors, writers, and speakers use
two or more methods at once. Different types are usually better suited for different
circumstances, and there are usually some pretty distinguishable features of each. The goals tend
to be different, as well. Most of the time writers and speakers will use the methods they think
will be most effective at getting their points across and reaching their intended audiences.

2.2.1. Argumentation:

It is the process of supporting or ignoring arguer’s views, theories and suggestions.

Argumentative writing or speaking is when the composer is attempting to convince an audience
that his or her opinion is correct, typically by using logic and appealing to the audience’s sense
of reason. Almost anything can use this form, from essays and lectures to sermons and political
speeches. In an argument, the writer or speaker begins with a thesis, which is a clear, explicit
statement of beliefs or opinions. Evidence must then be presented in a clear and orderly way. If a
listener accepts the evidence, he or she should agree with the thesis.

In most cases argumentation is not the same as persuasion, though the two are commonly
confused. The difference usually has to do with tactic, and many linguistic experts see persuasion
more as a matter of style and voice than an actual level of discourse. Argument-driven writers or
speakers present evidence to get the audience to logically agree with their point of view on a
certain topic. Persuasion, however, is designed to get an audience to both accept a particular
point of view and to actually act on that belief. For example, a successful argument might make
the audience agree with a particular political candidate’s stance on an issue, but successful
persuasion should make the audience vote for that candidate.

2.2.2. Description:
It is presentation of how something looks like. When people use description, they generally rely
on one or more of the five human senses to describe something so that it becomes instantly
memorable and relatable.

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It is usually used to help the audience visualize people and places, but it can also put the
audience in a particular mood or create a certain type of atmosphere. The writer or speaker uses
nouns and adjectives to give the readers and listeners a sense of what something is like
materially.
2.2.3. Exposition
The tool known as “exposition” is designed to inform the audience about a particular topic that
can extend into texts like essays, theses, summaries, etc. There are several different expository
tools writers and speakers can use, including definition, analysis, compare and contrast, problem
and solution and cause and effect. There are many strengths and weaknesses associated with
each type of exposition, and each type has a completely different purpose. For example, giving
someone the definition of a word provides one type of information, whereas comparing and
contrasting two differing opinions often paints a really different picture.

2.2.4. Narration

The main goal of narrative writing or speaking is usually to tell a story, often in order to make
the audience feel differently about a certain topic. Narratives might take the form of a play,
novel, folk tale, memoir, or myth.
Things usually unfold from a single person or character’s perspective, and tend to be very
descriptive. This type of communication usually appeals to an audience’s humanity, often by
drawing on common experiences or emotions that are easily relatable or by depicting
circumstances that pique the imagination.
Narrative analysis is one of the best and extensively researched areas of the multidisciplinary
study of discourse. It is the encoding of previous experience that took place at a specific point or
over a specific interval in a pas time story world. Narratives are associated with events that
happened in the past. Narratives events are produced not in a vacuum, but as part of social
instructions on specific situations, for specific goals and purposes. According to
psycholinguistics point of view narrative is not a static mechanism, but it has the capacity to
select the stored material and organized into meaningful patterns.
Narrative discourse comprises two major modes: Narrative and non-narrative modes; these are
typically associated with subjective or affective, information giving or analyzing respectively.

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Narrative discourse attempts to sweep narrator and audience into community of rapport to
enhance intimacy and strength the bonds between participants.
Narrative discourse touches upon our deep imaginative process, whereas non-narrative relies on
rationalization. Non-narrative discourse concerns with the need to convince, to prove and refute
as well as to present information. Thus, the two modes have a distinction of prototypical
function. The general features of narrative and non-narrative discourse mode description is given
below:
No Elements Narrative discourse Non-narrative discourse
1. Ordering Temporal sequencing Multiple/ logical and temporal etc.
2. Particularity Particular events Generic truth
3. Normativity Disruption & re-establishment Stating (argument)
of equilibrium
4. Reference Reconstruct events Verifiable events
5. Perspective Personal Impersonal
6. Context Under negotiation Permanent across contexts

Identifying the variety of functions and forms, every day and literary language
and electronic discourse
Of course, discourse production does not take place in a vacuum, but is an integral part of a
communicative context. For speakers to be able to fit what they say into the context; they must
have a memory representation of that context that is a context model. This model contains
information about the speech participants and their goals, and about the type of social situation
involved. The context model also controls style and content hence information must be retrieved
from the situation model. Some topics are forbidden in some situations.
Furthermore, communicative goals must be accomplished by the utterance of a discourse in a
given context (e.g. assertion, threat, or accusation), both at the local level of individual speech
acts, or at the global level of macro-speech acts that control a longer stretch of discourse.

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2.3.1. Form and Function
Form is concerned with syntactic structure up to the sentence level, i.e. the arrangement of
morphemes and words into the larger units of group, clause, and finally, sentence. Form is also
concerned with the syntagmatic relationship between words within clauses and sentences. For
example, “I’m taller than you” is different from “You’re taller than I am”. Inverting “I” and
‘you’ around the comparative adjective changes the propositional meaning of the sentence.
Function however, is concerned with the utterance’s purpose, i.e. what the utterance is meant to
achieve. For example:
Father: Get the tools down off the shelf.
Son: You’re taller than I am!
The son uttered “You’re taller than I am” for the purpose of refusing to comply with a command.
This is a very different function of than that of:
A: Which of us is taller?
B: You’re taller than I am
Where, “You’re taller than I am” functions to provide information to a question. Nothing about
the form, that is the syntactic structure of the utterance itself, or the syntagmatic relation between
the words within it, allowed us to predict its function.
Form is not wholly divorced from function. Hymes (1972) observes that ‘how something is said
is part of what is said.’ For example:
I. shut the door.
II. Can you shut the door?
The above clauses have the form-classifications of, (I.) imperative and (II) interrogative, but
both could be assigned the functional classification of ‘directive’. The ‘directive’ function of the
above stem from the verb ‘shut’ and whatever follows (‘the door’, ‘the window’ ‘your mouth’
etc.). While example II above looks like an inquire that could be paraphrased as “Are you
willing to shut the door?” this Can you equals Are you willing paraphrase is faulty in For
example, “Can you be quiet” does not equal “Are you willing to be quiet”.
Yet, in the case of II, the grammatical items (forms) preceding ‘shut’ do have a purpose, namely,
a ‘politeness function’. This is what Searle (1975) calls an indirect speech act. That is, an
utterance with an underlying base function performed indirectly by the performing of what, on
the surface, could be another speech act (function) form.

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In the case of II, a directive function is indirectly performed by an interrogative form, which are
often used for inquires (‘questions’), rather than directly by an imperative.
Garfinkel (1967) states that it is never possible to say what one means ‘in so many words’.
Listeners interpret what a speaker functionally means or implies. According to Grice (1975), for
an utterance the speaker fulfils four maxims:
1. Relation, i.e. make your contribution be relevant.
2. Quality, i.e. make your contribution truthful and sincere.
a) Do not say what you believe to be false
b) Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence
3. Quantity, i.e. provide sufficient information.
a) Make your contribution as informative as is required
b) Do not make your contribution more informative than required
4. Manner, i.e. make your contribution brief, present it in an orderly fashion and avoid
unambiguities.
a) Avoid obscurity of expression
b) Avoid ambiguity
c) Be brief
d) Be orderly
There are various conditions under which these maxims may be violated or infringed upon. One
of these is instrumental to the explanation of how implicatures are being communicated.
2.3.2. Literary language and electronic discourse
There is no agreed formalization of Speech Act theory. A first attempt to give some grounds of
an illocutionary logic; other attempts for a treatment of the concept of assertion inside intuitionist
type theory and up to now the basic formal application of Speech Act theory are to be found in
the field of human-computer interaction (in chat boxes and other tools). Speech act theory has
been used to model conversations for automated classification.
Thus a computer instantiating the 'conversation for action' has useful ability to model the status
of the current social reality independent of any external reality on which social claims may be
based. This transactional view of speech act has significant applications in many areas in which
(human) individuals have had different roles.

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For instance, a patient and a physician might meet in an encounter in which the patient makes a
request for treatment, the physician responds with a counter-offer involving a treatment she feels
appropriate, and the patient might respond, etc. Such a "Conversation for Action" can describe a
situation in which an external observer (such as a computer or health information system) may
be able to track the ILLOCUTIONARY (or Speech Act) status of negotiations between the
patient and physician participants even in the absence of any adequate model of the illness or
proposed treatments. Thus a "Conversation for Action" can be readily tracked and facilitated by a
device with little or no ability to model circumstances in the real world other than the ability to
register claims by specific agents about a domain.
2.4. Discourse markers
Discourse markers are words or phrases that are relatively syntax-independent and do not change
the truth conditional meaning of the sentence, and have somewhat empty meaning. Discourse
markers connect ideas either comes before or after sentence, to indicate speaker's attitude what
he is saying. Traditionally, some of the words or phrases that are considered as discourse
markers are treated as "fillers" or "expletives": words or phrases have functioned as
Coordinators like (and, but, or, so) tie together two or more clauses of the same status
(Paratactic linking). Subordinators, such as because, since, although, on the other hand, and
even though signal a non-symmetrical relation hold between two clauses of different status of a
main and dependent one are ( hypotactic linking). Words and phrases are assigned functions in
different levels of analysis: topic changes, reformulations, discourse planning, stressing, hedging,
or back channeling. Those functions can be classified into three broad groups: (a) relationships
among (parts of) utterances; (b) relationships between the speaker and the message, and (c)
relationships between speaker and hearer. Discourse markers often come from different word
classes, such as adverbs ("well") or prepositional phrases ("in fact").
The process that leads from a free construction to a discourse marker can be traced back through
grammaticalization studies and resources. Common discourse markers used in the English
language include "you know", "actually", "basically", "like", "I mean", "okay" and "so".

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According to Laurel, Brinton (1990:47) justification, discourse markers are generally used
-to mark a boundary in discourse (shift/partial shift in topic),
- to preface a response or a reaction,
- to serve as a filler or delaying tactic,
- to aid the speaker in holding the floor,
- to effect an interaction or sharing between speaker and hearer,
- to bracket the discourse either cataphorically or anaphorically,
- to mark either fore grounded or back grounded information.
The function of signaling a range of textual relations between units is shared by a wide and
heterogeneous set of linguistics elements.
2.5. Identifying Cohesion, Coherence and Rhetorical Structure Theory
Speakers have to organize the structure and content of what they want to say (discourse) and
express everything in a coherent way, as well as in accordance with what they suppose their
listeners know or don’t know.
From the structural point of view, the focus of discourse analysis is on the explicit connections
between sentences that create cohesion or on the elements of textual organization that are typical
of different text types (storytelling, commentary, instructions, opinion expressing etc). Rhetorical
Structure Theory argues that ideal relations are crucial to the effective functioning of the text as a
whole. According to Rhetorical Structure Theory relation can be identified on more than one level.
Structure refers to the force that keeps the sentence together in a certain configuration. It implies to
the part-whole relations as they appear in the sentences and the limited number of possible
configurations.
Cohesion is the network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations which link various parts of a
text. These relations organize and, to some extent, create a text, for instance, by requiring the
reader/listener to interpret words and expressions by reference to other words and expressions in
the surrounding sentences. Cohesion is a surface relation and it connects together the actual words
and expressions that we can see or hear.

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The five main cohesive devices in English are: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and
lexical cohesion. The term reference is traditionally used in semantics for the relationship that
exists between a word and what it points to in the real world. As a cohesive device, instead of
denoting a direct relationship between words and extra-linguistic objects, reference is limited to
the relationship of identity which exists between two linguistic expressions.
For example; Mr Smith has resigned. He announced his decision this morning.
The pronoun he points to Mr Smith within the textual world itself. Reference in the textual sense
occurs when the reader /listener has to retrieve the identity of what is being talked about by
referring to another expression in the immediate context. The resulting cohesion lies in the
continuity of reference.
Substitution and ellipsis, unlike reference, are grammatical rather than semantic relationships. In
substitution, an item is replaced by another item: Example;
Do you like movies?
I do.
In the above example, do is a substitute for like movies. Items commonly used in substitution in
English include do, one, and the same.
Ellipsis, involves the omission of an item. In other words, in ellipsis, an item is replaced by
nothing. This is a case of leaving something unsaid which is nevertheless understood. We use
ellipsis when zero element appears to link to a previous part of the text. Here is an example: Joan
brought some carnations and Catherine some roses. (brought in the second clause is ellipted.)
Conjunction involves the use of formal markers to relate sentences, clauses and paragraphs to
each other. Unlike reference, substitution, and ellipsis, the use of conjunction does not instruct
the reader/listener to supply missing information either by looking for it elsewhere in the text or
by filling structural slots. Instead, it signals the way the writer/ speaker wants the reader / listener
to relate what is about to be said to what has been said before. Conjunctions can be:
a. additive: and, or also, in addition, furthermore, besides, for instance;
b. adversative: but, yet, however, instead, on the other hand, nevertheless;
c. causal: so, consequently, for, because, for this reason;
d. continuative: now, of course, well, anyway, surely, after all.

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Lexical cohesion refers to the role played by the selection of vocabulary in organizing relations
within a text. A given lexical item cannot be said to have a cohesive function, but any lexical
item can enter into a cohesive relation with other items in a text.
Lexical cohesion can be divided into two main categories: reiteration and collocation.
Reiteration, as the name suggests, involves repetition of lexical items. A reiterated item may be a
repetition of an earlier item, a synonym or near-synonym, a super-ordinate, or a general word.
For example:
There is a boy climbing that tree.
The boy is going to fall if he doesn't take care. (repetition)
The lad's going to fall if he doesn't take care. (synonym)
The child's going to fall if he doesn't take care. (superordinate)
The idiot's going to fall if he doesn't take care. (general word)
Collocation, as a subclass of lexical cohesion, covers any instance which involves a pair of
lexical items that are associated with each other in the language in some way, such as: Various
kinds of opposites: e.g. boy/girl; love/hate; order/obey. Pairs of words from the same ordered
series: e.g. Tuesday /Thursday; August/December; dollar/cent.
Part-whole relations: car/brake; body/arm; bicycle/wheel.
Part-part relations: mouth/chin; brake/ wheel.
Co-hyponymy: red/green (colour); chair/table (furniture).
Associations based on a history of co-occurrence: e.g. rain, pouring, torrential, wet; hair, comb,
curl, wave; etc.
From the point of view of pragmatics, the focus is on what is unsaid and yet communicated, i.e.
on what the speaker has in mind (intends, knows, believes, expects).
Generally, people expect coherence from what is said or written, i.e. that it will make sense in
terms of their normal experience of things. This “normality” of course depends on each
individual or community.

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Since familiarity and knowledge are the basis of coherence, we tend to give a coherent
interpretation even for texts that potentially do not have it. Our ability to interpret the unsaid is
usually based on pre-existing knowledge structures, familiar patterns that we use to interpret new
experiences. A common term to describe these patterns is schemata. If they are fixed patterns,
they are also called frames. More dynamic types of schemata, involving a sequence of events,
are often described as scripts. We use scripts to interpret accounts of what happened. We have
scripts for what happens in all sorts of events, such as travelling by train, going to see the doctor,
etc. and we tend to fill in the parts that are not stated.
Generally members of the same culture share the same frames and scripts, but with members of
different cultures there may be problems of communication.
Schemata and scripts, like the maxims of the cooperative principle, the politeness strategies, the
mechanism of turn-taking, etc. are all culturally determined, hence the necessity of contrastive
and cross-cultural pragmatics.

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Unit Three: Conversation Analysis
Conversation Analysis (commonly abbreviated as CA) is an approach to the study of social
interaction, embracing both verbal and non-verbal conduct, in situations of everyday life. As its
name implies, CA began with a focus on casual conversation, but its methods are subsequently
adapted to embrace more task and institution-centered interactions, such as those occurring in
doctors' offices, courts, law enforcement, help lines, educational settings, and the mass media. As
a consequence, the term 'conversation analysis' has become something of a misnomer, but it has
continued as a term for a distinctive and successful approach to the analysis of social interaction.
Conversation Analysis studies naturally-occurring talk and shows that spoken interaction in
systematically ordered in all its facets (Atkinson and Heritage 1984: 21-27). It is distinct from
discourse analysis in focus and method. (i) Its focus is on processes involved in social interaction
and does not include written texts or larger socio-cultural phenomena. (ii) Its method is aimed at
determining the resources that the interactional participants use and rely on to produce
interactional contributions and make sense of the contributions of others. Thus, Conversation
Analysis is neither designed for, nor aimed at, examining the production of interaction from a
perspective that is external to the participants' own reasoning and understanding about their
circumstances and communication. Rather the aim is to model the resources and methods by
which those understandings are produced.
3.1. Identifying turn-taking principles
In conversation, participants are constrained to issue their utterances in allocated turns, and enlist
various mechanisms to obtain them.
In multi-party conversation the mechanisms are found to be more complicated where 'current
speaker selects next' is a possibility, and how frequently individual utterances are tailored for
their turn 'sequential implicativeness'. The possibility of obtaining not only the next turn, but a
series of turn (required for example in telling a joke or story) is documented in analyses of
announcements and story prefaces. A certain economy in conversation could be located in the
process whereby turns are allocated.
According to Conversation Analysis, the turn-taking system consists of two distinct components:
(a) the allocational mechanism, which is responsible for distributing a turn (in any case), and (b)
the lexical components that parties utilize in filling the turn while remaining concurrently
sequentially implicative to deal with the contingency in the process that will result in a

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subsequent turn allocation. Other collections of turn allocation mechanisms include use of
'repeats', the elision of lexical forms, the use of temporal regulators in turns including, chuckles,
'uhm', ‘you know’, and ‘right’, the use of speech particles like ‘uh’, and ‘oh’, and other
specifically short-syllabic devices that are consonant-prefaced like ‘tih’.
The common turn-taking principles are:
Turn allocational component: The turn allocational component describes how participants
organize their interaction by distributing turns to speakers.

Turn constructional component: The turn constructional component describes basic units out
of which turns are fashioned. These basic units are known as Turn construction unit or TCU.
Unit types include: lexical, clausal, phrasal, and sentential.
Adjacency pairs: Talk tends to occur in responsive pairs; however, the pairs may be split over a
sequence of turns. Adjacency pairs divide utterance types into 'first pair parts' and 'second pair
parts' to form a 'pair type'. There are lots of examples of adjacency pairs including Questions-
Answers, Offer-Acceptance/Refusal and Compliment-Response.
Pre-sequences: A pair of turns may be understood as preliminary to the main course of action.
For example, "Guess what!"/ "What?" as preliminary to an announcement of some sort, or "What
are you doing?"/ "Nothing" as preliminary to an invitation or a request.

Repair: repair organization describes how parties in conversation deal with problems in
speaking, hearing, or understanding. Repair segments are classified by who initiates repair (self
or other), by who resolves the problem (self or other), and by how it unfolds within a turn or a
sequence of turns. The organization of repair is also a self-righting mechanism in social
interaction. Participants in conversation seek to correct the trouble source by initiating self-repair
and a preference for self-repair, the speaker of the trouble source, over other repair.
Action formation: This focuses on the description of the practices by which turns at talk are
composed and positioned so as to realize one or other actions.

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3.2. Narratives
Theorists of narrative have long been in agreement that there are at least two levels in a
narrative conversation: Something happens and this something is related in a certain way. There
is, in other words, a WHAT (What is told?) to be considered and a HOW (How is it told?).
These two levels have been given different names by different critics. In structuralism
terminology the WHAT of the narrative is called story, the HOW is called discourse.

These two levels are further subdivided & analyzed as follows:

Story: The story consists of events (things that happen) and so-called existents, the characters
that make things happen or have things happen to them and the setting, meaning the place where
things happen. Events can be either brought about actively, in which case they are called actions
(one character kills another one), or they just happen (someone dies of a heart-attack). Each of
these elements can be approached with different tools of analysis (story/plot, character, space).
Discourse: Discourse is the category that comprises various elements of transmission. Strictly
speaking, it is only discourse that is directly accessible to us, since we only learn about the story
via discourse. Elements of discourse thus determine our perception of the story (what ‘actually’
happened). In the analysis of discourse one tries to determine how certain effects are achieved.
The focuses of analysis are questions such as: What is the narrative situation? Whose point of
view is presented? Which narrative modes are employed? How are the thoughts of characters
transmitted? How is the chronology of events dealt with? How is style used? These elements are
always used to certain effects. For instance, how it is that the reader tends to identify with one
character and not with another? The analysis of elements of discourse reveals how the speaker is
‘manipulated’ into forming certain views about the story.
3.3. Argumentation
Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be
reached through logical reasoning; that is, claims based, soundly or not, on premises. It includes
the arts and sciences of civil debate, dialogue, conversation, and persuasion.
It studies rules of inference, logic, and procedural rules in both artificial and real world settings.
Argumentation includes debate and negotiation which are concerned with reaching mutually
acceptable conclusions.

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It also encompasses eristic dialog, the branch of social debate in which victory over an opponent
is the primary goal. This art and science is often the means by which people protect their beliefs
or self-interests in rational dialogue, in common parlance, and during the process of arguing.
Argumentation is used in law, for example in trials, in preparing an argument to be presented to a
court, and in testing the validity of certain kinds of evidence. Also, argumentation scholars study
the post hoc rationalizations by which organizational actors try to justify decisions they have
made irrationally.
3.3.1. Identifying the structure of argumentation, the pragma-dialectical approach and the
social-psychological approach
Typically an argument has an internal structure, which comprises the following elements:
1. a set of assumptions or premises
2. a method of reasoning or deduction and
3. a conclusion or point.
An argument must have at least two premises and one conclusion. Often classical logic is used as
the method of reasoning so that the conclusion follows logically from the assumptions or
supporting premises. In its most common form, argumentation involves an individual and an
interlocutor/or opponent engaged in dialogue, each contending differ positions and trying to
persuade each other. Other types of dialogue in addition to persuasion are eristic, information
seeking, inquiry, negotiation, deliberation, and the dialectical method.
3.3.2. The quality of argumentation
The quality of argument is determined by two criteria:
 transparent validity
 quality of premises
How do transparent validity and quality of premises work together to determine the quality of an
argument? First, for an argument to be good, it must be transparently valid. If it is not
transparently valid, it is automatically a bad argument. This is not to say that transparent validity
makes an argument good. By itself, it doesn’t. It is necessary condition, not a sufficient one.
If an argument is transparently valid, its quality is then determined by the quality of its premises.
In particular, an argument is at best as good as its worst premise.

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If an argument has zero or one imperfect premises, then the argument is exactly as good as its
worst premise. If an argument has two or more imperfect premises, then it is worse than its worst
premise. This depends on how bad the various premises are.
In this regard, an argument is like a chain. A chain is at most as strong as its weakest link. If it
has just zero or one imperfect links, then the chain is exactly as strong as its weakest link. If it
has two or more imperfect links, the chain is weaker than its weakest link – so long as we
suppose that the links do not always fail in order of weakness. How much weaker? This depends
on how weak the various links are.
Some examples
Let’s consider a few examples.
1. Socrates is a person.
2. All people are mortal.
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. [1,2]
4. All mortal things have parts.
5. Therefore, Socrates has parts. [3,4]
6. All things that have parts are made of particles.
7. Therefore, Socrates is made of particles. [5,6]
Next, consider this:
1. All cats are animals.
2. All dogs are animals.
3. Therefore, all cats are dogs. [1,2]
As before, we begin by checking transparent validity. Is the argument transparently valid? The
answer is no. This makes assessment easy: the argument is automatically bad, just like every
argument that is not transparently valid. We do not even need to assess the quality of the
argument’s premises.
Finally, consider this argument:
1. All rabbits are cubs.
2. All cubs are spatial.
3. Therefore, all rabbits are spatial. [1,2]
First we consider transparent validity. Then we move on to the premises.

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Unit four: Persuasion

In many cases, speeches are simply used as a way of telling a story or to deliver a message. In
this sense, if the speaker isn’t careful, it’s easy to make the speech feel one directional. However,
when a speaker gives a speech of persuasion they intend to enact a response in the audience, or
‘receiver of the message’, creating multiple channels of communication. These types of speeches
can range anywhere from a political debate to a simple sales pitch.

4.1. Discourse and cognition:

It is important to make some points clear to avoid some common misunderstandings.
To make sense of a moment, you have to recognize the identities and activities involved in it.
People engage in such work when they try to make visible to others (and to themselves, as well)
who they are and what they are doing. People engage in such work when they try to recognize
others for who they are and what they are doing. People engage in such work within interactions,
moment by moment. They engage in such work when they reflect on their interactions later.
They engage in such work, as well, when they try to understand human interaction as
researchers, practitioners, theoreticians, or interventionists. This is what I call “recognition
work.” Sometimes such recognition work is conscious, sometimes it is not. Sometimes people
have labels they can articulate for whose and what’s they recognize, sometimes they don’t.
Sometimes they fight over the labels, sometimes they don’t. And the labels change over time.
4.1.1. Identifying theories of persuasion and Persuasive tools

The common goal in persuasive speech is to influence the audience’s view on a certain subject
whether that means changing their opinion completely or simply strengthening already existing
view. In order to accomplish this, speakers use a variety of arguments and strategies, most of
which can be summed up into the three rhetorical appeals: ethos, logos, and pathos. When used
effectively, these three appeals can be powerful tools for achieving a speaker’s persuasive goal.

In a persuasive speech, it’s not simply enough to capture our audience’s attention; the speaker
must also quickly establish their credibility. This can be done using the ethical appeal known as
ethos.

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Ethos is an appeal to credibility or character. Speakers or writers use ethos to convince audiences
in case of reliable, honest and credible.
Ethos is related to the persona or reputation associated with the speaker. This persona is
constructed based on the credentials and reliability of a speaker, and can often be established
prior to a speech or presentation in situations where the speaker is widely known to the audience.
Basically, ethos is what signifies to the audience that the speaker knows what they’re talking
about.
Here are 3 easy ways for a speaker to establish a favorable ethos:
1.) A speaker needs to do is convince the audience that they know what they’re talking
about. This includes knowing both sides of an argument and presenting each of them accurately.
This helps assure the audience that you’ve at least done your research on the subject.
2.) A speaker understands the important issue for audience: By having this background
knowledge the speaker can research their subject matter, and then tailor their message in a way
that resonates with that specific audience.
3.) The speaker cites credible sources: For example, if you were trying to persuade your
audience to use a certain pharmaceutical product, and you yourself were not a doctor or
pharmacist, you might reference or quote known physicians. An audience can forgive the fact
that you’re not a certified expert on the subject that you’re presenting, but they may not forgive
you for not making an effort to provide an expert’s opinion.
Logos is an appeal to logic or reason. The principal role or purpose of logos is to identify and
simplify its means. Logos are clear and simple graphical elements. Logos provides visual
perception and comprehension.
Pathos is an appeal to emotion. Speakers use pathos to evoke an emotional response of their
audience. Sometimes it is a positive emotion such as happiness, an image of people may enjoy
themselves. Some speakers use negative emotion such as pain. Pathos can also include emotions
like, fear and guilty.
4.1.2. Identifying Modeling discourse production
Depending on a number of constraints, language users, so speak, read off relevant propositions
from their situation models, and thus construct the semantic representations, or text base, that
underlies a discourse.

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According to (Butterworth, 1980) the major components of the theory of discourse production
are: Context Model and Control System.
The Context Model: Of course, discourse production does not take place in a vacuum, but it is
an integral part of a communicative context. For speakers to be able to fit what they say into the
context, they must also have a memory representation of context that is a context model.
This model contains information about the speech participants and their goals, and about the type
of social situation involved. The context model controls style and content hence what
information may or must be retrieved from the situation model. Some topics are forbidden in
some situations.
Hence, context models monitor the strategic searches through episodic memory (what models are
relevant?) as well as within models (what information about the situation should be mentioned?)
The Control System: This system regulates the flow of information between short-term memory
and long-term memory. It specifies what kind of models and scripts must be activated and which
of their fragments must actually be retrieved for production. In addition, control system contains
the kind of speech act and communicative goals which must be accomplished by the utterance of
a discourse in a given context (e.g., assertion, threat, or accusation), both at the local level of
individual speech acts, or at the global level of macro-speech acts that control a longer stretch of
discourse.
4.1.3.Product and process analysis
Human language activity unfolds mainly along the two dimensions of the spoken and the written
word. The former is commonly known as “conversation”; the latter comprises is often referred to
as “literature.” Together, they constitute the principal ways in which humans produce text. In
addition to the spoken, oral text, with its corresponding competence (often called “orality” or
“oracy”); there are the written productions (mainly literary texts).
4.1.4. Processing and prior knowledge
In the literature about reading and writing the term prior knowledge plays a very central role. It is
the conceptual knowledge that enables interactants to communicate with one another via the
written or spoken text. Marr and Gormley (1982: 90) define prior knowledge as “knowledge
about events, persons, and the like which provides a conceptual framework for interacting with
the world.” Schallert (1982) further expands the notion to refer to everything a person knows,
including tacit and explicit knowledge of procedures and typical ways of expressing information.

28
Alexander et al. (1991) develop a conceptual framework of knowledge including domain and
discipline knowledge as part of general content knowledge, and knowledge of text structure,
syntax and rhetoric as part of one’s discourse knowledge.
Language is a dynamic process. So much of linguistic analysis has dealt with language in written
form that there is a temptation to think of language itself as having the same static quality (Linell
1982). But language in action is better captured with the metaphor of a flowing stream.
There are, in fact, two streams, one a stream of thoughts, and the other of sounds. Sounds are
easier for an analyst to deal with, because they are publicly observable. Thoughts are
experienced within the mind, and for that reason are less tractable to objective research.
On the other hand thoughts enjoy a priority over sounds in the sense that the organization and
communication of thoughts is what language is all about. The sounds exist in the service of the
thoughts, and follow wherever the thoughts may take them. It is the thoughts that drive language
forward. A basic challenge for discourse analysis is to identify the forces that give direction to
the flow of thoughts.
A first step in discourse analysis can be to listen to a recording of a conversation with the goal of
identifying topics, segments of discourse during which one or more of the speakers talk about
“the same thing.” Topics are identifiable from their content, but there are likely to be phonetic
cues as well: sometimes, though certainly not always, a longer than normal pause before a new
topic is introduced; sometimes heightened pitch, loudness, acceleration, or a new voice quality at
the outset; sometimes a tapering off in these same prosodic features at the end.
The next step can be to reduce the flow of language to some written form. The word reduce is
appropriate.
Ultimately the entire physical, social, and cognitive context in which it took place in which all
these factors can be captured in any presently conceivable written form.
4.1.5. Aspects of processing,
One view of discourse processing is as an extension of sentence processing.
The basic aspect of discourse comprehension which has been emphasized in the psychology of
discourse processing is the predominantly semantic nature of the processes involved.
Understanding a text basically requires that a language user, i.e., a hearer or reader, assigns a
semantic structure to the respective units of the text. In discourse comprehension, we also have a
process of global interpretation. Such a global interpretation is necessary in order for the reader

29
to be able to establish the theme, topic or gist of a text or a passage of a text. When we read and
understand a sequence of sentences of a text, we will know or try to know what the sequence, as
a whole, is about. This kind of global interpretation is made explicit in terms of semantic macro-
structures.
Such macro-structures are also sequences of propositions, but at another level of interpretation.
We try to generalize sequences of propositions in terms of one or more general proposition with
the help of a super-concept.
We try to keep together propositional information which represents the various aspects or events
of a socially well-known episode, and then substitute the various propositions by one proposition
representing this episode as a whole.
4.1.6Modeling discourse processing,
People create mental models based upon the discourse, the situation, and the purposes they have
to serve. So, people trying to understand and create mental models of ponds, logs, fish, and
turtles so that they can estimate where they are in relation to each other. According to (Just and
Carpenter 1980, 1987) proposal, readers create mental models for each utterance; they read in
order to help them parse and understand it. They can change the model if the next word is not
what was expected in the model so far. Mental models begin, in effect, with the generic
information represented in schemas, and add visual and spatial relationships to represent
instantiations of a scene or event. Mental models can also represent dynamic events.
4.1.7. Metaphor in cognitive research
Cognitive psychology ought to be focused on the public uses of words and other symbolic
devices that active people use to carry out all sorts of projects.
Some of the concepts appropriate for analyzing linguistic interactions, such as syntax and
semantics, may have a metaphorical use in nonlinguistic contexts. “Conversation” can be given
an extended role as the leading metaphor for making sense of those aspects of episodes that seem
to be mediated by other symbolic devices. Since conversation is literally a subtle symbolic public
activity, often but not always directed to some overt or covert end, and occurring within the
bounds of certain conceptions of what is a possible conversation, it ought to serve as a model for
all types of meaningful interpersonal Interaction.

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4.2. Discourse and culture
Discourse analysis grows out of critical, socio-cultural, socio-logical, or historical analysis. In
most analysis of discourse as text, the analysis seeks to position itself as well as the discourse
being studied within a broader socio-cultural or historical context. Perhaps the central tenet of
this line of thought is that social practice and discourse are mutually constitutive phenomena.
That is, social practices are understood as being constituted in and through discursive social
interaction while at the same time those social interactions are taken as instantiations of pre-
existing social practices.
Through discourse, intercultural and cross-cultural communications are studied. There is
sometimes an ambiguity in the use of the terms “intercultural” and “cross-cultural”
communication.
We take “intercultural communication” to signal the study of distinct cultural or other groups in
interaction with each other. That is to say, the comparative analysis of the groups between them
arises in the framework as part of the interaction of members of different groups with each other,
and the analyst’s role is to stand outside of the interaction and to provide an analysis of how the
participants negotiate their cultural or other differences.
We take “cross-cultural communication” to signal the independent study of the communicative
characteristics of distinct cultural or other groups.
That is to say, within the cross-cultural paradigm, the members of the distinct groups do not
interact with each other within the study but are studied as separate and separable entities.
4.2.1. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
A. Sapir
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis proclaimed the influence of language on thought and perception.
This, in turn, implies that the speakers of different languages think and perceive reality in
different ways and that each language has its own world view. The issues this hypothesis raised
not only pertain to the field of linguistics but also had a bearing on Psychology, Ethnology,
Anthropology, Sociology, Philosophy, as well as on the natural sciences.
For Sapir, language does not reflect reality but actually shapes it to a large extent. Thus, he
recognizes the objective nature of reality; but since the perception of reality is influenced by our
linguistic habits, it follows that language plays an active role in the process of cognition. Sapir’s
linguistic relativity hypothesis can be stated as follows:

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a) The language we speak and think in shapes the way we perceive the world.
b) The existence of the various language systems implies that the people who think in these
different languages must perceive the world differently.
The idea that a given language shapes reality resembles Humboldt's idea of the world view
inherent in every language. Sapir realized that there is a close relationship between language and
culture so that the one cannot be understood and appreciated without knowledge of the other.
Sapir’s views on the relationship between language and culture are clearly expressed in the
following passage taken from his book “Language”.
“Human beings do not live in the objective world alone or alone in the world of social activity as
ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has
become the medium of expression for their society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one
adjusts to reality essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an
incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection. The fact of the
matter is that the real world is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of
the group. We see and hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language
habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.” (Sapir, 1929b: 207).
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis states that the grammatical and more verbal structure of a person's
language influences how they perceive the world. It emphasizes that language either determines
or influences one's thoughts.

For example, different words mean various things in other languages. Not every word in all
languages has an exact one-to-one translation in a foreign language.

Because of these small but crucial differences, using the wrong word within a particular
language can have significant consequences.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis takes two forms: that language determines thought or that language
influences thought. The former is a much stronger view because it states that one is incapable of
understanding a concept for which the language has no name (it also implies that there is no
thought without language). There is no empirical evidence supporting the strong version and
considerable evidence that thought can proceed without benefit of language. However, the weak
version plausibly suggests that different languages can “carve up” the world into different ways -
- or, put another way, that conceptual thinking can be shaped and constrained by available

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linguistic categories. As Whorf put it, “We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, ascribe
significance as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way –
an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our
language”.

B. Whorf
Whorf’s formulation of the linguistic relativity hypothesis is more radical than Sapir’s but it is
the one that is referred to as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. This hypothesis is not homogeneous as
its name would indicate. Whorf stated that the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of
impressions which has to be organized by the linguistic system in our minds. This would seem to
make the objective world into something totally subjective for Whorf.
Whorf extended his master’s (Sapir’s) ideas, and went much further than saying that there was a
predisposition in Whorf’s view, the relationship between language and culture was a
deterministic one.
The strongest Whorf statement concerning his ideas is the following:
“The background linguistic system (the grammar) of each language is not merely a reproducing
instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shape of ideas, the program and guide for the
individual’s mental activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock
in trade. Formulation of ideas is not an independent process, strictly rational in the old sense, but
is part of a particular grammar, and differs, from between different grammars. We dissect nature
along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the
world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face ; on the
contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized
by our minds and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up,
organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an
agreement to organize it in this way an agreement that holds throughout our speech community
and is codified in the patterns of our language.
The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory;
we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which
the agreement decrees.”

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Whorf does not claim that a language completely determines the world-view of its speakers; he
states that “[the close relationship between language and its speakers, world-view] is very
significant for modern science. This means that no individual is free to describe nature with
absolute impartiality, but is constrained to certain modes of interpretation even while he thinks
himself most free. Those who find the Whorfian hypothesis attractive argue that the language a
person speaks affects that person's relationship to the external world in one or more ways.
4.2.2. Critical discourse analysis
Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analysis that primarily studies the way
social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and
talk in the social and political context. Critical discourse analysts take explicit position, and
understand, expose, and ultimately resist social inequality.
CDA is not so much a direction, school, or specialization next to the many other approaches in
discourse studies. Rather, it aims to offer a different mode or perspective of theorizing analysis,
and application throughout the whole field. We may find a more or less critical perspective in
such diverse areas as pragmatics, conversation analysis, narrative analysis, rhetoric, stylistics,
sociolinguistics, ethnography, or media analysis, among others.
Crucial for critical discourse analysts is the explicit awareness of their role in society. Continuing
a tradition that rejects the possibility of a “value-free” science, they argue that science, and
especially scholarly discourse are inherently part of and influenced by social structure and
produced in social interaction. Instead of denying or ignoring such a relation between scholarship
and society, they plead that such relations be studied and accounted for in their own right, and
that scholarly practices be based on such insights.
Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 271–80) summarize the main tenets of CDA as follows:
1. CDA addresses social problems
2. Power relations are discursive
3. Discourse constitutes society and culture
4. Discourse does ideological work
5. Discourse is historical
6. The link between text and society is mediated
7. Discourse analysis is interpretative and explanatory
8. Discourse is a form of social action.

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Since CDA is not a specific direction of study, it does not have unitary theoretical framework.
Within the aims mentioned above, there are many types of CDA, and these may be theoretically
and analytically quite diverse.
4.2.3. Gender
The study of discourse and gender is an interdisciplinary endeavor shared by scholars in
linguistics, anthropology, speech communication, social psychology, education, literature, and
other disciplines. The study of gender and discourse not only provides a descriptive account of
male/female discourse but also reveals how language functions as a symbolic resource to create
and manage personal, social, and cultural meanings and identities. Goffman (1967: 5) explores
gender and discourse as an organizing component of social interaction. For example, women
tended to use irony and rhetorical questions in place of direct criticism (Just why would you
know how to sew? implying Of course you wouldn’t), which both de-emphasized negative
messages and emphasized in-group solidarity. Although both women and men used hedging
particles in cases of genuine doubt, only women used them to hedge the expression of their own
feelings. Goodwin (1978) points out that the girls can and do use the forms found in boys’ play
in other contexts (for example, when taking the role of mother in playing “house”), emphasizing
that gender-related variations in language use are context-sensitive.

4.2.4. Racism,
Racism is a stigmatizing headword and political “fighting word” that seems to be on almost
everyone’s lips today. Perhaps this is because the meaning of “racism” has become
extraordinarily expanded and evasive. There is talk of a genetic, biological, cultural,
ethnopluralist, institutional, and everyday racism at the top of an elite racism, racism in the midst
of old and a new or neo-racism of a positive racism and differentialist racism.
The starting point of a discourse analytical approach to the complex phenomenon of racism is to
realize that racism, as both social practice and ideology, manifests itself discursively. On the one
hand, racist opinions and beliefs are produced and reproduced by means of discourse;
discriminatory exclusionary practices are prepared, promulgated, and legitimated through

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discourse. On the other hand, discourse serves to criticize, delegitimate, and argue against racist
opinions and practices, that is, to pursue antiracist strategies.
From a social functional point of view, “race” is a social construction. On the one hand, it has
been used as a legitimating ideological tool to oppress and exploit specific social groups and to
deny them access to material, cultural, and political resources, to work, welfare services,
housing, and political rights.
From linguistics point of view, the term “race” has relatively documented in the thirteenth
century. It has, at different times, entered different semantic fields, for example (1) the field of
ordinal and classificational notions that include such words as “genus,” “species,” and
“varietals”; (2) the field that includes social and political group denominations such as “nation”
and “Volk” (in German), and, more rarely, “dynasty,” “ruling house,” “generation,” “class,” and
“family”; and (3) the field that includes notions referring to language groups and language
families such as “Germanen” (Teutons) and “Slavs”.
4.2.5. Intercultural communication
In most analysis of discourse as text, the analysis seeks to position itself as well as the discourse
being studied within a broader sociocultural or historical context. At the same time, those
broader studies of social practice are coming to ground themselves in the close analysis of
concrete texts. That is, social practices are understood as being constituted in and through
discursive social interaction while at the same time those social interactions are taken as
instantiations of pre-existing social practices.
Intercultural communication and cross-cultural communication are problematical in relationship
to discourse analysis in that they have developed out of a conceptually wider range of disciplines
including anthropology, sociology, social psychology, speech communication, management or
business communication, and even international political science. Key elements of intercultural
communication are the production of complementary schismogenesis, contextualization cues,
and the problematizing of reified cultures and other groups.
Bateson (1972) defines complementary schismogenesis as “the processes in social interactions
by which small initial differences become amplified in response to each other through a sequence
of interactional moves and ultimately result in a rupture in the social interaction.”
Contextualization cues are the meta-communicative cues (especially paralinguistic and prosodic
features such as tone of voice and intonation) by which primary communication is interpreted.

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