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B244512047 CHAPTER 11 – DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

In the study of language, some of the most interesting observations are made, not in terms of the
components of language, but in terms of the way language is used. When we ask how we make sense
of what we read, how we can recognize well-constructed texts as opposed to those that are jumbled
or incoherent, how we understand speakers who communicate more than they say, and how we
successfully take part in conversations, we are undertaking what is known as discourse analysis.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: Discourse is usually defined as “language beyond the sentence”. That is why,
the analysis of discourse is typically concerned with the study of language in texts and conversation.
We have the ability to create complex discourse interpretations of fragmentary linguistic messages.

INTERPRETING DISCOURSE: We can cope with texts, written in English, which we couldn’t produce
ourselves and which appear to break a lot of the rules of the English language. Yet we can build an
interpretation.

Ex.) My Town

My natal was in a small town, very close to Riyadh capital of Saudi Arabia. The distant between my
town and Riyadh 7 miles exactly. The name of this Almasani that means in English Factories. It takes
this name from the peopl’s carrer. In my childhood I remmeber the people live. It was very simple.
Most the people was farmer.

->This example may serve to illustrate a simple point about the way we react to language that
contains ungrammatical forms. Rather than simply reject the text as ungrammatical, we try to make
sense of it. That is, we attempt to arrive at a reasonable interpretation of what the writer intended to
convey.

To arrive at an interpretation, and to make our messages interpretable, we certainly rely on what we
know about linguistic form and structure.

COHESION: Texts must have a certain structure that depends on factors quite different from those
required in the structure of a single sentence. Some of those factors are described in terms of
cohesion, or the cohesion ties and connections that exist within texts.

Ex.) My father once bought a Lincoln convertible. He did it by saving every penny he could. That car
would be worth a fortune nowadays. However, he sold it to help pay for my college education.
Sometimes I think I’d rather have the convertible.

-> There are connections present here in the use of words to maintain reference to the same people
and things throughout: father– he– he– he; my– my– I; Lincoln– it. Between phrases: a Lincoln
convertible– that car– the convertible. Connections created by a number of terms that share a
common element of meaning: “money”(bought–saving–penny–worthafortune–sold pay) and “time”
(once– nowadays– sometimes). There is also a connector (However) that marks the relationship of
what follows to what went before. The verb tenses in the first four sentences are all in the past,
creating a connection between those events, and a different time is indicated by the present tense of
the final sentence.

Analysis of these cohesive ties within a text gives us some insight into how writers structure what
they want to say. An appropriate number of cohesive ties may be a crucial factor in our judgments on
whether something is well written or not.
However, by itself, cohesion would not be sufficient to enable us to make sense of what we read. It is
quite easy to create a highly cohesive text that has a lot of connections between the sentences, but is
very difficult to interpret.

Ex.) My father bought a Lincoln convertible. The car driven by the police was red. That color doesn’t
suit her. She consists of three letters. However, a letter isn’t as fast as a telephone call.

It becomes clear from this type of example that the “connectedness” we experience in our
interpretation of normal texts is not simply based on connections between the words. There must be
some other factor that leads us to distinguish connected texts that make sense from those that do
not. This factor is usually described as “coherence.”

COHERENCE: The key to the concept of coherence is not some thing that exists in words or
structures, but something that exists in people. It is people who “make sense” of what they read and
hear. Indeed, our ability to make sense of what we read is probably only a small part of that general
ability we have to make sense of what we perceive or experience in the world.

It is certainly present in the interpretation of casual conversation. We are continually taking part in
conversational interactions where a great deal of what is meant is not actually present in what is
said.

Ex.) HER: That’s the telephone.

HIM: I’m in the bath.

HER: O.K

-> There are certainly no cohesive ties within this fragment of discourse. People do use the
information contained in the sentences expressed, but there must be something else involved in the
interpretation. It has been suggested that exchanges of this type are best understood in terms of the
conventional actions performed by the speakers in such interactions. Drawing on concepts derived
from the study of speech acts, we can characterize the brief conversation in the following way.

Ex.) She makes a request of him to perform action.

He states reason why he cannot comply with request.

She undertakes to perform action.

SPEECH EVENTS: In exploring what it is we know about taking part in conversation , or any other
speech event, we quickly realize that there is enormous variation in what people say and do in
different circumstances. In order to begin to describe the sources of that variation, we would have to
take account of a number of criteria like what is the relationship between the listener and the
speaker, what the topic of conversation was and in what setting it took place.

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS: English conversation can be described as an activity in which, for the
most part, two or more people take turns at speaking. If more than one participant tries to talk at the
same time, one of them usually stops, as in the following example, where A stops until B has finished.

Ex.) A: Didn’t you [ know wh-

(A small square bracket “[“ is conventionally
B: [ But he must’ve been there by two used to indicate a place where simultaneous or
overlapping speech occurs.
A: Yes but you knew where he was going
For the most part, participants wait until one speaker indicates that he or she has finished, usually by
signaling a completion point. Speakers can mark their turns as complete in a number of ways: by
asking a question, for example, or by pausing at the end of a completed syntactic structure like a
phrase or sentence. Other participants can indicate that they want to take the speaking turn, also in
a number of ways.

TURN-TAKING: There are different expectations of conversational style and different strategies of
participation in conversation. The participants characterized these style and strategies in some way
may simply be adhering to slightly different conventions of turn-taking.

One strategy, which may be overused by “long-winded” speakers or those who are used to “holding
the floor,” is designed to avoid having normal completion points occur. If the normal expectation is
that completion points are marked by the end of a sentence and a pause, then one way to “keep the
turn” is to avoid having those two markers occur together.

In the following example, note how the pauses (marked by …) are placed before and after verbs
rather than at the end of sentences, making it difficult to get a clear sense of what this person is
saying until we hear the part after each pause.

Ex.) A: that’s their favorite restaurant because they … enjoy French food and when they were … in
France they couldn’t believe it that … you know that they had … that they had had better meals back
home

In the next example, speaker X produces filled pauses (with em, er, you know) after having almost
lost the turn at his first brief hesitation.

Ex.) X: well that film really was … [ wasn’t what he was good at

Y: [ when di-

X: I mean his other … em his later films were much more … er really more in the romantic style
and that was more what what he was … you know …em best at doing

Y: so when did he make that one

-> These types of strategies, by themselves, should not be considered undesirable or domineering.
They are present in the conversational speech of most people and they are part of what makes
conversation work. In fact, one of the most noticeable features of conversational discourse is that it
is generally very “co-operative.” This observation has been formulated as a principle of conversation.

THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE: An underlying assumption in most conversational exchanges seems

to be that the participants are co-operating with each other. This principle, together with four
maxims that we expect our conversational partners to obey,was first described by the philosopher
Paul Grice. The co-operative principle supporting this principle are four maxims, often called the
“Gricean maxims.”

The Quantity maxim: Make your contribution as informative as is required, but not more, or less,
than is required.

The Quality maxim: Do not say that which you believe to be false or for which you lack adequate
evidence.

The Relation maxim: Be relevant.

The Manner maxim: Be clear, brief and orderly.

It is certainly true that, on occasion, we can experience conversational exchanges in which the co-
operative principle may not seem to be in operation. However, this general description of the normal
expectations we have in conversation helps to explain a number of regular features in the way
people say things.

HEDGES: We use certain types of expressions, called hedges, to show that we are concerned about
following the maxims while being co-operative participants in conversation. Hedges can be defined
as words or phrases used to indicate that we’re not really sure that what we’re saying is sufficiently
correct or complete. We can use sort of or kind of as hedges on the accuracy of our statements.

Ex.) As far as I know …,

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but …

I’m not absolutely sure, but ….

We also take care to indicate that what we report is something we think or feel (not know), is
possible or likely (not certain), and may or could (not must) happen.

IMPLICATURES: When we try to analyze how hedges work, we usually talk about speakers implying
something that is not said. With the co-operative principle and the maxims as guides, we can start to
work out how people actually decide that someone is “implying” something in conversation.

Ex.) CAROL: Are you coming to the party tonight?

LARA: I’ve got an exam tomorrow.

-> On the assumption that Lara is being relevant and informative, adhering to the maxims of Relation
and Quantity. Given that Lara’s original answer contains relevant information, Carol can work out
that “exam tomorrow” conventionally involves “study tonight,” and “study tonight” precludes “party
tonight.” Thus, Lara’s answer is not simply a statement about tomorrow’s activities, it contains an
implicature (an additional conveyed meaning) concerning tonight’s activities.

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE: A particularly good example of the processes involved in using

background knowledge was provided by Sanford and Garrod (1981), who presented readers with a
short text, one sentence at a time.

Ex.) John was on his way to school last Friday.

He was really worried about the math lesson.

->Most people who are asked to read these sentences report that they think John is probably a
schoolboy. Other inferences, for different readers, are that John is walking or that he is on a bus.
These inferences are clearly derived from our conventional knowledge.

An interesting aspect of the reported inferences is that they are treated as likely or possible
interpretations that readers will quickly abandon if they do not fit in with some subsequent
information.

Ex.) Last week he had been unable to control the class.

-> On encountering this sentence, most readers decide that John is, in fact, a teacher and that he is
not very happy. Many report that he is probably driving a car to school.

Ex.) It was unfair of the math teacher to leave him in charge.

->Suddenly, John reverts to his schoolboy status, and the inference that he is a teacher is quickly
abandoned.

Ex.) After all, it is not a normal part of a janitor’s duties.

->This type of text and manner of presentation, one sentence at a time, is rather artificial, of course.
Yet the exercise involved does provide us with some insight into the ways in which we “build”
interpretations of what we read by using a lot more information than is presented in the words on
the page.

SCHEMAS AND SCRIPTS: A schema is a general term for a conventional knowledge structure that
exists in memory. We have many schemas (or schemata) that are used in the interpretation of what
we experience and what we hear or read about.

Similar in many ways to a schema is a script. A script is essentially a dynamic schema. That is, instead
of the set of typical fixed features in a schema, a script has a series of conventional actions that take
place.

Ex.) Trying not to be out of the office for long, Suzy went into the nearest place, sat down and
ordered an avocado sandwich. It was quite crowded, but the service was fast, so she left a good tip.
Back in the office, things were not going well.

->On the basis of our restaurant script, we would be able to say a number of things about the scene
and events briefly described in this short text. Although the text doesn’t have this information, we
would assume that Suzy opened a door to get into the restaurant, that there were tables there, that
she ate the sandwich, then she paid for it, and so on.

Indeed, crucial information is sometimes omitted from important instructions on the assumption
that everybody knows the script.

Ex.) Fill measure cup to line

and repeat every 2 to 3 hours.

Clearly, our understanding of what we read is not only based on what we see on the page (language
structures), but also on other things that we have in mind (knowledge structures). To understand
more about the connection between these two things, we have to take a close look at the workings
of the human brain.