A1 2 INTRODUCTION

A1 W H AT I S D I S CO U R S E A N A LYS I S ?

Our frst step in the study of discourse analysis has to be fguring out exactly what we
mean by discourse and why it is so important to learn how to analyze it.
In one sense we can say that discourse analysis is the study of language. Many peo-
ple would defne discourse analysis as a sub-feld of linguistics, which is the scientifc
study of language. Linguistics has many sub-felds, each of which looks at a diferent
aspect of language. Phonology is the study of the sounds of languages and how people
put them together to form words. Grammar is the study of how words are put together
to form sentences and spoken utterances. And discourse analysis is the study of the
ways sentences and utterances are put together to make texts and conversations and
how those texts and conversations ft into the social world.
But discourse analysis is not just the study of language. It is a way of looking at lan-
guage that focuses on how people use it in real life to do things such as joke, argue, per-
suade, and firt, and to show that they are certain kinds of people or belong to certain
groups. Tis way of looking at language is based on four main assumptions. Tey are:
1 Language is ambiguous. What things mean is never absolutely clear. All communica-
tion involves interpreting what other people mean and what they are trying to do.
2 Language is always situated ‘in the world.’ Tat is, what language means is always a
matter of where and when it is used and what it is used to do.
3 Te way we use language is inseparable from who we are and the diferent social
groups to which we belong. We use language to display diferent kinds of social
identities and to show that we belong to diferent groups.
4 Language is never used all by itself. It is always combined with other things such as
our tone of voice, facial expressions, and gestures when we speak, and the fonts,
layout and graphics we use in written texts. What language means and what we
can do with it is ofen a matter of how it is combined with these other things.

The ambiguity of language

Everyone has had the experience of puzzling over what someone—a lover, a parent, a
friend, or a politician—‘really meant’ by what they said. In fact, nearly all communication
contains some elements of meaning that are not expressed directly by the words that are
spoken or written. Even when we think we are expressing ourselves clearly and directly, we
may not be. For example, you may want to borrow a pen from someone and express this
desire with the question, ‘Do you have a pen?’ Strictly speaking, though, this question does
not directly communicate that you need a pen. It only asks if the other person is in posses-
sion of one. In order to understand this question as a request, the other person needs to
undertake a process of ‘fguring out’ what you meant, a process which in this case may be
largely unconscious and automatic, but which is, all the same, a process of interpretation.
So, we can take as a starting point for our study of discourse analysis the fact that
people don’t always say what they mean, and people don’t always mean what they say. Tis
is not because people are trying to trick or deceive each other (though sometimes they
W H A T I S D I S C O U R S E A N A LY S I S ? 3
A1
are), but because language is, by its very nature, ambiguous. To say exactly what we mean
all the time would be impossible: frst, because as poets, lovers, and even lawyers know,
language is an imperfect tool for the precise expression of many things we think and
feel; and second, because whenever we communicate we always mean to communicate
more than just one thing. When you ask your friend if he or she has a pen, for example,
you mean to communicate not just that you need a pen but also that you do not wish to
impose on your friend or that you feel a bit shy about borrowing a pen, which is one of
the reasons why you approach the whole business of requesting indirectly by asking if
they have a pen, even though you may know very well that they have one.
At the same time, there are instances in which people are trying to deceive you, and
discourse analysis can also help you to detect these moments and to call out those peo-
ple. Politicians, advertisers, and others who are trying to win your loyalty, patronage
or compliance also depend on the ambiguity of language to persuade you to vote for
them, buy their products or otherwise go along with their programme. For example,
the manufacturer of a product that does not meet the government’s criteria to claim
that it is ‘low in sugar’ may write ‘less sweet’ on the label instead to give customers the
impression that it is healthy. Politicians frequently speak in ambiguous language in
order to avoid taking clear positions, or to send diferent messages to diferent audi-
ences. A politician who touts ‘law and order’ might be signalling that they wish to
crack down on political dissent, and one who calls refugees ‘migrants’ may be subtly
calling into question their right to seek refuge.

Language in the world

One of the most important ways we understand what people mean when they com-
municate is by making reference to the social context within which they are speaking
or writing. Te meaning of an utterance can change dramatically depending on who is
saying it, when and where it is said, and to whom it is said. If a teacher asks a student
who is about to take an examination the same question we discussed above, ‘Do you
have a pen?’ it is rather unlikely that this is a request or that the teacher is a bit shy
about communicating with the student. Rather, this utterance is probably designed to
make sure that the student has the proper tool to take the examination or to inform the
student that a pen (rather than a pencil) must be used.
In other words, when we speak of discourse, we are always speaking of language that
is in some way situated. Language is always situated in at least four ways.
First, language is situated within the material world, and where we encounter it,
whether it be on a shop sign or in a textbook or on the screen of our phone, will con-
tribute to the way we interpret it.
Second, language is situated within relationships; one of the main ways we under-
stand what people mean when they speak or write is by referring to who they are, how
well we know them and whether or not they have some kind of power over us. Tird,
language is situated in history, that is, in relation to what happened before and what
we expect to happen aferwards.
Finally, language is situated in relation to other language—utterances and texts
always respond to or refer to other utterances and texts; that is, everything that we say
or write is situated in a kind of web of discourse.
A1 4 INTRODUCTION

Language and social identity

Not only is discourse situated. People are also situated in and by discourse. What I mean
by this is that whenever people speak or write, they are, through their discourse, some-
how demonstrating who they are and what their relationship is to other people. Tey
are enacting their identities through discourse, or, to put it another way, the discourse
they are using is helping to create ‘who they are.’ Doctors are not just doctors because
they know about medicine, but also because they know how to talk like doctors. Social
media infuencers are infuential not only because of what they say to their followers,
but how they say it, and how they use discourse to create their ‘personal brand.’ One of
the most important things about identities is that they are multiple and fuid rather than
singular and fxed. Te identity a doctor enacts in the clinic on Monday morning might
be very diferent from the one they enact on TikTok on Friday night. Te reason for this
is not that their personality changes from Monday morning to Friday night, but rather
that they change the way they use language in these two diferent situations.
Another important thing about identities, though, is that people ofen do not have
complete control over who they can ‘be.’ How they are supposed to talk in certain situ-
ations is sometimes decided for them. Students, for example, are constrained by the
discourse of the classroom—they can only say certain kinds of things at certain times
to certain people—and doctors, to some extent, are constrained by the discourse of the
clinic. Even social media infuencers can’t say whatever they want; they have to follow
the community guidelines of whatever platform they appear on. Tis is what I mean
when I say that people are situated in discourse: who they can be is determined by the
discourse that is available to them.

Language and other modes

Changing the way you use language when you enact the identity of a makeup guru
on TikTok or a specialist in infectious diseases, of course, is not enough to fully enact
these identities. You also have to dress in certain ways, act in certain ways and hang out
in certain places with certain people. In other words, language alone cannot achieve all
the things we need to do to be certain kinds of people. We always have to combine that
language with other things such as dress, gestures, and the handling of various kinds
of objects such as makeup brushes and stethoscopes.
In the same way, most of the written texts that we encounter consist of more than
just words. Tey convey their messages through a combination of words, images, lay-
out, and sometimes even sound fles or video clips. Tis is especially true of the texts
that we encounter online.
Partially because of its roots in linguistics, discourse analysts used to focus almost
exclusively on written or spoken language. Now, people are increasingly realizing not
just that we communicate in a lot of ways that do not involve language, but that in
order to understand what people mean when they use language, we need to pay atten-
tion to the way it is combined with other communicative modes such as pictures, ges-
tures, music, and the layout of physical environments. In fact, many of the texts that we
encounter in our daily lives (such as selfes sent to us by our friends) contain no words
at all. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t use discourse analysis to understand them (see
TEXTS AND TEXTURE 5
A2
unit A9). So, ofen when we speak of the tools that people use to construct texts and
conversations, we just talk about language, but rather about all of the diferent semiotic
resources that are available to them. Te word ‘semiotic’ means anything that is used
to signify some kind of meaning, and the resources we have to do this include not just
words, but also sounds, gestures, images, colours, and a whole host of other things.

So what good is discourse analysis?

Given these four principles, we can begin to understand some of the reasons why
learning how to analyze discourse might be useful. Te chief reason is that we already
engage in discourse analysis all the time when we try to fgure out what people mean
by what they say and when we try to express our multiple and complicated meanings
to them. Much of what you will learn in this book will be about making processes
that already take place beneath the surface of your consciousness more explicit. But
what is the point of that, you might ask, if all of this communication and interpreta-
tion is going on so smoothly without us having to attend to it? But the fact is, it’s not.
None of us is immune to misunderstandings, to ofending people by saying the wrong
thing, to struggling to get our message across, or to being tricked by someone who is
trying somehow to deceive us with their discourse. Hopefully, by understanding how
discourse works, we will be able to understand people better, to communicate more
efectively, and to avoid being taken in by lies or propaganda.
Studying discourse analysis, however, can teach you more than that. Since the way
we use discourse is tied up with our social identities and our social relationships, dis-
course analysis can also help us to understand how the societies in which we live are
put together and how they are maintained through our day-to-day activities of speak-
ing, writing, and making use of other semiotic resources. It can help us to understand
why people interact with one another the way they do and how they exert power and
infuence over one another. It can help us to understand how people view reality dif-
ferently and why, and how the texts that we are exposed to come to create our view
of reality. Te study of discourse analysis, then, is not just the study of how we use
language. It is also indirectly the study of politics, power, psychology, romance, and a
whole lot of other things.

• Look more deeply into why people don’t say what they mean or mean what
they say in the online resources for this book.

TEXTS AND TEXTURE A2

Discourse analysts analyze ‘texts’ and ‘conversations.’ But what is a ‘text’ and what is a
‘conversation’? What distinguishes texts and conversations from random collections of
sentences and utterances? Tese are the questions taken up in this unit. For now, we
will mostly be considering written texts. Conversations will be dealt with in later units.