What Is Discourse Analysis?

Discourse analysis is the examination of language use by members of a speech

community. It involves looking at both language form and language function
and includes the study of both spoken interaction and written texts. It identifies
linguistic features that characterize different genres as well as social and
cultural factors that aid in our interpretation and understanding of different
texts and types of talk. A discourse analysis of written texts might include a
study of topic development and cohesion across the sentences, while an
analysis of spoken language might focus on these aspects plus turn-taking
practices, opening and closing sequences of social encounters, or narrative
structure.
The study of discourse has developed in a variety of disciplines-sociolinguistics,
anthropology, sociology, and social psychology. Thus discourse analysis takes
different theoretical perspectives and analytic approaches: speech act theory,
interactional sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, pragmatics,
conversation analysis, and variation analysis (Schiffrin, 1994). Although each
approach emphasizes different aspects of language use, they all view language
as social interaction.
This digest focuses on the application of discourse analysis to second language
teaching and learning. It provides examples of how teachers can improve their
teaching practices by investigating actual language use both in and out of the
classroom, and how students can learn language through exposure to different
types of discourse. Detailed introductions to discourse analysis, with special
attention to the needs and experiences of language teachers, can be found in
Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000), Hatch (1992), McCarthy (1992), McCarthy
and Carter (1994), and Riggenbach (1999).
Discourse Analysis and Second Language Teaching
Even with the most communicative approaches, the second language
classroom is limited in its ability to develop learners' communicative
competence in the target language. This is due to the restricted number of
contact hours with the language; minimal opportunities for interacting with
native speakers; and limited exposure to the variety of functions, genres,
speech events, and discourse types that occur outside the classroom. Given the
limited time available for students to practice the target language, teachers
should maximize opportunities for student participation. Classroom research is
one way for teachers to monitor both the quantity and quality of students'
output. By following a four-part process of Record-View-Transcribe-Analyze,
second language teachers can use discourse analytic techniques to investigate
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the interaction patterns in their classrooms and to see how these patterns
promote or hinder opportunities for learners to practice the target language.
This process allows language teachers to study their own teaching behavior—
specifically, the frequency, distribution, and types of questions they use and
their effect on students' responses.
Step One: Videotape a complete lesson. Be sure to capture all of your
questions and the students' responses. (Opportunities to speak the target
language are often created by teachers' questions.)
Step Two: Watch the videotape. As you watch it, think about the types of
questions you asked. Look for recurring patterns in your questioning style and
the impact it has on the students' responses.
Step Three: Transcribe the lesson. A transcript will make it easier to identify the
types of questions in the data and to focus on specific questions and student
responses.
Step Four: Analyze the videotape and transcript. Why did you ask each
question? What type of question was it—open (e.g., "What points do you think
the author was making in the chapter you read yesterday?") or closed (e.g.,
"Did you like the chapter?")? Was the question effective in terms of your goals
for teaching and learning? What effect did your questions have on the
students' opportunities to practice the target language? How did the students
respond to different types of questions? Were you satisfied with their
responses? Which questions elicited the most discussion from the students?
Did the students ask any questions? Focusing on actual classroom interaction,
teachers can investigate how one aspect of their teaching style affects
students' opportunities for speaking the target language. They can then make
changes that will allow students more practice with a wider variety of discourse
types.
Teachers can also use this process of Record-View-Transcribe-Analyze to study
communication patterns in different classroom activities, such as student-to-
student interactions during a paired role-play task and during a small-group
cooperative learning activity. Communicative activities are expected to
promote interaction and to provide opportunities for students to engage in
talk. Teachers are likely to discover that students produce different speech
patterns in response to different tasks. For example, a map activity is likely to
elicit a series of questions and answers among participants, whereas a picture
narration task requires a monologue developed around a narrative format.
Given that teachers use communicative tasks to evaluate learners' proficiency,
a better understanding of the influence of specific activities on learner
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discourse will likely lead teachers to use a greater variety of tasks in order to
gain a more comprehensive picture of students' abilities. By recording,
transcribing, and analyzing students' discourse, teachers can gain insight into
the effect of specific tasks on students' language production and, over time, on
their language development.
A discourse analysis of classroom interactions can also shed light on cross-
cultural linguistic patterns that may be leading to communication difficulties.
For example, some speakers may engage in overlap, speaking while someone
else is taking a turn-at-talk. For some linguistic groups, this discourse behavior
can be interpreted as a signal of engagement and involvement; however, other
speakers may view it as an interruption and imposition on their speaking rights.
Teachers can use the Record-View-Transcribe-Analyze technique to study
cross-cultural interactions in their classrooms, helping students identify
different communication strategies and their potential for miscommunication.
Although some variables of language learning are beyond the control of second
language teachers, discourse analysis can be a useful analytic tool for making
informed changes in instructional practices. Mainstream teachers, especially
those with second language learners, can also use this technique to study
classroom interactions in order to focus on the learning opportunities available
to students with limited English proficiency. In fact, discourse analysis can be
an integral part of a program of professional development for all teachers that
includes classroom-based research, with the overall aim of improving teaching
(Johnson, 1995).
Discourse Analysis and Second Language Learning
Language learners face the monumental task of acquiring not only new
vocabulary, syntactic patterns, and phonology, but also discourse competence,
sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence, and interactional
competence. They need opportunities to investigate the systematicity of
language at all linguistic levels, especially at the highest level (Riggenbach,
1999; Young and He, 1998). Without knowledge of and experience with the
discourse and sociocultural patterns of the target language, second language
learners are likely to rely on the strategies and expectations acquired as part of
their first language development, which may be inappropriate for the second
language setting and may lead to communication difficulties and
misunderstandings.
One problem for second language learners is limited experience with a variety
of interactive practices in the target language. Therefore, one of the goals of
second language teaching is to expose learners to different discourse patterns
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in different texts and interactions. One way that teachers can include the study
of discourse in the second language classroom is to allow the students
themselves to study language, that is, to make them discourse analysts (see
Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000; McCarthy & Carter, 1994; Riggenbach, 1999).
By exploring natural language use in authentic environments, learners gain a
greater appreciation and understanding of the discourse patterns associated
with a given genre or speech event as well as the sociolinguistic factors that
contribute to linguistic variation across settings and contexts. For example,
students can study speech acts in a service encounter, turn-taking patterns in a
conversation between friends, opening and closings of answering machine
messages, or other aspects of speech events. Riggenbach (1999) suggests a
wide variety of activities that can easily be adapted to suit a range of second
language learning contexts.
One discourse feature that is easy to study is listener response behavior, also
known as backchannels. Backchannels are the brief verbal responses that a
listener uses while another individual is talking, such as mm-hmm, ok, yeah,
and oh wow. Listener response can also be non-verbal, for instance head nods.
Research has identified variation among languages in the use of backchannels,
which makes it an interesting feature to study. Variation has been found not
only in the frequency of backchannels, but also in the type of backchannels,
their placement in the ongoing talk, and their interpretation by the participants
(Clancy, Thompson, Suzuki, & Tao, 1996). Students can participate in the
Record-View-Transcribe-Analyze technique to study the linguistic form and
function of backchannels in conversation.
Step One: Ask to video- or audiotape a pair of native speakers engaging in
conversation, perhaps over coffee or lunch.
Step Two: Play the tape for students. Have them identify patterns in the
recorded linguistic behavior. In this case, pay attention to the backchanneling
behavior of the participants. Is the same backchannel token used repeatedly, or
is there variation?
Step Three: Transcribe the conversation so that students can count the number
and types of backchannel tokens and examine their placement within the
discourse.
Step 4: Have students analyze specific discourse features individually, in pairs
or in small groups. These are some questions to consider: How often do the
participants use a backchannel token? How does backchanneling contribute to
the participants' understanding of and involvement in the conversation? How

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can differences in backchannel frequency be explained? How does
backchanneling work in the students' native language?
Students can collect and analyze data themselves. Once collected, this set of
authentic language data can be repeatedly examined for other conversational
features, then later compared to discourse features found in other speech
events. This discourse approach to language learning removes language from
the confines of textbooks and makes it tangible, so that students can explore
language as interaction rather than as grammatical units. Teachers can also use
these activities to raise students' awareness of language variation, dialect
differences, and cultural diversity.
Conclusion
In sum, teachers can use discourse analysis not only as a research method for
investigating their own teaching practices but also as a tool for studying
interactions among language learners. Learners can benefit from using
discourse analysis to explore what language is and how it is used to achieve
communicative goals in different contexts. Thus discourse analysis can help to
create a second language learning environment that more accurately reflects
how language is used and encourages learners toward their goal of proficiency
in another language.
References
Celce-Murcia, M,. & Olshtain, E. (2000). Discourse and context in language
teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Clancy, P., Thompson, S., Suzuki, R., & Tao, H. (1996) The conversational use of
reactive tokens in English, Japanese, and Mandarin. Journal of Pragmatics, 26,
355-387.
Hatch, E. (1992). Discourse and language education. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Johnson, K. (1995). Understanding communication in second language
classrooms. New York: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M. (1992). Discourse analysis for language teachers. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M., & Carter, R. (1994). Language as discourse: Perspectives for
language teachers. New York: Longman.

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Riggenbach, H. (1999). Discourse analysis in the language classroom: Volume 1.
The spoken language. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Schiffrin, D. (1994). Approaches to discourse. Oxford: Blackwell.
Young, R., & He, A. (1998). Talking and testing: Discourse approaches to the
assessment of oral proficiency. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.