DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Mr. Trương Văn Ánh

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 REFERENCES
1. Guy Cook (1989), Discouse, Oxford
University Press.
2. Halliday M. A. K. (1994), Discourse
Analysis, London, Equinox.
3. McCathy Michael (1991), Discourse
analysis for language teachers,
Cambridge University Press.
4. Nunan David (1998), Introducing
Discourse Analysis, Penguin English.

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5. Fromkin & others (1999) An Introduction to
Language. Thanh Nien Publishing House.
6. Gleason, H.A. (1961) An Introduction to
Descriptive Linguistics: English Morphology.
N.Y. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
7. Jackson, H. (1981) Analyzing English: An
Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics.
Pergamon Institute of English.
8. Jacobs, Roderick A. (1995) English Syntax.
A grammar for English Language
Professionals. OUP.

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 How to assess
Attendance: 10%
Mid test: 30% (in week 7)
Final test: 60%
A- Theory: (3ms)
B- Practice: (7ms)

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 Chapter 1
What is discourse analysis?
What is discourse?
Discourse analysis is concerned with the
study of the relationship between language
and the contexts in which it is used.
Discourse analysts study language in
use: written texts of all kinds, and spoken
data, from conversation to highly formal
forms of speech.

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a.   
b. Telephone Victory Danger
c. - Hi
- Hi. How are you?
- I’m fine, thanks. And you?
- Not bad.
d. Tomorrow there will be no class. Students
may stay home and self-study.
…
All of them are different kinds of discourse.
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Discourse versus text
Discourse analysis focuses on the structure of
naturally spoken language as found in
conversation interviews, commentaries and
speeches.
Text analysis focuses on the structure of written
language, as found in such text as essays,
notices, road signs and chapters.
(Crystal, 1987)
Some scholars talk about “spoken or written”
discourse, other about “spoken or written” text.
(Crystal, 1987)

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 It means discourse and text can be used
almost synonymously. But a distinction is
always there and that in discourse has
some social purpose while text fulfills the
function of communication of some
meaning only. As suggested by Michel
Stubbs (1983), who treats text and
discourse as more or less synonymous.
Hawthorn (1992) says text may be non-
interactive where as a discourse is
interactive. Means to say text is non-
interactive that’s it only fulfills the function
of conveying some meaning. But discourse
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 is always involved in two ways responses
in some formal or informal conversation
and dialogues, etc.
Hawthorn (1992) further says “discourse is
a linguistic communication seen as a
transaction between speaker and hearer.
While text is also a linguistic
communication (either spoken or written)
seen simply as a message coded in its
auditory or visual medium”.

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To conclude we can say discourse and text
have something in common as both use the
medium of language whether in sign
language. Both have some meaning that
they try to convey.
But text has a limited scope as compared
with discourse. In other words, we can say
discourse is somewhat broad category in the
system of language. And text deals with the
written form of language. Discourse has
different forms as discourse of advertising,
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discourse of racism, discourse of medical,
etc. But text has no such forms. Discourse
can be found with in text. And not vice
versa. Text has its maximum interpretation
in its ownself but discourse has a lot of
things above the language level.

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Spoken versus written language
Although spoken language emerged before
written language, written texts are much
more than merely “talk written down”.
With the emergence of cultures based on
agriculture rather than hunting and gathering,
people needed permanent records which
could be referred to over and over again.
Halliday (1985b) suggests that written
language is used for action (public signs,
product labels, television and radio guides)

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 for information (newspapers, magazines)
for entertainment (comic strips, fiction
books)
The differences between spoken and
written modes are not absolute. This
means that some spoken texts will be
more like written texts than others, while
some written texts will be more like spoken
texts than others.
Ex: (1a) Go in and make yourself at home.
(1b) Someone went in and made himself
at home.

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Grammar
Linguistically, written language tends to
consist of clauses that are internally
complex, whereas with spoken language the
complexity exists in the ways in which
clauses are joined together.

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(1c) Like Vincent d’Indy, a disciple of Ceasar
Frank, Chausson shares with them a
dreamy, even idle poetry, sumptuous but
precise orchestration, and an enemy that is
intimate rather than powerful, ascetic rather
than importunate.
(1d) This morning Associate Professor Dean
Wolfe will talk about the science of music at
half-past eleven, and we’ll hear some
fascinating things such as musicians playing
music backwards – but most of it will be
played forwards!
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The written text, 1c, seems to have more
information packed into it. This text contains
only one main clause, in contrast with the
spoken text in which there are several
clauses chained together in an additive
fashion.

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If the speaker above had had the
opportunity to present the same content in
written form, he may produced:
(1e) This morning at half-past eleven,
Associate Professor Dean Wolfe will present
a program titled “The science of music”, in
which the listeners will experience a number
of fascinating things, including music played
backwards – although most will be played
forwards!

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Lexical density
Spoken and written language also differ in
the ratio of content words to grammatical or
function words.
(Content or lexical words include nouns and
verbs, adjectives, adverbs while grammatical
words include such things as prepositions,
pronouns, conjunctions, interjections and
articles).
The number of lexical or content words per
clause is referred to as lexical density.
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In the following example, there are twelve
content words in a single clause, and it
therefore has a lexical density of twelve.
(1f) The use of this method of control
unquestionably leads to safer and faster
trains running in the most adverse weather
conditions.

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A spoken version of the above text might be
as follows:
(1g) You can control the trains this way and
if you do that you can be quite sure that
they’ll be able to run more safely and more
quickly than they would otherwise no matter
how bad the weather gets.

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In (1g), there are ten content words (control,
trains, way, sure, run, safely, quickly, bad,
weather, gets) distributed between five
clauses, which gives the text a lexical
density of two.
The density of written language is also
reinforced by the tendency to create nouns
from verbs.
Spoken Written
Good writers reflect Reflection is a
on what they write. characteristic of
good writer. 21
Halliday (1985b) calls this process of turning
verbs into nouns grammatical metaphor.
(Verbs are transformed into “things” and
represented as nouns. It is this
transformation which led Halliday to use the
term “metaphor’.

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 Exercises on lexical density
1. He learns English well so that he can
teach well in the future.
2. We call him Teo.
3. Jack often helps the poor with some
seasonal jobs.
4. Because they committed stealing a car,
they were put in prison then.
5. They can food in a factory which exports
to many countries.
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He can study English.
They were engineers.
They were learning French then.
They can can food in the factory.
His will will affect their future.
He should emphasize the importance of his
study.
The word should should be emphasized in
this sentence.
Well, I am well today.
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1. Jack learns better than his friends do.
2. He does love her more than his friend
does.
3. The son is more handsome than his
younger is.
4. They saw the log with a saw.
5. A sheep greets him baa, baa.
6. The students do an exercise in the class.

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Situation
Spoken and written language also differ in
terms of the demands that they make on the
listener or reader. With written language
there is no common situation, as there is in
face-to-face interaction.

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Types of discourse
We can classify discourse types in terms of
the communicative job they are doing.
Texts could be divided into dialogue and
monologue.
Another division would be into those that are
basically transactional in nature, and those
that are basically interpersonal.
Transactional language is that which occurs
when participants are concerned with the
exchange of goods and services.
Interpersonal language, on the other hand,
occurs when the speakers are concerned
with socializing.
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 In cosidering the purposes for which
language is used, we can distinguish
between “transactional” language, which is
language used to obtain goods and
services, and “interpersonal” language,
which is language used for socializing.

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THE END

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