Lesson II

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

What is discourse analysis?

According to Geoffrey Finch ‘Discourse’ is one of those elastic terms that mean any

sequence of language in written or spoken form larger than a SENTENCE. The

distinctive aspect of ‘discourse’, however, is that it stresses the communicative

dynamics of language. In this sense analysing discourse means investigating all

those features that are part of the total communicative act: CONTEXT of

utterance, TENOR of relationships, MODE of discourse, and so on. All those

features which are part of what the Russian critic Mikhail Baktin has called the

‘concrete living totality’ of language. This sense is equivalent to that of the French

term discours, which includes fiction and poetry as types of literary or narrative

discourse. Linguists who use the term in this more comprehensive sense will also

use the term text more liberally and talk of written as well as spoken texts.

Other linguists, however, restrict the term ‘discourse’ to spoken language This is

true of early discourse analysts , such as M. Coulthard and J. Sinclair at Birmingham

University, who extensively studied teacher/pupil and doctor/patient exchanges.

Discourse in this sense is viewed as a series of connected utterances, the

equivalent in spoken form to a written text. Nowadays, however, many discourse

analysts tend to adopt the more liberal, and continental, definition of discourse,

although it is arguable still true that the real advances of discourse analysis, as far

as linguistics is concerned, have been in the analysis of spoken language. In this

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respect it has succeeded in highlighting many elements of speech which

conventional grammars often ignore. The importance of INTONATION as an

interactional way of signalling meaning and intention, and of tone units generally

in the organization and structure of utterances, has been greatly advanced by

viewing speech as discourse.

Linguistics today

It is a tribute to the combined influence of Saussure and Chomsky that the study of

language became increasingly important in the late twentieth century and that this

interest has continued into the twenty-first century. The concern with the

language potential of human beings has meant that a wide variety of disciplines ,

notably sociology, psychology, and literary criticism, have begun to take more

interest in linguistics, We must also mention the systemic gramar of the British

linguist Michael Halliday. As opposed to the essentially ‘formalist’ approach of

Chomsky, Halliday’s is more ‘functional’. He sees language as existing to fulfil

certain human needs, such as our need to make sense of the world and to relate to

others. What Halliday draws our attention to is the importance of the ‘world; and

our relationship to it in the formation of the linguistic system. The three principal

functions that he identifies , and which he uses as the basis of grammar, are the

ideational (the use of language to conceptualise the world), the interpersonal

(the use of language as a personal médium) and the textual function (the use of

language to form texts). Halliday’s approach sees language as a symbolic signalling

system, and reflects the influence of Saussare rather than Chomsky. Like Saussare

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he sees language as a social and cultural phenomenon as opposed to a biological

one, like Chomsky. Functional approaches represent a general shift of linguistics

towards a nire socially situated account of language. There is a complex interplay

between language and social /situational context. There is no way that the full,

context-rich, meaning of any utterance can be gleaned simply by a consideration of

the words alone. Partly in recognition of this, recent years have seen the

development within linguistics of PRAGMATICS (the study of language in its

socially situated, or extra-linguistic, context). Pragmatics explore the ways in

which we interpret utterances using strategies of INFERENCE and

PRESUPPOSITION. Language is seen as DISCOURSE, that is, as an interactive event

occuring between participants; a form of ‘doing’ rather than simply ‘speaking’.

Recent years have also seen the development of sociolinguistics – the study of

language and society.

2) MORE ABOUT DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (Brian Paltridge)

Discourse analysis examines patterns of language across texts and considers the

relationship between language and the social and cultural contexts in which it is

used. Discourse analysis also considers the ways that the use of language presents

different views of the world and different understandings. It examines how the

use of language is influenced by relationships between participants as well as the

effects the use of language has upon social identities and relations. It also

considers how views of the world, and identitites, are constructed through the use

of discourse

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2ª. The relationship between language and context

By the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic behaviour ‘Harris mean

show people know, from the situation that they are in, how to interpret what

someone says. If for example, an air traffic controller says to a pilot The runway is

full at the moment, this most likely means it is not posible to land the plane. This

may seem obvious to a native speaker of English but a non-native speaker pilot, of

which there are many in the world, needs to understand the relationship between

what is said and what is meant in order to understand that he/she cannot land the

plane at that time. Harris’ point is that the expression The runway is full at the

moment has a particular meaning in a particular situation (in this case the landing

of a plane) and may mean something different in another situation. If I say The

runway is full at the moment to a friend who is waiting with me to pick someone up

from the airport, this is now an explanation of why the plane is late landing

(however I may know this) and not an instruction to not land the plane.

Halliday links the actual choices a person makes from the options that are available

to them within the particular context of culture which take place within a

particular context of situation, both of which influence the use of language in the

text.

Discourse analysts are concerned about studying language within authentic

instances of use (as opposed to made-up examples) – a concern which is related to

the inseparability of meaning and form and a focus on a contextual theory of

meaning.

Discourse analysis is interested in ‘what happens when people draw on the

knowledge they have about language…to do things in the world’ (Johnstone

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2002). It is thus, the analysis of language in use. Discourse analysis

considers the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is

used and is concerned with the description of both spoken and written

interactions. Its primary purpose is to provide a deeper understanding and

appreciation of texts and how they become meaningful to their users.

2b. The discourse structure of texts

Discourse analysts are also interested in how people organize what they say in the

sense of what they typically say first, and what they say next and so on in a

conversation or in a piece of writing. This is something that varies across cultures

and is by no means the same across languages. An email, for example, to me

(Paltridge) from a Japanese academic or a member of the administrative staff at a

Japanese university may start with reference to the weather saying immediately

after Dear Professor Paltridge something like ‘Greetings!’ It’s such a beautiful day

today in Kyoto. There are, thus, particular things we say and particular ways of

ordering what we say in particular spoken and written situations and in particular

languages and cultures.

Mitchel (1957) was one of the first researchers to examine the discourse structure

of texts. He looked at the ways in which people order what they say in buying and

selling interactions. He looked at the overall structure of these kinds of texts,

introducing the notion of stages into discourse analysis; that is the steps that

language users go through as they carry out particular interactions.

Other researchers have also investigated recurring patterns in spoken interactions

something known as conversation analysis and have looked at how people open

and close conversations and how people take turns and overlap their speech in

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conversations like doctor-patient consultations, psychiatric interviews and

interactions in legal settings and have made a fine-grained analyses of spoken

interactions such as the use of overlap, pauses, increased volume and pitch and

what these reveal about how people relate to each other in what they are saying

and doing with language.

2c. Cultural ways of speaking and writing

Different cultures often have different ways of doing things through language. This

is something that was explored by Hymes (1964) through the notion of the

etnography of communication. He considered aspects of speech events such as who

is speaking to whom, about what, for what purpose, where and when, and how

these impacto n how we say and do things in culture-specific settings. There are,

particular ways of buying and selling things in different cultures. How I buy my

lunch at a takeaway shop in an English-speaking country there is greater ritual use

of Please and Thanks on the part of the customer in this kind of interaction than

there is in Japan. This simply means that there are culturally different ways of

doing things with language in different cultures.

3. Different views of discourse analysis (Brian Paltridge)

Fairclough (2003) contrasts what he calls ‘textually oriented discourse analysis’

wieh approaches to discourse analysis that have more of a social theoretical

orientation. He does not see these two views as mutually exclusive, however,

arguing for an analysis of discourse that is both linguistic and social in its

orientation.

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David Crystal’s (2008) analysis of Barack Obama’s victory speech when he won

the presidential election is an example of textually oriented discourse analysis.

One of the features Crystal notes in Obama’s speech is the use of parallelism, where

he repeats certain grammatical structures for rhetorical effect. In the following

extract from the opening lines of his speech Obama repeats ‘who clauses’ lowering

the processing load of the speech so that listeners will focus on the content of each

of the clauses that follow.

If there is anyone out who still doubts that America is a place where all things are

posible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still

questions the power of our democracy, tonight is the answer. (CNNPolitics.com

2008)

Obama also uses lists of pairs in his speech to rhetorical effect, as in:

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and por, Democrat and Republican,

black, White, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not

disabled. (ibid.)

Higgins (2008) analysis of Obama’s speech is an example of more socially oriented

discourse analysis. Higgins traces Obama’s speech back to the oratory of the

ancient Greeks and Romans showing how the use of the ancient Greeks and

Romans rhetorical techniques. In doing this, Obama recalls both the politics and

traditions of ancient Athens where oratory was ‘the supreme politicial skill, on

whose mastery power depended’. Williams (2009) discusses Obama’s speech

within the context of the political (and economic) momento of his victory,

highlighting the central message of optimism in his speech captured in the

repetititon of the refrain ‘Yes, we can’. Higgins also discusses how this ‘Yes, we

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can’ relates, intertextually, to the call-and-response preaching of the American

church and the power that effective preachers have on their congregations.

Obama’s reference in his speech to previous leaders, thus, draws on the social stock

of knowledge (Luckmann 2009) he shares with is audience and their social and

cultural histories.

We can see, then, that discourse analysis is a view of language at the level of text.

Discourse analysis is also a view of language in use; that is, how people achieve

certain communicative goals through the use of language, perform certain

communicative acts, participate in certain communicative events and present

themselves to others. Discourse analysis considers how people manage

interactions with each other, how people communicate within particular groups

and societies as well as how they communicate with other groups, and with other

cultures. It also focuses on how people do things beyond language, and the ideas

and beliefs that they communicate as they use language.

3.a. Discourse as the social construction of reality

The view of discourse as the social construction of reality sees texts as

communicative units which are embedded in social and cultural practices. The

texts we write and speak both shape and are shaped by these practices. Discourse,

then, is both shaped by the world as well as shaping the world. Discourse is

shaped by the people who use the language as well as shaping the language that

people use. Discourse is shaped, as well, by the discourse that has preceded it and

that which might follow it. Discourse is also shaped by the médium in which it

occurs as well as it shapes the possibilities for that médium.

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3.b. Discourse and socially situated identities.

When we speak or write we use more than just language to display who we are,

and how we want people to see us. The way we dress, the gestures we use and the

way/s we act and interact also influence how we display social identity. Other

factors which influence this include the ways we think, the attitudes we display

and the things we value, feel and believe. The ways we make visible and

recognizable who we are and what we are doing always involves more than just

language. It involves acting, interacting and thinking in certian ways with

appropriate ‘props’, at appropriate tiems and in appropriate places.

The Princess of Wales, for example, knows in the Panorama interview not only

how she is expected to speak in the particular place and at the particular time but

also how she should dress, how she can use body language to achieve the effect

that she wants as well as the values, attitudes, beliefs and emotions it is

appropriate for her to express (as well as those it is not appropriate for her to

express) in this situation. That is, she knows how to enact the discourse of a

Princess being interviewed about her private life in the open and public médium of

televisión. This discourse, of course, may be different from, but related to, the

discourses she participated in in her role as mother of her children, and the public

and private roles and identities she had as wife of the Prince of Wales. A given

discourse, thus, can involve more than just the one single identity.

3.c Discourse and performance

The notion of performativity derives from speech act theory and the work of the

linguistic philosopher Austin. It is based on the view that in saying something, we

do it. That is, we bring states of affairs into being as a result of what we say and

what we do. Examples of this are I promise and I now pronounce you husband and

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wife . Once I have said I promise I have committed myself to doing something.

Once a priest, or a marriage celebrant,says I now pronounce you husband and wife,

the couple have ‘become’ husband and wife. Performance, thus, brings the social

world into being.

Butler, Cameron and others talk about doing gender in much the way that Gee talks

about discourse as performance. Discourses, like the performance of gendered

identities, are socially constructed, rather than natural. People are who they are

because of the way they talk not because of who they already are. We are not who

we are because of some inner being but because of what we do.

Social identitites are not pre-given, but are formed in the use of language and the

various other ways we display who we are, what we think, value and feel, etc. A rap

Singer uses language, what they rap about and how they present themselves as

they do it, all contributes to their performance and creation of themselves as a rap

Singer.

Nor are we who we are because of how we physically look or where we were

originally born.

4.b Discourse and intertextuality

All texts, whether they are spoken or written , make their meanings against the

background of other texts and things that have been said on other occasions. Texts

may more or less implicitely or explicitely cite other texts; they may refer to other

texts, or they may allude to other past, or future, texts. We thus ‘make sense of

every word, every utterance, or act against the background of some other words,

utterances, acts of a similar kind. All texts are, thus, in an intertextual relationship

with other texts. As Bazerman (2004) argues:

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We créate our texts out of the sea of former texts that surround us, the sea of

language we live in. And we understand the texts of others within that same sea.

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