Topic 1:
Defining Discourse Analysis
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Discourse Discourse
Discourse?
studies? analysis?
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Discourse:
• “language in its context of use” (Flowerdew, 2013)
• When looking at language in use, it is language above the
sentence level => ‘extended text’
• This draws major distinction between Discourse and
generative linguistics (Chomsky) => contextualised vs.
decontextualised
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Contextualized Decontextualized
• Language is seen/analysed • Language is analysed as
on how it is used in specific separate entity from context
context
• Focus is on language
• It is concerned with more structure
than (just) grammar and
vocabulary. E.g. how people
participate in conversation
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A more restricted definition:
• The term “discourse” is used to refer to specific set of ideas
and how these ideas are articulated
• For example: the discourse of feminism (language used by
feminist), the discourse of parent-child (language used in
conversation between parents and their children) or political
discourse (language used by politicians)
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So, what is Discourse Analysis?
• Discourse Analysis (or recent term being used ‘Discourse
Studies’) is THE STUDY on how language is used in specific
discourse
• The term Discourse Studies is deemed to be more suitable
for methodological reason => analysis gives indication that
the area is only concerned with analysis; but actual
Discourse Analysis is also concerned with theory and
application
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But, to avoid confusion…
We can (loosely) say:
• Discourse Analysis refers to the actual
analysis (methodologically speaking)
• Discourse Studies refers to the discipline
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A bit of history
Discourse Analysis was introduced by Zellig Harris in 1952
It is introduced as a method to analyse speech and writing
Two interests of Harris through Discourse Analysis:
a. Examining language beyond sentence level
b. Looking at relationship between linguistic and non-
linguistic behaviour
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Zellig Harris
• Zellig Sabbetai Harris (1909-1992)
• American linguist, mathematician
and methodological scientist
• His original focus was on Semitic
languages, language group
originating from the North Africa
and Middle East
• His works include Mathematical
Structure of Language (1968)
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According to him;
“connected discourse occurs within a particular situation –
whether of a person speaking, or of a conversation, or of
someone sitting down occasionally over the period of months
to write a particular kind of book in a particular literary or
scientific tradition”
• There are typical ways of using language in particular
situations
• There are specific linguistic features associated to specific
discourse
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Discourse Structure and Discourse Function
• Or “form vs. function” (McCarthy, 1991)
• When doing Discourse Analysis, you may perform structural
analysis or functional analysis
• Discourse structure: the text (spoken/written) would be
broken down into component parts. The parts can be topics
or turns (spoken) or paragraphs or sentences (written)
• Discourse function: discourse analysts will consider particular
meanings associated what is said/written. Basically, it tries to
answer “how language is used?”
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• Examples of questions that function approach will be helpful
to answer:
a. How teachers use language in classroom?
b. What is the linguistic identity of specific group of people?
c. How politicians make persuasive speech?
• These kinds of question suggest Discourse Analysis to be a
qualitative approach rather than quantitative => the concern
is not to measure but to describe
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Example:
6 L tak (.) kakak pernah tengok dalam t- dalam cerite:
no TOA has watched on Ø on movie
no I have watched on t- on movie
((L looked at other direction))
7 M cerite ape?
movie what
what movie
8 L cerite:: pade zaman dahulu
movie once upon a time
movie (on) once upon a time
9 M pade zaman dahulu (.) yang macam upin ipin tu
once upon a time which similar TOA that
once upon a time,(one) similar to that upin ipin
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You will see Discourse Analysis in:
• Linguistics (closely related)
• Communication studies
• Educational studies
• Law
• Psychology
• Health communication
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Data for Discourse Analysis
• The key word is “TEXT”
• In Discourse Analysis, text is linguistic units in the form of
sentences/speech that are lengthened (more than one
sentence)
• It can be any sort of text in spoken or written form
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Examples of written text:
a. Textbooks
b. News reports
c. Letters
d. Emails
Examples of spoken text:
a. Casual conversation
b. Classroom lessons
c. Faculty meetings
d. Doctor’s consultation
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Approaches to Discourse Studies
In doing the analysis, various approaches can be adopted:
a. Register analysis
b. Thematic development
c. Pragmatics
d. Conversation Analysis
e. Genre Analysis
f. Corpus-based Discourse Analysis
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Discourse Studies focus on language in its
contexts of use
What is CONTEXT? (Hymes, 1972):
a. The physical or temporal setting
b. The participants (speaker/writer)
c. The purposes of participants
d. The communicative channel
e. The attitude of participants
f. The genre
g. Background knowledge
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• van Dijk (2008) stated contexts are subjective constructs that
develop over the course of an interaction; participants define
their contexts according to their subjective interpretations
=> hence, it is a sociocognitive phenomenon, not just social
• Bloomaert (2001) said, it is crucial to carefully select what is
relevant in the context when interpreting text
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