about discourse - cook

8/20/2019 About Discourse - Cook

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Discourse[Cook]

1. What is Discourse?

1.1Discourse and the Sentence:

We have two different kinds of language as potential objects forstudy:One abstracted in order to teach a lang or literacy, or to study howthe rules of language worknd another which has been used to co!!unicate so!ething, and it"s felt to be coherent #and !ay or !ay not correspond to a correctsentence or a series of correct sentences$.

%he latter kind is language in use, for co!!unication, is calledDiscourse& and the search for what gives discourse coherence isDiscourse nalysis.

%he two approaches are not !utually e'clusive. Discourse !ay beco!posed of one or !ore well(for!ed gra!!atical sentences but itdoesn"t have to be. )t can have gra!!atical *!istakes" in it, andoften does. Discourse treats the rules of gra!!ar as a resource,confor!ing to the! when it needs to, but departing fro! the! whenit does not.What !atters is not its confor!ity to rules, but the fact that it

co!!unicates and is recogni+ed by its receivers as coherent. %here isa degree of subjectivity in identifying a stretch of language asdiscourse, yet in practice we find that discourse is usually perceivedas such by groups, rather than individuals.

1.-ra!!ar withing and beyond that sentence:

-ra!!ar doesn"t stop with a full stop but reaches over it. %here arealso rules which li!it what kind of sentence can follow another. )n thesa!e way that there are rules within sentences, li!iting which words

can follow others, so there !ight also be rules within discourses,li!iting which sentences can follow another one.So we now have two possible answers to the proble! of how werecogni+e a stretch of language as unified and !eaningful. One is thatwe e!ploy lang rules of the type studied by gra!!arians and taughtin !ost language te'tbooks, and that these rules operate betweensentences as well as within the!. %he other is that we e!ployknowledge of the world, of the speaker, of social convention, of whatis going on around us as we read or listen in order to !ake sense ofthe language we are encountering. /oherence is created by factorsoutside language.

1.0anguage in and out of conte't:


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When we receive a linguistic !essage, we pay attention to !anyother factors apart fro! the language itself. )f we are face to face withthe person sending the !essage, then we notice what they are doing

with their face, eyes, and body while speaking. )n a spoken !essagewe notice the 2uality of the voice as well. %hese are called paralinguistic features.

We are also influenced by the situation in which we receive !essages,by our cultural and social relationship with the aprticipants, by whatwe know and what we assu!e the sender knows. %hese factors takeus beyond the study of language, in a narrow sense, and force us tolook at other areas of in2uiry the !ind, the body, society, thephysical world in fact, at everything. %here are good argu!ents forli!iting a field of study to !ake it !anageable& but it is also true tosay that the answer to the 2uestion of what gives discourse its unity!ay be i!possible to give without considering the world at large: theContext .)n linguistics, specially in the 3nglish(speaking world bet the 1405sand 1465s there have been several schools ot thought which believethat conte't ( this knowledge outside the world outside lang whichwe use to interpret it should be ruled out of language analysis as faras possible. )n this way, it is believe, linguists will be able to !akediscoveries abt the language itself, and its syste! of rules whiche'ists 2uite independently of particular circu!stances. We !ay

validly characteri+e it as sentence linguistics, because it confines itsin2uiries to what happens within sentences. Sentence linguists followone of two procedures: they eitherinvent their e'a!ples for analysis,using their own intuitive knowledge as native speakers #their linguisticco!petence$ as a yardstick, or they take language which people haveactually used and re!ove all the features which tey believe to beirrelevant to their purposes. %his process of eli!inating the uni2ueco!bination of circu!stances in which language happens istechnically known as Idealization.

7et for the discourse analyst it !ay be e'actly these transient andvariable features which enable us to understand the !eaning of what

is said, and the reason why the order of sentences proceeds in theway that it does. %he langauge learner needs to be able to handlelanguage which is not ideali+ed language in use. %he lang teacherneeds, therefore, to decide on the e'tent to which ideali+ed language!ay help the develop!ent of this ability.We have then, two approaches to language: sentence linguistics anddiscourse analysis. 8oth have an invaluable contribution to !ake tothe understanding of language, and both ulti!ately need each other.We cannot co!!unicate with only the rules of se!antics andgra!!ar, so we just as surely cannot co!!unicate very well withoutthe!.


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Sentence Linguistics Data Discourse AnalysisData

)solated sentences ny stretch of lang felt to

be unified

-ra!!atically well(for!ed chieving !eaning

Without conte't )n conte't

)nvented or ideali+ed Observed

1.9%he origins of discourse analysis:

%he first known students of language in the Western tradition, thescholars of -reece and o!e, were aware of these differentapproaches too, and divided gra!!ar fro! rhetoric, the for!er beingconcerned with the rules of languge as an isolated object, the latterwith how to do things with words, to achieve effects, andco!!unicate successfully with people in particular conte'ts.)ronically, so!e schools of discourse analysis often thought of asone of the newest disciplines of language study e!ploy ter!s fro!classical rhetoric, one of the oldest. nd there have always been,throughout history, studies of language in conte't. )n ;orth !erica,in the early decades of this century, e'citing work was conducted by

people who were at once both anthropologists and linguists, ofteninvolved in research into the languages and societies of the native!ericans #)ndians$. )n 8ritain


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language it turns out that al!ost all the results lie within a relativelyshort stretch which we !ay call the sentence... Only rarely can westate restrictions across sentences".)f we are to find an answer to the proble! of what gives stretches oflanguage unitiy and !eaning, we !ust look beyond the for!al rules

operating with sentences, and consider the people who use language,and the world in which it happens as well. 7et before we do so, itwould be as well to see just how far for!al, purely lingusitic rules cango in accounting for the way one sentence succedes another.

2. Formal Links

.1 =or!al and conte'tual links:

)n order to account for discourse, we need to look at features outsidethe language. %his facts enable us to construct stretches of lang asdiscourse, as having a !eaning and a unity for us. %he way werecogni+e correct and incorrect sentences is different. We can do thisthrough our knowledge of gra!!ar without reference to outsidefacts.We can describe the two ways of approaching language as contextual,referring to facts outside language, and formal, referring to factsinside language./onte'tual features are so!ewhere outside this physical reali+ation ofthe language. Streteches of language treated only for!ally are

referred to as text .;ow although it is true that we need to consider conte'tual factors wecannot say that there are no for!al links bet sentences in discourse.We shall now try to categori+e these for!al links and then e'a!inehow far they will go in helping to e'plain why a succession ofsentences is discourse, and not just a disconnected ju!ble.=or!al links bet sentences and bet clauses are known as CohesiveDevices.

er! "orms: %he for! of the verb can li!it the choice of the verbfor! in the ne't.

#arallelism: nother link within discourse is effected by parallelis!,a device which suggests a connection, si!py because the for! of onesentence or clause repeats the for! of another. %his is often used inspeeches, prayers, poetry, and advertise!ents. )t can have apowerful e!otional effect.)t doesn"t have to be necessarily gra!!atical parallelis!. )t !ay be asound parallelis!& as in the rhy!e, rhyth!, and other sound effectsof verse. One !ight even e'tend the idea and talk of se!anticparallelis! where two sentences are linked because they !ean thesa!e thing.


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$e"erring e%&ressions: %hese are words whose !eaning can onlybe discovered by referring to other words or to ele!ents of theconte't which are clear to both sender and receiver. %he !ost obviouse'a!ple of the! is third person pronouns.)t is not only the third pers. pronouns which work in this way. %he

!eanings of this and that , and here and there have also to be foundeither for!ally in another part of the discourse or conte'tually fro!the world.

naphoric ref.: %he identity of so!eone or so!ething is given once atthe beginning, and thereafter referred to with pronouns./ataphoric ref.: %he pronouns are given first and then the identity isrevealed.3'ophoric ref. : %he !eaning is foundconte'tually fro! the outsideworld.

eferring e'presions fulfuil a dual purpose of unifying the te't #theydepend upon so!e of the subject !atter re!aining the sa!e$ and ofecono!y, because they save us fro! having to repeat the identity ofwhat we are talking abt again and again.

$e&etition an' le%ical chains( epetition of wds can create thesa!e sort of chain as pronouns, and there are so!eti!es goodreasons for preferring it. )n 8ritain, !other tongue learners of 3ng arediscouraged fro! using repetition on the grounds that it is *bad style", and ecouraged to use a device known as *elegant repetition",

where synony!ous or !ore general wds or phrases are used. Soinstead of writing:

%he pineapple.. the pineapple.. the pineapple.. the pineapple

%hey !ight write

%he pineapple.. the lusciuous fruit.. our !eal.. the tropical lu'ury.

%he kind of link that we choose will depend upon the kind of discoursewe are seeking to create, and elegant repetition is not always

desirable. )t !ay sound pretentious in causal conversation, or createdangerous a!biguity in a legal docu!ent.

We have described referring e'pressions, repetition, and elegantrepetition as establishing *chains" of connected wds running throughdiscourse. Such lexical chains need not necessarily consist of wdswhich !ean the sa!e, howver. %hey !ay also be created by wdswhich associate with each other. %his association !ay be by virtue ofso!e for!al se!antic connection #good, for e'a!ple, associates withits opposite bad$, or it !ay be because wds are felt to belong to so!e!ore vaguely defined le'ical group (rock star; wld tour; millionaire; yacht). %his last kind of connection, though it is so!eti!es treated as


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a kind of cohesion is really too dependent upon individual e'perienceand knowledge to be treated as a for!al link.

Su!stitution( nother kind of for!al link bet sentences is thesubstitution of wds like do or so for a wd or group of wds which have

appeared in an earlier sentence: Do you like mangoes !es" I do. #!es" I think so.

)lli&sis: So!eti!es we don"t even need to provide a substitute for aword or phrase which as already been said. We can si!ply o!it it,and know that the !issing part can be reconstructed 2uitesuccessfully. )nstead of answering:$ould you like a glass of beer With: !es" I would like a glass of beer .We can just say: !es I would. %he rest is understood.

Con*unction: 7et another type of for!al relation bet sentences isprovided by those wds and phrases which e'plicitly draw attention tothe type of relationship which e'ists bet one sentence or clause andanother. %hese are con%unctions. %hey can si!ply add !ore info towhat has already been said #and, further!ore, add to that$ orelaborate or e'e!plify it #for instance, thus, in other wds$. %hey !aycontrast new info with old info, or put another side to the argu!ent#or, on the other hand, however, conversely$. %hey !ay relate newinfo to what has already been given in ter!s of causes #so,conse2uently, because, for this reason$ or in ti!e #for!erly, then, inthe end, ne't$ or they !ay indicate a new departure or a su!!ary

#by the way, well, to su! up, anyway$. %hey all indicate the relationship of utterances in the !ind or in theworld and are thus in a way conte'tual.

+. Why "ormal links are not enough

=or!al links bet sentences, then, are not enough to account for ourfeeling that a stretch of lang is discourse. %ehy are neiher necessarynor sufficient.

0.1 anguage functions:

What kind of rules enable people to infer the function of what is saidfro! its literal, for!al !eaningB)n order to discover how such inferences are !ade, we will need firstlyto e'a!ine the range of possible functions of language, and secondlyto try to understand how people correctly interpret the!.Cnderstanding this connection bet the for! and the function of langwill help us to e'plain how stretches of lang can be coherent withoutbeing cohesive. We cannot assu!e that these interpretations will be!ade in the sa!e way in all cultures and in all languages, sounderstanding how interpretation proceeds in the culture of the


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language we are teaching is crucial if we are to help foreign learnersto !ake their wds function in the way that they intend.=ro! now on, we shall use the ter! utterance for a unit of languageused by so!ebody in conte't to do sth to co!!unicate andreserve sentence for gra!!atically co!plete units regarded purely

for!ally, in isolation fro! their conte't and their function.

0. %he classification of acro(functions:

%here have been !any atte!pts to classify the !ain functions oflanguage #macro&functions$. One of the clearest and !ost influentialwas for!ulated by the linguist o!an


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)t"s interesting to speculate, if one accepts this classification, on theevolution of functions in each hu!an individual. %he crying baby isbeing e'pressive, although her cries are not really language at all, butinstinctive reactions to the envirno!etn. When she reali+es that bycontrolling these cries, and producing the! at will rather than

auto!atically, she can influence the behaviour of her parents, she hasprogressed to the directive function. >hatic co!!unication alsobegins very early. /huckling, gurgling, babbling, often have nofunction but to say: *@ere ) a!, and so are you". %he poetic function isalso apparent at an early statge: when young children latch on to aphrase and repeat it endlessly, without conveying any infor!ation.

%he referential function gains its pro!inence only at a later stage,and the !etalinguistic function also co!es later& these are thefunctions on which a considerable a!ount of attention is lavished atschool.Surprisingly, considering this course of develop!ent, a good deal offoreign language teaching begins with the !etalinguistic function, bye'plicitly stating the rules of gra!!ar.

0.9 icro(functions and functional language teaching:

We !ight go on to subdivide each function and specify !ore delicatecategories, or !icro(functions:. breakdown of the directive function for e'a!ple:

Fuestion

e2uests for

action

Orders

e2uests

for infor!ation

Directive function e2uests

e2uests

for help

>leas

e2uests

for sy!pathy

>rayers

/ertainly no list could ever clai! to be e'haustive and co!plete.


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0.A =unctional analysis and coherence:

%he idea of langugge function can go a long way towards solving thisproble! of what binds utterances together as discourse in theabsence of for!al links. )f we can ascertain the function of utterances,

we will be able to perceive a unity of a different kind. %he i!portant principle has been established, that !eaning varieswith conte't. =or!ally, out of conte't, a sentence has a kind of ti!e(free and place(free !eaning. Csed as an utterance in conte't it !ayhave !ay !eanings, which although they are connected to thisconte't(free sentence !eaning, !ay be e'tre!ely varied.

%hese two types of !eaning are distinguished by the ter!s semantic!eaning #the fi'ed conte't(free !eaning$ and pragmatic !eaning#the !eaning which the wds take on in a particular conte't, betparticular people. %he function of an utterance !ust be establishedprag!atically.@ow do hu!an beings interpret(usually 2uite accurately( what is!eant fro! what is saidBnd why does this divergence of functionand for! e'ist at allB Why do people not just speak directly and saywhat they !eanB =or an answer we9 will need to loos elsewhere: atthe theories of conversational principles and speech acts, ideaswhich, as their na!es suggest, were developed with spoken languagein !ind, but are as applicable to written discourse as to spoken.

0.6 /onversational principles: /o(operation:

%he idea that conversation proceedss according to a principle, knownand applied by all hu!an beings, was first proposed in a li!ited for!by the philosopher >aul -rice #14GA$, who put forward what hedescribed as the co/o&erative &rinci&le. ccording to this principle,we interpret language on the assu!ption that its sender is obeyingfour !a'i!s. We assu!e he or she is intending to:

• 0e -rue #the !a'i! of 2uality$

• 0e 0rie" #the !a'i! of 2uantity$

• 0e $elevant #the !a'i! of relevance$

•

0e Clear #the !a'i! of !anner$

Csing this assu!ption, co!bined with general knowledge of theworld, the receiver can reason fro! the literal, se!antic !eaning ofwhat is said to the prag!atic !eaning and induce what the senderis intending to do with hisHher wds.

When we talk abt people following the co(operative principle, thisdoes not !ean that they can consciously and e'plicitly for!ulate it tothe!selves. >eople act as though they know the principle just as theyact as though they know the rules of gra!!ar( though very few

people can even begin to for!ulate the!, and nobody can for!ulatethe! co!pletely.


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0.G =louting the co(operative principle:

%here are ti!es when !eaning derives fro! deliberate violations orflautings as -rice calls the! of the co(operative principle, always

provided that the sender intends the receiver to perceive the! assuch, and that this is how, in fact, the receiver does perceive the!.)t is possible to flout the 2uality !a'i! without lying. =or e'a!ple:*Fueen Iictoria is !ade of )ron". %hough it is not literally true, youwill perceive such re!arks as figures of speech. %hese are @yperbole,!etaphor, )rony and sarcas! and they will all depend upon theassu!ption that they will be interpreted as deliberate floutings of thecharge to be true rather than as untruths intended to deceive. oliteness:

%he politeness principle, like the co(operative principle, !ay befor!ulated as a series of !a'i!s which people assu!e are beingfollowed in the utterances of others. s with the co(operative principle

any flouting of these !a'i!s will take on !eaning, provided it isperceived for what it is. obin akoff for!ulated the! as follows:

• Don"t i!pose

• -ive options

• ake your receiver feel good.

%hese !a'i!s of the politeness principle e'plain !any of thosefre2uent utterances in which no new infor!ation is co!!unicated. )n3ng we often give orders, and !ake re2uests and pleas #directives$ in

the for! of elaborate 2uestions which give the option of refusal& weapologi+e for i!posing and add in praise to !ake our hearer feel


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good. /learly the politeness principle and the co!(operative principleare often in conflict with each other. >oliteness and truth are often!utually inco!patible and so are politeness and brevity. %heseconflicting de!ands of the two principles are so!ething of whichpeople are consciously awarre. )n english, there is even a ter! for the

surrender of truth to politeness: * white lie".

0.J %he social basis of conversational principles:

%he co(operative and politeness principles, and the tension bet the!,reflect a dual purpose in hu!an intercourse: to act efficiently togetherwith other people, and to create and !aintain social relationships.

%here are situations, and there are types of relationships, in whichone of these purposes beco!es do!inant, and the other hardly!atters at all. )n e!ergencies, when there is a need for i!!ediate

action, it is hardly appropriate to follow the politeness principle.8rown and evinson #14GJ$, who have studied politeness pheno!ena,suggest that teir origin is teh sa!e in all societies. ll hu!an beings,in order to enter into social relationships with each other, !ustacknowledge the face of other people. 8y this they !ean that peopleboth avoid intruding upon each other"s territory #physical territory, apart field of knowledge, a friendship$ and also seek to enlarge theterritory of others in akoff"s ter!s, !ake the other person feelgood presu!ably on the assu!ption that the sa!e will be done tothe!. %he specific nature of face varies fro! society to society.

%he precise way of indicating respect for face !ay be culture specific,

and not subject to direct translation. )n so!e cultures, initial refusal ofan offer !ay be !erely polite, and invite repetition& in others theopposite !ay be true.

%hourgh their reali+ations differ, the two, often conflicting, ai!s ofco!!unication to co(operate and to !aintain social relations areuniversal.

%he theory also goes so!e wayy towards answering the 2uestion ofwhy people speak indirectly. )t enables the! to give options and alsoto retreat behind the literal !eaning of what is said.

0. 4 Speech cts:

)nferring the function of what is said by considering its for! andconte't is an ability which is essential for the creation and receptionof coherent discourse and thus for successful co!!unication. %heprinciples of politeness and co(operation are not, on their own,enough to provide the e'planation for this inference. %o do this wealso need knowledge of the physical and social world. We also need to!ake assu!ptions abt the knowlege of the people with who! we areinteracting.n approach which tries to for!ulate how such knowledge is brought

into play is speech act theory . %his was first for!ulated by thephilosopher


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by another philosopher,


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0.11 Speech act theory and coherence:

Speech act theory provides us with a !eans of probing beneath thesurface of discourse and establishing the function of what is beingsaid.

We shall be able to e'a!ine the structure of discourse both in ter!sof surface relations of for!, and underlying relations of functions andacts.

%he fa!ily to which the act of ordering belongs is called directives.nother fa!ily of speech acts which has been suggested ise'pressives, which includes the act of thanking, apologi+ing,welco!ing, and congratulating. We also have the co!!issives, whichinclude acts of pro!ising and threatening.

0.1 Cnderlying force:

Speech act theory uses technical ter!s for these layers of intentionand interpretation. %he for!al literal !eaning of the wds is thelocution& the act which is perfor!ed by saying it the illocution& a thirdlayer is the perlocution or overall ai! of the discourse. n utterance issaid to have illocutionary force and perlocutionary force. )f we go backto the private"s utterance *)"ve been scrubbing the! all !orning andthey won"t co!e any cleaner", we can relate it to these three layersas follows:

1. %he locution: a state!ent conveying infor!ation that thespeaker has been cleaning his boots all !orning.. %he illocution: to challenge the sergeant"s order.3. %he perlocution: to under!ine the sergeant"s authority, or to be

cheeky, or to escape the duty of cleaning the boots.

;otice how !eaning beco!es !ore and !ore slippery as we !ovefro! one layer to the ne't. %his is so!ething which hu!an beingse'ploit to their advantage. )t enables the! to avoid co!!itingthe!selves and to retreat in front of danger& and this is one of the!ajor reasons why people speak indirectly. )ndirection also enables us

to give others the option of retreat. Fuite often, people e'plicitlydiscuss, or try to clarify the illocutionary and perlocutionary force, tofor!ulate the upshot of what is said.3ven in !ore casual situations people often try to get at the upshot ofwhat is being said with such utterances as *what are you trying to tell!eB"

0.10 >rag!atics, discourse analysis, and language teaching:

%he fact that !eaning is not constructed fro! the for!al language ofthe !essage alone is crucial in e'plaining what it is that !akespeople perceive so!e stretches of language as coherent discourse


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and others as disconnected ju!bles. )t is also i!portant for thesuccessful teaching and learning of foreign languages.

%he i!portance of prag!atic theories in lang learning is reallytwofold. =irstly, the divergence of function and for! !eans that we

cannot rely upon teachin only for!. )n production, learners need tochoose the wds which !ost suitable reali+e their intentiiioon, and thisdoes not always entail the !ost closely related for!. %here aer ti!eswhen !aking language function effectively is !ore i!portant thanproducing perfectly pronounced, gra!!atically correct sentences.Secondly, the linking of for! to function !ay help learners toorientate the!selves within a discourse.

%he underlying structure of the discourse !ay be a progression offunctional units, and a breakdown in prag!atic interpretation !ayeasily add to a learner losing hisHher way.)n order to *do things with wds" either actively, as languageproducers, or passively, as language understanders, we clearly need!ore tools than the for!al language syste!, though we do need thattoo. %he needs of the language user !ight be represented like this:

>ronunciation ang syste! -ra!!ar Iocabulary

Ioice

CS3 >aralanguage =ace -O 8ody

Knowledge /ultural World

easoning

%raditionally, language teaching has concentrated only on the hreelevels of the for!al language syste! pronunciation, gra!!ar, and

vocabulary and the way in which they function within the sentence,on the assu!ption that other aspects of co!!unication will followfairly auto!atically. )t re!ains true, of course, that the for!al syste!needs to be ac2uired in so!e way. )s is not, however, all that isneeded for co!!unication.What we need to decide as language teachers is the degree to whichother co!ponents of co!!unication need teaching. ll hu!an beingshave reasoning power, world knowledge, and knowledge of at leastone culture, but the divisions bet these categories, and the nature oftheir contents are not always clear.

%he prag!atic theories we have e'a!ined leave a nu!ber ofunasnwered 2uestions. )t is not always clear, for e'a!ple, where the


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conte't of an utterance ends and even when that is established weare still left with the vagueness of the central concept of relevance.Which ele!ents of the conte't are relevantB. nothe weakness is thei!plicit assu!ption that underlying !eaning can always befor!ulated in wds. Speech act theory assu!es that there is one neat,

verbally e'pressive illocution to each locution.

. -o vies o" 'iscourse structure as &ro'uct an' as&rocess

>rag!atics tends only to e'a!ine how !eaning develops at a givenpoint. )t provides us with so!ething like a snapshot of !eaning.Discourse is !ore like a !oving fil!, revealing itself in ti!e so!eti!es over long periods.

9.1ank structure

One way of representing the relationship of parts to a whole is as arank structure, in which each rank is !ade up of one or !ore of therank below. %he ranks of gra!!ar are

• Sentence

• /lause

• >hrase

• Word

epresented with the tree diagra!

Sentence

/lause /lause

>hrase >hrase >hrase >hrase >hrase

Word Word Word Word Word WordWord Word

8ecause such structures are conventional therefore culturally variablethe language learner, in order to be able to operate effectively as aparticipant in discourse, needs to be able both to identify what type ofdiscourse he or she is involved in, and to predict how it will typicallybe structured.

9.%he 8ir!ingha! School of Discourse nalysis


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pioneering and influential study in this field was carried out at theCniversity of 8ir!ingha! by Sinclair and /oulthard #14GA$. %hediscourse type it chose to analyse was school lessons.

S L / recorded a nu!ber of 8ritish pri!ary school lessons. On the

basis of these data they proposed a rank structure for these lessonsas follows:

• esson

• %ransaction

• 3'change

• ove

• ct

%hey then drew up rules, based on the data, showing how these acts

co!bine together to for! !oves and how !oves co!bine to for!various kinds of e'change rather as gra!!arians for!ulate rulesdescribing how words co!bine into phrases, or phrases into clauses.One kind of e'change, for e'a!ple, consisted of between one andthree !oves:Opening #answering$ #follow up$

4.3 Discourse typology: spoken and written& for!al and infor!al :

%raditionally, language teaching has divided discourse into two !ajorcategories, the spoken and the written, further divided into the fourskills of speaking and listening, writing and reading.

%he traditional division of language into the spoken and the written isclearly and sensibly based on a difference in production andreception: we use our !ouths and ears for one, and ours hands andeyes for the other. 7et as far as discourse structure is concerned, a!ore funda!ental distinction see!s to be bet for!al, planneddiscourse, which !ay be either written or spoken, and less for!al,

unplanned discourse which though it !ay also be either written orspoken is usually associated with speech. )nfor!al spoken discourseis so!ething in which the !odern foreign language learner, withopportunities for travel and social contact, is !ost likely to wish tosucceed, but also the discourse type he or she is likely to find hardest,precisely because it is so infor!al and unpredictable.

9.9/onversation as a discourse type:

%he ter! */onversation" is widely used, in a non(technical sense,usually with the i!plication that the talk is less for!al. We shall

define the ter! as follows: %alk !ay be classed as conversation when:)t is not pri!arily necessitated by a practical task.


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ny une2ual power of participants is partially suspended. %he nu!ber of participants is s!all. %urns are short. %alk is pri!arily for the participants and not for an outside audience.

lthough these definitions are i!precise, they are useful. %he boundary bet conversation and other discourse types is a fu++yone, and there are !any inter!ediate cases. se!inar, for e'a!ple,!ight co!e so!ewhere bet the two poles.

=or!al spoken discourse((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((/onversation

9.A%urn %aking:

Overlap of turns occurs in only abt A per cent of conversation or less,strongly suggesting that speakers so!ehow know e'actly when andwhere to enter. Where there is overlap bet turns it has so!e particularsignnificance: signalling annoyance, urgency, or a desire to correctwhat is being said. /onversely, pauses bet turns also carry particular!eaning.

%he significance of this approach for the langugage learner isconsiderable. %urn(taking !echanis!s, the way in which speakershold or pass the floor, vary bet cultures and bet languages. Overlap in

a given situation is !ore or less tolerated in so!e societies than inothers.3fficient turn(taking also involves factors which are not linguistic. 3yecontact is one strong !eans of signalling, and in 8ritish culture #invery general ter!s$ it can often be observed that speakers look awayduring their turn and then look their interlocutor in the eye at the end.8ody position and !ove!ent also play and i!portant part. )ntonationand volu!e contribute to turn(taking too.

%he relative status of the speakers, or the role which one of the! isplaying, are also i!portant. )n for!al situations roles can clearly givepeople special rights, but even in conversation where according to

our definition une2ual power is suspended it is unlikely thatknowledge of participants" social status will be wholly forgotten.Students fall silent when the professor speaks in the bar as well asin the se!inar.

9.6%urn types:

One kind of turn alternation the ethno!ethodologists describe is anad%acency pair. %his occurs when the utterance of one speaker !akesa particular kind of response very likely. greeting, for e'a!ple, islikely to be answered by another greeting. )n an adjacency pair, thereis often a choice of two likely responses. re2uest is !ost likely to be


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followed by either an acceptance or a refusal. )n such cases, one ofthe responses is ter!ed the preferred response #because it occurs!ost fre2uently$ and the other the dispreferred response #because itis less co!!on$.

1. Offer cceptance #preferred$ efusal #dispreferred$

. ssess!ent gree!ent #preferred$ Disagree!ent #dispreferred$

0. 8la!e Denial #pr.$ d!ission #dispr.$

9. Fuestion 3'pected answer #pr.$ Cne'pected ans. #dispr.$

So!eti!es the second part of an adjacency pair can be delayed by analternation of turns occurring within it.

e.g.

: Did you enjoy the !ealB8: #Did youB: yes$

8: So did ).

%his is known as an insertion seuence. %he topic of an insertion se2uence is inti!ately related to that of the!ain se2uence in which it occurs. So!eti!es, however, speakerssi!ply switch fro! one topic to another unrelated one, and then backagain. )n this latter case the insertion is known as a side seuence.

)nsertion and se2uences draw attention to the fact that conversationis discourse !utually constructed and negotiated in ti!e. Cnlikelectures, broadcasts, and speeches, a conversation is constructed and

e'ecuted as it happens, by two people, feeling their way forwardtogether. %here is no going back, crossing out, rewriting andrestructuring. %his is particularly evident in the pheno!enon knownas repair , in which participants correct either their own words or thoseof another participant, edging towards a situation in which !a'i!u!co!!unication is achieved.

4.7 Discourse as a process :

3thno!ethodology depicts conversation as discourse constructed andnegotiated bet the participants, following pre(established patterns,and !arking the direction they are taking in particular ways: withpauses, laughter, intonations, filler words, and established for!ulae.


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/ulture specific rules and procedures of turn(taking provide a!plebreeding ground for !isunderstanding. 3ntering and leavingconversation, bidding for a longer turn, refusing without appearingrude, changing the topic, are all notoriously difficult for foreignlearners: tasks for which the language classroo!, where turns are

patiently organised and controlled by the teacher, has hardlyprepared the!. )ndeed the teacher who constantly itnerrupts thestudents" discourse to correct every gra!!atical !istake not onlyviolates usual turn(taking procedures but !ay also hinder thestudents" ac2uisition of the!.

5. Discourse as 'ialogue.

5.1 Dialogue in co!!unnicative develop!ent(

Develop!entally, dialogue co!es first, both for the hu!an specied,and for the hu!an individual. We have no hard evidence of the originsof language in prehistoric co!!unities, but is see!s reasonable toassu!e that speech preceded writing and dialogue preceded!onologue.

s with societies, so with each individual infant. %urn(taking and

interaction are a!ong the first co!!unicative skills.

A.Disourse typology: reciprocity:

)n discourse analysis it has been fairly co!!on to distinguish bet twofunda!ental types of discourse: reciprocal and non&reciprocal.Discourse is reciprocal when there is at least a potential forinteraction, when the sender can !onitor reception and adjust to it(or, to put it in another way, where the receiver can influence thedevelop!ent of what is being said. )n non(reciprocal discourse,sender and receiver !ay have no opportunity for interaction. %he

prototype of non(reciprocal discourse is a book by a dead author. %hedistinction, however, is !isleading.bsolutely non(reciprocal discourse is unlikely. 3ven writers working insolitude try to for! so!e idea of the receiver of their work and adjustto it( the !eaningfulness of what they say can be viewed as a!easure of the success of that predicition and adjust!ent.

eciprocity is a 2uestion of degree. ll discourse is !ore or lessreciprocal, if only because it is based upon assu!ptions abt receivers.)t should also be clear that although there is a general tendency forspeech to be !ore reciprocal and writing to be less so, this is by no!eans necessarily true, and the reciprocal(non(reciprocal cline, likethe for!al(infor!al cline, cuts across the distinctionbet speech and


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writing. !onarch"s speech at a state opening of parlia!ent thoughspoken, is far! fro! the reciprocal end of the scale, but a scribbled!e!o fro! one teacher to another, though written, !ay trigger off aseries of replies and counter replies, and is thus highly reciprocal.

A.0)nfor!ation structure in discourse:

One widely accepted e'planation is that the ordering of infor!ation isdeter!ined by the sender"s hypotheses abt what the receiver doesand does not know. With interpretation we !ight divide infor!ationinto two types that which the sender thinks the receiver alreadyknows, and that which the sender thinks the receiver does not alreadyknow and label these two types given infor!ation and newinfor!ation respectively. ny unit of infor!ation !ay of coursechange status as the discourse proceeds, and what was new in onesentence beco!es given in the ne't, precisely because it has justbeen said. )ndeed, co!!unication !ight be defined as the conversionof new infor!ation into given infor!ation, and a successfulco!!unicator as a person who correctly assesses the state ofknowledge of his or her interlocutor. )f we !isjudge, and treat what isgiven as new, we will be boring& in the reverse case when we assu!ethe new to be given, we will be inco!prehensible.

typical discourse, then, proceeds roughly as follows:

-iven....... ;ew. -iven...... ;ew. -iven....... ;ew.

3ach given unit being already known by the receiver, or deriving fro!a preceding piece of new infor!ation.

Our choices a!ong the options for arranging the infor!ation areneither arbitrary, nor just aesthetic devices to ensure variety, buthave so!e co!!unicative funciton, !aking discourse !ore readilyco!prehensible.s we do !ake i!portant choicies bet alternative versions ofsentences, even though each one is correct in itself, then in asuccession of sentences, it is possible that the choice is being

dictated by the sentence before, each one having a knock(on effecton the structure of the ne't. t first then, it would see! that thisordering of infor!ation is another instance of a for!al connection betsentences in discourse. On closer inspection it turns out to be alsoconte'tual, dictated by what is going on in the !ind of the sender andthe assu!ptions he or she !akes about what is going on in the !indof the receiver.One way of understanding this is to view the discourse as proceedingby answering i!agined and unspoken 2uestions by the receiver. )nthis light, all discourse see!s to proceed like a dialogue, even if theother voice is only present as a ghost.


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3. 4nole'ge in 'iscourse

%he choices we !ake abt the order of the infor!ation in discoursereveal our own assu!ptions abt the world and abt the people we aretrying to co!!unicate with. %he truth of those assu!ptions givesunity to our discourse and success to our co!!unication. %heirfalsehood puts it in danger of collapse.

6.1 3vidence for Sche!ata :

%here are a nu!ber of pieces of evidence that the !ind does in facte!ploy knowledge sche!ata in the interpretation of discourse.One piece of evidence is the fact that people 2uestioned abt a te't orasked to recall it, fre2uently fill in details which they were not actuallygiven, but which a sche!a has provided for the!.

6./o!ple' sche!ata:

;ot surprisingly, considering the co!ple'ity of the interaction of

!inds, language, and the world, the description we have given so faris highly si!plified. cutal discourse is unlikely to be interpretablewith reference to a single sche!a. )n reality the !ind !ust activate!any sche!ata at once, each interacting with the other. )t !ust becapable of !oving rapidly fro! one to another, of using !ore thanone si!ultaneously, of focusing on a sub(sche!a #say a !enu(sche!a within a *restaurant(sche!a"$. )t !ust be capable of builidingnew sche!ata, and of ditching old ones.>articipants in conversation have certain ( no doubt highly culture(bound assu!ptions abt possible courses for a conversation, lengthand type of turn, total duration, and so on. ess reciprocal discourse

will also activate sche!ata.

6.3 elevance :

Sche!ata, then, are data structures, representing stereotypicalpatterns, which we retrieve fro! !e!ory and e!ploy in ourunderstanding of discourse. %he successful co!!unicator selects justthose features which differ fro! this sche!a, enabling the receiver toadjust it and to bring it closeer to the individual instance which isbeing described.


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Sche!a theory can go a long way towards e'plaining the sender"schoice and arrange!ent of infor!ation in co!!unication. One of-rice"s !a'i!s tells us to *be relevant"( but it doesn"t atte!pt toe'plain the notion of relevance.Sperber and Wilson #14J6$ have used a !odel of co!!unication

which is very closely related to sche!a theory to e'plain the conceptof relevance. @u!an !inds, they say, have a long(ter! ai!: toincrease their knowledge of the world. )n each encounter withdiscourse, we start with a set of assu!ptions, whose accuracy weseek to i!prove. )nfor!ation is relevant when it allow us to alter ourknowledge structures to give us a !ore accurate representation ofthe world. On the other hand, successful co!!unication !ust workwithin the fra!ework of the receiver"s e'isiting knowledge& it !ustnot !ake too !any de!ands. Successful co!!unication gives usnew infor!ation, but works within the fra!ework of the receiver"sassu!ptions.

Sche!a allow hu!an co!!unication to be econo!ical. )t would behard to see how co!!unication could take place if we could not takeso!e sort of !utually shared knowledge for granted, if everydiscourse had to begin fro! scratch./o!!unication also suffers when people !ake false assu!ptions abtshared sche!ata.isjudge!ents and !is!atches of sche!ata are particularly likelywhen people try to co!!unicate across cultuers and acrosslanguages. =or this reason sche!a theory is of as great i!portance in

language teaching as it is in discourse analysis.

6.4 Discourse deviation :

%rying to understand the process by which two or !ore people co!etogether through te't to create discourse and thus co!!unicate canbe a very sti!ulatin and e'citing investigation. 8ut there are alsoti!es when it can see! depressing. )ncreasingly, we see! to be

talking abt the unity and !eaningfulness of discourse in ter!s ofconfor!ity: to another hu!an being, it see!s that the !ostsuccessful co!!unication will take place where there is already aconsiderable coincidence bet !ental states, and teh alterationachieved is only !ini!al. >eople who see the world differently, andtherefore need to co!!unicate, both for !utual education and toavoid conflict, !ay see! the least likely to be able to do so.

What happens to those who step outside the predictable patterns andregularititesB Strangely, so!e are vilified and so!e are glorified.So!e are called !ad, disturbed, !aladjusted, rebellious, evencri!inal& others are called individualists, poets, co!edians,philosophers. )t is easy to escape this issue by saying that the


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discourses of the two groups have little in co!!on& but discourseanalysis should teach us that it is as likely to be our attitude to whatthey say that categorises the!. 7et however we !ay judge deviation,whether negatively or positively, being a social outsider is very !ucha case of non(confor!ity to the nor!s and regularities of discourse

structure.

%he discourse strategies of a foreign speaker !ay see! refreshinge'actly because they do not confor! to conventions of the culturewhose language they are learning& on the other hand they !ay causeserious !isunderstanding and breakdown of co!!unication. %he taskof the language teacher is a difficult one: to facilitate a degree ofsocialisation which will enable learners to send and receive te't asdiscourse, while also guarding their right to be different and to enrichothers through that difference, bringing to the language they arelearning the wealth of their own individuality and culture. s in thecase of deviation within the social group: we do not have to judgedifference negatively.

Success in co!!unication depends as !uch upon the receiver as onthe sender. 8etween speakers of different languages it depends as!uch upon the native speaker as on the foreign learner.


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about discourse - cook

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