Discourse Analysis Lecture 1

Discourse Analysis Lecture 1General Requirements

Attendance:

- lecture attendance: 50%

(3-4 sessions out of 7)

- tutorial attendance: 70%

(5 sessions out of 7)Activity: participation in class discussions + homework

Grade: 40% activity (class activity + a written assignment) + 60% the exam gradeOutline of Tutorials

Course 1: Introduction. Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis (I)Course 2: Introduction. Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis (II)Course 3: Positioning and Point of View

Course 4: Intertextuality

Course 5: Linguistic Tools for Doing Discourse Analysis

Course 6: Prejudice in Discourse

Course 7: Advertising in DiscourseWHAT IS DISCOURSE?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z02Ie8wKKRg

(1) language in use in society / meaning making through language / semiosis(used as an uncountable noun) all the phenomena of symbolic interaction and communication between people, usually through spoken or written language or visual representation

(Bloor & Bloor 2007: 6)

(2) Discourse is frequently used to refer to the general communication that takes place in specific institutional contexts. For example, we can talk about the discourse of science, legal discourse, and so on. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 7) ... it is an abstract concept that does not bear much relationship to individual communicative events since each of these discourses is realized in different ways depending on the situation involved. Thus the discourse of science includes many types of interaction, including lectures, research reports, theoretical discussions, to name but a few. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 7) the language associated with a social practice Q&A:What types of interaction/genres can we identify in the following categories of discourse: political discourse; legal discourse; media discourse?

(3) Discourse used as a countable noun also reflects a particular worldview, position or ideology, such as liberal discourse, conservative discourse etc. (Fairclough 2003) See handoutWHAT IS TEXT?Text is a product of discourse. It is normally used to describe a linguistic record (a text) of a communicative event. This may be an electronic recording or a written text, which may or may not incorporate visual materials or, in the case of an electronic text, music. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 7)

Texts are specific instances of dicourse. They can draw upon various discourses (in the sense of worldview), instantiate particular types of interaction (genres), and incorporate other texts (intertextuality).

They are characterised by such elements as cohesion, coherence, intentionality etc. Discourse domain is the term for a socially recognized context within which the discourse takes place. If we talk of scientific discourse, science is the domain. [...] A domain may have a narrower focus and embrace, say, the social setting in which the discourse takes place. Thus offices, universities, and places of worship along with their recognized structures may be seen as domains. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 8)Domains consist of social practices and genres.

Q&A:

What is the domain of media discourse?

What is the domain of BBC news?

People within specific domains engage in social practices. Technically, these people are often referred to as actors. Social practices are human behaviours which involve following certain socially established conventions (some may say rules) within which the actors have some degree of individual freedom and opportunities for unique behaviour. Most social practices involve knowledge of linguistic and discoursal conventions in whole or in part. [...] The knowledge and skills required to engage in social practices are part of socially shared knowledge. They may have been picked up through experience or contact with other actors or they may have been learned via specific instruction within the home environment or as part of education or training. [...] A single instance of a social practice is a social event, which when language-based (such as a committee meeting) is also known as a speech event. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 8)

Social practices can be seen as articulations of different types of social element which are associated with particular areas of social life the social practice of classroom teaching in contemporary British education, for example.

Elements that make up a social practice:

Action and interaction

Social relations

Persons (with beliefs, attitudes, histories etc.)

The material world

Discourse (Fairclough 2003: 25)

Identify the domain and the social practice in the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cosu2tyqdgQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C21Pm1BUsRw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36MEsWC1Pzc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOL7wzEIZSc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeULGbSbsuU Genre is the term used for a specific product of a social practice. It is a form of discourse, culturally recognized, which, more or less, obeys socially agreed structures. [...] Examples of literary and linguistic genres are novels, poems, university lectures, biology lab reports, letters, theatre reviews. [...] Genre is also sometimes used as a term for social events that use regular linguistic and discoursal patterns, such as committee meeting, and thus, to some extent, can overlap with the term social practice. Genres can also be seen from the point of the institutions within which they evolved. Thus, minutes of meetings, annual reports, business correspondence are associated with business institutions; lectures, seminars, tutorials, textbooks, notes, essays, and examination papers are associated with educational institutions. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 8)

See HandoutGenre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs. Most often it is highly structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value. These constraints, however, are often exploited by the expert members of the discourse community to achieve private intentions within the framework of socially recognized purpose(s). (Swales cited in Bhatia 1993: 13)

Other definitions of genre(s):

a socially ratified way of using language in connection with a particular type of social activity (Fairclough 1995: 14)

ways of acting or interacting through speaking or writing (Fairclough 2003: 26)

Participanta and social roles

The participants [in social practices] are those persons who are engaged in a specific act of discourse. These may be speakers, listeners, readers, writers and each will be playing a social role. The term role is used much as it is in drama where an actor plays a role in a film or dramatic production. Most of us are called on to play many roles in our normal everyday life. For example, take a man named Ahmed. At home, he is a husband and father but, during his working day, he is an architect. He is also an accountant of the local tennis club where, on Saturday mornings, he acts as an umpire. In each of these roles he is engaged in different social practices, is likely to use different genres and the language associated with those practices and genres. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 10)Q&A:

What are your social roles? Do you use language differently when you perform them?

If one day you were to become the subject of local news, what social roles could you distinguish in that context?

Discourse Analysis has been employed:

(1) to identify and describe how people use language to communicate; (2) to develop methods of analysis that help to reveal the categories (or varieties) of discourse and the essential features of each; and (3) to build theories about how communication takes place. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 12)

Critical Discourse Analysis is a branch of discourse analysis which starts from the premise that there is a social problem or wrong (in a particular social context, related to certain social domains and practices) which has a linguistic/discursive aspect, for example discrimination, manipulation or other practices that involve unequal power relations. Its main purposes are to analyse discourse in order to reveal such problems and power relations, so that they may be rectified.

Activity:

This activity invites you to engage in an (imaginary) social act and consider its relationship with language and discourse. Imagine that you are dissatisfied with some expensive product you have purchased (for example, a computer, a refrigerator, or a camera); what means do you have for complaining?

Consider whom you would contact (participants in the potential exchange), how you would contact them (possible modes and genres), what responses you would expect, what your intended outcome would be, and how you would hope to achieve it. Consider how you feel with respect to your relationship with the company that produced the product in terms of power relationships. Would you feel in a position of power or weakness?

References:

Bhatia, V.K. (1993). Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London and New York: Longman.Bloor, M. And Bloor, Th. (2007). The Practice of Critical Discourse Analysis: An Introduction. London: Hodder Education.

Fairclough, N. (2003). Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge.