RELEVANCE OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS TO LANGUAGE EDUCATION

RESEARCH

Introduction

The linguistic turn of the later twentieth century has led to a widespread and

growing interest in discourse, both in organization studies and in the social sciences

more generally. Since the late 1970s, organization scholars have begun to move

beyond a conception of language as a functional, instrumental conduit of information,

and drew attention to its symbolic and metaphorical aspects as constructive of

social and organizational reality (Dandridge, Mitroff and Joyce, 1980: Manning,

1979. Discourse analysis, in the broad sense of utilizing textual data in order to gain

insights to particular phenomena, has had a rich and varied heritage in the social

sciences, spanning the fields of sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science

and history (OConnor, 1995) (2006:17).

The word discourse refers to more than just talk—it encompasses any

meaningful use of language as well as communicative gestures. By looking closely at

discourse, we can gain information regarding two of the primary functions of

language are to support the performance of social activities and social identities and to

support human affiliation within cultures, social groups, and institutions. In other

words, Discourse Analysis in education is inextricably linked to the enactment of

social activities (e.g., classroom lessons), the formation and maintenance of social

identities (e.g., students as capable learners), the interactions of social groups (e.g.,

classroom communities), and the establishment of social institutions (e.g., schools).

In the final decade of the 20th century, the quality of classroom discourse has

become a prominent focus in discussions of school reform. There are several reasons

for this increased attention. According to two economists of education (Murnane &

Levy, 1996), the “new basic skills” required for high-wage jobs include “the ability to

communicate effectively, both orally and in writing” and “the ability to work in

groups with persons of various backgrounds” (p. 32). Demographic and technological

changes in society have meant that these same skills are necessary for effective

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participation in and maintenance of a democratic and just society. As a result, schools

are now charged with creating not only individual human capital for a healthy

economy, but also social capital for healthy communities. At the same time, what

counts as knowledge has shifted away from inert information passively received from

books and teachers toward dynamic understanding that is collaboratively constructed

in discussion among students.

Classroom discourse analysis has been a major theme in much research

linguistic, applied linguistic and educational — for some years now. Sinclair and

Coulthard (1975: 15) suggested that an interest in classroom language studies

dated from the 1940s. Since the 1960s and early 1970s on, a great deal of

research into many areas of discourse, including classroom discourse, has been

undertaken in the English-speaking world. This development paralleled the upsurge

of scholarly interest in linguistics and applied linguistics in the same period, while

the invention of the tape recorder, later augmented by the emergence of cheap video

recording facilities, rendered much more accessible than hitherto the whole

enterprise of recording talk and analysing it. Very various are the models of

classroom discourse that have emerged, some drawing on one or more of

several traditions of linguistics, others on ethnographic approaches, others on

various psychological approaches.

Thus this paper is focusing to describe the significances of discourse analysis

in education and its relevancy with education research that mainly concern on

classroom discourse analysis.

Defining Discourse

Since its introduction to modern science the term 'discourse' has taken various,

sometimes very broad, meanings. Originally the word 'discourse' comes from Latin

'discursus' which denoted 'conversation, speech'. Thus understood, however, discourse

refers to too wide an area of human life, discourse from the vantage point of

linguistics and also applied linguistics.

There is no agreement among linguists as to the use of the term discourse in

that some use it in reference to texts, while others claim it denotes speech which is for

instance illustrated by the following definition: "Discourse: a continuous stretch of

(especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit

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such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative" (Crystal 1992:25). On the other hand

Dakowska, being aware of differences between kinds of discourses indicates the unity

of communicative intentions as a vital element of each of them. Consequently she

suggests using terms 'text' and 'discourse' almost interchangeably betokening the

former refers to the linguistic product, while the latter implies the entire dynamics of

the processes (Dakowska 2001:81). According to Cook (1990:7) novels, as well as

short conversations or groans might be equally rightfully named discourses.

Seven criteria which have to be fulfilled to qualify either a written or a spoken

text as a discourse have been suggested by Beaugrande (1981). These include:

Cohesion - grammatical relationship between parts of a sentence essential for

its interpretation;

Coherence - the order of statements relates one another by sense.

Intentionality - the message has to be conveyed deliberately and consciously;

Acceptability - indicates that the communicative product needs to be

satisfactory in that the audience approves it;

Informativeness - some new information has to be included in the discourse;

Situationality - circumstances in which the remark is made are important;

Intertextuality - reference to the world outside the text or the interpreters'

schemata;

Nowadays, however, not all of the above mentioned criteria are perceived as

equally important in discourse studies, therefore some of them are valid only in

certain methods of the research (Beaugrande 1981, cited in Renkema 2004:49).

Starting point of discourse analysis

The first modern linguist who commenced the study of relation of sentences

and coined the name 'discourse analysis', which afterwards denoted a branch of

applied linguistics, was Zellig Harris (Cook 1990:13). Originally, however, it was not

to be treated as a separate branch of study - Harris proposed extension of grammatical

examination which reminded syntactic investigations.

The emergence of this study is a result of not only linguistic research, but also

of researchers engaged in other fields of inquiry, particularly sociology, psychology,

anthropology and psychotherapy (Trappes-Lomax 2004:133). In 1960s and 1970s

other scholars, that is philosophers of language or those dealing with pragmatics

enormously influenced the development of this study as well. Among other 3

contributors to this field the Prague School of Linguists, whose focusing on

organization of information in communicative products indicated the connection of

grammar and discourse, along with text grammarians are worth mentioning

(McCarthy 1991:6).

A significant contribution to the evolution of discourse analysis has been made by

British and American scholars. In Britain the examination of discourse turned towards

the study of the social functions of language. Research conveyed at the University of

Birmingham fruited in creating a thorough account of communication in various

situations such as debates, interviews, doctor-patient relations, paying close attention

to the intonation of people participating in talks as well as manners particular to

circumstances. Analysis of the factors essential for succession of decently made

communication products on the grounds of structural-linguistic criteria was another

concern of British scholars. Americans, on the other hand, focused on examining

small communities of people and their discourse in genuine circumstances. Apart

from that, they concentrated on conversation analysis inspecting narratives in addition

to talks and the behavior of speakers as well as patterns repeating in given situations.

Division and specification of types of discourse along with social limitations of

politeness and thorough description of face saving acts in speech is also American

scholars' contribution (McCarthy 1991:6).

The world of politics and features of its peculiar communicative products are

also of concern to discourse analysts. Having carefully investigated that area of

human activity scholars depicted it as characterized by frequent occurrence of face

saving acts and euphemisms. One other sphere of life of particular interest to applied

linguists is the judicature and its language which is incomprehensible to most

common citizens, especially due to pages-long sentences, as well as peculiar

terminology. Moreover, educational institutions, classroom language and the language

that ought to be taught to enable learners to successfully comprehend both oral and

written texts, as well as participate in real life conversations and produce native-like

communicative products is the domain of discourse analysis. Last but not least,

influence of gender on language production and perception is also examined

(Renkema 2004, Trappes-Lomax 2004).

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The Significance of Discourse Analysis in Language Teaching and Learning

To attain a good command of a foreign language, learners should either be

exposed to it in genuine circumstances and with natural frequency, or painstakingly

study lexis and syntax assuming that students have some contact with natural input.

Classroom discourse seems to be the best way of systematizing the linguistic code

that learners are to acquire. The greatest opportunity to store, develop and use the

knowledge about the target language is arisen by exposure to authentic discourse in

the target language provided by the teacher (Dakowska 2001:86).

Language is not only the aim of education as it is in the case of teaching

English to Polish students, but also the means of schooling by the use of mother

tongue. Having realized that discourse analysts attempted to describe the role and

importance of language in both contexts simultaneously paying much attention to

possible improvement to be made in these fields.

It has also been settled that what is essential to be successful in language

learning is interaction, in both written and spoken form. In addition, students' failures

in communication which result in negotiation of meaning, requests for explanation or

reorganization of message contribute to language acquisition. One of the major

concerns of discourse analysts has been the manner in which students ought to be

involved in the learning process, how to control turn-taking, provide feedback as well

as how to teach different skills most effectively on the grounds of discourse analysis'

offerings (Trappes-Lomax 2004:153).

Application of discourse analysis to teaching grammar

There are a number of questions posed by discourse analysts with reference to

grammar and grammar teaching. In particular, they are interested in its significance

for producing comprehensible communicative products, realization of grammar items

in different languages, their frequency of occurrence in speech and writing which is to

enable teaching more natural usage of the target language, as well as learners' native

tongue (McCarthy 1991:47).

While it is possible to use a foreign language being unaware or vaguely aware

of its grammatical system, educated speakers cannot allow themselves to make even

honest mistakes, and the more sophisticated the linguistic output is to be the more

thorough knowledge of grammar gains importance. Moreover, it is essential not only

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for producing discourse, but also for their perception and comprehension, as many

texts take advantage of cohesive devices which contribute to the unity of texts, but

might disturb their understanding by a speaker who is not aware of their occurrence.

Anaphoric reference, which is frequent in many oral and written texts,

deserves attention due to problems that it may cause to learners at various levels. It is

especially important at an early stage of learning a foreign language when learners fail

to follow overall meaning turning much attention to decoding information in a given

clause or sentence. Discourse analysts have analyzed schematically occurring items of

texts and how learners from different backgrounds acquire them and later on produce.

Thus, it is said that Japanese students fail to distinguish the difference between he and

she, while Spanish pupils have problems with using his and your. Teachers, being

aware of possible difficulties in teaching some aspects of grammar, should pay

particular attention to them during the introduction of the new material to prevent

making mistakes and errors (McCarthy 1991:36).

The most prominent role in producing sophisticated discourse, and therefore

one that requires much attention on the part of teachers and learners is that of words

and phrases which signal internal relation of sections of discourse, namely

conjunctions. McCarthy (1991) claims that there are more than forty conjunctive

words and phrases, which might be difficult to teach. Moreover, when it comes to the

spoken form of language, where and, but, so, then are most frequent, they may take

more than one meaning, which is particularly true for and. Additionally, they not only

contribute to the cohesion of the text, but are also used when a participant of a

conversation takes his turn to speak to link his utterance to what has been said before

(McCarthy 1991:48).

The foregoing notions that words crucial for proper understanding of

discourse, apart from their lexical meaning, are also significant for producing natural

discourse in many situations support the belief that they should be pondered on by

both teachers and students. Furthermore, it is advisable to provide learners with

contexts which would exemplify how native users of language take advantage of

anaphoric references, ellipses, articles and other grammar related elements of

language which, if not crucial, are at least particularly useful for proficient

communication (McCarthy 1991:62).

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Application of discourse analysis to teaching vocabulary

What is probably most striking to learners of a foreign language is the quantity

of vocabulary used daily and the amount of time that they will have to spend

memorizing lexical items. Lexis may frequently cause major problems to students,

because unlike grammar it is an open-ended system to which new items are

continuously added. That is why it requires close attention and, frequently,

explanation on the part of the teacher, as well as patience on the part of the student.

Scholars have conducted in-depth research into techniques employed by

foreign language learners concerning vocabulary memorization to make it easier for

students to improve their management of lexis. The conclusion was drawn that it is

most profitable to teach new terminology paying close attention to context and co-text

that new vocabulary appears in which is especially helpful in teaching and learning

aspects such as formality and register. Discourse analysts describe co-text as the

phrases that surround a given word, whereas, context is understood as the place in

which the communicative product was formed (McCarthy 1991:64).

From studies conducted by discourse analysts emerged an important idea of

lexical chains present in all consistent texts. Such a chain is thought to be a series of

related words which, referring to the same thing, contribute to the unity of a

communicative product and make its perception relatively easy. Additionally, they

provide a semantic context which is useful for understanding, or inferring the

meaning of words, notions and sentences. Links of a chain are not usually limited to

one sentence, as they may connect pairs of words that are next to one another, as well

as stretch to several sentences or a whole text. The relation of words in a given

sequence might be that of reiteration or collocation, however, analyst are reluctant to

denote collocation as a fully reliable element of lexical cohesion as it refers only to

the likelihood of occurrence of some lexical items. Nevertheless, it is undeniably

helpful to know collocations as they might assist in understanding of communicative

products and producing native-like discourse (McCarthy 1991:65).

Since lexical chains are present in every type of discourse it is advisable to

familiarize learners with the way they function in, not merely because they are there,

but to improve students' perception and production of expressive discourse.

Reiteration is simply a repetition of a word later in the text, or the use of synonymy,

but what might require paying particularly close attention in classroom situation is

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hyponymy. While synonymy is relatively easy to master simply by learning new

vocabulary dividing new words into groups with similar meaning, or using thesauri,

hyponymy and superordination are more abstract and it appears that they require

tutelage. Hyponym is a particular case of a more general word, in other words a

hyponym belongs to a subcategory of a superordinate with narrower meaning, which

is best illustrated by an example: Brazil, with her two-crop economy, was even more

severely hit by the Depression than other Latin American states and the country was

on the verge of complete collapse (Salkie 1995:15). In this sentence the word Brazil is

a hyponym of the word country - its superordinate. Thus, it should not be difficult to

observe the difference between synonymy and hyponymy: while Poland, Germany

and France are all hyponyms of the word country, they are not synonymous.

Discourse analysts imply that authors of communicative products deliberately vary

discursive devices of this type in order to bring the most important ideas to the fore,

which in case of English with its wide array of vocabulary is a very frequent

phenomenon (McCarthy 1991, Salkie 1995).

One other significant contribution made by discourse analysts for the use of

vocabulary is noticing the omnipresence and miscellaneous manners of expressing

modality. Contrary to popular belief that it is conveyed mainly by use of modal verbs

it has been proved that in natural discourse it is even more frequently communicated

by words and phrases which may not be included in the category of modal verbs, yet,

carry modal meaning. Lexical items of modality inform the participant of discourse

not only about the attitude of the author to the subject matter in question (phrases such

as I believe, think, assume), but they also give information about commitment,

assertion, tentativeness (McCarthy 1991:85).

Discourse analysts maintain that knowledge of vocabulary-connected

discourse devices supports language learning in diverse manners. Firstly, it ought to

bring students to organize new items of vocabulary into groups with common context

of use to make them realize how the meaning of a certain word might change with

circumstances of its user or co-text. Moreover, it should also improve learners'

abilities to choose the appropriate synonym, collocation or hyponym (McCarthy

1991:71).

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Application of discourse analysis to teaching text interpretation

Interpretation of a written text in discourse studies might be defined as the act

of grasping the meaning that the communicative product is to convey. It is important

to emphasize that clear understanding of writing is reliant on not only what the author

put in it, but also on what a reader brings to this process. McCarthy (1991) points out

that reading is an exacting action which involves recipient's knowledge of the world,

experience, ability to infer possible aims of discourse and evaluate the reception of the

text.

Careful research into schemata theory made it apparent that mere knowledge

of the world is not always sufficient for successful discourse processing.

Consequently, scholars dealing with text analysis redefined the concept of schemata

dividing it into two: content and formal schemata. Content, as it refers to shared

knowledge of the subject matter, and formal, because it denotes the knowledge of the

structure and organization of a text. In order to aid students to develop necessary

reading and comprehension skills attention has to be paid to aspects concerning the

whole system of a text, as well as crucial grammar structures and lexical items. What

is more, processing written discourse ought to occur on global and local scale at

simultaneously, however, it has been demonstrated that readers employ different

strategies of reading depending on what they focus on (McCarthy 1991:168).

Discourse Analysis and Second Language Learning

Language learners face the monumental task of acquiring not only new

vocabulary, syntactic patterns, and phonology, but also discourse competence,

sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence, and interactional competence. They

need opportunities to investigate the systematicity of language at all linguistic levels,

especially at the highest level (Riggenbach, 1999; Young and He, 1998). Without

knowledge of and experience with the discourse and sociocultural patterns of the

target language, second language learners are likely to rely on the strategies and

expectations acquired as part of their first language development, which may be

inappropriate for the second language setting and may lead to communication

difficulties and misunderstandings.

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One problem for second language learners is limited experience with a variety

of interactive practices in the target language. Therefore, one of the goals of second

language teaching is to expose learners to different discourse patterns in different

texts and interactions. One way that teachers can include the study of discourse in the

second language classroom is to allow the students themselves to study language, that

is, to make them discourse analysts (see Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000; McCarthy &

Carter, 1994; Riggenbach, 1999). By exploring natural language use in authentic

environments, learners gain a greater appreciation and understanding of the discourse

patterns associated with a given genre or speech event as well as the sociolinguistic

factors that contribute to linguistic variation across settings and contexts. For

example, students can study speech acts in a service encounter, turn-taking patterns in

a conversation between friends, opening and closings of answering machine

messages, or other aspects of speech events. Riggenbach (1999) suggests a wide

variety of activities that can easily be adapted to suit a range of second language

learning contexts.

Discourse Analysis in Language Education Research

Discourse analysis in education has been employed in many different ways

in Applied Linguistics. It has been employed to investigate classroom

interaction and to develop areas such as teacher training, testing and materials

design. It has helped to develop our understanding of how constructs such as

learning and competence are realised in interaction. This interaction is mainly

taken place between teacher- students and among students in the classroom. Therefore

discourse in the classroom has become the focus of discourse in education.

Classroom discourse analysis refers essentially to the analysis of texts in classroom

contexts, and especially to analysis of classroom talk. However, as Martin-Jones et al.

(2008: xiii), point out that in current literature, classroom discourse refers both to

‘talk-ininteraction’ in classrooms, and to the critical poststructural view of discourse

as ‘ways of understanding and constituting the social world’

Classrooms are complex places where teachers and students create and re-

create, adopt and adapt, and engage in a full range of human interactions. Teachers

and students are viewed as active agents. Although teachers and students must act

within the events, contexts, and settings in which they find themselves, and although

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they must react to the actions of others and the social institutions of which they are a

part, they nonetheless act on the worlds in which they live.

At the center of what happens in classrooms is language. The language used

by teachers and students, the language of texts and textbooks, the language of school

and school district policies, the language of parents and children as they interact with

each other and with educators, and myriad other uses of language. Language is both

the object of classroom lessons (e.g., learning to read, write, and use academic

discourse) as well as the means of learning (e.g., through classroom discussions and

lectures, reading, and writing). Thus, language not only is the object of study in

research on classroom language and literacy events but it is also the means through

which the research occurs. It is through language that researchers conduct interviews

and develop coding and other means of analyzing observations, videotapes, and other

data, and it is through language that researchers conceptualize, write up, and report

their research.

What people do in interaction with each other is complex, ambiguous, and

indeterminate, and it often involves issues of social identity, power relations, and

broad social and cultural processes. At the same time, every event provides

opportunities for people to create new meanings, new social relationships, and new

futures that eschew the reproductive tendencies of what is and what was. By focusing

attention on actual people acting and reacting to each other, creating and re-

creating the worlds in which they live.

Cazden (1988) Share the assumption that what goes on in classrooms is so

constituted by language (Cazden 1988), that analysis of language (and of other

semiotic systems) is central to understanding ways in which knowledge is constructed

in classrooms, ways in which learning occurs (or not), and ways in which

interpersonal relations are constructed and enacted in classrooms. As Christie (2002:

2) argues: unless we are willing to engage seriously with the discourse patterns

particular to the institution of schooling, then we fail genuinely to understand it. It is

in language after all that the business of schooling is primarily accomplished. A

further shared assumption, as Christie (2002: 3) notes, is that classroom work consists

of structured activity that is shaped by rules, routines and patterns of interactions

between teachers and students. Although such shared assumptions characterize the

work of those who engage in classroom discourse analysis, there are important 11

differences in how these assumptions are realized. In addressing these differences, it

is useful to note, very briefly, some of the major historical developments in the

field.

Classroom discourse analysis has a relatively short history that can be traced

from around the 1960s (Christie 2002). Although there were a number of studies at

the time that promoted analysis of classrooms through the use of observation

schedules, only approaches that have focused, in various ways, on analysis of actual

classroom talk can properly be described as involving classroom discourse analysis.

There two main approaches that have been developed so far. They are linguistic

oriented analysis and critical analysis.

Linguistic Oriented of Classroom discourse.

Research within linguistic analysis of classroom discourse (‘turns,

sequences, and meanings’ ) has been shaped, especially in the American tradition, by

the theoretical perspectives of Conversation Analysis, ethnography, and

ethnomethodology. Such work has sought insights into ‘classroom aims and

events’ through the detailed account of patterns of interaction within those

classrooms. The purposes of such work are emphasizing the socio-cultural nature of

teaching and learning processes, incorporate participants’ perspectives on their own

behaviour, and offering holistic analyses sensitive to levels of context in which

interactions and classrooms are situated.

There is a long and very rich tradition of ethnographic research into classroom

interaction, which has also focused on the nature and implications of classroom

discourse. Researchers within this tradition who draw on ethnomethodology have

typically undertaken closer and more detailed analyses of specific features of

classroom talk. They often contrast features of classroom discourse with those of

everyday conversations in order to highlight the distinctive nature of classroom talk

(e.g. Baker 1991). Thus, common features of classroom interaction, such as initiating

topics; turn taking; asking and responding to questions, are highlighted in order to

focus on the specific roles of teacher and students. A feature of such research is the

detailed account of recurring patterns or phenomena within the classroom. While

large quantities of data may be used in ethnomethodological studies to explore the 12

nature of recurring patterns, the focus is typically on a detailed account of specific

discourse features, rather than on any attempt to provide a comprehensive overview.

More recent developments within the tradition of ‘turns, sequences, and

meanings’ have included microethnography and critical ethnography . Such

developments interconnect with the critical analysis.

Analysis with Linguistic Orientation Research that takes a more linguistic

orientation to classroom discourse analysis can be traced back to Sinclair and

Coulthard’s (1975). As part of their more general goal of developing a systematic

analysis of discourse, Sinclair and Coulthard focused on language interaction

within classrooms. Drawing on Halliday’s (1961) ‘scale and category’ grammar, they

developed a system of analysis that included categories of lesson, transaction,

exchange, move and act. Their analysis thus included larger and smaller units of

language in ways that provided a systematic overview of an entire lesson, while

at the same time enabling the study of finer detail of specific utterances and

exchanges between participants.

Research incorporating a linguistic orientation to classroom discourse analysis

has largely been tied to developments in systemic functional linguistics (e.g. Halliday

1978, 1994). Such developments have continued to be influential within the British

tradition, and also in Australia. The development from ‘scale and category grammar’

to the more comprehensive systemic functional social semiotic theory of language has

provided access to a wide range of analytic resources. Importantly, for classroom

discourse analysts, these resources offer the possibility of dealing systematically with

large quantities of classroom discourse, and also of undertaking layers of analysis at

varying levels of detail.

An example that illustrates research within the linguistic tradition can be seen

in the work of Frances Christie (e.g. 1997, 2002). Perhaps the most influential

Australian researcher in the field of classroom discourse analysis, Christie’s

work is explicitly located in relation to systemic functional theory and it draws

on discourse analytic resources available from that theory. Key notions in Christie’s

work are those of curriculum macrogenre (a curriculum unit where educational goals

are realized typically through cycles of several related lessons) and curriculum

genres (specific teaching/learning activities within lessons with linguistically

identifiable beginning, middle and end stages). Thus a curriculum macrogenre 13

consists of sequences of curriculum genres. In developing these notions, Christie

has drawn on genre theory within systemic functional linguistics (Christie and Martin

1997; Martin 1999).

While reflecting different traditions, the ‘turns, sequences, and meanings’ and

linguistically oriented approaches to discourse analysis can both be seen as part of the

broad ‘social turn’ that has been evident across disciplines such as sociology,

anthropology, history and linguistics in recent years. A further major impact on

classroom discourse analysis, and on discourse analysis more generally, has resulted

from the ‘critical turn’. As indicated, Martin-Jones et al. (2008: xiii) describe the

resulting critical poststructural view of discourse as ‘ways of understanding and

constituting the social world’.

Example: Conversation analysis (CA) in the second language classroom context

Conversation analysis (CA) – the study of talk-in-interaction – is a

theoretically and methodologically distinctive approach to understanding social

life. It is now an interdisciplinary field – spanning, in particular, sociology,

psychology, linguistics and communication studies. It was first developed within

sociology in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s by Harvey Sacks and

his collaborators, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson (e.g. Sacks et al. 1974).CA

offers technical specifications of six key structural features of talk-in interaction:

turn-taking, action formation, sequence organization, repair, word selection and the

overall structural organization of talk. We will sketch out each of these in

relation to a single brief data extract, and then focus in more detail on just one of

them: the turn-taking system.

Extract 1 comes from a phone conversation between a married couple (Edna and

Bud), on their wedding anniversary. Edna is already at the couple’s vacation home at

the beach and it is apparent from what she says earlier in the call that she had

expected Bud to join her there the previous day, in time for their anniversary. The call

begins with exchanges of ‘Happy Anniversary’, later reiterated by Edna, who tells her

husband ‘I miss you’. As this extract opens, Edna is asking Bud about his travel plans

for the following day, and is clearly hoping he will be joining her soon. As it turns

out, her hopes are to be frustrated:

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Extract 1

01 Edn: You comin’ down ea:rly?

02 (.)

03 Bud: We:ll I got a lot of things to do before

04 I get cleared up tomorrow. >I dunno.<

05 I w- I probably won’t be too early.

Below, we examine this short extract in relation to the talk-in-interaction.

Turn-taking

We can notice that this data extract consists of two turns at talk from different

speakers. They speak one at a time, and there is a brief silence between speakers.

Their turns are different lengths: the first is a single unit of talk; the second is three

distinct units. The classic paper by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) presents a

model of turn-taking which accounts for such observations (and more). A recipient of

a turn at talk, awaiting their turn to talk next, listens to the talk-in-progress in part to

project (or predict) when the unit of talk will be done, in order that they can talk next

with no gap and no overlap. Transitions from one turn to a next without gaps or

overlaps make up the vast majority of transitions in conversation and when this

happens the turn-taking system is working normally. Variations on this normal

transition are often interactionally consequential. We have already seen the

previous extract that a gap of silence between one turn and the next can be used to

foreshadow a ‘dispreferred’ response (i.e. disappointing a hopeful expectation).

Speakers of initiating actions hear delays in responsive turns as dispreference-

implicative, and show their understanding by, for example, attempting to deal with

possible obstacles to acceptance.

Action Formation

Action formation refers to the ways in which speakers fashion turns to be

recognizable to their recipients as doing a particular action (e.g. complaining,

inviting, declining, and so on). One way of characterizing the two turns in

Continuum Companion to Discourse Analysis Extract 1 is to say that Edna asks a

question and Bud answers it. We can notice, for example, how Edna uses prosody –

rather than grammar – as a resource to frame up her action as a question: the rising

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intonation on early, indicated by the question mark, is a way of ‘doing questioning’

(where a falling intonation might have led it to be heard as a command). Bud shows

that he is answering his wife’s question in part by repeating elements of it: for

example, the word early.

Sequence Organization

It is common to find, as in Extract 1, that a question is followed by an answer

– or that an invitation is followed by an acceptance/declination, a news announcement

by a news receipt, and so on. Actions are organized into sequences, the most basic

type of which is the ‘adjacency pair’: two turns at talk by different speakers, the first

constituting an initiating action, and the second an action responsive to it. Most

initiating actions (also called ‘first pair parts’ or FPPs) can be followed by a range of

appropriately ‘fitted’ next actions (‘second pair parts’, or SPPs). Some SPPs further

the action of the prior FPP (e.g. accepting an invitation) and are termed preferred

responses, others do not (e.g. rejecting an invitation) and are termed dispreferred. In

Extract 1, Edna’s FPP ‘prefers’ the answer ‘yes’ (i.e. confirmation that Bud will be

coming down early) – and you will notice that this is not the answer it gets. In effect,

Bud is saying that he will not be coming down early (a dispreferred response) –

and his SPP has many of the features that CA has found are characteristic of

dispreferred SPPs. Whereas preferred responses tend to occur without delay, and to be

short and to the point, dispreferred responses are likely to be delayed and elaborated –

as here, where Bud’s dispreferred response is delayed first by a short silence, and

then by a turn-initial marker (well), a hedge (I dunno) and an account (I got a lot of

things to do . . . ) before he actually answers the question.

Repair

It is quite common for speakers to treat what they are saying as problematic in

some way and to stop what they are saying in order to fix the problem. So in Extract

1, Bud cuts off his talk at a point where it cannot be possibly complete (after I w-, line

5), in order to go back and add something (the word probably) into his turn-in-

progress – technically, an insertion repair (Wilkinson and Weatherall in press).

Insertion repair (like other repair practices) can be used Conversation Analysis to

accomplish a variety of actions: here Bud seems to be softening the blow of

responding to his wife’s hopeful enquiry with a dispreferred SPP (i.e. telling Edna

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that he won’t be at their beach home as early as she would like). Other ways in which

speakers repair their own talk include, for example, replacement (replacing one word

or phrase with another), deletion (removing a word from a turn-in-progress), and

reformatting (Schegloff et al. 1977). Recipients of a turn can also initiate repair on it

if they find it problematic in some way (e.g. pardon? or huh? may be used to claim a

problem of hearing): the classic reference on other-initiated repair is Schegloff

(2000a).

Word Selection

Turns at talk are composed of lexical items selected from amongst

alternatives. For example, we have seen that Bud selects the word early – first used by

Edna – as one way of showing that he is answering her question. We can also notice

that he selects the formulation a lot of things to do – suggesting time-consuming

activity – in accounting for why he won’t be coming down early. CA explores how

word selection is done as part of turn design and how it informs and shapes the

understanding achieved by the turn’s recipient. It has focused particularly on

category-based ways of referring to non-present persons: for example, law

enforcement officers can be referred to as ‘police’ or as ‘cops’, and speakers’

selection of one or the other may be responsive to whether the speaker is appearing in

court (Jefferson 1974) or talking with adolescent peers (Sacks 1995).

Overall Structural Organization

Talk-in-interaction is organized into phases: most obviously, openings

and closings (Schegloff and Sacks 1973). Extract 1 comes from a call launched (by

Edna) with a ‘Happy Anniversary’ sequence – and the beginning of a call is the

proper place to exchange best wishes for anniversaries, birthdays etc., or to register

other ‘noticeables’ (Schegloff 2007: 86–7). Invocations of future interaction – such as

see you Thursday or I’ll be in touch then – are common at the end of calls. In

institutional interactions there are often component phases or activities which

characteristically emerge in a particular order.

Critical Oriented Approach

In the context of developments in critical, postmodern and poststructural

theory, previous approaches to discourse analysis were criticized on the grounds that

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they took insufficient account of the broader social and political context within which

discourse was located, and in particular paid insufficient attention to the workings of

power in discourse (Kumaravadivelu 1999). The impact of such criticisms in the

field of discourse analysis has been extensive and has led to a proliferation of

research and publications that are generally categorized as Critical Discourse

Analysis (CDA) .

The role of classroom discourse in education, which as Kumaravadivelu

(1999: 472) argues ‘like all other discourses, is socially constructed, politically

motivated and historically determined’. Kumaravadivelu (1999: 476) writes

‘conducting CCDA (Critical Classroom Discourse Analysis), however, requires a

research tool that can penetrate hidden meanings and underlying connections’. He

goes on to propose combining CCDA with critical ethnography, where

researchers ‘seek to deconstruct dominant discourses as well as counter-discourses

by posing questions at the boundaries of ideology, power, knowledge, class, race

and gender’

Sample studies: Discourse Analysis of Power Relations in Classroom

Language.

In the analysis of power relations, we are again faced with the complex task

of revealing them on multiple levels. At a surface level, we could examine the

differential distribution of cultural, linguistic, economic, and symbolic capital. Stated

otherwise, we could examine whose cultural knowledge was valued in the classroom,

whose language and ways of talking were valued, who had the economic resources to

afford educational privileges (e.g.,computers, special books, educational trips, etc.),

what the social hierarchy was, and who filled which positions in that hierarchy.

Power is often discussed in studies of classroom language and literacy events

either directly or by reference to related topics such as equity, democracy, freedom,

justice, racism, classism, homophobia, sexism, and so forth. This study shows

multiple ways to approach the microethnographic analysis of power relations by

focusing on "how power is” and argue for a reflective stance in the

microethnographic analysis of power relations in classroom language and literacy

events.

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Power is viewed as Product . When power is defined as a product, it is viewed

as a commodity, an object; a measurable thing that one person has over another or

more of than another. Money, physical strength, and weapons, are prototypical

examples as having larger quantities of these commodities may place a person or

a group in a position to press others. If power is viewed as a commodity, then it can

be given, received, transferred, traded, and taken away. For example, teachers may

relinquish the "power" they have to control the topic of discussion or determine the

correctness of an answer, insist that each child be viewed as a poet and author on a

level plane, and resist hierarchical assessments.

Another model of power is the process model, which takes the view that

power varies among and between contexts rather than being a static product. Power

can be viewed as a set of relations among people and among social institutions that

may shift from one situation to another. In addition, power is not something

accumulated (like money or weapons) as much as it is a structuration of interpersonal

relations, events, institutions, and ideologies (cf. Giddens, 1979, 1984; van Dijk,

1996). The locus of power, therefore, is not an individual or group per se but the

processes that structure relationships among people. For example, classrooms in

which reading achievement is evaluated by students demonstrating achievement on a

predetermined set of hierarchically ordered skills. From a power-as-product model, a

student who is progressing through the various skills may be viewed as gaining

"power"—skills that are transformed into social status (through report card grades,

awards, etc.) and economic access (through admission to educational opportunities

that lead to higher paying jobs).

Power model of caring relation is viewed as having the potential to bring

people together for mutual benefit, both with regard to social relationships and with

regard to other accomplishments. A classroom community requires a set of caring

relations (a) between teacher and students and (b) among students. For example

Rather than asking questions solely about what reading skills the students are gaining

or how much they comprehend, from the perspective of power as caring relations

questions might be asked about how the organization of the discussion has helped

students gain a better understanding of themselves, of others, and of their families

and communities. Questions are asked about how or whether the class's engagement

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with the book created bonds of affinity and care among the students in the class and

between the students in the class and people outside the class.

The following example of classroom interaction describe power relations in

the lesson are established, changed, maintained, or transformed across the phases of

the lesson (and across lessons). The setting is the 7th-grade language arts

classroom. There were 25 students in the class. The teacher and most of the students

were African American. Most, but not all of the students, spoke African American

language at home, in the community, and often in the classroom (including some of

the white students). Most of the students came from the local area, a working-class

section of a major city in the southern United States. An analysis of the students' turn-

taking behavior in one segment from one lesson (lines 1-32 in Transcript 4.1) is

presented in Table 4.1. The analysis examines who had how many turns at talk, who

determined turn-taking protocols, who initiated the topics of discussion, who

interrupted whom, who revoked whose comments, and so on By conducting an

analysis such as that shown in Table 4.1, we would be implying that the distribution

of turns, topic initiations, interruptions, and so on, could be readily interpreted—in

other words, that the interpretation is given in the analysis. That is, there is an

unstated implication that the person or group with the largest number of turns, and so

on, is the person or group with the most power. Furthermore, there is a "given" moral

interpretation that the unequal distribution of turns (and the unequal distribution of

valued cultural, linguistic, economic, and symbolic capital) reveals an inequity and a

lack of social justice. In brief, we would find that the teacher dominates by

controlling the floor (line 01,02,04,06), interrupting students (line 09,10,19,29),

revoicing certain student comments (line 22), determining the topics of conversation,

and so on. The teacher is powerful; the students are not. On two occasions in

transcript a student attempts to interrupt the teacher. The first time (line 09), the

student is verbally rebuffed (line 10) and acknowledges the denial of a turn at talk

(lines 11 and 12). The second time (line 29), the student is rebuffed by being

ignored.

Transcript: 7th-Grade Language Arts Lesson

01 Ms. Wilson: We're talkin' about 1865.

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02 And we're talkin' about a period of time when slavery was still instituted

03 SS: Yes.

04 Ms. Wilson: Was slavery still instituted

05 SS: Yes.

06 Ms. Wilson: Were blacks allowed the same type of education as whitest

07 SS: No

08 Theresa: XXXXXXXX no

09 That's why...

10 Ms. Wilson: [Holds up hand] I'm still making my point

11 Theresa: OK go ahead

12 Just go ahead

13 Ms. Wilson: OK

14 So if we know that slavery was still instituted

15 If we know that African Americans were not afforded the

same education as other people

16 Is it a matter that they don't *quote unquote* know any

better

17 Or they never had the opportunity to get an education

18 Camika: They never had an opportunity

19 Ms. Wilson: I'm not asking you [Directed to students calling out responses]

20 I'm asking the person who made comment [Theresa (T) had

earlier made the comment Ms. Wilson was referring to, that

black people talked "that way" in 1865 "because they did not

know any better"]

21 Theresa: They didn't have the opportunity

22 Ms. Wilson They did not have the opportunity

23 Ms. Wilson: Now.

24 Over a period of time

25 1865 all the way to 1997

26 There are still people who use terms and phrases21

27 *De, fo', folks*

28 That are similar to what we read in the poem

29 Theresa: Yea but..

30 Ms. Wilson: Is that by choice

31 Theresa: Choice

32 Ms. Wilson: Or is that because *quote unquote* a lack of knowledge

Conclusion

Discourse analysis is not only as a research method for investigating teaching

practices but also as a tool for studying interactions among language learners.

Learners can benefit from using discourse analysis to explore what language is and

how it is used to achieve communicative goals in different contexts. Thus discourse

analysis can help to create a second language learning environment that more

accurately reflects how language is used and encourages learners toward their goal of

proficiency in another language.

References

Celce-Murcia, M,. & Olshtain, E. 2000. Discourse and context in language teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Clancy, P., Thompson, S., Suzuki, R., & Tao, H. 1996 The conversational use of reactive tokens in English, Japanese, and Mandarin. Journal of Pragmatics, 26, 355-387.

Christie, F. 2002, Classroom Discourse Analysis: A Functional Perspective. London: Continuum.

Edwards, A. D. and Westgate, D. P. G. 1994, Investigating Classroom Talk (revised edn). London and Washington, DC: Falmer Press.

Hatch, E. 1992. Discourse and language education. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Johnson, K. 1995. Understanding communication in second language classrooms. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kumaravadivelu, B. 1999, ‘Critical classroom discourse analysis’, TESOL Quarterly, 33(3), 453–84.Martin-Jones, M., De Mejia, A. M. and Hornberger, N. (eds) (2008), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, vol. 3: Discourse and Education (2nd edn). New York: Springer Science + Business Media LLC.

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McCabe, A., O’Donnell, M. and Whittaker, R. (eds) (2007), Advances in Language and Education. London: Continuum.

McCarthy, M. 1992. Discourse analysis for language teachers. New York: Cambridge University Press.

McCarthy, M., & Carter, R. 1994. Language as discourse: Perspectives for language teachers. New York: Longman.

Riggenbach, H. 1999. Discourse analysis in the language classroom: Volume 1. The spoken language. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

Schiffrin, D. 1994. Approaches to discourse. Oxford: Blackwell

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