CHAPTER 6

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

6.1 Definition of Discourse

The term discourse has various meanings. It is not only used in linguistics,
but also in sociology, psychology, communication, and anthropology. Originally
the word 'discourse' comes from Latin 'discursus'. It means 'conversation or
speech'.
Crystal (1992:25) said that "discourse as a continuous stretch of
(especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent
unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative". On the other hand, Dakowska
(2001:81) noted that the differences between kinds of discourses indicate the unity
of communicative intentions as a vital element of each of them. The complete
definition is given by Beaugrande (1981) discourse is very large field of study but
for linguistic it could be summarized, that there are seven criteria which have to
be fulfilled to qualify, a written or a spoken text.

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;

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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;
All of the above mentioned criteria are internal linguistics factor. So, we

can say that discourse is something in the text that has internal linguistics factor.

6.2 Discourse and Text

Discourse cannot be separated with the text because text is the main term
in discourse or it can be said that text is the representation of discourse. Then,
what is a text exactly? Text in linguistics refers to any passage, spoken or written.
Text is a unit of language in use. It can be dialogue, monologue, speech, prose,
etc. A text is not only has a grammatical unit like a clause or a sentence, but also it
sometimes in ungrammatical unit. It usually appears in spoken text.
George and Yule (1983:6) had another opinion about text. They said that
text as a technical term; to refer to the verbal record of a communicative act
requires at least two hedges;
(i)

The presentation of a text which is presented for discussion may in

part, particularly where the written representation of a spoken text
is involved, consist of a prior analysis (hence interpretation) of a

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fragment of discourse by the discourse analyst presenting the text

for consideration.
(ii)

Features of the original production of the language, for example

shaky handwriting or quavering speech, are somewhat arbitrarily
considered as features of the context in which the language is
produced.

Text is the result of communicative act; it can be written or spoken.

Discourse and text have been noted by some linguists that those two terms have
been treated as synonyms, while in others the distinction between discourse and
text has been taken to apply to units of spoken versus written communication.
The definitions of those terms do not refer to different domains (speech
and writing) but reflect a different in focus. Discourse is the umbrella term for
either spoken or written communication beyond the sentence. Text is the basic
means of this communication, be it spoken or written, a monologue or an
interaction (Georgakopoulou,19974). So, text is a part of discourse.

6.3 Spoken and Written Text

The expression of human being is not only looked at written products, but
also at their spoken. Written and spoken is the way that is used by the human
being to communicate each other. Written text is a text that is wrote by the writer.
It is as a printed record. It is different with spoken text. Spoken text is as verbal
record of communicative act. The statement mentioned is almost the same with
the definition of text which consider that text tend to spoken than to written.

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There are some differences between spoken and written. Spoken develops
in time in that the speaker says directly due to the intention and the topic
discussion. Even if it may not be appropriate for the listener. Sometime it is
possible to repeat utterance. Moreover, talking might be spontaneous which
results in mistakes, repetition, sometimes less coherent sentences where even
grunts, stutters or pauses might be meaningful. Employment of nonsense
vocabulary, slang and contracted forms is one of the features of oral discourse.
Among other significant features of speech there are rhythms, intonation, speed of
uttering and inability to conceal mistakes made while speaking (Crystal 1995:291,
Dakowska 2001:07).
In contrast, writing develops in space in that it needs a means to carry the
information. The author of the text does not often know who is going to read the
text. The writer is frequently able to consider the content of his work for almost
unlimited period of time which makes it more coherent, having complex syntax.
Additionally, owing to the lack of context expressions such as 'now' or 'here' are
omitted, since they would be ambiguous as texts might be read at different times
and places. One other feature typical of writing, but never of oral discourse, is the
organization of tables, formulas, or charts which can be portrayed only in written
form (Crystal 1995:291).
Both spoken and written discourse was expressed in formal and informal.
Formal discourse is more strictly in that it requires the use of passive voice, lack
of contracted forms together with impersonality, complex sentence structure and,
in the case of the English language, vocabulary derived from Latin. That is why

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formal spoken language has many features very similar to written texts,
particularly absence of vernacular vocabulary and slang, as well as the
employment of rhetorical devices to make literary-like impact on the listener.
Informal discourse, on the other hand, makes use of active voice mainly,
with personal pronouns and verbs which show feelings such as 'I think', 'we
believe'. In addition, contractions are frequent in informal discourse, no matter if
it is written or spoken. Consequently it may be said that informal communicative
products are casual and loose, while formal ones are more solemn and governed
by strict rules as they are meant to be used in official and serious circumstances.
The main differences between spoken and written based on the fact that
spoken is essentially transitory and written is designated to be permanent. In daily
life, spoken and written are largely for the establishment and maintenance of
human relationship.

6.4 Link within Discourse

Links in discourse studies are divided into two groups: formal (it refers to
facts that are present in the analyzed text), and contextual (it refers to the outside
world, the knowledge (or schemata) which is not included in the communicative
product itself (Cook 1990:14). Since it is difficult to describe the processing of
contextual links without referring to particular psychological inquiries, therefore,
this section is devoted to representation of formal links.
By and large five types of cohesive devices are distinguished, some of
which might be subdivided:

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Substitution: in order to avoid repeating the same word several times in

one paragraph it is replaced, most often by one, do or so. So and do in its
all forms might also substitute whole phrases or clauses (e.g. "Tom has
created the best web directory. I told you so long time ago".)

Ellipsis: it is very similar to substitution; however, it replaces a phrase by a

gap. In other words, it is omission of noun, verb, or a clause on the
assumption that it is understood from the linguistic context.

Reference: the use of words which do not have meanings of their own,
such as pronouns and articles. To infer their meaning the reader has to
refer them to something else that appears in the text (Tom: "How do you
like my new Mercedes Vito?" - Marry: "It is a nice van, which I'm also
thinking of buying".).

Conjunction: specifies the relationship between clauses, or sentences.

Most frequent relations of sentences are: addition ( and, moreover e.g.
"Moreover, the chocolate fountains are not just regular fountains, they
more like rivers full of chocolate and sweets."), temporality ( afterwards,
next e.g. "He bought her perfume at a local perfume shop and afterwards
moved toward a jewelry store.") and causality ( because, since).

Lexical cohesion: denotes links between words which carry meaning:

verbs, nouns, adjectives. Two types of lexical cohesion are differentiated,
namely: reiteration and collocation. Reiteration adopts various forms,
particularly synonymy, repetition, hyponymy or antonymy. Collocation is

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the way in which certain words occur together, which is why it is easy to
make out what will follow the first item.
It is clear from the analysis of written language that when people produce
discourse they focus not only on the correctness of a single sentence, but also on
the general outcome of their production. That is why the approach to teaching a
foreign language which concentrates on creating grammatically correct sentences,
yet does not pay sufficient attention to regularities on more global level of
discourse, might not be the best one (Cook 1990, McCarthy 1991, Salkie 1995).

6.5 Definition of Discourse Analysis?

To answer the question above, lets see the starting point of discourse as
follow; Zellig Harris (Cook, 1990:13) was 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. He added that
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 are philosophers of language or those dealing
with pragmatics enormously influenced the development of this study as well.
Among other contributors to this field the Prague School of Linguists, whose
focusing on organization of information in communicative products indicated the

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connection of grammar and discourse, along with text grammarians are worth
mentioning (McCarthy 1991:6).
He wrote that a significant contribution to the evolution of discourse
analysis has been made by British and American scholars. He also noted that
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.
From the explanation above, we can conclude that discourse analysis is a
linguistic study that examines the using of language which fulfilled some criteria
of internal linguistic. The major concern is investigating language functions along
with its forms, produced both spoken and written. Moreover, identification toward
cultural and social aspects is also the domain of discourse analysis, especially in
critical discourse analysis

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6.6 Text and Context in Discourse Analysis

Based on Brown and Yules opinion, discourse analysis is fundamentally
concerned with the general principles of interpretation by which people normally
make sense of what they hear and read (Brown and Yule 1983). What they hear
and read is the text of discourse. Then, text has relation to the context. Context is a
world filled with people producing utterances: people who have social, cultural,
and personal identities, knowledge, beliefs, goals, and wants, and who interact
with one another in various socially and culturally defines situation (Schiffrin,
1994:364).
Context is also defined as the background knowledge that is understood by
the speaker and hearer or writer and reader to interpret the utterances meaning.
Context that refers to the physical utterance is called co-text, whereas context that
refers to social environment of the utterance is context. There are some types of
context:
Context of situation
(Who is speaking to whom, when, where, and for what purpose; the
physical setting, the social scene in which the discourse occurs; the roles
and status of the participants involved).
Context of culture
(The speech community; what is possible for, or normally done by,
members of the community; the speech events participated in, the speech
act performed, the topics talked about).
Context as co-text
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(The prior and upcoming text; what has just been said. What was earlier
said, what comes next)
Cognitive context
(Knowledge as a set of recognizable conventions, rules, norms and shares
assumptions; the process of inference tied to current activity and general
expectations) (Georgakopoulo, 1997:18).
According to the types of context above, context of situation is the best
codification of context elements that closed to speech event. Hymes said that
speech events are the largest units of language activity, which occur in a nonverbal context, the speech situation. There are some important elements in speech
events, which is usually called concept of SPEAKING;
S (Setting or scene/ time and place)
P (Participants and their roles)
E (Ends or purposes)
A (Act sequence including the message form, medium and content)
K (Manner or mood of communication; formal, informal, casual, relaxed,
etc.
I (Instrumentalities; verbal or non verbal channel)
N (Norms of interaction)
G (Genre).
The context of the text in discourse is the product of the writer or speaker.
Then, the reader or the listener interprets the text based on their background
knowledge. Discourse analysis is interested in the analysis of context mainly

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because text and context provide evidence for indispensable for each other. Now,
we can see that context is a part of the text; text is a part of discourse analysis.

6.7 Levels of Discourse Analysis

From the linguistic point of view discourse analysis can be divided into
three levels. According to Crystal, the fundamentals of discourse analysis is in the
first level which heavily depends on the choice of the type of discourse, more
particularly written or spoken (1997:16). Spoken discourse is widely recognized
as phonetics that deals with vocal performance of human beings. Crystal adds that
these disciplines form the first level of discourse analysis.
The second level studies transcripts from the phonological point of view. It
means that it focuses on punctuation, capitalization, spacing etc. The third level
studies the outcome of graphological and phonological organization (Crystal
1997: 18). It means that this level could be assumed to be more complex and thus
very broad. Crystal further comments on this level of analysis and two different
fields have been distinguished. It is grammar and vocabulary. The former
mentioned term studies words (morphology) and words position in the sentence
(syntax). The analysis of vocabulary should provide information about the choice
of specific lexical items(Crystal 1997: 19) which means that it can be
differentiated whether a word, used by a participant in a particular context and in a
specific sentence structure, is of an individual or general use.

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Exercise!
1. What is discourse?
2. Beaugrande said that there are seven criteria which have to be fulfilled to
qualify, a written or a spoken text. Please explain each of them!
3. What is the relation between text and discourse?
4. Is there any relation between spoken and written text? Then what is the
difference between them!
5. What do you know about discourse and discourse analysis?
6. What is the relation among text, context and discourse analysis?
7. Explain five types of cohesive devices?
8. Find a short text, and then analyze it based on concept of SPEAKING!

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