TRAJ 412

Discourse Analysis
Paltridge, B. (2021). Discourse analysis: An introduction. Bloomsbury Publishing.

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Central Idea of the Chapter
It surveys discourse analysis, its
origin, and the issues that interest
discourse analysts.

It gives us the basics and description

of discourse analysis, and it explores
different views of discourse analysts.

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What is Discourse Analysis?
The term discourse analysis was
introduced by Zellig Harris in 1952.

1. The examination of language beyond

the level of sentence.
2. The relationship between linguistic
and non-linguistic behavior.

P.S. Language and context have been

discussed comprehensively as a food
for thought.
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What is Discourse Analysis?

Discourse Analysis
investigates knowledge about
language beyond the word,
clause, phrase, and
sentence levels.

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 Examines linguistic Examines how Examines both
patterns in texts discourse shapes spoken and
and the relationship worldviews and written texts.
between language identities.
and culture..

Examines how
Examines how language is
language presents influenced by social
different world relationships and
views and how language affects
understandings. social identities.

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The Purpose of Discourse Analysis
Discourse Analysis helps us better understand people,
situations, and texts, as well as communicate more
effectively.

The primary purpose of DA is to provide a deeper

understanding and appreciation of texts and how
they become meaningful to their users (Chimombo &
Roseberry, 1998).

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Relevant Concepts and Discourse Analysis

Language
& Context

Discursive Structure
Competence of Texts

Discourse
Analysis

Communica
tive Pragmatics
Competence
Cultural
Ways Of
Speaking
And
Writing
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 Language & Context
Context → is the conditions in
which something exists or occurs. Contextual Features

Linguistically, this is the part of a • Speakers/Hearers

discourse that surrounds a language
unit and helps to determine its • Setting (Where, When,
interpretation. Why, and How?)
• Topic
The knowledge of context is a
premise of the analysis of
discourse.

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I went to the bank. The bus is late. Greetings/ Requests

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 Types of Contexts
Linguistic Context Situational Context Cultural Context
The relationship between the The environment, time and The culture, customs and
words, phrases, place, etc. in which the background of epoch in
sentences and even discourse language communities in
paragraphs. occurs, and also the which the
relationship between the speakers participate.
I went to the bank. participants.

The interpretations of the The bus is late. To understand the meaning

words which occur in of what a person says or
discourse are constrained by, Halliday (1971) links context writes, we need to know
following Halliday, their co- of situation with texts and something about the
text. cultures. situational and cultural
context in which it is located.

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Discourse Analysis & Pragmatics

Wife: Shouldn’t you help Boss: Here is your pay,

me do some housework? boy!
Husband: I have worked Worker: I have worked for
for nine hours. nine hours.

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Discourse Analysis & Pragmatics
Discourse analysis is closely related to pragmatics.

Both analyze stretches of spoken and written language in

particular (authentic) situations.

The interpretation of language depends on knowledge of the

real world.

What people mean by what they say (aside from the literal
meaning of their words)
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Structure of texts
• Discourse Analysts are interested in how people knit into a
structure what they intend to convey to others in a conversation
or in a piece of writing.

• DA= how people organize what they say; what they typically say
first, what they say next, and so on in a conversation or a piece
of writing.
• This varies across cultures and is not the same across languages.
• How? Examples
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Structure of texts
Greetings in Japan and USA.

In US, they are very short, while in Japan, they include

weather and other details in greetings. As they say “greetings
from HOT and SIZZLING Tokyo” instead of only the word
greetings which is not a requirement in English.

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Structure of texts
Mitchell (1957)
The first researcher to examine the discourse structure.
Texts in buying and selling interactions.
Introducing the notion of stages into discourse analysis.

Hasan (1989a)
Service encounters.
Obligatory and optional stages.
For example, a greeting such as Hi, how are you? not always obligatory in
English in a busy supermarket. Can I have . . . or Give me
. . . etc.
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Elements vary depending on variables.

1. Where the service encounter occurs(e.g., supermarket,

post office, travel agent,etc.)
2. age of the people.
3. face-to-face or on the phone.

There is, thus, no neat one-to-one correspondence between

the structural elements --> how they are expressed through
language.

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 Cultural Ways of Speaking & Writing
• Do all people from all cultures apologize in the same way?
• Do all people from all cultures request something the same way?
• Do all people from all cultures refuse something the same way?

• No!

• Ethnography of communication is one of the ways we examine

the ways language is used by different cultural groups (Hymes,
1964).

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Cultural Ways of Speaking & Writing
• The author criticizes the study of the Ethnography of
communication by Dell Hymes.

• The cultural context remains the most important aspect

that needs the attention of analysts, researchers, and
critics.

• Paltridge maintains that though Hymes analyzed cultural

point of view, but he ignored the social and cultural context
in which language occurs.
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Communicative competence
• 4 underlying components of communicative competence:

• Grammatical competence: mastery of language codes

• sociolinguistic competence: knowledge of appropriate
language use
• Discourse competence: knowledge of connection utterances
in a cohesive and coherent text
• Strategic competence: mastery of strategies that speakers
use to compensate for breakdowns in communication and
the strategies to enhance the effectiveness of the
communication.
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Discursive competence
• It includes not only language-related and text-level knowledge
but also complex factors outside of the text which need to be
taken into account for effective communication.

• Textual competence: ability to produce and interpret

contextually appropriate texts. To do this, we draw on our
linguistic, textual, contextual, and pragmatic knowledge of what
typically occurs in a particular text, how it is typically organized,
and how it is typically interpreted.
• Eg. Internet communication (MSN Messenger), term papers,
seminar, etc.

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Discursive competence
• Generic competence describes how we are able to respond to
both recurring and new communicative situations by
constructing, interpreting, using and exploiting conventions
associated with the use of particular kinds of texts, or genres. Eg.
e-mail to a lecturer or a text message to a friend.

• Social competence describes how we use language to take part

in social and institutional interactions in a way that enables us to
express our social identity, within the constraints of the
particular social situation and communicative interaction.

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Different Views of Discourse Analysis
• Cazden (1998): analysis of the stretches of naturally occurring
language; considering different ways of talking and
understanding.

• Fairclough (2003) : textually oriented discourse analysis vs. social

theoretical orientation.

• Cameron and Klucik (2003): instances of language in use that are

studied under a textually oriented view of discourse are still
socially situated and need to be interpreted in terms of their
social meanings and functions.

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Summary
• DA is a view of language at the level of text.

• DA is a view of language in use. (communicative goals, acts,

present themselves)

• DA considers how people manage interactions with each

other, other groups, societies, and cultures.

• DA focuses on how people do things beyond language and

the ideas and beliefs that they communicate.
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Discourse as the Social Construction of Reality
Texts are embedded in social and cultural practices.

Discourse is both shaped by the world as well as

shaping the world.

Discourse is shaped by language as well as shaping the

language that people use.
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• Wetherell (2001) analysis of BBC
interview with late Diana, Princess
of Wales.

• Use language that constructs her

social world (as a sharing person,
Prince Charles as a proud man
because of the attention his wife
received).

• SPEAKS THAT WAY YOU WISH PEOPLE

TO SEE.
Discourse as the Social Situated Identities
When we speak or write, we use more than just
language to display who we are, and how we want
people to see us.

Dressing, gestures, the ways we think, the attitudes we

display, and the things we value, feel, and believe (Gee,
2011).

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Not only how she speaks, but also:
Dress
Body language

To achieve the effect she wants,to

express the beliefs, emotions, and
attitude she wishes for.
Discourse as the Social Situated Identities
Discourses involve the socially situated identities that we enact and
recognize in different settings that we interact in: culture-specific ways
of performing and culture-specific ways of recognizing identities and
activities.

Discourses involve different styles of language.

Discourses involve characteristic ways of acting, interacting and feeling

and, showing emotion, gesturing.

Discourses involve particular ways of valuing, thinking, believing,

knowing, speaking and listening, reading and writing.
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Discourse as the Social Situated Identities
• Discourses are socially constructed rather than natural. People “are
who thay are because of the way they talk” not because of who they
already are”

• Social identities are not per-given but are formed in the use of
language and the various other ways we display who we are, what we
think, value, and feel,etc.

• Eg. the rap singer

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 Discourse Performance
• Sometimes our discourse not
only shows the intentions and I promise. I now pronounce you
identities, it actually performs man and wife.
the intended functions. The act has been The couple has become
performed man and wife.

• It’s based on the view that in

saying something we do it.

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 Text and Intertextuality
• Texts may more or less implicitly or explicitly cite
other texts, they may refer to another text, or they
may allude to other past, or future texts.

• “All texts make their meanings against the

background of other texts and things that have been
said on other occasions”(Lemke, 1992)

• All texts are intertextual relationships with

other texts.

For more details, seePaltridge

(2006); (Marwa, n.d.)
Difference between spoken and written language
Grammatical intricacy and spoken discourse:
Written language is more structurally complex and elaborate than
speech. Halliday (1989) argues that spoken discourse has its
complexity.

Grammatical intricacy refers to the relationship between clauses in

spoken discourse, which can be much more spread out and with more
complex relations between them than in writing.

Lexical density in spoken and written discourse:

Written language tends to be more lexically dense which refers to the
ratio of content words to function words.

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Difference between spoken and written language
Nominalization in written and spoken discourse
There is a high level of nominalization in written texts. Actions and events are
presented as nouns rather than as verb. They also include longer noun groups

Explicitness in spoken and written discourse

Writing is more explicit than speech. This depends on the purpose of the text
and again is not absolute.

Contextualization in spoken and written discourse

Writing is more decontextualized than speech. This view is based on the
perception that speech depends on a shared situation and background for
interpretation whereas writing does not depend on such a shared context.
Spoken genres determine it.
For conversations: YES for academic lectures:NO
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Difference between spoken and written language
The spontaneous nature of spoken discourse
Spoken discourse contains more half-completed and
reformulated utterances than written discourse. This is
because it is often produced spontaneously.

Repetition, hesitation, and redundancy in spoken discourse

Spoken discourse involves repetition, hesitation, and
redundancy than written discourse. It is produced in real-
time.
It also involves fillers leke “hhh,er, you see”.
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Next Class

• Read (Chapter 2- Discourse and

Society )

• In-class Presentations 1

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