Discourse analysis Meeting I

introduction to discourse analysis

MEETING 2 analyzing the co-text.

1.A DISCOURSE is a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit. (Crystal 1992: 25) 2.It is clear that, in addition to sentence-level knowledge, the reader also needs to be able to interpret the sentences in relation to one another.(The interconnections between the sentences) 3.COHESION is divided into two types: grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. The former covers reference, substitution, and ellipsis. The latter covers repetition, synonym, super-ordinate, and general word. They create links across sentence boundaries. They relate back to previously-mentioned entities. Cohesion is viewed as only one of the resources for text creation.

I went outside to find a friend But could not find one there; I went outside to be a friend; And friends were everywhere! Payne

Does the above text hang together grammatically and lexically?

The parents of a seven-year-old Australian boy woke to find a giant python crushing and trying to swallow him. The incident occurred in Cairns, Queensland and the boys mother, Mrs Kathy Dryden said: It was like a horror movie. It was a hot night and Bartholomew was lying under a mosquito net. He suddenly started screaming. We rushed to the bedroom to find a huge snake trying to strangle him. It was coiled around his arms and neck and was going down his body. Mrs Dryden and her husband, Peter, tried to stab the creature with knives but the python bit the boy several times before escaping. (The Birmingham Post, 12

March 1987).

PRACTICE
1. My mother bought some apples. She put the apples in the fridge. 2. My friend has just purchased a new motorbike. He takes very good care of the motorbike. 3. AIDS is frightening. Some people believe that AIDS is a divine retribution for sinners. 4. Curses are like chicken. Curses and chicken come home to roost. 5. Vocatives are like adverbs. Vocatives and adverbs can pop up almost anywhere in the sentence.

Meeting 2 theme- rheme analysis

Clause as a message can be analyzed in terms of two structures: THEMATIC STRUCTURES and INFORMATION STRUCTURES.
*Thematic structure: theme and rheme *information structure: given vs new information

1.How is the thematic structure organized? 2.How is the information structure organized?
Thematic structure: theme/rheme interaction 1. Subject as theme 2. Object as theme Bess was satisfied with her hair, but her freckles she regarded as a nuisance. 3. Complement as theme Among those present were the governor and his spouse. 4. Adverbial as theme Once upon a time there lived a poor farmer in XYZ kingdom. 5. Verb as theme Thematic structure is organized on purpose by talented writers. Information structure Does the writer follow the information flow principle? Information flow principle is about the normal ordering of information in English discourse moving from given to new information. Clause as a string of grammatical and lexical elements. Is the following discourse characterized by discriminating use of fronting? My father and I went to see a movie at Studio XXI last weekend. Journey to the Mysterious Island was the title of the movie. We left home at 6 p.m., and arrived there 20 minutes later. Some people were already standing in line to get the ticket when we got there. My father queued up to get the ticket. Luckily, it didnt take long for us to get the ticket. And then we bought two cups of tea and some popcorn. We didnt drink the tea and eat the popcorn straight away. And then we waited for a while watching some film posters. At 6.55 we went straight into the hall. We enjoyed some music and other movie preview while waiting for the show to begin. And then the main show began at 7. And then we took out the cups of tea and pop corn, and then started eating and drinking them. The movie was fantastic. We were pleased to see the mysterious scenes in the island. The show ended at 9 p.m. We didnt go home straight away. We dropped in Gramedia book-store to purchase a book. Positive Thinking is the title of the book. And then we went to a food corner to eat our supper. We spend half an hour there. We went home at 10, and then I went straight to bed because I was tired and sleepy.

no 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Theme Tono and Toni They Playing football One day The letter He The coach

RHEME live at Siantan in Pontianak township. are very good at playing football. makes them happy and healthy. a letter arrived from Jakarta. was written and signed by Alfred Liddle. wanted them to play for the National Team. said they were competent enough to defend Indonesia in the upcoming Asian Games.

THEME-RHEME ANALYSIS THEME RHEME THEME THEME RHEME RHEME

THEMATIC BREAK THEME RHEME THEME THEME RHEME RHEME

THEME

RHEME

Meeting 3 Classroom talk vs Talk outside the classroom

T: Now then Ive got some things here, too. Hands up.
Whats that, what is it? P: Saw. T: Its a saw, yes this is a saw. What do we do with a saw? P: Cut wood. T: Yes. Youre shouting out though. What do we do with a saw? Marvelette. P: Cut wood. T: We cut wood. And, erm, what do we do with a hacksaw, this hacksaw? P: Cut trees. T: Do we cut trees with this? P: No. No. T: Hands up. What do we do with this? P: No. T: What do we do with that then? P: Cut wood. T: We cut wood with that. What do we do with this? P: Sir. T: Cleveland. P: Metal. T: We cut metal. Yes, we cut metal.
(Sinclair and Coulthard 1975)

1. Classroom talk/transaction could be seen to conform to highly structured sequences. 2. Each transaction consists of a number of exchanges. 3. The exchange structure is the conventional overall patterns that occur when people are talking. This particular exchange consists of a question, an answer and a comment, and so it is a three-part exchange. 4. Every exchange consists of three moves. The first move is an opening move. The second is an answering move, and the third is a follow-up move. 5. They are also known as initiation, response and followup. 6. Talk outside the classroom is loosely-structured. 7. Each participant enjoys the right to initiate, response, and follow up in their exchanges.

PRACTICE QM: Which of these countries is not a member of the Commonwealth: Ghana, Malaysia, India, the Philippines? AM: Its the Philipppines. QM: Sure? AM: Yeah. QM: Final answer? AM: Final answer. QM: Its the right answer. Youve got eight thousand pounds.
(Who wants to be a millionaire? 14 December 2000)

MEETING 2 INTERACTIONAL ORGANIZATION OF SENTENCES 1. We need to think of a clause as a message rather than a string of grammatical and lexical elements. Clause as a message can be analyzed in terms of two types of structure: thematic structure and information structure. 2. A clause consists of two segments: theme and rheme. Theme is what the clause is about. It has two functions: 1) it acts as a point of orientation by connecting back to previous stretches of discourse and thereby maintaining a coherent point of view and, 2) it acts as a point of departure by connecting forward and contributing to the development of later stretches. 3. Rheme is what the speaker says about the theme. It represents the very information that the speaker wants to convey to the hearer. It is the rheme that fulfils the communicative purpose of the utterance.

4.Rhematic items carry a high degree of communicative dynamism (CD). Being context independent, they play a major role in pushing the communication forward. Thematic items have a low degree of CD. Being context dependent, they do not play a major role in pushing the communication forward. 5. Communicative dynamism is the phenomenon whereby sentences are made up of themes followed by rhemes and that, in the unmarked case, rhemes are more communicatively important.

6. marked vs unmarked theme. Unmarked thematic choice is the choice of certain lexical and grammatical items which are considered to be more basic or common than other structures, marked for particular effects. The sentence Among those present at the party were the governor and his wife is a marked form for The governor and his wife were among those present at the party. 7. The function of marked theme is to provide a smoother link with the preceding discourse. Many people attended the party. Among those present were the governor and his wife.

7. Thematic choice involves selecting a clause element as theme. The main clause elements are subject, predicator, object, complement, and adjunct. In the Hallidayan model, thematic choice is expressed by placing one of these elements in initial position in the clause. 8.

Theme
1 The lion 2 3 4 5 6

Rheme

Beat the unicorn all around the town. All around the The lion beat the unicorn. town However, the Still did not want to bow to the unicorn lion. The lion Decided to beat him to death. Would the Give in to the lion. unicorn When the lion the unicorn was ready for the got to the lion. battlefield

-Theme is not equated with the subject of a sentence. Sometimes, however, theme overlaps with the grammatical subject, as in no 1 and 4 above. This kind of theme Halliday calls unmarked theme. Unmarked means the most typical. MEETING 3 THEMATIC DEVELOPMENT
1. Thematic progression refers to the way subsequent discourse re-uses previous themes or rhemes according to an overall text plan. (Danes 1974)

2. Three methods of thematic development. A. Theme reiteration, B. Rheme-Theme Transfer, or the Zig Zag Pattern, C. The Multiple- Theme Pattern. 3.Theme re-iteration. One basic way to keep a text focused (cohesive) is simply to re-iterate an element. Repetition is an effective way of creating cohesion. 4. Rheme-theme transfer. This is re-using rhemes as themes. There is no need for the link between themes and rhemes to be explicit. The association is often perceived on cognitive grounds as part of text comprehension. 5. A typology of rheme thematisation was developed by Scinto (1977). CONSEQUENCE

John drank poison. Death followed quickly.

DERIVED BY IMPLICATION

He paid the workers. The wages came to not very much.

ILLUSTRATION

John didnt like Bills bad habits. His Lying was pathological.
REASON, BACKING OR EXPLANATION

Leander couldnt sleep that night. Losing gracefully was just not in his nature.
CONCLUSION John ran in the third race. Winning was

very satisfying. 6. The multiple-theme pattern. In this pattern, the Theme of one clause introduces a number of different pieces of information, each of which is picked up and made Theme in subsequent clauses. The three main reasons babies cry are hunger, cold, and illness. Hunger can be determined by considering when the baby was last fed. Babies feel cold more acutely than we do and the smaller the baby, the more warmly it should be wrapped up. Finally, sickness or pain may also be signaled by crying. 7. THEME and RHEME interaction contributes to the cohesion and coherence of a text MEETING 4 SPEECH ACTS 1. Austin (1962) defined speech acts as the actions performed in saying something. Statement: I lived in Paris for five years. Order: Pay this bill immediately. Question: Where are you in the sibling order? Prohibition: No right turn. Greeting: Hello Invitation: You must come and have dinner with us. Felicitation: Happy new year. (Grudging) apology: I hereby apologize as required by the magistrate. Compliment: You look good and healthy.

 Promise: Ill buy you a bicycle if you get flying colors. 2. On any occasion, the action performed in saying something will consist of three related acts, namely: locutionary act, illocutionary acts, perlocutionary act. ^Locution: Could you hold the door open for a moment? ^Illocution: an act of requesting the hearer to hold the door open. ^Perlocution: The hearer holds the door open. ^Locution: Do you know what time it is? ^Illocution: an act of giving a warning to late-arriving students. ^Perlocution: The students apologize for coming late. 3. Direct and indirect speech acts. Whenever there is a direct relationship between a structure and a function, we have a direct speech act. Whenever there is an indirect relationship, we have an indirect speech act.
STRUCTURAL FORMS COMMUNICATIVE FUNCTIONS

Declarative Interrogative Imperative

Make a statement Ask a question Give a command, make a request.

Him: Can I talk to Mary? Her: No, shes not here.

Him: Im asking youcan I talk to her? Her: And Im telling you SHES NOT HERE! PRACTICE Analyze the speech acts in the following. A: What about going to the cinema tonight? B: I have an important test tomorrow morning. Locution: The hedges have grown wild. Illocution: Perlocution: MEETING 5 MACRO CLASSES OF SPEECH ACTS According to Searle (1979) there are five macro classes of speech acts: 1. DECLARATIONS. Declarations are those kinds of speech acts that change the world via their utterance. I hereby pronounce you man and wife. I hereby declare this meeting open. This court sentences you to ten years

imprisonment.
2. REPRESENTATIVES. Representatives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker believes to be the case, such as describing, claiming, hypothesizing, insisting and predicting. The earth is round. Chomsky did not write about peanuts. Students writing skill will improve after having been introduced theme/rheme interaction. 3. COMMISSIVES. Commissives are those kinds of speech acts that commit the speaker to

future action, such as promising, offering, threatening, refusing, vowing and volunteering. Ill be back. Im going to get it right next time. Ill make him an offer he cant refuse. 4. DIRECTIVES. Directives are those kinds of speech acts that speakers use to get someone else to do something, such as commanding, requesting, inviting, forbidding, suggesting etc. Gimme a cup of coffee. Make it black. Could you lend me a pen, please? Dont touch that. 5. EXPRESSIVES. Expressives are those kinds of speech acts that state what the speaker feels, such as apologizing, praising, congratulating, deploring, thanking and regretting. Im really sorry. Congratulations! You look good and healthy. 6. Thank you for not smoking. The expressive thanking speech act is presumably used because it sounds more polite and friendly than the impersonal directive prohibiting No smoking. 7. The same utterance can potentially have quite different illocutionary forces. How can speakers assume that the intended illocutionary force will be recognized by the hearer 8. Illocutionary Force Indicating Device (IFID) is an expression where there is a slot for a verb that explicitly names the illocutionary force being performed. Ill see you later. (=A) (I predict that) A.

 (I promise that) A. (I warn you that) A. 9. Word order and intonation are also IFIDs. 10. Speech acts are culturally bound. The ways of expressing speech acts vary from country to country. How fat you are! PRACTICE Can you recognize the illocutionary forces of: 1. Its cold outside. 2. An important test is going on. MEETING 6 THE SPEECH ACT OF COMPLIMENTING 1. With regard to the topic of compliment, three major categories have been identified: 1)appearance and possessions, 2) abilities or accomplishments, and 3) personality traits of the interlocutors. COMPLIMENT TOPICS reflect what is culturally considered admirable in society. 2. Billmyer (1990) grouped responses to compliments into three categories for instructional purposes: Acceptance When you are complimented, the only response necessary is Thank you. (Johnson 1979) Deflection, and Rejection. 3. The repertoire of deflection types consisted of the following behaviors:

 Commenting on the history of the referent. A: What a lovely bag youve got! B: I got it at Macys. Shifting credit away from self. C: What a lovely bag youve got! D: A friend of mine gave it to me. Downgrading the compliment. E: What a lovely bag youve got! F: Its not all that expensive Questioning the compliment or requesting reassurance. G: What a lovely bag youve got! H: Do you really think so? Returning a compliment. I: What a lovely bag youve got! J: Your bag looks great, too. 4. Most compliments occurred between status equals. 5. The great majority of compliments which occur in interaction between status unequals are given by the person in the higher position. E.g. Youre such a treasure Carol. What would I do without you? (MANAGER TO HER SECRETARY). PRACTICE 1. Does accepting compliments result in the violation of modesty maxim? 2. Does rejecting compliments result in the violation of agreement maxim? 3. When used non-reciprocally by superiors to subordinates, . may underline patterns of societal power which place women in a clearly subordinate

position to men. When used between equals and friends, a compliment could be considered a quintessential of ..politeness strategy.

Subject Day/ Date Time

MID TEST : Discourse Analysis : Friday, 15 April 2011 : 18.10 19.50

1. Analyze the theme/rheme interaction of the following discourse. Use a flow chart. Divide the text below into three paragraphs.

Cholesterol only becomes a problem when you have too much of it and it starts to promote the production of a fatty plague that can clog the arteries. Interruption of blood flow to a main heart vessel can cause a heart attack; a blocked blood vessel on the way to the brain could cause stroke. Some say that cholesterol-rich foods such as eggs, shellfish and offal should be banished from the diet, but those foods dont significantly raise cholesterol levels. The cholesterol in them is broken down quite efficiently and then excreted, so they are fine to eat in moderation. Fiber produces substances that help to clear the blood of bad cholesterol and acts as a buffer, so less fat is brought into contact with blood vessels and less is absorbed. Fiber also keeps bad cholesterol within the gut from where it can be excreted. 2. What do you know about speech acts? You are required to use your own examples.

GOOD LUCK