INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN GENERAL MARTÍN MIGUEL DE GÜEMES

N°8.226 Educando con Calidad, Humanidad y Sabiduría

Libertad 481 – General Güemes – Salta. Argentina

E-Mail: institutogeneralguemes@gmail.com

UNIT 1

This unit provides an overview of discourse analysis, an approach to the analysis

of language that looks at patterns of language across texts as well as the social
and cultural contexts in which the texts occur. The first part commences by
presenting the origins of the term discourse analysis. It then continues with a
discussion of different perspectives of the definitions about discourse, discourse
analysis, conversational analysis, and the last part, the implications of discourse
analysis in language teaching and learning aspects.

1. What is discourse analysis?

Discourse analysis examines patterns of language across texts and

considers the relationship between language and the social and cultural
contexts in which it is used. Discourse analysis also considers the ways that
the use of language presents different views of the world and different
understandings. It examines how the use of language is influenced by
relationships between participants as well as the effects the use of language
has upon social identities and relations. It also considers how views of the
world,and identities, are constructed through the use of dicourse.

1.1 A brief historical overview

Discourse Analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between

language and the contexts in which it is used. It grew out of work in different
disciplines in the 1960s and early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics,
psychology, anthropology and sociology. Discourse analysts study language in
use: written texts of all kinds, and spoken data, from conversation to highly
institutionalized forms of talk.

1
 INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN GENERAL MARTÍN MIGUEL DE GÜEMES
N°8.226 Educando con Calidad, Humanidad y Sabiduría

Libertad 481 – General Güemes – Salta. Argentina

E-Mail: institutogeneralguemes@gmail.com

At the time when linguistics was largely concerned with the analysis of single
sentences, Zellis Harris published a paper with the title ‘Discourse analysis’
(Harris 1952). Harris was interested in the distribution of linguistic elements in
extended texts, and the links between the text and its social situation, though his
paper is a far cry from the discourse analysis we are used nowadays. Also
important in the early years was the emergence of semiotics and the French
structuralist approach to the study of narrative. In the 1960s, Dell Hymes provided
a sociological perspective with the study of speech in its social setting (e.g.
Hymes 1964). The linguistic philosophers such as Austin (1962), Searle (1969)
and Grice (1975) were also influential in the study of language as social action,
reflected in speech-act theory and the formulation of conversational maxims,
alongside the emergence of pragmatics, which is the study of meaning in context
( see Levinson 1983; Leech 1983).

British discourse analysis was greatly influenced by M. A. K. Halliday's

functional approach to language (e.g. Halliday 1973), which in turn has
connexions with the Prague School of linguists. Halliday's framework emphasises
the social functions of language and the thematic and informational structure of
speech and writing. Also important in Britain were Sinclair and Coulthard (1975)
at the University of Birmingham, who developed a model for the description of
teacher-pupil talk, based on a hierarchy of discourse units. Other similar work has
dealt with doctor patient interaction, service encounters, interviews, debates and
business negotiations, as well as monologues. Novel work in the British tradition
has also been done on intonation in discourse. The British work has principally
followed structural-linguistic criteria, on the basis of the isolation of units, and sets
of rules defining well-formed sequences of discourse.

American discourse analysis has been dominated by work within the

ethnomethodological tradition, which emphasises the research method of close
observation of groups of people communicating in natural settings. It examines
types of speech event such as storytelling, greeting rituals and verbal duels in
different cultural and social settings (e.g. Gumperz and Hymes 1972). What is

2
 INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN GENERAL MARTÍN MIGUEL DE GÜEMES
N°8.226 Educando con Calidad, Humanidad y Sabiduría

Libertad 481 – General Güemes – Salta. Argentina

E-Mail: institutogeneralguemes@gmail.com

often called conversation analysis within the American tradition can also be
included under the general heading of discourse analysis. In conversational
analysis, the emphasis is not upon building structural models but on the close
observation of the behaviour of participants in talk and on patterns which recur
over a wide range of natural data. The work of Goffman (1976; 1979), and Sacks,
Schegloff and Jefferson (1974) is important in the study of conversational norms,
turn-taking, and other aspects of spoken interaction. Alongside the conversation
analysts, working within the sociolinguistic tradition, Labov's investigations of oral
storytelling have also contributed to a long history of interest in narrative
discourse. The American work has produced a large number of descriptions of
discourse types, as well as insights into the social constraints of politeness and
face-preserving phenomena in talk, overlapping with British work in pragmatics.

Also relevant to the development of discourse analysis as a whole is the work of

text grammarians, working mostly with written language. Text grammarians see
texts as language elements strung together in relationships with one another that
can be defined. Linguists such as Van Dijk (1972), De Beaugrande (1980),
Halliday and Hasan (1976) have made a significant impact in this area. The
Prague School of linguists, with their interest in the structuring of information in
discourse, has also been influential. Its most important contribution has been to
show the links between grammar and discourse.

Discourse analysis has grown into a wide-ranging and heterogeneous discipline

which finds its unity in the description of language above the sentence and an
interest in the contexts and cultural influences which affect language in use. It is
also now, increasingly, forming a backdrop to research in Applied Linguistics, and
second language learning and teaching in particular.

1.2 Different definitions about Discourse analysis

What is discourse?

3
 INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN GENERAL MARTÍN MIGUEL DE GÜEMES
N°8.226 Educando con Calidad, Humanidad y Sabiduría

Libertad 481 – General Güemes – Salta. Argentina

E-Mail: institutogeneralguemes@gmail.com

Discourse is: ‘Language above the sentence level or above the clause.’(Stubbs
1998).

DA is the study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger
meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversation, interviews, etc.

For example, discourse analysis deals with:

a) how the choice of articles, pronouns, and tenses affects the structure of
the discourse (see Address form, COHESION)
b) the relationship between utterances in a discourse( see adjacency pairs,
COHERENCE)
c) the moves made by the speakers to introduce a new topic , change the
topic, or assert a higher ROLE RELATIONSHSHIP to the other
participants.

Analysis of spoken discourse is sometimes called CONVERSATIONAL

ANALYSIS. Some linguists use the term TEXT LINGUISTICS for the study of
written written discourse.

Another focus of discourse analysis is the discourse used in the classroom.

Such analyses can be useful in finding out about the effectiviness of teaching
methods and the types of teacher-students interactions. (Longman Dictionary
of language teaching and applied linguistics, (2.010) page 175-175.

Discourse Analysis examines how stretches of language, considered in their

full textual, social, and psychological context, become meaning and unified
for their users.(Cook 1989;viii).

Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between

language and the contexts in which it is used… discourse Analysis is not only
concerned with the description and analysis of spoken interaction…discourse
analysts are equally interested in the organization of written interaction.
(McCarthy 1919:12)

4
 INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN GENERAL MARTÍN MIGUEL DE GÜEMES
N°8.226 Educando con Calidad, Humanidad y Sabiduría

Libertad 481 – General Güemes – Salta. Argentina

E-Mail: institutogeneralguemes@gmail.com

Discourse analysis is the analysis of language in use. Better put, it is the

study of language at use in the world, not just to say things, but to do things.(
Gee 2011:ix)

While some discourse analysts focus on how meaning and structure are signaled
in texts, others,especially since the early 1990s, have used discourse analysis
more critically to examine issue relating to power, inequality and ideology. (Baker
and Ellece 2011 : 32)
Discourse is language use relative to social, political and cultural formations – it
is language reflecting social order but also language shaping social order, and
shaping individuals’ interaction with society. (Jaworski and Coupland 2006 : 3)

The word “discourse” is usually defined as “language beyond the sentence”

and so the analysis of discourse is typically concerned with the study of
language in texts and conversation. In many of the preceding chapters, when
we were concentrating on linguistic description, we were concerned with the
accurate representation of the forms and structures. However, as language-
users, we are capable of more than simply recognizing correct versus
incorrect forms and structures. We can cope with fragments in newspaper
headlines such as Trains collide, two die, and know that what happened in the
first part was the cause of what happened in the second part. We can also
make sense of notices like No shoes, no service, on shop windows in summer,
understanding that a conditional relation exists between the two parts (“If you
are wearing no shoes, you will receive no service”). We have the ability to
create complex discourse interpretations of fragmentary linguistic messages.
Brown and Yule (1983)

Discourse analysis is not just one approach, but a series of interdisciplinary

approaches that can be used to explore many different social domains in many
different types of studies. (Phillips and Jorgenson 2002 : 1)

5
INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIÓN GENERAL MARTÍN MIGUEL DE GÜEMES
N°8.226 Educando con Calidad, Humanidad y Sabiduría

Libertad 481 – General Güemes – Salta. Argentina

E-Mail: institutogeneralguemes@gmail.com