Post on 15-Aug-2015
Linguistics
Pragmatics
Discourse
Discourse AnalysisGarcía, M. 2015
UNIT 1PRAGMATICS
ANDDISCOURSE ANALYSIS
BASIC CONCEPTS TO DISCUSS:
Linguistics
Language studies were made basically from a linguistic point of view
Morphology
Syntax
These branches couldn’t explain the use of different utterances in real communication
Semantics
It focused only onthe inner structure of the words
(morphemes)
It focused on the order of the words
in a sentence:
It focused on the meaning of the
words
Hungry?The telephone is crying for you!
It’s raining cats and dogs…What was wrong with these analysis?
García, M. 2015
Pragmatics
Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that deals with the study of language in communication.
Pragmatics
It takes into account aspects that were cast aside by the traditional branches
How people use their background
knowledge to interpret discourse
How people use and understand
speech acts
How people’s relationship
influence their discourse
Pragmatics
García, M. 2015
The relationship between contextualized sentences
Pragmatics
How different texts are organized and used
The cultural aspects that help or interfere with communication
This branch helps us understand:
García, M. 2015
ETHNOGRAPHY
SOCIOLINGUISTICS
LINGUISTICS
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
PRAGMATICS
How people learn, understand
and produce language
Cultural information about
the speech community
Description of what
people say or write
Who speaks?, About what?, To Whom?, When?, Where? and with which purpose?
Pragmatics
García, M. 2015
Discourse, Co-text and Context
Discourse
it refers to the use of language in real communication, within a specific context, with a given intention, for a determined audience. What matters is not its conformity to rules, but the fact that it communicates and it’s recognized by its receivers as coherent
García, M. 2015
Through discourse, people can…
Engage in actions and interaction with others
Organize thoughts into communicative actions
Convey their identities and relationships
Co-text and Context
Co-text
it refers to the relationship established among all the linguistic units within a discourse. That is why, one word can have different connotation, depending of the co-text that surrounds it:
Context
it refers to the variables that surround the discourse, which help us understand the real message.
May I come in? I was born in May
García, M. 2015
Contextual information relevant for discourse understanding
Speakers’ characteristics: their sex, age or nationality
Speakers’ relationship: father
and son, two friends, two politicians…
Social context: a party, a class, a TV
interview…
The channel: speech, writing, signing, smoke
signs
The communicative purpose: to
entertain, to teach…
The speakers’ knowledge about the topic: totally unknown, very familiar
García, M. 2015
Tools users of the language need to consider
USER
Language system
Contextual Knowledge
GOAL
García, M. 2015
Discourse Analysis
it’s a subject that study how utterances in spoken or written language are used to form larger meaningful units such as conversations or interviews in real communicative situations. It’s the search for what gives discourse coherence.
1I went to Caracas. My car is broke and the movie was bad. You have to study and the restaurant is closed
2When I went to Caracas my car broke down. I couldn’tgo to the movie so I stayed atThe hotel studying. At 8:00 pm, I went to the restaurant but it was closed
García, M. 2015
Discourse Analysis
D.A. is a branch of linguistics that focuses on language use above and beyond the sentence… it’s a way of describing and understanding how language is used.
IT IS NOT A METHOD FOR TEACHING LANGUAGE
It serves from different approaches to analyze written, spoken or signed language use.
García, M. 2015
Cases for analysis
Alice speaks English very well in informal situations; the problem is that when she is supposed to speak formally, she keeps using colloquial expressions that make her look uneducated.
I don’t know how to explain my students why American and Venezuelan jokes are different.
García, M. 2015
Analyze the following cases in order to reach an agreement about the necessary information for giving them a convenient
treatment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKbp4hEHV-s
After watching the video,
What aspects do you consider to be as some of the most
important ones for language use and understanding?
García, M. 2015