Mabel Ortiz N.

Discourse analysis

1.    What is discourse? It is written or spoken _______.

        A.    Words        B.    Sentences        C.  

 Paragraphs        D.  

 Communication

What is discourse analysis? It is a study of

_______.        A.    Lexicon and

syntax        B.    Cohesive

devices        C.    Language in

context and situated use        D.    Accumulation of words and sentences

Mabel Ortiz N.

What’s discourse?

• It means either written or spoken communication.

• This term describes a coherent piece of spoken and/or written language in a specific context. A discourse may be a whole text (for example, a personal letter or an entire conversation), or it may be part of a text that conveys related meanings (for example, several exchanges, within a dialogue ...

• Discourse is a contiguous stretch of language comprising more than one sentence (text) or utterance (speech).

Mabel Ortiz N.

Mabel Ortiz N.

Mabel Ortiz N.

What is meant by "discourse analysis"?

• Discourse analysis is the examination of language use by members of a speech community.

• It involves looking at both language form and language function and includes the study of both spoken interaction and written texts.

• It identifies linguistic features that characterize different genres as well as social and cultural factors that aid in our interpretation and understanding of different texts and types of talk.

Mabel Ortiz N.

What is meant by "discourse analysis"?

“The analysis of discourse is necessarily, the analysis of language in use. As such, it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms independent of the purposes or functions which those forms are designed to serve in human affairs.” (Brown an Yule, 1983:1).

“…one must learn more than just the pronunciation, the lexical items, the appropriate word order,…one must also learn the appropriate way to use those words and sentences in the second language.” (Gass and Selinker, 1994:182)

Mabel Ortiz N.

The study of discourse has developed in a variety of disciplines. • Sociolinguistics• Anthropology• Cultural studies• Psychology• Communications• Sociology• Geography• Human-computer interaction• Law• Medicine• Public policy• Business• Tourism studies

Discourse analysis takes different theoretical perspectives and analytic approaches. Although each approach emphasizes differentaspects of language use, they all view language as social interaction.

Mabel Ortiz N.

Analysis of language in

use

what the language is

used for

Discourse Analysis

What is meant by "discourse analysis"?

Mabel Ortiz N.

Among the different disciplines there are different types or

styles to do discourse analysis.

• Linguistic analysisIt’s more explicit and sistematic.

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/An%C3%A1lisis_del_discurso

Types of discourse analysis

Mabel Ortiz N.

Topics considered include:

• Reference• Coherence• Cohesion• Connectors• Substitution• Text types (genre, function,

organization and style)• Spoken discourseAnalyse language in context

Discourse Analysis

• It is impossible to analyse or understand a discourse without taking the whole text, context.For instance:Victor:           Oh! Thanks a lot!Clarence:       Oh dear! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! I'm really sorry about that.

It is hard to understand what happened between the two from the conversation alone.

The whole conversation becomes reasonable when we know the context, and interpret the use of language above and beyond the sentences.