DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

A.    DEFINITION OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Originally the word 'discourse' comes from Latin ' Discursus' which denoted conversation, speech . Thus understood, however, discourse refers to too wide an area of human life, discourse only from the vantage point of linguistics, applied linguistics and especially.[1]

There is no agreement among Linguists as to the use of the term discourse. That some use it in reference to texts, while others claim it denotes speech which is for instance illustrated by the Help Us definition that was written by Crystal: "Discourse: a continuous stretch of (especially spoken ) language larger than a sentence, constituting a coherent Often unit dry as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative "[2]

When we carry further investigation and ask how we, as language users, make sense of what we read in texts, understand what speaker meant despite what they say, recognize connected as opposed to jumbled or incoherent discourse, and successfully take part in that complex activity called conversation. We are undertaking what is known as discourse analysis.[3]

B.     COHESION

Cohesion is grammatical relationship between parts of a sentence essential for its interpretation.[4] Text must have a certain structure which depends on factors quite different from those required in the structure of a single sentence. Some of the factors are described in terms of cohesion or the ties and connections which exist within texts

Analysis of these cohesive links within text gives us some insight into how writers structure what they want to say and may be crucial factors in our judgements on whether something is well written or not. It has also been noted that the conventions of cohesive structure differ from one language to next and may be one of the sources of difficulty encountered in translating texts.

There are five types of cohesive ties which will be analyzed individually below: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. It is possible to say that cohesion can be “expressed partly through the grammar and partly through the vocabulary”. Therefore, the five types can be grouped into grammatical and lexical cohesion, i.e. reference, substitution, and ellipsis, fall under the category of grammatical cohesion, while conjunction combines grammatical, as well as, lexical features, and lexical cohesion which is only realized by vocabulary. Those are five types of cohesive ties:[5]

a.       Reference

The term reference refers to specific items within a text/discourse which cannot be “interpreted semantically in their own right”, but “make reference to something else”, i.e. some other item within the text/discourse, “for their interpretation”. These reference items, which refer to something else, are called directives and indicate “that information is to be retrieved from elsewhere”. “The information to be retrieved is the referential meaning, the identity of the particular thing or class of things that is being referred to”.

Ø  John goes fishing every other week. He is a very good fisherman.

In the subject of the second sentence “he” refers back to the subject of the first sentence “John”. If the first sentence were not part of the example and a potential reader were only given the sentence “He is a very good fisherman.” the reader would not be able to figure out who “he” is and would therefore not be able to make much sense of the given sentence. The personal pronoun “he” cannot be interpreted semantically in its own right and information about this element of the sentence has to be retrieved from somewhere else, i.e. from the sentence before. “He” makes reference to “John” in the first sentence and thus forms a cohesive tie of reference that connects the two sentences to each other. It is possible to say that “reference is a relation between meanings”, but it is also possible to say that “reference is a relation on the semantic level”.

b.      Substitution

Substitution is the process in which one item within a text or discourse is replaced by another. While reference was a relation on the semantic level, i.e. between meanings, substitution is a relation on the lexicogrammatical level (level of grammar and vocabulary), between linguistic items, such as words or phrases. Example (1) shows this cohesive relation in which “one” substitutes the word “car”.

(1)   Jack’s car is very old and ugly. He should get a nicer one.

The difference between reference and substitution is that the substituted items are always exchangeable by the items they stand for. With reference the presupposed items can almost never replace the items which refer to them. The table below illustrates this. While in (1) “one” could easily be replaced by “car” without changing the meaning of the sentence . “it” in (3) could never be exchanged by “watch”. The same is true for (2) in which “he” is not exchangeable by “John” without creating ambiguity. The reader cannot be sure anymore if the “John” in the second sentence is the same person that occurs in the first sentence.

(2) John goes fishing every other week. John is a very good fisherman.

(3) There watch is, my so much admired watch.

Consequently, “the substitute item has the same structural function as that for which it substitutes”. There are also different types of substitution which are called nominal substitution (replacement of a noun by “one, ones, same”, as illustrated in (1), verbal substitution (replacement of a verb by “do”) and clausal substitution (replacement of a clause by “so, not”)

c.       Ellipsis

Ellipsis as a type of cohesive relation is very similar to substitution. While substitution referred to the replacement of one textual element by another, ellipsis is simply characterized by “the omission of an item”. The process can, therefore, be “interpreted as that form of substitution in which an item is replaced by nothing” or as “substitution by zero”. The example below illustrates such a cohesive tie of ellipsis. In the given example the predicator “ate” is left out in the second half of the sentence and is presupposed because it already occurred before. It would, of course, also be possible to repeat the predicator again at the position where it has been left out.

·         Mary ate some chocolate chip cookies, and Robert [blank] some gummi bears.

 “ellipsis occurs when something that is structurally necessary is left unsaid”

d.      Conjunctions

Conjunction are the words used to connect words, phrases even clauses. Conjunction or discourse makers play an important part in sentences, words or any clauses. It means that if we want to combine to syllables or phrases even clauses, the important thing must be regarded is conjunction or discourse makers

Conjunction or discourse makers are not variable. Meaning that we are not changed in plural or singular and they have no gender such as noun or pronoun. In English, conjunction shared used to combine sentences, clauses or to different sentences in an equal level or vice versa.

Conjunctions have two basic functions or "jobs":

·       Coordinating conjunctions are used to join two parts of a sentence that are grammatically equal. The two parts may be single words or clauses, for example:
- Jack and Jill went up the hill.
- The water was warm, but I didn't go swimming.

·       Subordinating conjunctions are used to join a subordinate dependent clause to a main clause, for example:
- I went swimming although it was cold.

e.       Lexical Cohesion

Lexical cohesion is generally understood as “the cohesive effect that is achieved by the selection of vocabulary”. This type of cohesion can be subdivided into the categories reiteration and collocation.

Reiteration has to do with the use of general nouns to create a cohesive effect by replacing one element by another in the ongoing text/discourse. Cohesion can thereby be achieved in many different ways, either by the repetition of the same item, or via the use of synonyms, near-synonyms, hyperonyms (superordinates), and general words. It is important to note that “a general noun in a cohesive function is almost always accompanied by the reference item the” which creates anaphoric reference. The word “the” indicates that the element which comes after it refers back and, therefore, has to be identical with a lexical item that occurred earlier in the

text/discourse. The example below shows the different types of reiteration that can create lexical cohesion.

John caught a snake underneath a bucket
Repetition	The snake is going to suffocate if it stays there very long
Synonym	The serpent is going to suffocate if he does not let it go
Hyperonym (superordinate)	The animal is going to suffocate if he does not let it go.
General word	The poor thing is going to suffocate if he does not let it go

A second subcategory of lexical cohesion is collocation. Collocations are lexical “items that regularly co-occur” and by doing so create cohesion within a given text/discourse. It is possible to say “that there is cohesion between any pair of lexical items that stand to each other in some recognizable lexicosemantic (word meaning) relation”. This includes synonyms, near-synonyms, hyperonyms (superordinates), pairs of opposites (e.g. husband-wife, nephew-niece), antonyms (e.g. black-white, full-empty), converses (e.g. order-obey), pairs of words drawn from the same ordered series (e.g. Monday-Wednesday), pairs drawn from unordered lexical sets (e.g. blue-yellow, attic-cellar), part-whole relationships (e.g. air plane-wing, pants-pocket), part to part relationships (e.g. nose-ear), and “co-hyponyms of the same more general class (e.g. couch/cupboard-furniture), etc. “The members of any such set stand in some kind of semantic relation to one another, but for textual purposes it does not much matter what this relation is”. Cohesion can always be found between words that tend to occur in the same lexical environment and are in some way associated with each other. In general terms, “any two lexical items having similar patterns of collocation – that is, tending to appear in similar contexts – will generate a cohesive force if they occur in adjacent sentences.

C.     COHERENCE

The key to the concept of coherence is something which exists in people. It is people who make sense of what they read or hear. They try to arrive at an interpretation which is in line with their experience of the way the world is. Indeed, our ability to make sense of what we read is probably only a small part of that general ability we have to perceive or receive in the world. If you work on a text long enough, you may find a way to incorporate all the disperate elements into a single coherence interpretation. In doing so, you would be involved in a process on filling in a lot of gaps which exist in the text. You would have to cread meaning full connections which are not actually expressed by the word and the sentences.[6]

Coherence is the term used to describe the way a text establishes links in meaning within and between sentences. Essentially coherence is concerned with the content of a text, the meaning it is attempting to convey. When texts are not coherent, they do not make sense or they make it difficult for the reader to follow and understand.

For examples:

The following dialogue relies upon the reader making the appropriate inference or connections between the two sentences.

Jane: “You were late again this morning.”

Ann: “I was up all night with the baby.” 

Both speakers leave out information which they expect the other (and a readetr or listener) to fill in. we tend to recognize the implicit question in Jane’s statement, and to make the  inference necessary in Ann’s reply to read as an explanation. The sub-text of this dialogue could be rewritten thus.

Jane: “Why were you late again this morning?”
Ann: “I was late again because I was up all night with the baby.”[7]

D.    SPEECH EVENTS

A speech event is an activity in which participants interact via language in some conventional way to arrive at some outcome.

·         may include one obvious central speech act

·         may include other utterances leading up to and subsequently reacting to that central action

            In exploring what it is that we know about taking part in conversiation or any other speech event (e.g. debate, interview, various types of discussions) we quicly realize that there is enormous variation in what people say and do in defferent circumstances. In order to begin to decribe the sources of that variation, we would have to take account of a number of criteria., for example: the rooles of speaker and hearer, or hearers and their relationship. All this factors  will have influences on what is said and how it is said.[8]

Example:

A: Oh, Mary, I'm glad you're here.

B: What's up?

A: I can't get my computer to work.  (the request is the whole speech event),

B: Is it broken?  (not a single speech act.)

A: I don't think so.

B: What's it doing? (no actual request is made)

A: I don't know. I'm useless with computers.

B: What kind is it?

A: It's a Mac. Do you use them?

B: Yeah.

A: Do you have a minute?

B: Sure.

A: Oh, great

·         the question 'Do you have a minute?' could be characterized as a pre-request, allowing the hearer to say that she's busy or that she has to be somewhere else.

·         the response 'Sure' is taken to be an acknowledgement not only of having time available, but a willingness to perform the unstated action.

E.     CONVERSATIONAL INTERACTION

Conversational analysis  is the study of recorded, naturally occurring talk-in-interaction. But what is the aim of studying these interactions? Principally, it is to discover how participants understand and respond to one another in their turns at talk, with a central focus on how sequences of action are generated."

Conventional setting in which conversation analysis could take place: court hearing, telephone conversation, etc.

One very common structure that has been identified through conversation analysis is the adjacency pair. This is an ordered pair of adjacent utterances spoken by two different speakers. Once the first utterance is spoken, the second is required. A few of the many adjacency pairs that have been identified are shown.[9]

Summon--answer
Can I get some help here?
On my way.
Offer--refusal
Sales clerk: May I help you find something?
Customer: No thank you, I'm just looking.
Compliment--acceptance
Your hair looks very lovely today.
Thank you. I just had it cut.

Conversational discourse refers to the social rules of conversation. There are four basic parts of conversational discourse:[10]

1.      The first is the ability to understand and use grammar and sentence structure to more clearly communicate and clarify meaning.

2.      The second part is the ability to use and interpret nonverbal communication including facial expression and body posture. This part of conversational discourse also includes the ability to use and understand different types of figures of speech, such as idioms and puns.

3.      The third part of conversational discourse is to understand and follow the different rules of social behaviors. Knowing these rules allows a person to initiate interactions, taking turns in interactions, knowing how to smoothly change topics, and ending interactions appropriately.

4.      The fourth part of conversational discourse is the ability to follow the varying norms of different social settings. This ability allows a person to act appropriately in different settings, such as at home, school, or on the playground.

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[1] http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/linguistics/discourse.htm

[2] ibid                                                       

[3] Eni Maharsari, 2002, Introduction to Linguistics, Citra Mentari Group, Malang, hal 70

[4] http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/linguistics/discourse.htm

[5] http://www.glottopedia.de/index.php/Cohesion

[6] Eni Maharsari, 2002, Introduction to Linguistics, …, page 72

[7] http://www.cybergrammar.co.uk/discourses_coherence.php

[8] Eni Maharsari, 2002, Introduction to Linguistics, … , page 72

[9] http://www.ablevillage.com/village-encyclopedia/conditions-a-disabilities/270-conversational-discourse

[10] ibid