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Course description
This course offers an introduction for beginners to the discipline “Discourse Analysis”. It focuses on equipping students with key concepts and theoretical knowledge necessary for analyzing a wide range of written and spoken texts in different contemporary social contexts. It covers fundamental concepts crucial to understanding discourse analysis, including the term discourse itself, context, and the societal norms and rules guiding communication. Students will learn about major methodologies for discourse analysis, including Pragmatics, Conversation Analysis, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Systematic Functional Grammar, and Critical Discourse Analysis, among others. The course’s objective is to help students apply theoretical concepts and analytical techniques to various types of texts and interactions.
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A welcome message
Welcome to the Discourse Analysis course! We'll explore how language shapes our understanding of the world. This course isn't just about understanding what's said and written, it's about studying how language creates meaning, power, and identity in society. We'll look at basic ideas and famous theories of discourse analysis to understand communication (speech and writing) better.
I encourage you to actively participate in this course and explore how language works in different situations. By the end of the course, you'll have a better understanding of human interaction.
I'm looking forward to learning together this semester. I wish you an enjoyable and educational journey ahead!
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Objectives of the course
By the end of this course, you should be familiar with:
- Basic Assumptions of Discourse Analysis: Understand foundational concepts and assumptions about how language operates within discourse analysis.
- Forms of Discourse: Learn to identify and analyze various types of discourse, including both spoken and written forms, such as conversations, news articles, and different kinds of speeches.
- Prominent Theories of Discourse Analysis: Familiarize yourself with key theories used to interpret and analyze discourse.
- Influence of Context: Understand how different contexts influence language usage and interpretation.
- Analytical Skills: Learn the procedural steps for conducting text analysis.
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Definition of ‘Discourse’ and ‘Discourse Analysis’
Definition of ‘discourse’
The main aim of this course is to introduce students or the general audience to some of the basic terms, concepts, and approaches involved in the discipline called ‘discourse analyses.’ A way to simplify this attempt is to say that discourse analysis is ‘the analysis of discourse’. The next question, therefore, would be ‘What is discourse?’. Following are some definitions of discourse:
- ‘Discourse’ in discourse analysis refers to examining speech, writing, and other texts to derive meaning, emphasizing context, culture, and various approaches for analysis.
- Discourse in discourse analysis refers to language beyond the sentence, focusing on social practices in social, cultural, and historical contexts.
- ‘Discourse’ in discourse analysis refers to language use in context, encompassing linguistic and non-linguistic elements, situational and sociocultural contexts, and cultural influences on meaning-making in communication.
- ‘Discourse’ in discourse analysis refers to the language used in conversations and texts, encompassing cohesion, coherence, speech events, and background knowledge to analyze communication effectively.
- ‘Discourse’ in discourse analysis refers to the study of language use in context, exploring communication beyond individual sentences to understand social practices and power dynamics.
In summary, one simple definition of ‘Discourse’ can be ‘speech and writing in various contexts’, or simply ‘language in use’. Language in use refers to the set of norms, preferences, and expectations that relate language to social and cultural contexts.
The term ‘text’ is, sometimes, used interchangeably with the term ‘discourse’. Texts or discourses are any forms of spoken or written language that have “connections”, “relationships”, or “coherence” among its utterances or sentences.
Definition of ‘discourse analysis’
‘Discourse analysis’ is a sub-branch of linguistics that analyses speech and writing to derive meaning. It studies the ways sentences and utterances go together to form texts and interactions and how those texts and interactions fit into our social world. It focuses on language use in various contexts, and how language shapes social practices and identities. Discourse analysis plays a crucial role in understanding communication dynamics, social interactions, and the impact of language on society.
To summarize, discourse analysis analyses speech and writing to derive meaning. Different scholars have proposed various models and frameworks for conducting discourse analysis (see the topic on approaches to discourse analysis.
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Written discourse refers to communication that is conveyed through written language, encompassing a wide range of texts such as essays, books, emails, reports, and articles. It involves the use of written symbols, such as letters and punctuation marks, to convey meaning and information. Written discourse often exhibits characteristics of formality, as it allows for careful planning, editing, and revision. Writers have the opportunity to craft their message with precision, employing complex syntactic structures and sophisticated vocabulary to convey their ideas effectively. Written discourse provides a permanent record of language, enabling readers to access and interpret the text at their own pace.
On the other hand, spoken discourse involves communication that takes place through spoken language, including conversations, speeches, presentations, and interviews. It occurs in real-time, allowing for immediate interaction and feedback between speakers and listeners. Spoken discourse tends to be more informal than written discourse, characterized by spontaneity, flexibility, and adaptability to the ongoing communication context. Speakers rely on intonation, stress, rhythm, and other prosodic features to convey meaning, emotion, and emphasis, complementing their verbal message with nonverbal cues such as facial expressions and gestures.
The differences between written and spoken discourses are rooted in their production, reception, and communicative purposes. Written discourse provides a permanent record of language, allowing writers to carefully plan and revise their message, whereas spoken discourse occurs in real-time, facilitating immediate interaction and feedback between speakers and listeners. Written discourse tends to be more formal and structured, with complex syntactic structures and sophisticated vocabulary, while spoken discourse is often more informal and spontaneous, characterized by intonation, rhythm, and nonverbal cues. Despite these differences, both modes of discourse serve as essential means of communication, each with its own unique characteristics and communicative strengths. Understanding the distinctions between written and spoken discourses is crucial for effective communication in various contexts, and for discourse analysis as well.
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Assumptions about language central to understanding Discourse Analysis
There are four assumptions about language that we should consider all the time when analysing any discourse. These assumptions are:
- Language is ambiguous. This means that what things mean is never absolutely clear. When analyzing texts or interactions, we just try to interpret what other people mean and what they are trying to do. This is simply because people don’t always say what they mean, and people don’t always mean what they say, and because when we communicate, we always mean to communicate more than just one thing.
- Language meaning must always be interpreted in relation to the social context it appears in. Context simply refers to a number of factors such as who is saying an utterance or writing a sentence, where and when language is used, and what it is used to do, and so on.
- Language must be viewed in relation to its society. Our use of language displays our social identities and the social groups we belong to.
- To reach an understanding of language, we must look at language in combination with things like our tone of voice, facial expressions, and gestures when we speak, and the fonts, layout, and graphics we use in written texts.
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- 1. The Cooperative Principle
The cooperative principle, introduced by Grice, assumes that participants in a conversation will cooperate to make their contributions understandable by conforming to expectations and norms about conversational behavior. Grice identified four main maxims that underlie the cooperative principle:
- Maxim of quality: Speakers are expected to be truthful and provide accurate information.
- Maxim of relevance: Speakers are expected to contribute what is relevant to the topic.
- Maxim of manner: Speakers are expected to communicate clearly, avoiding ambiguity and obscurity
- Maxim of quantity: Speakers are expected to provide the right amount of information, neither too much nor too little, to convey their intended message effectively.
While these maxims are not strict rules, individuals generally adhere to them in conversations. Violations or flouting of these maxims can lead to implicatures, implying additional meanings beyond the literal content of utterances. Instances where individuals deviate from these maxims (flout the maxims) during conversations often result in implicatures that hint at meanings beyond the literal expression, demonstrating the complexity of communication beyond literal interpretations. Comprehending conversations entails understanding utterances in light of anticipated norms and implicatures that emerge from violations of these principles. Grice's cooperative principle is fundamental in discourse analysis as it provides a framework for examining how individuals engage in conversation, follow conversational norms, and interpret implicit meanings in communication.
- 2. The Speech Act Theory
Speech act theory, introduced by Searle, focuses on the performative aspect of language, emphasizing that language is not just about conveying information but also about performing actions, expressing intentions, and influencing the behavior or attitudes of others in communication. Searle introduced three main types of forces (their ability to perform actions) that all speech acts have:
- Locutionary Act: This refers to the act of producing an utterance with a certain sense and reference, essentially the act of saying something with a specific linguistic meaning.
- Illocutionary Act: This type of act focuses on the speaker's intention in performing the speech act, indicating what the speaker is doing in uttering a sentence, such as making a request, giving a command, or asking a question.
- Perlocutionary Act: This act pertains to the effect or impact of the utterance on the listener or recipient, emphasizing the consequences of the speech act on the listener's beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.
Searle's theory highlights the importance of understanding the illocutionary force of utterances in communication, as it is the unit of analysis that determines the intentions behind utterances and the social actions performed through language. Illocutionary acts are categorized into different types based on their illocutionary force, such as assertives, directives, commissives, expressives, and declarations. These acts are context-dependent, requiring appropriate circumstances and intentions for their successful performance.
Overall, Searle's speech act theory provides a framework for analyzing how language is used to perform actions, convey meaning, and shape social interactions in communication.
- 3. Conversation Analysis
Conversation Analysis (CA), introduced by Sacks and others, examines the details of the turn-taking system of naturally occurring conversations to uncover the underlying structures, patterns, and norms governing interaction. CA views conversations as orderly and predictable, with certain types of utterances naturally preceding or following others. It interprets utterances based on their sequential structure with other utterances within a conversation. Some utterances are used in pairs, known as adjacency pairs, where one of them requires the next, thus shaping the flow of conversation. Questions/answers, invitations/acceptance or refusal and greetings/greetings are examples of adjacency pairs. Interpretation of utterances in CA is determined within the conversation itself
- 4. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)
Systematic Functional Linguistics (SFL), also known as Systemic Functional Grammar, is a theory of discourse analysis centered around the idea that language is a social resource for making meaning. The SFL stresses the importance of context in understanding how language works in society. Developed by Michael Halliday, this approach is distinct in its view of language as functional. Halliday claims that language is organized around three main metafunctions: the ideational, the interpersonal, and the textual. The SFL starts with the analysis of the lexicogrammatical devices in clauses, the choices and patterns in vocabulary (lexis), and grammar (syntax) These choices are used in a given text to express and reveal the metafunctions and their meanings in a particular context. It is important to stress that the clause is the unit of analysis in this approach and that each of these metafunctions operates simultaneously to create meaning in a text.
A. Ideational Metafunction in SFL
The ideational function in SFL involves representing the world and our human experience through language. This function analyses clauses and the clause complexes in terms of processes (typically verb groups), participants (typically noun groups), and circumstances (typically prepositional groups and adverb groups). The ideational metafunction links participants with processes creating a representation of 'whos doing whats'. Circumstances add more contextual information (when, where, how, and why) to the description of processes and participants to make them suit the specific context of the interaction. These lexicogrammatical choices we make are influenced by the context (what is called ‘field’ in the SFL) and, at the same time, these choices help to construct the context. Choices of processes, participants, and circumstances are connected to the kind of topic and social activity of the text.
B. Textual Metafunction in SFL
The textual function in SFL looks at the way lexicogrammatical resources are used to organize and package ideational meaning. It focuses on the structural organization of different types of texts, including cohesion, coherence, theme-rehme structure and different types of themes (clause-level themes, hyper themes, and macro themes). Whereas the ideational metafunction relates to the register variable of field, the textual function relates to the register variable of mode. Mode has to do with the nature of the communicative process, including the type of medium (speech or writing), the degree of spontaneity and interactivity, and the role of language (how much work is langauge doing?). Interactivity refers to the process of interaction. If the interaction is between multiple interlocutors, the process is interactive but if it is done by one writer or speaker in isolation, in this case it is non-interactive. Spontaneity is concerned with whether the text was produced spontaneously ‘on-the-spot’ shown in the use of things like repetitions and pauses, or whether it was planned and given the opportunity of editing before production. We examine how the textual metafunction contributes to the coherence and cohesion of a text through the use of lexical and grammatical cohesive devices and how cohesive devices function differently depending on the degree of spontaneity and interactivity in the context, and conversely, the way that these language choices help to create different degrees of spontaneity and interactivity. Everything done here is about considering how aspects of mode (degrees of interactivity, spontaneity and the role of language) relate to the way textual meanings are made through lexicogrammar.
C. Interpersonal Metafunction
The interpersonal function (also tenor) examines relationships between participants involved in a particular text, producer(s) and recipient(s) through exploring their social roles and social status, social distance and the kind of speaker/writer positioning that are enacted in a particular text. There are a number of lexicogrammatical resources that we use in any interaction to establish tenor. Social roles, status and distance can be revealed by analysing the speech functions (questions, statements, commands and offers), terms of address, informal and formal language, turn-taking, first- and second- person pronouns, the mood block (subject and finite), polarity (positive/ negative), and modality (use of modals to convey views on the topic).
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Discourse analysis is a complex process that involves examining spoken or written language to understand its underlying meanings, social contexts, and power dynamics. Here are the general steps involved in analyzing any text or speech:
1. Defining the scope and purpose of your analysis. What questions are you trying to answer? What are your goals?
2. Gathering Data: Collect the texts or speeches you want to analyze. This could include transcripts of interviews, speeches, conversations, or written documents.
3. Transcription (if needed): when analyzing spoken language, transcribe the audio into written text, i.e., convert speech into writing. This ensures that you have a clear and accurate representation of the language being used.
4. Segmentation: Break down the text or speech into manageable segments or units of analysis. This could be sentences, paragraphs, or conversational turns, depending on the nature of the data.
5. Identifying Patterns: Look for recurring themes, topics, or linguistic features within the text. Pay attention to patterns of language use, such as vocabulary choice, sentence structure, and rhetorical devices.
6. Interpretation: Analyze the meanings and implications of the language used. What are the underlying messages, ideologies, or power relations at play? How do different linguistic choices contribute to these meanings?
7. Critical Reflection: Reflect on your own positionality and biases as an analyst. How might your own background, experiences, and perspectives shape your interpretation of the text? Consider alternative interpretations and viewpoints.
8. Presentation of Findings: Present your analysis in a clear and organized manner.
By following these steps, discourse analysts can systematically analyze and interpret texts or speeches to uncover their underlying meanings and implications.
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