DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

“THE DIFFERENCE OF DISCOURSE AND TEXT”

By

Made Trisna Cahyani 1612021043

Ni Luh Okky Dastra Andriani 1612021061

I Made David Garcia Sasmita 1612021072

7 B Class

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EDUCATION

FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND ART

GANESHA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION

2019
 Summary

It essential to know the concepts of discourse and text in order

to know the difference between both of them. This paper explains the
concept of discourse by several experts. Discourse is a spoken
language that involves interactive communication between speaker
and listener to convey a complete message (Dijk, 1996: Mills, 1997:
Nunnan, 1993). Meanwhile text is a written product of verbal act
that involves non-interaction communication (Dijk, 1996). The paper
explore the differences between discourse and text through their
nature, relations between writer – reader and speaker – audience,
consideration, analysis part, and form.
1. Introduction
The true definition of discourse itself is still become polemic between the
experts. As written in Hardison (2011) some experts says that discourse itself
synonymous with text. However, between text and discourse there are several
differences that become the fundamental in differing them such as the concept,
nature, agent, form, analysis part, etc. It results more fuzziness in the terms
‘discourse’ and ‘text’. Another example, Djik (1996) in his book stated that
language use is not limited to spoken language, however it also involves written
or printed language. While we understood that text is included in written
discourse and we may think what could differ between discourse and text.
Some of the researcher admit to label their analysis ‘discourse analysis’,
while contrary other researcher claim that it is ‘text analysis’. Even though, the
definition of both term ‘discourse’ and ‘text’ do not meet clear distinction. Take
for example, Widdowson (1973) stated that text is made of sentences while
discourse is the use of sentences. A text analysis deals with cohesion, while
discourse analysis investigates the coherence. To be clear, cohesion means link
between sentences and coherence means the meaning of the sentences based on
the theme. However, in 1978 Widdowson changed his argument of discourse and
admit that sentence have the properties of cohesion and coherence.

2. Discussion
2.1 Concept of Discourse

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 Talking about the notion of discourse, it is essentially ambiguous. The
term of discourse comes out from the Latin word “dicurcus” which means
“communication” (McArthur, 1996) as cited in Drid (2010). Communication is
not only limited in form of spoken but also in form of written communication.
Based on Oxford dictionary, discourse means as a spoken or written language
use. Language use is not about the rule of using the language but it refers to
communicative meaning of language or it simply said as context. Several
researchers define a discourse in common sense definitions. Discourse is a form
of language use, public speeches or spoken language (Dijk, 1996). Meanwhile,
Habibie (nd) explains that in United Kingdom, discourse denotes as a spoken
language, which involves interactive conversation with a certain length. It means
that the spoken language can be known as discourse, if there is an interaction
between speaker and listener. Other researcher explains that discourse is a form
of linguistic communication as a transaction between speaker and hearer (Mills,
1997). Nunnan (1993) explicitly stated that discourse is a comprehensive
meaningful unit that deliver complete message. Therefore, it can be sum-up that
discourse is a kind of verbal communication in a certain length which involves
interaction between speaker and hearer to convey complete message.
We already know that discourse is a form of communication which
involving speaker and listener, for instances debate, job interview and daily
conversations. In order to specify the concept of discourse, Dijk (1996) states on
his book entitle Discourse as Structure and Process that there are three
dimensions of discourse. The dimensions are language use, communication in
beliefs and social interaction. Language use refers to the communicative
meaning of language. Social interaction refers to relation between an individual
to other people. Conclusively, a discourse should be containing of the use of
language and social interaction, in order to communicate ideas or beliefs.

2.2 Concept of Text

The etymology of text derived from Latin verb “textere” which means as
sequences of sentences or utterances structurally and semantically (Hussein &
Pulungan, 2017). The term of text are also defined by several researchers. Text is

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a semantic unit which contains some specific textual components (Halliday &
Hasan , 1978) as cited in (Ifversen, 2002). Dijk (1996) also defines text as a
writing product or written interaction. Other researcher explain text is a
linguistic communication that can be seen as message coded in a visual medium
(Mills, 1997). It is typically non-interactive communication that do not involve a
speaker or listener. It means that the users or participants do not have face-to-
face interaction but they do written interaction. Simply, we can say text is an
object or product of verbal acts which involves non interactive communication.
De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) as cited in Wang & Guo (2014) state
seven characteristics of a text, which is also known as seven standards of
textuality. These characteristics should be consider to identify any type of text.
The characteristics can be described as follows:
1. Intentionality. It refers to author’s intentions as a writer to attain a certain
goal when create a text. A text may contain author’s goal need to be
delivered in the content of a text.
2. Acceptability. It means as a text should be consisting of a worth accepting
or relevant information to the reader.
3. Informativity. It refers to amount of information which concern to the
reader. It means that a text should consider about information that is
needed by reader.
4. Situationality. It refers to situation including time and place which make a
text relevant to the situation of event.
5. Intertextuality. It means a text should has a relationship with other kind of
texts which share similar characteristics so that the reader can attain the
information.
6. Cohesion. It refers to a sequence of sentences, words and phrases. A text
should cohesive, in which there is a link between one sentence to other
sentences.
7. Coherence. It refers to the connection of idea in the whole text.
2.3 The Difference of Discourse and Text

Discourse and text can be distinguished in several aspects such as in terms of

concept, agent, nature, analysis parts, form and examples. The detail
differentiation between discourse and text can be described in detail, as follows:

1. Nature

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 Some experts define text and discourse similarly in nature. Discourse is a
language used by people to communicate. Discourse is really bounded to social
context. Generally, discourse is known as interpersonal transaction. It requires
interaction (Dijk, 1977). Regarding the definition, discourse is really close to
talk as one way of interactive communication. Besides talk, people communicate
through written language as well. E-mail, text book, letters, newspaper,
magazine, article, and etc. are examples of written communication. They are all
also known as text (Dijk, 1977). Dijk stated that there are similarities between
the way people talk and write. Therefore, discourse covers both of interactive
communication through talk and text.
Stubbs as cited in Widdowson (2004) defined “text” and “discourse” as
language above the sentence or clause. They defined “text” and “discourse” as
the same thing. However, Chafe as cited in Widdowson (2004) characterized a
text as a unity of sentences that complement each other. Regarding Chafe
characterization, it appears a question about whether a simple unit of language
can be considered as a text or not. For instance, “No Smoking”, it is a public
notice. Hymes (1968) as cited in Widdowson (2004) defined the public notice as
complete communicative unit. However, it does not belong to text considering
Chafe criteria of a text. Considering Stubbs definition of text, “No Smoking”
fulfills the requirement as a text because it has meaning. The sentence
communicates meaning although it the text is short.
Take another example of small complete communicative unit of road
sign “P”, road sign “P” has meaning. If the “P” is found on the road side, people
who drove car or motorcycle will park their vehicle near the sign. People
generally understand the meaning of the sign. Seeing vehicles park near the sign
indicates that the sign means parking is allowed here. This “P” sign is
considered as minimum text by Widdowson (2004). However, the meaning of
“P” sign can be different. It is depends on the context. The sign “P” cannot be
interpreted if it is taken as an alphabet. It can be interpreted when it figures as
text (Widdowson, 2004).
According to Meuris (2018), text is a linguistics object. It is a unity of
sentences which are coherence and cohesive. The way they are ordered and
linked together and complete each other will produce a meaning of the text.

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Meanwhile, Meruis (2018) also stated that when the text is used for
communicating, it appears in a particular communicative context. People who
communicate through text message can be considered as a text which has certain
context. In this case text can be said as written discourse. It is because the
through text message, interaction happens although it is not face-to-face
interaction.
2. Author – Reader and Speaker – Listener Relation
Talking about text, we know that it is written by someone. Someone who
produces text usually called as author. The one who read the text is called as
reader. Relation between the reader and the author is not obvious (Dijk, 1977).
Author and reader are not interacting face to face. Therefore, it if often said that
the there is no interaction between the reader and the author. However, the
interaction is still possible. It can be done through written communication. The
communication can be done through e-mail as an example.
In text, the author’s life, feelings, and etc. is not considered when
someone reading his or her work. The focus is the content. The text has to be
clear by its own. It is because the reader cannot ask for clarification directly
from the author. In other hand, discourse is really bounded to the speakers. There
has to be interaction between the speakers. The speakers are also the listeners in
the interactive communication. In communication, the speakers have intentions.
Therefore, discourse is really bound to social context (Dijk, 1977). Who utter the
utterance, where it is uttered, and to whom it is uttered is needed to be
considered. Conclusively, text has no obvious interactive interaction between the
author and the reader. Meanwhile, speaker and listener have interactive
communication.
3. Consideration
According to Dell Hymes, there are several things that should be
considered. They are abbreviated as “SPEAKING”. “SPEAKING” stands for
setting and space, participants, ends, act sequence, key, instrumentalities,
norms, and genre. Setting and space refer to the time and the place or where
and when the interactive communication happens. Participants are those who
are involved in the interactive communication. In conversation, they are the
speaker and audience. Ends refer to the purpose or the goal of the
conversation. Act sequence is speech events or other of event in the

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 interaction. Key refers to the cues that establish tone and manner of the
speech act. Instrumentalities are about language styles which used by the
speakers. Norms is social rules which influence the communicative
interaction. The “G” stands for genre. It refers to category of speech act or
event (Gumperz & Hymes, 1972).
There are also several things that should be considered in text. They
are purpose, audience, clarity, unity, and coherence (National Geographic
Learning, 2019). Purpose is about the purpose of the author in writing the
text. Audience refers to the reader of the text. It influences the language style
and writer point of view. Clarity refers to the grammar use by the writer that
support the author in make her/his sentence understandable. Unity means the
supporting details of the text is in line with the topic of the text. All of the
sentence must support the main topic of the text. Another aspect that should
be considered in text is coherence. Coherence refers to the order of
sentences, repetition of key word, and transitional word or phrase. Sentences
must be ordered logically. The writer has to consider transitional word
choice to make the text flow smoothly. Those aspects will help the reader
catch up what is delivered through text.
3. Analysis Parts
In text, agent has no direct effect of the content to the reader. Agent is the
one who receive the information given from the text. Text or written
information do not require agent to become a text. Besides, in analysis parts,
the focus of analysis of the text is the grammatical cohesion and the structure
of sentence. In analyzing a text, it needs to be mindful to the linguistic and
grammatical categories of the language, and the information that exist on the
text based on the meaning, grammatical device used, meaning, structure, etc.
(Upen, 2018).
In discourse, it has discussed previously that in discourse, agent has very
crucial role. Discourse will happened by the existence of two agents which
doing interaction and there is information transfer from one to another or
simply the agents involved in the communication. As discourse defined to
have social purpose, it also become the object of analysis along with the
medium used in order to comprehend the meaning. The example of studies

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 that analyze discourse such as ‘Conversation Analysis’ that focus on the
interactional nature of language use and discourse and ‘Discourse
Pragmatics’ that deals with language use rather than grammar (Teun,
Thompson, & Grammar, 1992).
Salkie (1995) in her book, she stated that actually text and discourse is in
the same area of linguistics, it is the systematic study of language. Salkie
argued the best way to understand what text and discourse analysis about is
by compare them with another area of linguistics; grammar. Grammar or
sometimes called as syntax itslef mainly deals with the structure of
individual sentence. Most people think that grammar is the correctness in
speaking or writing, however in linguistics it does not deal with how people
should speak and write but it tries to describe how people actually do speak
and write. To analyze discourse and text, it will insufficient to analyze only a
sentence. This due to text and discourse analysis deals with how those
sentences combine to form texts.

4. Form
In linguistic term, ‘text’ refer to written or printed words. The text itself
is the extension of language that can be understood by looking at the context.
One or two words or as complex as novel are the example of text based on
the definition. Another example, when you driving along the road and find
street sign ‘be careful’, it is already belong to a text complete with the
context. Text also refers to the content rather than its form (Nordquist, 2019).
Based on the example previously you might put attention to the words rather
than its physical form whether it is made of steel, wood, etc.
Discourse is often conversational communication between people or it is
known as a social event of multi-layered communication. It can be in form
of written, verbal, visual or audial form. Slightly this definition might be fall
into confusion due to written discourse are also included in text. However,
the keywords of defining discourse that it has an interactive social purpose.
5. Examples
Based on the definitions above about terms ‘discourse’ and ‘text’, there
are several examples can be taken in order to put better understanding.

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 Table 1. Examples of Text and Discourse

Example of Text Example of Discourse

 Press reports  Seminar
 Street signs  Presentation
 Document  Speech
 Report  Meeting
 Newspaper  Dialogue
 Proposal  Story Telling
 etc.  etc.

3. Conclusion

Conclusively, it is essential to know the concept of discourse and text in order to

distinguish those terms accurately. Several experts have been explain some definitions
of discourse and text. Based on those explanations, discourse and text are different in
some cases. There are several ways to differentiate between discourse and text.
Discourse and text can be differentiated in terms of its concept, agent (whether it use
speaker or listener), nature, analyzing parts (what parts are involved), form and example

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