Discourse 24.11.

2022

= contradiction X opposition

→ contradiction = either OR (I am OR I am not)

→ opposition = two things that don’t cancel out each other, but rather come together

and compliment each other to create vitality (e.g., male/female)

Discourse = the use of language above and beyond the sentence: how people use language in

texts and contexts

= created by either speaking (spoken discourse) or writing (written discourse)

= focuses on people’s utterances

= through discourse, people → represent the world

→ convey communicative intentions

→ organize thoughts into communicative actions

→ arrange information so it is accessible to others

= similar for translation (trying to convey the

same meaning from one language to another,
or, for example, trying to verbalize our feelings
or thoughts)

→ engage in actions and interactions with one another

→ convey their identities and relationships

= the construction of discourse

→ involves several simultaneous processes:

1. linguistic processes or arranging sentences and conveying

meanings

2. cognitive processes that underlie the organization of thoughts

into verbal form

(we logically comprehend the world around us, and only then do
we try to verbalize it, which is why we can express ourselves in
various languages)

→ the organization of information = influenced by discourse processes

that draw on interactional roles as well as more stable social
relationships among people

= discourse has coherence → it conveys meaning that is greater than the sum of its
parts
 = discourse is more than the addition of separate sentences onto each other,
rather, there are structured relationships among the parts that result in
something new and different

= discourse is a unit of language above and beyond a mere accumulation of sounds,

morphemes, words, clauses, and sentences (similar to music – not just a random
cluster of noise, but a comprehensive sequence of sounds)

→ discourse = a language above the sentence

Discourse analysis = the study of language and its effects and use above and beyond the

sentence

= a research method constituting of a set of topics to consider in connection

with any instance of discourse

= analysis of “socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of

thinking, valuing, acting and interacting, in the ‘right’ places, at the right
times with the right objects

→ this can be affected by different disorders, such as autism (which

makes people speak in a mostly functional mindset – lack of
greetings, eye contact, small talk, thanking, etc.), otherwise it’s
ingrained in us throughout childhood and stays with us forever

Application = moves the description of a structure up a level

= investigates what is actually said/written in relation to its meaning and its

function in a wider (social) context

= its analyses are explicit, deriving its observations directly from the data

= helps explain questions posed by other fields in social sciences (sociology,

anthropology, psychology, communications, gender studies, organizational

management)

Questions = how do people arrive at decisions in business meetings?

= why are some political speeches more persuasive than others?

= how do men talk in all-male groups?

= etc.

Formal X functional approaches to analyzing language = provide different assumptions about

the general nature of language and the goals if linguistics

= the formal part of language changes based on the specific

situation, whereas the functional part stays more or less the
 same (“Open the window.” X “Would you please open the
window?”)

Language in everyday life → the analysis of discourse = always an analysis of language use

→ discourse analysts examine actual samples of people interacting

with each other in everyday situations

→ analysis of what people do say and not what they might, could or
would say

→ discourse analysis focuses on the patterns in which sentences

appear in the texts that are constructed as people interact with one
another in social contexts

Communicative competence = the knowledge about discourse

= our tacit cultural knowledge about how to use language in

different speech situations, how to interact with different
people engaged together in different speech events, and how to
use language to perform different acts

Spoken X written discourse = differ in processes, complexity, recip. roles, particip. frameworks

→ spoken discourse = produced in real time → immediate reactions

= transitory in nature → fragmented, short tone units, lower degree

of explicitness and specificity

= co-constructed → the recipient provides feedback, gets a chance

to become a speaker, i.e., is involved in the
production

→ written discourse = planned → the information is organized, often condensed into

complex thoughts or clauses, integrated

= ‘A shelf life’ of a text → written discourse can be read and re-

read, may become part of cultural canon

= more constrained by standards of correctness and expectations

of structure/style

Spoken discourse transcripts = a written version of what was said, captures e.g. features of

speech (intonation, volume, nonfluencies), aspects of interaction

(overlaps), aspects of nonvocal behavior (gestures, gaze, etc.)
 = captures talk in time and enables it to be revisited and
subjected to examination

= a partial yet accurate representation of the original talk

= standardized transcription system developed as part of CA

(Gail Jefferson)

= transcription notations/conventions (Schiffrin 1987, Tannen

1989, …)

Sequential/distributional analyses → sequential = a sequence of what happens

= Who says what/where/when? How is it

related to what comes before/after it?

→ distributional = distribution of specific features and

qualities of language

= what forms or ways of speaking occur in

the discourse? Where do they occur, do
some occur together more than others?

= e.g., Glaswegian Talk

Repair and recipient design → repair = the process by which a speaker recognizes a speech

error and repeats what has been said with some sort of
correction

= some repairs may be self-initiated (made by a speaker

without prompting from the listener, e.g., “-I mean…”),
others are other-initiated (prompted by the listener –
“He said what?”)

→ recipient design = the process whereby a speaker takes the

listener into account when presenting
information

Adjacency pairs = a two-part sequence in which the first part sets up a strong expectation that a

particular second part will be provided (“Could you…?”, “Thank you.”, etc.)

= the two parts of an AP help people organize their conversations because they

set up expectations for what will happen next

Participation frameworks = the ways that people interacting with one another take
 responsibility for speaking, listening, and acting

= sometimes PFs change when people adopt different roles and split
off into separate interactions

→ turn-transition place = a place often marked by syntactic closure, intonational

boundary, and/or propositional completion where another

may begin a turn at talk

Narratives = contrast with other genres and speech events

= organize information differently than other genres, such as descriptions/lists

= present events in temporal order of occurrence

= have a relatively fixed structure → abstract, orientation, complicating action,

evaluation, coda

Registers = a variety of language defined according to its use in social situations, e.g., a register
of scientific, religious, formal English

??. seminář – Discourse cont. 1.12.2022

Written discourse = serves as an official bearer of wisdom, insight, institutional knowledge that can

be passed down over time and generations

= often strongly impacted by ideologies about what language should be

= can have many different types based on different genres

= divides the past into history and pre-history (based on if there were any written
záznamy)

= because writing takes longer than speaking, it impacts the final product

Fragmentation = moving rapidly from one idea onto another in spoken discourse

= the segmentation of information into small, syntactically simple chunks of language

that presents roughly one idea at a time

→ this is possible because any potential confusion may be cleared up in real

time, unlike with written discourse
Integration = the arrangement of information into long, syntactically complex chunks of language
that present more than one idea at a time in written discourse

Language functions = what people do by using language

= R. Jakobson (*1960) defines 6 language functions in total

→ Jakobson’s model stresses the context beyond the sentence but ignores
the text itself

→ each of these functions is determined by a different factor

1. referential = oriented toward context

= tries to convey messages/information, show things/facts

2. emotive/expressive = focuses on the addresser

= expresses attitudes, feelings or emotions

3. conative = oriented toward the addressee

= persuades/influences others through commands

4. phatic = focuses on establishing and maintaining social relations

= used in greetings and casual discussions of the weather,

particularly with strangers (ice breakers, small talk)

5. poetic = oriented toward the message

= focuses on the message for its own sake

6. metalinguistic/metalingual = checks whether the participants use the

same code and when the language is used

to speak about language

Language takes place sequentially, therefore it focuses on utterance

Planes of discourse = provide an insight into the relationship between an utterance, its structure,
and wider context, i.e. understanding the meaning/these connection (that give
said meaning)

→ what we say/write = never in a “vacuum”, always surrounded by other information in

other utterances

→ sentences (words strung together + grammatical rules) come together to form utterances
(which convey some textual and social context), which causes an intersection of planes

→ utterance = the realization of a sentence in a textual and social context, including both the
utterances which surround it and the situation in which it is uttered
 → the speaker chooses the emphasis (the construction and focus of their own next
utterance)

Participation framework = the way that people organize and maintain an interaction by adopting

and adapting roles, identities, and ways of acting and interacting

→ all aspects of the relationship between a speaker and hearer relevant whenever
they are interacting with one another

→ what we say and how we say it is crucial to the formation, management, and
negotiation of our interpersonal relationships (includes even things such as names,

especially surnames – esp. in Scandinavian languages, Lithuanian, Arabic

languages etc., e.g., son of ____, married/single)

Exchange structure = concerns the way people take turns in talk

= spoken discourse includes a start, finish, back-channel, overlap, laugh, etc.

= depending on the situation and roles of the speakers, the exchanges may vary

(more overlap in informal discourse, for example)

Act structures = ordered sequences of actions performed through speech

= e.g., the first parts of adjacency pairs (questions, greetings)

→ constrains the interpretation of the following utterance (and the role of it

speaker)

= may exert different degrees of responsibility and control that create feelings of
distance or solidarity, power, or equality between the speaker and the hearer

Information state = the distribution of knowledge among people interacting with one another

= takes onto account other listener’s information needs

= strategies for introducing new information in sentences (syntactic subjects) as

well as in longer texts or multi-party interactions (more salient)

Idea structure = the organization of information within a sentence and the organization of
propositions in a text

= different genres typically have different idea structures

Linking together planes of discourse = every utterance is simultaneously part of and has a meaning
on different planes of discourse

= the interaction of all 5 planes of discourse in the production

and the interpretation of the request