Discourse analysis

Malcolm N. MacDonald (PhD)

Doctoral Training Centre

Language Description
(after systemic –functional linguistics)
 Language description
(after Mathieson and Halliday, 2002)

• Genre: register

• Field: Ideational meanings (aka ‘metafunctions’)

• Tenor: Interpersonal meanings (aka ‘metafucions’)

• Mode: Textual meanings (aka ‘metafunctions’)

 Genre
(Kress, 1989: 17)

The conventionalised forms of the occasions lead to the conventionalised forms

of texts, to specific GENRES.
• Genres have specific forms and meanings, deriving from and encoding the
functions, purposes and meanings of the social occasions.
• Genres therefore provide a precise index and catalogue of the relevant social
occasions of a community at a given time.

Analysing genre is one way of understanding the relationship between text and social
context.
• Genre analysis based on the idea the communicative purpose of social context
determines the source of the text.
• Understand the genres – understand the culture?
What is a genre?

• Genres are the effects of the action of individual social agents acting both within the
bounds of their history and the constraints of particular contexts, and with a
knowledge of existing generic types (Kress, 1989, p. 49).

• Language is seen as embedded in (and constitutive of) social realities, since it is

through recurrent use and typification of conventionalized forms that individuals
develop relationships, establish communities, and get things done (Hyland, 2002, p.
114).

• Genres are abstract, socially recognized ways of using language. Genre analysis is
based on two central assumptions: that the features of a similar group of texts
depend on the social context of their creation and use, and that those features can be
described in a way that relates a text to others like it and to the choices and
constraints acting on text producers (Hyland, 2002, p. 114).
 Genre and Register

How is a genre signalled?

• The generic identity of a text is the way in which it is similar to other texts of its
genre.

• Systemic linguistics suggests that this lies in configuration of register.

6
 Towards Task 2: texts

Please read one of the two texts in your course pack:

UK Migration Watch. (2012) UK Population Projections - How to stay below 70

Million. (1st January).

Harvey, O. (2012) Immigration: The UK’s bordering on a breakdown. The Sun (7th
September).

• Summarise what the text is about.

• What genre do you think this text is?

 Register

We typically use certain recognisable configurations of linguistic resources in certain

contexts. Register is ‘variation according to use' (Halliday and Hasan, 1985). Three main
dimensions of variation characterise any register:

Field
– what is being talked about

Tenor
– the people involved in the communication and the relationship between them

Mode
– how the language is functioning in the interaction, e.g. whether its is written or
spoken.

I understand these dimensions of register to be principally social phenomena not

linguistic phenomena.
 Diagram
Page 2
DPI 2006 # 2

I understand these three types of meaning to be the linguistic realization of the

social phenomena of field, tenor & mode. The model maps the social onto the
linguistic.
 Ideational meaning (aka metafunction) (after Thompson, 2004)

• The field mainly determines, and is reflected in, the ideational meanings that are
expressed.

• We use language to talk about our experience of the world, including the worlds in
our own minds, to describe events and states and the entities involved in them.

• Ideational meanings are realised, for example, by the linguistic category of transitivity
and tense.
 Ideational meanings
(Thompson, 2004)

The field mainly determines, and is reflected in, the ideational meanings
that are expressed.

• Material, e.g. they built a house

• Behavioural, e.g. Simon ran towards the door

• Mental, e.g. she believes my story

• Verbal, e.g. she spoke to the students

• Relational, e.g. she is teacher

• Existential, e.g. there is the teacher

 Process Types
(Christie, 1995)

In a transcription of classroom talk, process types realize aspects of students’ behaviour.

Material well what we’re going to do today

we’re going to make from our recipe a shopping list

Behavioural (mental) we’re going to have a look at our recipe

Mental we don’t have to think of anything new,

the only thing we have to think about is

Arguably, these process types realise distinctive aspects aspects of pedagogic

context.

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 Tense

The importance of tense is that it encodes a validity claim in relation to a

perceived reality.

Thus, if someone says: ‘I did all my Christmas shopping yesterday’, this utterance
involves the truth claims that:

• the event happened in the past

• that the action which is referred to is completed, i.e. that there is no more
Christmas shopping to be done.

In grammatical analysis this is sometimes referred to as ‘aspect’ (cf. Leech and

Svartik, 1994).
 Tense: universalising truth claims

Scientific fact
The earth orbits the sun (Galileo)
Humans are descended from apes (Darwin)

Opinionated ’fact’
We are told by some of the more hysterical critics of the war on terror that “it is
destroying the Arab world”. So? Should we be worried about that? Shouldn't the
destruction of the despotic, barbarous and corrupt Arab states and their
replacement by democratic governments be a war aim? After all, the Arab
countries are not exactly shining examples of civilisation, are they? Few of them
make much contribution to the welfare of the rest of the world. Indeed, apart
from oil - which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the West - what
do they contribute? Can you think of anything? Anything really useful? Anything
really valuable? Something we really need, could not do without? No, nor can I.
Indeed, the Arab countries put together export less than Finland. (Robert Kilroy-
Silk, ‘We owe Arabs nothing’, The Sunday Express, 04.01.04)
 Diagram
Page 1
DPI 2006 # 2
 Interpersonal meaning (aka metafunction)
(after Thompson, 2004)

• The tenor mainly determines, and is reflected in, the interpersonal meanings that are
expressed

• We use language to interact with other people, to establish and maintain relations
with them, to influence their behaviour, to express our own viewpoint on things in the
world, and to elicit or change theirs.

• Interpersonal meanings are realised, for example, by the linguistic category of mood.
 Interpersonal meanings
(Eggins, 1997)

The mood of the verb within a clause realizes the role structure: the cluster of socially
meaningful participant relationships operating in a situation (Halliday, 1978: 143).

• Status relations

• Affective involvement

• Contact

• Orientation to affiliation
 Interpersonal meanings
(Thompson, 2004)

• Social relations of the text mainly determine, and is reflected in, the interpersonal
meanings that are expressed.

• Mood and Modality relate to the nature of the relationship of the participants, e.g.:
– declarative
– interrogative
– Imperative

Arguably, the texture (nature and frequency) of the interpersonal meanings

realise aspects of the context in which participants interact.
 Interpersonal metafunction
(Christie, 1995)

well what we’re going to do today

we’re going to have a look at our recipe
we’re going to make from our recipe a shopping list
the things that we have to buy for our spaghetti bolognaise
we don’t have to think of anything new.
the only thing we have to think about is

Mood choice is declarative

• builds teacher monologue
• teacher tells the pupils what is to be done.
There is a strong sense of teacher assertion about what is to happen.
 Diagram
Page 1
DPI 2006 # 2
Textual meaning (aka metafunction)
(after Thompson, 2004)

• The mode mainly determines, and is reflected in, the textual meanings.

• In using language, we organise our messages in ways that indicate how they fit in with
the other messages around them and with the wider context in which we are talking
or writing.

• Textual meanings are realised, for example, by the linguistic category of theme.
Thematisation

Thematisation allows for certain elements to be foregrounded and backgrounded

in the text.

• Theme is the element in the clause which serves as the point of departure of the
message.

• Theme is that with which the clause is concerned (Halliday, 1994, p. 37).

• If for example a person or a subject is predominantly foregrounded by being put in

the first position in an active or passive clause, then this will give that person or
subject a greater thematic role in the text as a whole.

• It will also be indicative of the overall importance which is being attached to the
participant or subject in the text.
 Theme: textual meanings
(Christie, 1995)

Micro-level of thematic organisation sets out the conjunctive relations between

adjacent clauses in the text.
• Theme comes first in a clause
• Points directions in the construction and sequencing of the discourse.

Two types of conjunctive relations:

• Continuatives: ‘all right’, ‘now’, ‘okay’, etc.
all right, well what we’re going to do today
now the things that we have to buy for our spaghetti bolognaise

• Structurals: conjunctions such as and.

and we’re going to make from our recipe a shopping list…
Task 2
 Task 2

Please divide into 8 groups 

• Group 1A & 1B: Grammar: ideational meanings

• Group 2A & 2B: Grammar: interpersonal meanings

• Group 3A & 3B: Grammar: textual meanings

Also ran:

• Group 4A & 4B: Vocabulary/lexis

 Discourse analysis workshop: overview

• How does the grammar in these two texts operate to create meanings and
subjects?

• How does the vocabulary in these two texts operate to create meanings and
subjects?
Group 1A & 1B: Grammar: ideational meanings

What ideational meanings do grammatical features have?

What types of process and participant predominate?

Is agency clear or unclear?

What processes are being used and are they what they seem?

Are nominalisations used? And why?

Are sentences active or passive?

Are sentences positive or negative?

 Group 2A & 2B: Grammar: interpersonal meanings

What interpersonal meanings do grammatical features have?

What mode (declarative, grammatical question, imperative) is used?

Are there important features of relational modality, i.e. the authority of one
participant in relation to another ?

Are there important features of expressive modality, i.e. the relationship of

the author to the truth value of the statement?
Group 3A & 3B: Grammar: textual meanings

How are (simple) sentences linked together?

What logical connectors are used?

Are complex sentences characterised by coordination or subordination?

What means are used for referring outside and inside the text?

What is the thematic organisation within sentences?

How does the information flow form given to new

 Group 4A & 4B: Vocabulary/lexis

What experiential values do words have?

Is there rewording or overwording?

Are there words which are ideologically contested;

What ideologically significant meaning relations (synonymy, hyponymy,

antonymy) are there between words?.

What relational values do words have?

Are there any euphemistic impressions?

Are there markedly formal or informal words?

Are any metaphors are used?

• To what effect?
Reading
 Reading

• Benwell, B.M. & Stokoe, E. (2008). Discourse and Identity. Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press (Chapter 2 ‘Conversational identities’ or Chapter 3
‘Institutional Identities’).

• Wetherell, M., S. Taylor and S. Yates (eds.). (2001). Discourse as data: a guide
for analysis. London : Sage. (Chapter 1 ‘Locating and conducting discourse
analytic research’).