discourse

and politeness

Everything we say is marked for politeness

Politeness: our linguistic choices– related to face and social

relationships– linked to situated appropriateness

Politeness functions

Mitigate face-threatening discourse Repair threats to face Enhance co-participant’s face Show contextual appropriateness Support strategic behavior

Current research on politeness

Identify basis for managing rapport See how listeners create appropriate

responses – Communities of practice– Workplace relationships

Study interrelationships of discourse, identity and power– When, for example, does role trump gender?

Identify politeness features in these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU9EflLJuf8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-B2dK4kr7o&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKfiMA9To60&feature=related

Discourse analysis

'set of methods and theories for investigating language in use and language in social contexts' (Wetherell et al. 2001: i).

It focuses on the categorizing, performative, and rhetorical features of texts and talk.

Approaches include discursive psychology; conversation analysis; critical discourse analysis; and sociolinguistics.

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/mmethods/resources/links/da_primer.html

Discursive psychology

Discursive psychological studies highlight the way people construct versions of 'mental', 'social' and 'material' events and processes as parts of particular practices.

Discursive psychology conducts studies of naturally occurring human interaction that offer new ways of understanding topics in social and cognitive psychology such as memory and attitudes. It is not mainstream.

Edwards & Potter 2005 on DP

“Topics recognized in mainstream psychology such as ‘memory’, ‘causal attribution’, ‘script’ knowledge, and so on, are re-worked in terms of discourse practices. We study how people ordinarily, as part of everyday activities, report and explain actions and events, how they characterize the actors in those events, and how they manage various implications generated in the act of reporting.”

in Molder & Potter, eds. Conversation and Cognition. Cambridge University Press

Conversation analysis

Study of Talk-in-interaction as social interaction Examines participants’ methods of

– turn-taking – constructing sequences of utterances across turns – identifying and repairing problems, and – employing gaze and movement

Examines how conversation works in different conventional settings

Critical discourse analysis

Studies language and discourse in social institutions

For example, in educational settings, it “focuses on how social relations, identity, knowledge and power are constructed through written and spoken texts in communities, schools and classrooms”

International Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Education

Pattison, Critical discourse analysis of provision of end-of-life critical care documents

“The key documents give little clear guidance about how to provide EOL care in critical care. Discourses include the power dynamic in critical care between professions, families and patients, and how this impacts on provision of EOL care. Difficulties encountered include dilemmas at discharge and paternalism in decision-making”

Two discussions of Discourse Analysis

Tannen http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-fields-discourse

.cfm Slembrouck http://bank.ugent.be/da/da.htm

From Tannen

'Discourse markers' is the term linguists give to the little words like 'well', 'oh', 'but', and 'and' that break our speech up into parts and show the relation between parts. 'Oh' prepares the hearer for a surprising or just-remembered item, and 'but' indicates that sentence to follow is in opposition to the one before. However, these markers don't necessarily mean what the dictionary says they mean. Some people use 'and' just to start a new thought, and some people put 'but' at the end of their sentences, as a way of trailing off gently. Realizing that these words can function as discourse markers is important to prevent the frustration that can be experienced if you expect every word to have its dictionary meaning every time it's used.

From Slembrouck

The term discourse analysis is very ambiguous. I will use it in this book to refer mainly to the linguistic analysis of naturally occurring connected speech or written discourse. Roughly speaking, it refers to attempts to study the organisation of language above the sentence or above the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written texts. It follows that discourse analysis is also concerned with language use in social contexts, and in particular with interaction or dialogue between speakers.

Johnstone on participants, interpersonal relationships & discourse

“The interpersonal relations connected with discourse include the relations among the speakers and writers, audiences, and over-hearers who are– represented in texts– involved in producing and interpreting texts

Discourse expectations

We often analyze TV script and TV talk show interaction structures against the turn taking, adjacency pair, preference organization, pre-sequence and closing sequence systems of normal conversation.

Adjacency pairs

a term to describe the way in which  conversations can be segmented into pairs of exchanges that are connected  in some way even though spoken by different speakers. A question, for  example, expects an answer. A statement invites a response (such as  agreement, modification, disagreement). A command or request expects  compliance. These expectations set up preferences.

Sometimes they show unequal power distribution:–  Teacher: What is the capital of France?

Pupil:    Paris, Ms. WalkerTeacher: Good.

– What would be a dispreferred response by the pupil? The teacher?

Presequence/closing sequence

Example of presequence: the part of the telephone call opening in which the business of the phone call begins to be addressed by callers and receivers.

Closing sequence To discuss: answering machine messages:

which are they?

Schiffrin: interactional sociolinguistics and discourse

“Interactional sociolinguistics views discourse as a social interaction in which the emergent construction and negotiation of meaning is facilitated by the use of language. Although the interactional approach is basically a functional approach to language, its focus on function is balanced in important ways. The work of Goffman forces structural attention to the contexts in which language is used: situations, occasions, encounters, participation frameworks, and so on, have forms and meanings that are partially created and/or sustained by language. Similarly, language is patterned in ways that reflect those contexts of use.”

Schiffrin, continued

Put another way, language and context co-constitute one another: language contextualizes and is contextualized, such that language does not just function "in" context, language also forms and provides context. One particular context is social interaction. Language, culture, and society are grounded in interaction: they stand in a reflexive relationship with the self, the other, and the self-other relationship, and it is out of these mutually constitutive relationships that discourse is created' (134).

Examples of DA

Petraki, Eleni. Disagreement and opposition in multigenerational interviews with Greek-Australian mothers and daughters

– Three disagreement strategies are discussed : the participants’ questioning the opponent’s arguments, appealing to logic, and calling for defense.

– Disagreements are a means for the women to display and account for their competence as mothers and daughters in the presence of the interviewer and for the ‘record of the interview’

Petrakis on CA and DA (p 271)

Conversation analysis is a bottom-up approach to the analysis of interaction, treating elements such as culture, gender, and social class as external to the analysis.

Discourse analysis… is concerned with situated and ideological interpretations of the communicative event through the investigation of the inferences and assumptions by which interpretations are achieved.

To begin with: disagreements are dispreferred

R, the daughter, doesn’t like the story told by A, the mother

4 A: no no she was in my sister in law in Kapela ((suburb in 5 Brisbane)) and we called her and she came (.) we were all 6 introduced and her father takes her and tells her ‘this is the 7 man we were talking about’ (.) 8 R: she’s not telling the whole story 9 A: I don’t remember very well my daughter anyway eh 10 E: you will say the story later hahaha 11 R: I I I ah ah was so furious 12 A: ! what furious? If you said your father asked you ‘Do you 13 like the boy?’¼ 14 R: ¼all right all right¼ 15 A: ¼you said ‘all right daddy’ ‘do you like him?’ ‘he’s all 16 right for me’ (1.0) and we arranged it on the same night 17 (3.0) we had an engagement in this house 18 R: ((whispers something)) 19 A: you say it my daughter I’m old and don’t remember 20 well 21 R: it’s all right

Wang 2006: Questions & the exercise of power, DS 17

“The prominence of questions as a powerful means centers on three factors, that is,

notably unequal distribution of questions producing the unequal

allocation of turn-taking, dominant questions controlling both local and global topics, and

Yes/No questions and Wh-questions exercising power in different degrees.” (529)

Wang on power and CDA

“Critical discourse analysts like Fairclough (1992) and Van Dijk (1993, 2001) tend to see power accruing to verbal interaction, and the power is determined by their institutional role and their socioeconomic status, gender or ethnic identity…. Members of more powerful social groups have the precedence to access and control over some public discourse.” (531)

“…the fact that questions expect and anticipate response and information imposes a questioner’s will on an addressee, which is an obvious exercise of control.” (532)

DaFina on discourse & identity (this is on reserve)

Identity claims are seen as “acts” through which people create new definitions of who they are….identities are seen not as merely represented in discourse, but rather as performed, enacted, and embodied through a variety of linguistic and nonlinguistic means” (3) So linguistic signs index, or point to, aspects of the social context. (see p. 4)

Rubric for your next paper, 5-point scale

Abstract Previews ‘coming attractions, hint of theory 1 2 3 4 5 Orients reader to how paper should be read Background Identifies situation contextualizing speakers Introduces/characterizes speakers Rationale for aspect being discussed Definition of aspect and associated terms Review with Creation of research space for self Discussion of aspect Good choice of examples to sustain claim Develops persuasive argument Good organization of points Good surface structure, diction & editing