BIL6024 ISSUES IN APPLIED

LINGUISTICS

WEEK 8-9

APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used (McCarthy, 1997).

It grew out of work in different disciplines in the 1960s and early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology, anthropology and sociology.

Discourse analysts study language in use: written texts of all kinds, and spoken data, from conversation to highly institutionalized forms of talk (McCarthy, 1997).

Discourse analysis has grown into a wide-ranging and heterogeneous discipline which finds its unity in the description of language above the sentence and an interest in the contexts and cultural influences which affect language in use.

It is also now, increasingly, forming a backdrop to research in Applied Linguistics, and second language learning and teaching in particular.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS

Arising out of a variety of disciplines, including linguistics, sociology, psychology, and anthropology, discourse analysis has built a significant foundation for itself in Applied Linguistics.

These disciplines that contributed to discourse analysis shared a common interest in ‘language in use’, in ‘how real people use real language’, as opposed to studying artificially created sentences.

Why discourse analysis is of immediate interest to language teachers?

Discourse analysis is therefore of immediate interest to language teachers because they too have questions of

how people use language, uppermost in their minds:

(i) when they design teaching materials, and (ii) when they engage learners in exercises

and activities aimed at making them proficient users of the target language.

Discourse analysis enables teachers to get insight into how:

(i) texts are structured beyond sentence-level’ ; (ii) talk follows regular patterns in a wide range of

different situations’ ;(iii) such complex areas as intonation, operate in

communication’ ; ‘(iv) discourse norms (the underlying rules that

speakers and writers adhere to) and their realisations (the actual language forms which reflect those rules) in language differ from culture to culture, etc.

WRITTEN DISCOURSE

Without a command of the rich and variable resources of the grammar offered by the English language, the construction of natural and sophisticated discourse is impossible (McCarthy, 1997).

Spoken and written discourses display grammatical connections between individual clauses and utterances – grammatical cohesion and textuality

Grammatical cohesion and textuality

These grammatical links can be classified under three broad types:

(1). Reference (or co-reference) (2). Ellipsis/substitution (3). Conjunction

(1). Reference Reference items in English include

pronouns (e.g. he, she, it, him, they, etc.), demonstrative (this, that, these, those), the article the, and items like such a. (McCarthy, 1997).

The following are examples of different types of reference at work:

Example 1“The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and

everybody seemed sorry. The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the departing teacher’s effects”

The italicised items refer.(from the novel, Jude the Obscure, by Thomas

Hardy) cited in McCarthy (1997).

(i). Anaphoric reference

For the text to be coherent, we assume that him in ‘lent him the small white tilted cart’ is the schoolmaster introduced earlier;

Likewise, his destination is the schoolmaster’s.

Referents for him and his can be confirmed by looking back in the text; this is called anaphoric reference (looking backward).

(ii). Exophoric reference

Such a also links back to the cart in the previous sentence. The novel opens with the schoolmaster leaving the village.

Which schoolmaster? Which village? On the previous page of the novel, the two

words At Marygreen stand alone, so we reasonable assume that Marygreen is the name of the village, and that the character is (or has been) schoolteacher of that village.

We are using more than just the text here to establish referents; the author expects us to share a world with him independent of the text, with typical villages and their populations (everybody), their schoolmasters and millers.

Thus, references to assumed, shared worlds outside of the text are exophoric references (looking outward).

Example 2 “They pressed round him in ragged

fashion to take their money. Andy, Dave, Phil, Stephen, Bob.”

(Graham Swift, 1983, The Sweet Shop Owner) cited in McCarthy (1997).

(iii). Cataphoric reference

In this particular text, neither anaphoric nor exophoric reference supplies the identity of they; we have to read on, and are given their identities in the second sentence.

Where referents are withheld in this way, we can talk of cataphoric reference (looking forward).

This is a classic device for engaging the reader’s attention; referents can be withheld for quite long stretches of text.

(2). Ellipsis and Substitution

Ellipsis is the omission of elements normally required by the grammar which the speaker/writer assumes are obvious from the context and therefore need not be raised (McCarthy, 1997).

Ellipsis is distinguished by the structure having some ‘missing’ element.

Exp. “The children will carry the small boxes, the adults the large ones.”

(‘will carry’ is supplied from the first clause to the second. This type of main-verb ellipsis is anaphoric.)

Types of Ellipsis English has broadly three types of

ellipsis: nominal, verbal and clausal. (i). Nominal Ellipsis - often involves

omission of a noun headword: Exp. “Sally liked the pink tiles; myself I

preferred the green.”

(ii). Verbal ellipsis Two very common types of verbal-group

ellipsis are what Thomas (1987) cited in McCarthy (1997) calls echoing and auxiliary contrasting.

Echoing repeats an element from the verbal group:

Exp. A. “Will anyone be waiting?” B. “Mary will, I should think.”

Auxiliary contrasting is when the auxiliary changes:

Exp. A. Has he remarried? B. No, but he will one day, I’m

sure.

In English, varying degrees of ellipsis are also possible within the same verbal group:

Exp. A. Should any one have been told? B. Siva should. ___ should have. ___ should have been. (these variants are not directly translatable to

other languages and will have to be learnt.)

(iii). Clausal ellipsis(iii). In English, individual clause elements may be

omitted; especially common are subject-pronoun omissions (‘doesn’t matter’, ‘hope so’, ‘sorry, can’t help you’, etc.).

Whole stretches of clausal components may also be omitted:

Exp. “She said she would take early retirement as soon as she could and she has.”

(She said she would take early retirement as soon as she could and she has done it.)

SubstitutionSubstitution is similar to ellipsis, in that, in English, it

operates either at nominal, verbal or clausal level (McCarthy, 1997).

The items commonly used for substitution in English are:One(s): I offered her a seat. She said she didn’t want one. Do: Did Larry take that letter? He might have done. So/not: Do you need a lift? If so, wait for me; if not, I’ll see you there. Same: He chose the roast chicken; I chose the same.

Most learners practise and drill these items in sentence-level grammar exercises. They are not easily and directly translatable to other languages. Many common, everyday substitutions tend to be learnt idiomatically (e.g. responses such as ‘I think/hope so’)(McCarthy, 1997).

Question What are the problems faced by

students in the Malaysian language classroom?

(3). Conjunction A conjunction does not set off a search

backward or forward for its referent, but does presuppose a textual sequence, and signals a relationship between segments of the discourse

Important questions: What roles do they play in creating

discourse? How are they distributed in speech and

writing?

Halliday (1985) cited in McCarthy (1997) offers a scheme for the classification of conjunctive relations and includes phrasal types as well as single-word everyday items such as and, but, or, etc.

The following are some examples of Halliday’s classification based on three category headings:

Elaboration, extension, enhancement

Type and sub-types Examples

Elaboration – apposition - clarification Extension - addition - variation Enhancement – spatio- temporal - causal-

conditional

in other words or rather and/but alternatively there/previously

consequently/in that case

Based on natural data, especially spoken, a few conjunctions are (and, but, so, and then) are overwhelmingly frequent.

There is also a wide use of and, where the reader/listener can supply additive, adversative, causal and temporal meanings, depending on contextual information (McCarthy, 1997).

Examples “She’s intelligent. And she’s very reliable.’

(additive) “I’ve lived here ten years and I’ve never

heard of that shop.” (adversative: could be substituted with but)

“He fell in the river and caught a chill.” (causal)

“I got up and made my breakfast.” (temporal

sequence)

Equally, the possible choices of conjunction will often overlap in meaning, with little overall difference (McCarthy, 1997):

Example- A: “What about this meeting then?” B: “I may go, (and, or, but, though,

then) I may not; it all depends.”

Question What are the problems faced by

Malaysian learners?

SPOKEN DISCOURSE

Spoken language is a vast subject and there is a variety of different types of speech in people’s everyday lives. However, casual conversation is almost certainly the most frequent for most people. The rest will depend on our daily occupation and what sorts of contacts we have with others (McCarthy, 1997).

Examples of common types of speech:

Common types of speech

Telephone calls (business and private)Service encounters (shops, post offices, etc.) Interviews (jobs, journalistic, in official settings)Classroom (classes, seminars, lectures, tutorials)Rituals (prayers, sermons, weddings)Monologues (speeches, stories, jokes)Language-in-action (talk accompanying doing: fixing,

cooking, assembling, demonstrating, etc.)Casual conversation (strangers, friends, intimates)Organising and directing people (work, home, in the

street) Etc.

Characteristics of conversation

CHARACTERISTICS OF CONVERSATION

Adjacency Pairs

Exchanges

Turn-taking

(1). Adjacency pairs Pairs of utterances in talk are often mutually

dependent; a most obvious example is that a question predicts an answer, and that an answer presupposes a question.

It is possible to state the requirements, in a normal conversational sequence, for many types of utterances, in terms of what is expected as a response and what certain responses presupposes.

Some examples:

ExamplesUtterance function

Greeting Congratulation Apology Inform Leave-taking

Expected response

Greeting Thanks Acceptance Acknowledge Leave-taking

Pairs of utterances such as greeting-greeting and apology-acceptance are called adjacency pairs (Schegloff and Sacks, 1973) cited in McCarthy (1997).

Adjacency pairs are of different types. Some ritualised first pair-parts may have an identical second pair-part (i.e. hello-hello, happy New Year-happy New Year), while others expect a different second pair-part (i.e. congratulations-thanks).

Equally, a second pair-part such as thanks will presuppose quite a wide range of first pair-parts (i.e. offers, apologies, informing moves, congratulations, etc.)

Other first pair-parts have various possibilities and generate further expectations too. For example, the word invitation.

ExampleA: “Would you like to come over for dinner tomorrow?”B: “Yes, that would be nice.” (accept) “Yes, if it could be after eight.” (accept with condition) “No.” (reject)

(We probably react against the ‘No’ answer; politeness codes demand a more elaborate structure for the the response: B: “Thanks very much, but I’m afraid I’m booked up tomorrow night, what about …..” (etc.) )

B: “Thanks very much, but I’m afraid I’m booked up tomorrow night, what about …..” (etc.)

(We can segment the polite refusal of the invitation into appreciation (‘thanks very much’), softener (‘I’m afraid’), reason (‘I’m booked up’) and face-saver (‘what about …’)

This pattern would typically be found between adult friends, colleagues, etc. , in informal but polite situations. More intimate situations may well omit the ‘softener’.

Each of these elements will have several possible realisations, and these can be practised in language learning in a systematic way .

Different roles and settings will generate different structures for adjacency pairs, and discourse analysts try to observe in natural data just what patterns occur in particular settings (McCarthy, 1997).

(2). Exchanges The exchange is the central unit in the

analysis of classroom talk, and it could be applied outside of the classrooms.

Exchanges are independently observable entities; adjacency pairs may be found within their boundaries, but first and second pair-parts do not necessarily coincide with initiating and responding moves (McCarthy, 1997).

Example A: “Congratulations on the new job, by

the way.” B: “Oh, thanks.”

A: “I’ve just passed my driving test.” B: “Oh, congratulations.” A: “Thanks.”

Sinclair-Coulthard (1975) cited in McCarthy (1997) identified a pattern of three-part exchange in traditional classrooms (i.e. initiation – response – follow-up) where the teacher made the ‘initiation’ and the ‘follow-up’ move, while the pupils were restricted to ‘responding’ moves.

In a good many language classes this is still the pattern, especially in situations where large classes of perhaps 40 to 50 pupils is the norm.

Where this happens, it is likely that pupils will have the chance to practise only a very impoverished range of utterance functions (McCarthy, 1997).

(3). Turn-taking Discourse analysis have observed how

speech participants organise themselves to take turns at talk.

In any piece of natural English discourse, turns will occur smoothly, with only little overlap and interruptions, and only very brief silences between turns (on average, less than a second) (McCarthy, 1997).

SequencePeople take turns when they are selected or

nominated by the current speaker, or if no one is selected, they may speak of their own accord (self-selection). If neither of these conditions applies, the person who is currently speaking may continue (Sacks, et al. 1974) cited in McCarthy (1997).

While the current speaker is talking, listeners are attentive to the syntactic completeness or otherwise of the speaker’s contribution, and to clues in the pitch level that may indicate that a turn is coming to a close (McCarthy, 1997).

A common turn-taking device include ‘back-channel’ (i.e mm, ah-ha, yeah, no, right, sure, etc.) – linguistic means of not taking the turn when one has the opportunity, or simply making it clear to the speaker that we are attending to the message.

Others include ‘utterance-completion’ (the way speakers predict one another’s utterances and often complete for them) and ‘overlaps’ (or overlap with them as they complete the utterances).

Classroom The traditional classroom has very ordered

turn-taking under the control of the teacher, and pupils rarely speak out in turn.

Pair work and group work do attempt to break this rigid turn-taking pattern, but do not always succeed in recreating more natural patterns (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975) cited in McCarthy (1997).

However, the looser the restrictions on what and when people (pupils) may speak, the more naturally the turn-taking emerges.

Problems It is not a question of telling learners that speakers

take turns; they know this naturally from their own language. The problem is to make sure that activities generate the natural sorts of turn-taking patterns.

However, two other problems may arise:(i). Dominant speakers often grab too may turns (gender can be a factor here);(ii). The question of culture-specific conventions (i.e. the ‘silence’ and ‘thinking-time’ factors in a conversation, etc.)

Question What is the situation in the Malaysian

language classroom?