WHAT IS A TEXT?Write a brief definition of what a text is.

IS THIS A TEXT?

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IS THIS A TEXT?

IS THIS A TEXT?

It was generally evident whenever they met, that he did admire her; and to her it was equally evident that was yielding to the preference which she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a way to be very much in love; but she considered with pleasure that it was not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane united with great strength of feeling a composure of temper and a uniform cheerfulness of manner, which would guard her from the suspicions of the impertinent.

Text

• Derives from the Latin texere – to weave• “Text can be used for both written and spoken

language. It usually refers to a stretch, an extract or complete piece of writing or speech. Texts generally adhere to broad conventions and rules which determine the language and structure used in particular text types.” Cornbleet and Carter The Language of Speech and Writing (2001, p 3)

Text Trask (1999:312)

“A continuous piece of spoken or written

language, especially one with

a recognizable beginning and

ending.”

Text Crystal (1992:72)

“a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written, or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis. It is often a

language unit with a definable communicative function, such as a

conversation or a poster.”

Texts in general are:

• Self-contained• Well-formed• Hang together (cohesive)• Make sense (coherent)• Have a clear communicative purpose• recognisable text types• appropriate to their contexts of use

Scott Thornbury, Beyond the Sentence, p 19, Macmillan, 2005.

For example

• No unauthorised photocopying.

• So easy to use, no wonder we’re the World’s No1

• KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN

Energizer

RECHARGABLE

Advanced

Lasts up to 4X Longer in Digital Cameras

Text and sentences

• Are all texts organised in sentences?

• Are sentences necessary for a stretch of language to be considered a text?

• What kinds of text are organised in sentences?

Text or discourse?

• Are they the same?• If not what is the difference between text

analysis and discourse analysis?• “Knowing what a sentence means is one

thing, but knowing what is meant by an utterance is another”H.G. Widdowson Discourse Analysis, p. 13, OUP, 2007

Text ≠ Discourse (1)

• Text: “written record of an interaction”; Discourse: “language in action”

1. Nunan (1993:6-7): “text refers to any written record of a communicative event

(which may involve oral language or written language); discourse refers to

the interpretation of the communicative event.”

Text ≠ Discourse (2)

2. Text = written discourseDiscourse = spoken discourse

3. Text linguistics = analysis of written discourse

Discourse analysis (conversational analysis) = analysis of spoken

discourse

Discourse Analysis (1)

1. Wood & Kroger (2000:3): “the study of discourse as texts and talk in social practices.”

2. McCarthy (1991:5): “the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used.”

Discourse Analysis (2)

• Renkema (2004:1): discourse studies is the discipline devoted to the investigation of the relationship between form and function in verbal communication which requires contributions from different disciplines such as linguistics, literature, rhetoric, stylistics, pragmatics, communication science, psychology, sociology, and philosophy.

• There are separate discipline of discourse studies because the phenomena of verbal language use cannot be analyzed adequately from just one of the discipline mentioned earlier.

• The concepts within the analysis of a language use phenomenon are taken from many disciplines. Therefore, […]

Discourse Studies: Renkema (1)

Discourse Studies: Renkema (2)

• Therefore, discourse studies are the common ground serving as an inter- or multidiscipline that enable different research schools to have the necessary interaction so that specific contributions can be made to research into the relationship between form and function in verbal communication.

Discourse Analysis: Revisited

• It can be concluded that ‘discourse analysis’ or

‘discourse studies’ is not a single field of study, but a

collection of methods, perspectives, or

approaches in analyzing form and function in

verbal communication.

Approaches in DA (1)

• As a multidisciplinary field of study, discourse analysis (DA) has many approaches (Schiffrin 1994), among others:1. Pragmatics2. Ethnography of communication

3. Conversation Analysis 4. Text Linguistics

Approaches in DA (2)

5. Interactional Sociolinguistics

6. Critical Discourse Analysis

7. Semiotics

8. Stylistics

9. TEFL

10. Cultural Studies

Definitions of Discourse (1)

• A particular unit of language (above the sentence), or discourse in structure.

• A particular focus on language use, discourse as function.

Discourse as structure ?

Problem:you can have a unit which looks like a sentence but doesn’t mean anything

e.g. Colourless green ideas sleep furiously… but on the other hand the units in which people speak

do not always look like sentences. e.g. You can run a hou- whatcha- now whatcha you can

run a house-you can run a house a- and do the job, which is important, y’ can’t y- a man can’t do it himself,

and a woman can’t do it himself w- if y’ want it to be successful. In most cases.

How do you analyse something which is not asentence?

Definition of Discourse (2)

Discourse – written and spoken

Discourse

Speaker/ writer

Hearer/ reader

Context

Objects of discourse

• ‘Discourse’ refers to any utterance which ismeaningful. These texts can be:- written texts- oral texts (‘speech’/’talk’)- mixed written/oral texts (e.g. Internet chat)

• Discourse does not depend on the size of a text

So, what is discourse?• “Discourse can be anything from a grunt or single

expletive, through short conversations and scribbled notes right up to Tolstoy’s novel, War and Peace, or a lengthy legal case.” (Guy Cook, Discourse, p 7. OUP, 1989)

• language in use, for communication • the search for what gives discourse coherence is

discourse analysis. […] What matters is not its conformity to rules, but the fact that it communicates and is recognized by its receivers as coherent”Guy Cook, Discourse, p 6 & 7, OUP, 1989

Discourse analysis is concerned with (H.G. Widdowson Discourse Analysis, p. XV, OUP, 2007)

• “how the encoded resources available in a language are put to communicative use” i.e. the focus is on the language as a means to an end, an instrument at the service of communication

• meanings, which are- “socio-cultural constructs of reality: they represent particular beliefs and values that define ways of thinking about the world”i.e. the focus is on how texts are socially constructed and are to a certain extent a from of social practice

• Spoken texts in particular are governed by the social context which determines the shape of the discourse and the language used.

• This is not only to a knowledge of language but of knowledge of social conventions and/or the ability to make assumptions regarding the situational context (immediate perceptual context and conceptual context as well as social context) and draw inferences.

Context

• What are the main kinds of contexts?• How do they differ from each other?• What implications does the context have on the

kind of language used?

How would the following interlocuters express the fact

someone had died?

• Mother to toddler• Student to teacher• Male teenager to male friend• Female teenager to female friend• Female teenager to male friend• Adult woman to male colleague• Lawyer to judge in murder case• Newspaper death column

How would the following interlocuters express their need to

urinate?

• Toddler to mother• Student to teacher• Male teenager to male friend• Female teenager to female friend• Female teenager to male friend• Adult woman to male colleague• Lawyer to judge regarding the defendant

Context

• Public vs private• Participants (degree of familiarity)• Medium• Expectations• Level of personal reference• Style (from euphemism to

dysphemism)• Repertoire of scripts• Ritualised language• Loaded language

Purpose

• Persuade• Instruct or advise

• Entertain• Inform

• Threaten• Request or invite

• Social function• Promise

• Mixed

Planning

• Which kinds of text involve most planning?

• Are spoken texts ever planned?• What things are taken into account

when planning a text?

Features involved in planning

• Target (also multiple)• Setting (incl. register)• Time spent• Medium used• Longevity• Conformity • Pre-existing ‘scripts’ (conscious and

subconscious planning)• Use of lexical phrases/set phrases• Complexity of syntax• Style

Spoken text/discourse typesHow many can you think of?

• Greetings• Speeches• Lectures• Conversations

(many subtypes)• Radio & TV• Requests

• Interviews• Orders/instructions• Sweet nothings• Warnings • Songs• Complaints

How many of these are scripted?

Analysing spoken texts

• “spoken discourse should not be judged using the rules of written English: terms such as ‘word’, ‘sentence’ and ‘paragraph’ … come from the study of writing.” (Carter et al., Working with Texts, 1997 p 243)

• “speech is characteristically used in pursuit of a purpose… The practice of inventing a sentence… is a practice of the sentence grammarian, not the user’ Brazil, A Grammar of Speech,1995, pp 26-7

Spoken language• Context – speakers, relationship, gender,

status, background, (familiarity of) situation, prior knowledge, (conceptual context)

• Setting – where, when, visual contact, gesture (paralanguage) (perceptual context)

• Pragmatics – shared knowledge, conventions, turntaking, (purpose)

• Prosodics – intonation, stress, tone, emotion, etc,. degree of formality (connected speech)

• Incompleteness – (not always – depends on text) overlapping, interruption, hesitation, incoherence, incomplete utterance, false starts, etc.

• Ephemeral?

Spoken vs Written

• Spoken texts often jointly constructed (only happens in published letters between correspondents)

• Written texts more planned, structured, grammatically correct, clear layout.

• Two or more people can shape spoken texts.

• Written texts shaped only by author(s) – though editors can have a say. (cfr newspaper)

Summing up – 1Spoken language

SPEAKER

MESSAGE SUCCESSFULLY CONVEYED

LANGUAGE SYSTEM

PRONUNCIATIONGRAMMAR

VOCAB

PARALANGUAGEVOICE FACEBODY

WORLD/CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE

(INCULDING PRAGMATICS)

REASONING/INTERPRETATION

/INTENT

Summing up – 2Written language

WRITER

MESSAGE SUCCESSFULLY CONVEYED

LANGUAGE SYSTEM

COHESIVE DEVICESGRAMMAR

VOCAB

PLANNING

WORLD/CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE

(INCULDING PRAGMATICS)

OF SENDER & RECEIVER

REASONING/INTENT/PURPOSE/

FUNCTION

HOWEVER…

How can we guarantee a text is interpreted how it is intended?

i.e. does the discourse achieve its purpose?

Purpose and Achievement

Which kinds of text, spoken or written do you think have more chance of being interpreted as intended, i.e. of achieving their purpose?

What is discourse to the discourse analyst?

“So the term discourse is taken here to refer both to what a text producer meant by a text and what a text means to the receiver.” H.G. Widdowson, Discourse Analysis, p. 7, OUP, 2007

Primary and secondary purposes:written and spoken texts

• Depends on context and setting• Target/audience/readership• Perceptions of interlocuter/reader

(nearly all texts have an informative function)

Language and situation occur

together

The situation often dictates the language used, but the language used can shape the

situation leading to an

outcome/upshot.

outcome/upshot

In other words - getting things done

• Speech act theory• Locution• Illocution

• Perlocution

Discourse and the foreign language learner

• Problems decoding and encoding• Linguistic competence• Encoding conventions• Shared knowledge• Sensitivity to social, not only linguistic,

conventions• Understanding ambiguity• Communicative strategies

Planning and PurposeContext and Audience

Discourse

Conclusions?

• Indeed texts have to take into account a whole variety of things if they are to achieve a purpose. If the text is to be at all beautiful we need a degree of linguistic competence.

• However, if the text is to be considered ‘successful’ it should not only be well woven, but also serve its purpose.

• This relationship between form and function, text and context, is the main focus of discourse analysis.