What is discourse analysis ?

Discourse analysis focuses on knowledge about

language beyond the word , clause , phrase and
sentence that is needed for successful communication
.
It looks at patterns of language across texts and considers
the relationship between language and the social and
cultural contexts in which it is used .
Discourse analysis also considers the ways that the
use of language presents different views of the world
and different understandings .
- It considers how views of the world and identities are
constructed through the use of discourse .
- Discourse analysis examines both spoken and written
texts .
Difference between Stylistics and Discourse
Analysis:
A consideration which sets stylistic analysis apart
from text analysis in general is: in stylistics, we
are likely to be concerned with the uniqueness of
the text we are studying.
With most types of discourse what is of interest is
how the text under scrutiny is not unique; it has
been selected because it's typical of its kind, and
what we are trying to characterize is the register,
using this particular text as a representative
specimen.
For example, there have been various studies of
the verbal interactions between patients and
doctors, studies that are undertaken as a way of
helping to make clinical practice more effective or
to improve the quality of medical education.

In such instances the aim of the linguistic analysis

is to characterize the register of doctor-patient
communication in general.
The investigator is not trying to establish the
uniqueness of one dialogue between a particular
doctor and one of his patients.

In literature too, where there are generalized

registers or genres, broad categories such as "the
novel" with perhaps a taxonomy of more specific
types, the stylistician may be interested in the
characteristics of a whole genre, and to that
extent will treat a particular text as specimen
rather than as object.
In order to study literary genres we have to go
one step further and treat the text as a sample,
make systematic quantitive comparisons between
one bank of texts and another.
With Discourse Analysis, we may have to describe a
significant slice of the context of culture before
we begin to focus on the words;
whereas in the analysis of a literary work we can get
straight down to business, confident that the
meaning is there in front of us in the text.
There is undoubtedly a world of meaning that lies
beyond the wording on the page; but it is a world
that is defined by the text, not a prefabricated
construct into which the text must fit.
- Discourse analysis is interested in the analysis of
language in use .
- Discourse analysis considers the relationship between
language and the context in which it is used and is
concerned with the description and analysis of the
both spoken and written interactions .
Discourse analysis and pragmatics

- Pragmatics is concerned with how the interpretation of

language depends on knowledge of the real world , such as
how the runway is full at the moment is understood as
an instruction not to land a plane , rather than just a
statement of fact .
- Pragmatics is interested in what people mean by what
they say rather than what words in their most literal
sense might mean by themselves .
- It is sometimes contrasted with semantics which deals
with literal meaning : that is , meaning without
reference to users or the purpose of communication .
The view of discourse analysis will include work in the
area of pragmatics ; that is , a consideration of the
ways in which people mean more than what they say
in spoken and written discourse .
The discourse structure of texts
- Discourse analysts are also interested in how people
organize what they say in the sense of what they
typically say first , and what they say next and so on
in a conversation or in a piece of writing . (Cohesion)
- This is something that varies across cultures and is by no
means the same across languages .
Ex: the ways in which people order what they say in
buying and selling interactions .
Different views of discourse analysis
Discourse as the social construction of reality :
-The view of discourse as the social construction of
reality see texts as communicative units which are
embedded in social and cultural practices .

- The texts we write and speak both shape and are shaped
by these practices .
- Discourse is both shaped by the world as well as shaping
the world .
- Discourse is shaped by language as well as shaping
language .
- It is shaped by people who use the language as well as
shaping the language that people use .
- Discourse is shaped , as well , by the discourse that has
preceded it as well that which might follow it .
Discourse and intertextuality
- Texts may more or less implicitly or explicitly cite other
texts, they may refer to other texts, or they may allude
to other past, or future, texts.
All texts are, thus, in an intertextual relationship with
other texts.
Differences between spoken and written discourse
There are a number of important differences between
spoken and written language which have implications
for discourse analysis.
Grammatical intricacy and spoken discourse
- The first commonly held view is that writing is more
structurally complex and elaborate than speech.
- But some believe that Spoken discourse has its own kind
of complexity.
The relationship between clauses in spoken discourse can
be much more spread out and with more complex
relations between them than in writing.
Lexical density in spoken and written discourse
Written discourse tends to be more lexically dense than
spoken discourse. Lexical density refers to the ratio of

content words to grammatical, or function words,

within clauses.
Content words include nouns and verbs while
grammatical words include items such as prepositions,
pronouns and articles.
In spoken discourse content words tend to be spread
out over a number of clauses rather than being tightly
packed into individual clauses which is more typical of
written discourse.
Nominalization in written and spoken discourse
- There is also a high level of nominalization in written
texts; that is, where actions and events are presented
as nouns rather than verbs.
Written texts also typically include longer noun groups
than spoken texts. This leads to a situation where the
information in the text is more tightly packed into
fewer words and less spread out than in spoken texts.
Explicitness in spoken and written discourse
- A further commonly held view is that writing is more
explicit than speech.
This depends on the purpose of the text and, again, is not
an absolute.
A person can state something directly, or infer
something, in both speaking and writing, depending
upon what they want the listener or reader to
understand, how direct they wish to be.
In the following extract from Casablanca, Yvonne asks if
she will see Rick that evening. Rick clearly wishes her
to infer 'probably not'. He has not said this explicitly,
but it is most likely what he means:

Yvonne: Will I see you tonight?

Rick: (matter-of-factly) I never make plans that far
ahead.
Yvonne has to work out Rick's intended meaning from
situation she is in, what she knows about Rick, and
the fact that she asked a 'yes/no' question but has not
been given a 'yes/no' answer. That is, she works out
what Rick means from situational context they are in,
from her background knowledge of this context,
including what she knows about her relationship with
Rick, and the textual context of what she has said.
Contextualization in spoken and written discourse
- Writing is more decontextualized than speech.
- This view is based on the perception that speech
depends on a shared situation and background for
interpretation whereas writing does not depend on
such a shared context.
- This is generally true of conversation but is not true of
speech and writing in general .
- Spoken genres, such as academic lecture, do not
generally show high dependence on a shared context,
while written genres such as personal letters or memo
do.
- Both written fiction and non-fiction may also depend on
background information supplied by the reader and an
active role of the reader to enter into the world of the
text.
Repetition, hesitation and redundancy in spoken
discourse
- Speaking also uses much more repetition, hesitation and
redundancy than written discourse. This is because it

is produced in real time, with speakers working out

what they want to say at the same time as they are
saying it.
A further characteristic of spoken discourse is the use
of pauses and 'fillers' like 'hhh', 'er' and ' you know'.
- Speakers do this to give them time to think about
what they want to say while they are speaking.
- They also do this to hold on their turn in the
conversation while they are thinking about what they
want to say, and how they will say it.
The following extract from the BBC panorama interview
between princess Diana and Martin Bashir illustrates
this. Her pauses are shown in brackets. The number in
brackets indicates the length of the pause in seconds
and (.) indicates a micro pause that is too small to
count:
Bashir: at this early stage would you say that you were happily
married.
Diana: very much so (1) er the pressure on on both as a couple
(.) with the media was phenomenal (1) and misunderstood
by great many people (1) we'd be going around Australia for
instance. Hhh(2) and (.) you all you could hear was oh (.)
she's on the other side (1) now if you're a man (1) like my
husband a proud man (.) you mind about that if you hear it
every day for four weeks (.) and you feel (.) low about it yknow instead of feeling happy and sharing it.