Discourse Analysis

Hari SubagyoMuhammad Nizar

Ichwanul YaqinM. Zaki Amrullah

Introduction: Linguistic Forms and Functions• Functions of Language

- Transactional & Interactional

• Spoken & Written Language- Manner of Production- Written & spoken texts

• Sentence and Utterance

Functions of Language

• The discourse analyst is committed to an investigation of what that language is used. They adopt only two terms to describe the major functions of language and emphasize that this division is an analytic convinience.

• That function which language serves in the exppression of “content” will be descibe as Transactional, and that function involved in expressing social relations and personal attitudes will describe as Interactional

Transactional View

• In primarily transactional language we assume that what the speaker or writer has primarily in mind is the efficient transference of information.

• Message-Oriented (the important is the recipient gets the informative detail correct.)

• Example :Policeman gives direction to a travellersScientist describes an experiment

Interactional View

• Involving in expressing social relations and personal attitudes.

• Appear more to be intended as contributions to a conversation than to be taken as instances of information-giving.

• Example:My goodness, it’s cold. (it seems much more reasonable to suggest that the speaker is indicating a readiness to be friendly and to talk)

Manner of productionFrom the point of view of production,

it is clear that spoken and written language make somewhat different demands on language –producers.

The speaker=available to him the full range of voice quality effects (facial expression, postural, and gestural systems)

The writer=may look over what he has already written, pause between each word with no fear of his interlocutor interrupting him.

SPOKEN & WRITTEN LANGUAGE

Advantage of Spoken Language

• AdvantagesThe speaker has available to him the full range of “voice quality” effect (as well as facial expression, postural dan gestures system)He is also processing that production under circumstances which are considerably more demanding.He can observe his interlocutor and modify what he is saying to make accesible or acceptance to his hearer.

Disadvantages of Spoken Language

• DisadvantageThe speaker is under consider able pressure to keep on talking during the period alloted to him.

Advantages of Written Language• The writer is not under considerable

pressure in making his writing, since he can pause between each word with no fear of interlocutor interrupting him.

• He can take his time in choosing a particular words, even looking it up in the dictionary if necessary, check his progress with his note, reorder what he has written, and even change his mind about what he wants to say.

Disadvantage of Written language• The writer cannot observe his

interlocutor.• The writer has no access to

immediate feedback and simply has to imagine the readers’ reaction.

The representation of discourse:texts Written texts

‘text’ as a printed record is familiar in the study of literature. Spoken texts

‘text’ as a verbal record of a communicative act will preserve the ‘text’. It may also preserve a good deal that may be extraneous to the text.

In general, the discourse analyst works with a tape recording of an event, from which he then makes a written transcription, annotated according to his interests on a particular occasion.

Sentence and Utterance

• In a fairly non-technical way, we can say that Utterances are spoken and Sentences are written.

On “Data”

• The grammarians data is in evitably the single sentence, or set of single sentences illustrating a particular feature of the language being studied. It is also typically the case that the grammarians will have constructed the sentence or sentences he uses as example.

• In contrast the analysis of discourse, as undertaken and exemplified, is typically based on the linguistic output of someone other than the analyst.

Product Vs Process

• The regularities which the discourse analyst describe will normally be expressed in dynamic, not static, terms. Since the data investigate is the result of ordinary language behaviour. They focus on the process of how language is produced.

• The sentence grammarians does not in general take account of this, since his data is not connected to behaviour. They Focus on product analysis.

Rules Vs Regularities

• In the sense, the rules of grammar appear to be treated in the same way as “laws” in the psysical sciences. This restricts the applicability of such rules since it renders them unavailable to any linguist interested synchronic varation in a language.

• The discourse analyst, with his “ordinary” language “data”, is commited to quite a different view of the rule-governed aspect of language. Indeed, the analyst may wish to discuss, not rules bu regularities. Simply his data constanly exemplifies non-categorial phenomena.

On Context• We have constanly referred to the

environment, circumstances or context in which language is used.

• Any analytic approach in linguistics which involves contextual considerations, necessarily belongs to that area of language study called pragmatics.

• In Discourse analysis, as in pragmatics, we are concern with what people using language are doing, and accounting for the linguistic features as the means employed in what they are doing

Summary

• The discourse analyst creates his data as the record (text) of a dynamic process in which language was used as an instrument of communication in a context by a speaker or writer to express meanings and achieve intentions.

• The analyst seeks to describe regularities in the linguistics realisation used by people to communicate those meaning and intentions.

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