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Discourse Analysis..04docx
Discourse Analysis..04docx
Ayesha Hashim
BSENG-18-04
(morning)
Conversation B
I'd like to order some lunch. Can you bring it to my room?
Yes, of course. What would you like to order?
Let's see. Could you bring me a salad, a turkey sandwich, and a coke?
Certain, your room number?
Five twelve.
Conversation C
Hello, I'd like to get some information about restaurants.
There are several excellent restaurants near the hotel. What kind of food do you like.
I like Italian and French food.
There's a wonderful Italian restaurant just two blocks from here.
Shall I call them to make a reservation for you?
Thank you. That would be great.
Discussion
3.1 One unit of discourse which we have not discussed here is the sentence. In traditional
pedagogical treatments of English grammar, a sentence is sometimes defined as"the
expression of a complete thought." How would you go about identifying the sentence in
written text? Could you see the same criteria to identify sentences in oral discourse? If not,
what criteria could you use? How useful it is to talk about speech in terms of sentences? In
an encyclopedia or a history of rhetoric, look up the history of written sentence and report
on it.
Basically, we are familiar with the written discourse and also with the aspects of the grammar of
written discourse. We know that in the written discourse words are separated by blank spaces
and a sentence began with a capital letter. Different genres of writing involve the use of different
units and different rules. However, it is thought that oral discourse such as casual conversation is
fairly chaotic, random and unstructured. The units of oral discourse are basically different from
those of oral discourse as people don't speak in paragraphs. But, we can't say that a oral discourse
is a set of random words.
Basically, when people speak they don't speak randomly. Though they don't have strctural
rules in their minds, they have a sequence of words in their minds. When people produce
discourse, they make use of generalization they have made about what the part tend to be and
how they tend to be arranged. On the basis of internal patterns and regularities we can formulate
generalization about which kind of unit precede and follow which other kind of units both in
single utterance and in a longer sentence and also in conversation.
We can formulate, what kind of units come, where and what it means that a unit appears in
a place or another. We can then the discourse into parts. We can make these claims about the
structure without insisting that structural rules are innate. Sometimes, the utterance and sentence
and text are not the result of structural rules at all.
3.2 Audio- record a few minutes of a conversation and transcribe it in several ways: as a
playscript with each speaker's turn stating on a new line , in t - units or clauses, and in
intonation units or lines. Which transcription is easiest to read and why? Which do you
think captures the sound of the conversation best? Is any of the system more accurate than
the others? Experiment with the other ways of representing the conversation on paper.
Could you use musical notation for example? A variety is fonts, type size, and colors?
Conversation is an enterprise in which one person speak and another listen. Speakers basically
have systems for determining when one person turn is over and the other person began. This
exchange of turns is signaled by linguistics means such as intonation, pausing and phrasing.
Some people await a clear pause before beginning to speak but some assume that its an invitation
to someone else to start his discussion.
Lesson 10 and lesson 11 has a rythmatical pattern as it occurs across a wide variety of
speech geners, ranging from spontaneous conversation to memorized ritual chants. This pattern
consist of lines uttered by one speaker , often marked at the beginning or end and followed by a
response from the second speaker. In lesson 10 , though we refer to the same conversation and
purpose behind both the conversation is same but we'll give preference to the second activity as it
is more formal one with a proper starting and a proper ending. Similar is the case with the lesson
11 as these conversations make use of words like thanks and goodbye.
In lesson 12 we'll see that there is a pattern in activity 1 and a more rythmatical pattern in
activity 3 as the talk is in sequence. But it seems that the conversation in activity 2 is in chunks
as everyone is talking differently though the purpose and topic is same but our understanding is
different. We can also see that in activity 1 and activity 3 the speaker and listeners are dependent
on each other waiting for one to stop and the other to start their conversation and each clause and
line is dependent on the other one. But in activity 3 every one is expressing their own thoughts
and the contents of one doesn't depend on the other.
3.3 Different ways of chunking oral discourse into units of sound, units of structure, and
units of meaning - sometimes coincide. As Chafe notes, for example, an intonation units
representing a cognitive focus often consist of one grammatical phrase; as Sherzer notes, a
line is an acoustic unit as well as a grammatical one. You may have found in doing exercise
3.2 that there are other overlap between transcription systems. It is surprising that sound,
grammar and meaning coins in ways like these? Which reason for discourse chunking, if
any, do you think is the most basic or important?
Basically, focus of consciousness give rise to a burst of talk or intonation units surrounded by
brief pauses. Center of interest are expressed in sentence like form and end with sentence final
falling intonation. Sometimes the talk is random and sometimes it follows a rythmatical pattern.
The grammar of the discourse can help us to analyze the way in which the sentences are
constructed ( verb i, active and passive construction and the use of imperative and questions) and
can reveal aspects of intended meanings.
The sound of discourse can help us to analyze the emphasis. Intonation means the rise and
fall in tone will help us to analyze the stress. Tone of voice, pauses, gestures and sounds like
"um" can reveal speaker intentions , attitude and emotions. The meanings of the discourse can
reveal the structure and the purpose of discourse so, basically meanings plays important role. If
grammar is right and we also understand the sound patterns but are unable to understand the
meanings than it will be useless. But sounds patterns also plays an important role as through
intonation we can understand the attitude and meanings of the speaker.