DISCOURSE ANALYSIS BY BRIAN PALTRIDGE

CHAPTER 1
WHAT IS DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
By shamimnazish@hotmail.com

Central Idea of the Chapter The first chapter, “What is Discourse Analysis?”, surveys
discourse analysis, its origin, and the issues that interest discourse analysts. In this chapter
the writer gives us basics and description of discourse analysis and dilates upon
different accounts of linguists from Zellig Harris and Fairclough to Mills. Zellig, had two
main interests i.e. the examination of language beyond the level of sentence and the
relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic behaviuor. The relation between language
and context has been comprehensively presented for the readers as a food for thought
1. What is Discourse Analysis Discourse Analysis is the investigation of
knowledge about language beyond the word, clause, phrase and sentence levels. All
of them are the basic building blocks of successful communication. In discourse analysis
researchers have to infiltrate language as a whole beyond the micro level of words and
sentences and look at the entire body of communication produced in a given / particular
situation. Discourse analysis refers ‘to attempts to study the organization of language
above the sentence, or above the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units,
such as conversational exchanges or written texts’ (Stubbs 1983:1). However, Michael
Stubbs redefines Discourse in his later work as ‘It is therefore more accurate to say that
text and discourse analysis studies language in context: how words and phrases fit
into both longer texts, and also social contexts of use’ (Stubbs 2001a:5).

a. Relationship Between Language And Context The basic consideration of

Discourse Analysis is relationship between language and the situations
wherein it is produced. It analyzes and investigates both spoken and
written interactions. In the broader context, it’s not only the conversation that
is taken into account in discourse analysis, but also the societal customs
and practices as well that make the entire web of social fibre /
behaviours.
b. Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics This chapter will highlight
pragmatics that is the prime consideration of the ways in which people
 mean more than what they say in spoken and written discourses. Paltridge
discusses Discourse Analysis from pragmatic point of view.
c. The Discourse Structure Of Text Discourse Analysts are interested
in how people knit into a structure what they intend to convey to others in a
conversation or in a piece of writing. For Example there are cultural
differences of greetings in Japan and USA. In US they are very short while in
Japan they include weather and other details in greetings. As they say
“greetings from HOT and SIZZLING Tokyo” instead of only the word of
greetings which is not a requirement in English
d. Cultural Ways Of Speaking And Writing The author criticizes the
study of the Ethnography of communication by Dell Hymes. The cultural
context remains the most important aspect that needs attention of analysts,
researchers and critics. Paltridge maintains that though Hymes analyzed
cultural point of view but he ignored social and cultural context in language
occurs.
e. Communicative Competence & Discourse Communicative
competence is knowing about the structures that are normally used while
communicating in a given language. It revolves around the knowledge of
speakers as to how to respond to different speech acts as faced during
day to day situations. Communicative competence consists of four
components i.e. grammatical competence, socio linguistic competence
discourse competence and strategic competence.
f. Discursive Competence Discursive competence is not only language
related and text level knowledge but also includes complex factors beyond
text which are required for useful communication. Discursive competence
draws together the notion of textual competence generic competence and
social competence.
2. Different Views of Discourse Analysis It is the analysis of functional
language i.e. the language currently in use in context. Paltridge has discussed different
uses of discourse analysis i.e. the one is textually oriented and the other is social
constructionist use of discourse analysis. The first view only concentrates on language
features of text while the second one talks about the text in social and cultural settings.
Paltridge has focused more on discourse analysis from the second point of view.
Both of these aspects can hardly be ignored in a realistic discourse analysis.
Different features of text are important components but at the same time the
contextual settings cannot be separated from the textual features to scrutinize /
analyze the intended meaning.
a. Discourse as the Social Construction of Reality The author here
discusses that through discourse we always construct our social reality and
she gives the example of BBC Panorama interview in which Princess Diana
doesn’t only talk about herself but while she talking she also constructs her
social world in a way that she wants people to see.
b. Discourse And Socially Situated Identities Similarly, whenever we
speak or pen something down we construct our socially situated
identities. A speaker can construct multi identities in a single stretch of
discourse. For example, when a speaker, in an interview, tells that his son
goes to Chicago University, he establishes his identity of being a father and
a husband. In the same very interview if he discloses it to the audience that
he is a high ranking officer in the Army, he constructs his second identity of
being an army office. It includes the way we dress, the way we act and
interact influences.
c. Discourse And Performance Sometimes our discourse not only shows
the intentions and identities, it actually performs the intended functions.
It’s based on the view that in saying something we do it. For example
when it is said, “I promise and I now pronounce you man and wife” The act
has been performed i.e. the couple has become man and wife.
d. Discourse And Intertextuality All text whether spoken or written, takes
meanings from other texts and refers to other texts. So, this way they are
in an intertextual relationship with other texts. Casablanca movie in which
different genre such as adventure patriotic war propaganda are mixed up.
3. Difference Between Spoken And Written Discourse There are a no of
differences b/w spoken and written discourse. The differences are as under:-
a. Grammatical Intricacy and Spoken Discourse Researchers have
shown that speech as well as writing is grammatically complex and
 different from each other. The written language is more complex
grammatically compared to the spoken version of discourse
b. Lexical Density in Spoken and Written Discourse Discourse
analysts like Halliday maintain that written discourse is more lexically dense
than the spoken form. It used thicker and comparatively difficult lexicon to
convey the meaning.
c. Nominalization In Written And Spoken Discourse Nominalization refers
to the process of forming nouns from other word class than nouns. For
example red+ness=redness. It occurs where actions and events are
presented as nouns rather than verbs. In written discourse the process of
nominalization takes place on higher level while in spoken discourse there
is low level of nominalization.
d. Explicitness In Spoken And Written Discourse Writing is more
explicit than speech. Explicitness in writing and speech depends on the
purpose of the text as well as listeners and readers.
e. Contextualization In Spoken And Written Discourse Some of the
spoken genre is decontextualized and some of the written genre is also
decontextualized while some are not. In the written discourse the
contextualization has to be established before starting the major
discussion/explanation. The spoken genre, such as academic lectures, is
decontextualized.
f. The Spontaneous Nature Of Spoken Discourse Spoken discourse
is often produced spontaneously so sometimes it is disorganized in
comparison to writing as Halliday points out writing is, “a highly idealized
version of the writing process”
g. Repetition Hesitation and Redundancy in Spoken Discourse
Spoken discourse being produced spontaneously and without any
preplanning, contains abundant repetition hesitation and redundancy because
it is produced in real time and it contains pauses and fillers.
h. A Continuum Of Differences between Spoken and Written Discourse
There are no binding rules of differentiating between spoken and written
discourse as spoken and written styles may intermingle with each other in
forms.
 CHAPTER NO 2
DISCOURSE AND SOCIETY
1. Central Idea of the Chapter In this chapter the author talks about the notion of
Discourse Community and the related notion of speech Community and both of these
influence ‘what we say and how we say’ and which language variety we choose to use as
we are engaged in discourse. Further she talks about social and gender identities. Partridge
argues that speakers have a linguistic repertoire from which they can make different
choices in different situations. The notions of gender and identity are thoroughly discussed
as important topics in the area of discourse and society.

2. Discourse Communities and Speech Communities Discourse community is a

group of people who work or live together. Members of discourse community have
shared goals, values and beliefs. Cameron’s study of telephone call centre in the UK
is an example of discourse community. These communities have shared goals, same
vocabulary and similar living environments that elicit language.
3. Speech Communities and Spoken / Written Discourse A speech community
refers to any group of people that speak the same language such as Hindko, Pashto and
Urdu etc. from general linguistic point of view. The term refers to people who not only use
the same language but also have the opportunity to interact with each other, from socio-
linguistic point of view. However, Paltridge says that it is not only the language that
defines speech community but also we need to keep in mind various factors like society,
geography, culture, politics and ethnicity.
4. Discourse and Language Choice People use a particular variety of
language to keep the intended meanings limited to the group that shares the secrecy of
information/meaning. Like some of young school students in Pakistan invented the term
GF meaning Girl Friend. They use the term to avoid disclosing the fact that they have a
girl friend or who their girl friend is.

5. Discourse Social Class & Social Networks The use of spoken and written
discourse also depends on social class network people belong to. A group of speakers
may appear to be very similar in social class membership but they differ in use of language
as they interact in social networks.
6. Discourse and Gender Earlier works have talked about discourse and gender in
terms of biological category of sex but the present research talks in relation to the socially
constructed category of gender. Paltridge also agrees the later view. As Simone De
Beauvoir says, “one is not born but rather becomes a woman”. Then she talks of the
two approaches namely Dominance Approach and the Difference or Cultural Approach.
The Dominance approach maintains that there are clear differences in the use of language
as a result of male dominance over the female. The cultural approach believes that boys
and girls live in different sub-cultures in the way that people from different social and ethnic
backgrounds might be described as being part of different sub cultures. Resultantly boys
and girls learn different ways of using the spoken discourse. It includes the notion of
desire as we have discussed that gender is socially constructed but sexual desires are
not constructed.

7. Discourse and Identity Paltridge talks about two views of language and identity.
One view is variationist perspective and the other one is post structural perspective.
The variation is perspective looks at the relationship between social variables in terms of
variation in the use of linguistic variables. However, post structural perspective on
language and identity focuses on this view that identity is constructed through
discourse. Cameron’s example of this in her discussion of how a group of male US
college students constructs heterosexual masculinity through the talk they engage in
while watching TV in their college dorm.

a. Identity and Casual Conversation Through use of conversation

people establish social identities as Eggins and Slade argue that people
do not engage in casual conversations just to kill time but rather to negotiate
social identities as well as clarify and extend interpersonal relations. To quote
Cameron “when we speak, we are telling other people something about
ourselves”.

b. Identity and Written Academic Discourse Identity is even constructed

in our academic writing as in spoken or other written discourse. As Hyland
argues, “almost everything we write says something about us and the
sort of relationship that we want to set up with our readers”.
8. Discourse and Ideology. Texts are neither ideology free nor objective.
A spoken or written genre is never created without an objective. It always intends to
convey or propagate a message to the readers / listeners. There are a number of ways
in which ideology might be extracted from a text. This may include tracing underlying
ideology from linguistic features of a text unpacking ideological presupposition underlying
the texts.

CHAPTER - 3
DISCOURSE AND PRAGMATICS
1. Central Idea of the Chapter. Chapter 3, “Discourse and Pragmatics”, clarifies the
relationship between language and context. This section shows that both pragmatics
and discourse analysis share an interest in the relationship between language and 
context and how language is used to perform different speech acts. The chapter begins by
defining pragmatics i.e. the study of meaning in relation to the context in which the
discourse is being produced.
2. Language, Context and Discourse. Use of Language in context is very
important in discourse analysis. Same language carries different meaning in different
context. For example, the word ‘duck’ in normal English language is only the ‘bird’. The
same word ‘duck’ while being used in cricket would mean ‘zero score’. So, what
determines the meanings of discourse is the use of discourse in context. However, there are
other factors which also play very important role like physical, social contexts and the
mental world and roles of people involved in the interactions.
3. Speech Acts and Discourse. Austin argued that there are three kinds of acts which
occur with everything we say. These are locutionary act, the illocutionary act and
perlocutionary act. The locutionary act refers to the dictionary meaning of words, the
illocutionary act refers to the speakers’ intended meanings and the perlocutionary act
refers to the way discourse is perceived by others.
4. The Co-operative Principle and discourse . Grice based his co-operative principle
on four sub-principles. These are maxims of quality, quantity, relation and manner.
Quality means, people should only say what they believe to be true and accurate without
any addition to the meaning from them. Quantity means that the message being conveyed
by the discourse should be comprehensive and holistic without any loopholes and
confusions in it. Relation refers to the fact that our discourse needs to be in harmony to
the context and should have relevance to the surroundings. If not so, the entire message
may not be communicated in its true letter and spirit. Manner says that we should be clear
in what way to say it and what exactly to say so that the listeners / readers
understand the message the best intended way.
5. Flouting the Co-operative Principle. The co-operative principle helps the
producers of discourse convey their information effectively. This principle is followed to a
great extent but the intentions behind the production of discourse do matter. The
speakers/writers follow the cooperative principle to convey what they intend to convey,
rather than following the principle in its true letter and spirit. For example, the principle of
quality wants the producers of discourse to say what they want to be true. But
actually what they say is what they want their listeners / readers to believe. This
violation of the co-operative principle is best done in the diplomatic circle of the
world.
6. Cross - Cultural Pragmatics and Discourse . In the global world of today the
cross-cultural pragmatics is very important. When people say something, it carries
different meanings in different culture. This is called cross-cultural pragmatics. For
example, once when I was teaching my Saudi students two years back, I wanted them to
finish their assignment quickly. I snapped my fingers to tell them to be quick. (as we
normally do in our country to tell someone to work quickly) Snapping my fingers made my
students feel offended because the act of snapping fingers is done to call dogs in Saudi
Arabia. There are two key notions in the area of cross-cultural pragmatics i-e
pragmalinguistics (the study of more linguistic end of pragmatics) and sociolinguistics
(sociopragmatics refers to specific local conditions of language use).
7. Conversational Implicature and Discourse. According to Thomas, an implicature
is generated intentionally by the speaker to make a listener do something which he may
fail to understand. For example the sentence “there is some chalk on the floor” intends
the listener to pick up the chalks. However, a listener in this case may not be able to
understand that the speaker wants him to pick up the chalks. Inference, on the other hand,
is produced by the hearer on the basis of certain evidence and may not in face be the same
as what speakers intends.
8. Politeness, Face and Discourse. Politeness and face are two important factors for
discourse analysis. Lakoff (1973) introduced three maxims of politeness. These are don’t
impose, give options and make your hearer feel good. If our listeners are meant to
understand the intended meaning effectively and comprehensively the we must maintain the
three maxims to convey the message.
9. Face and Politeness across Cultures . Face and politeness varies from culture to
culture. For example in the Saudi culture it is not customary to look at somebody’s face
while talking / listening. On the other hand, if we talk/listen to someone in Pakistan without
looking at his face it is thought to be impolite. Also in some cultures bedroom is private
and cannot be entered while in others there is no problem in strangers’ entry into bedrooms.
10. Politeness and Gender. Politeness varies depending on the context and culture
like women are more polite than men. Sometime polite words like ‘Yar!’ (in
Pakistani/Urdu culture) to a strange lady will be an odd one as compared to known friend
etc. Therefore, it is important to use polite words at right place.
11. Face-Threatening Acts. Some acts ‘threaten’ a person’s face. They are called face-
threatening acts. When you interact with some person and in reaction, the individual does
not respond and showing you cold shoulder, in this context, your face is going to be
threatened. For example, in Pakistani culture, if someone says Asalamolikum to another
person and in response the other person does not say Waalikunassalam, the first person
will be offended and annoyed. The act of the later will be a face threatening act.
 CHAPTER-5
DISCOURSE AND CONVERSATION
1. Central Idea of the Chapter Conversation analysis is an important
component of discourse analysis. It is an approach of spoken source that looks at the
way in which people manage their everyday conversational interaction. Paltridge gives
a transcribed extract to clarify the particular transcription conventions that
are used as part of conversation analysis where intonation, prolongation of
sounds, and stress matter. For example, underlining and the use of capitals
implies loud talk and word stress.
2. Transcription Conventions. Specific transcriptional conventions are used in
conversation analysis. The rise and fall of pitch / intonation, the length of sentences, and
the pauses indicated in the transcription all contribute to the analysis of the transcriptions.
3. Sequence and Structure in Conversation . Aspects of conversational interactions
that have been examined from this perspective include conversational openings,
closings, turn taking, sequence of related utterances and preferences for particular
combination of utterances. Adjacency pairs are a fundamental unit of conversational
organization and a key way in which meanings are communicated and interpreted in
conversation. These pairs put the conversation in the sequence and treat the sentences
spoken by each of the speakers as consequential to each other’s utterances. Adjacency
pairs across cultures their stage and convention is fundamental to the analysis to the
spoken discourse.
4. Preference Organization. The basic rule for adjacency pairs is to allow and give
time to the other participant. Thus having gained sufficient time to take turns and respond to
the other participant of the conversation, the speakers complete the entire body of the
conversation rendering it all as a complete body of discourse ready for analysis.
5. Feedback. Feedback means the ways in which listeners show by saying
“mmm” and “yeah” or through body position and the use of eye contact. The functions
response items such as “mmm”, “yeah” and “OK” are also influenced by the intonation,
place and timing of the utterances. So, the feedback on the speaker’s performance is what
encourages the speaker to continue or to head towards the culmination of the conversation.
The feedback also speaks of the face threatening act or politeness in conversation on
part of the listener.
6. Repair. As the term simply signifies that the speaker corrects / repairs
blemishes he commits in the conversation. He does it either himself or with the help of
another person. The act of repair also concentrates on what exactly the listener of the
conversation has understood of the discourse.
7. Gender and Conversation Analysis. Discourse analysts have also investigated the
construction of gender reality by speakers in their discourse/conversation. For example
excessive use of Child-care vocabulary discloses the speakers as being a female and
beyond that a mother exactly. The researchers have examined the social construction of
social reality, and have examined the social construction of gender from a conversation
analysis perspective.
8. Conversation Analysis and Second Language Conversation Introduction
of Discourse analysis, as an academic subject, is not traced back in centuries rather in
only a few decades. Initially the subject remained limited to the attention of the native
speakers later the attention shifted to the second language speakers as well. The non-
native talk will, in future, contribute a lot in the development of teaching methods and
techniques. Though psychological analysis is not the mandate of discourse analysis but
attention, somehow or the other, will be drawn to this this aspect to promote the second
language acquisition.
9. Criticism of Conversation Analysis The major criticism on conversation
analysis is that, when we analyze data from the conversation analysis perspective, we are
working as spectators not participants in the interaction. It is thus, not really possible for
us to know how the participants view the conversation unless we ask them. This is, to my
mind a misplaced criticism as the entire conversational analysis is not only the transcript
analysis. Rather in the modern era the video recording facility will revolutionize the
conversational analysis because the availability of real time footages will make it possible to
contextually analyze the decontextualized conversations.
 CHAPTER - 6
DISCOURSE GRAMMAR
1. Central Idea of the Chapter In “Discourse Grammar”, Paltridge throws light on
the idea that grammar discussions are no longer limited to sentences but extend to include
discourse as well. Expounded by Hughes and McCarthy (1998) making
a strong connection among form, function, and context. In the initial phase of the
development of the new subject of discourse analysis, it was thought to be the analysis of
language just beyond sentence. However, the passage of time moved the discussions from
sentence based perspectives to grammar, a discourse based perspective. This chapter
highlights those aspects of grammar that help the discourse analysis of a text.
2. Grammar from a Discourse Perspective Different linguistic items such as ‘it’, ‘this’
and ‘that’ show different interpretation from a discourse analysis point of view. For example,
the use of the word ‘it’ would mean a reference to a non-living thing already mentioned
before in a discourse. This grammatical term will be very different and would mean
something else compared to the use of the word ‘he’ later in the chapter.
a. Grammar and Discourse from a Contextual Perspective Hilles ( 2005)
describes the process of examining grammar and discourse from a
contextual perspective. The first stage in this process is to make a decision
as to what aspect of language to investigate, in next stage, to look at as
many sources as possible from reference grammar and the final stage is to
test the hypotheses that have been formed by the native speakers if they
would make the same choices that the research suggests they would make.
b. Comparing Discourse and Sentence-Based Grammars Huges and
McCarthy (1998) make a helpful comparison between Discourse and
sentence-based grammars. A discourse-based Grammar, makes a strong
 connection between form, function and context and also aims to place
appropriateness.
c. Cataphoric Reference Cataphoric reference is the reference to
something that is mentioned later in the discourse. It describes an item
forward. For example, in the sentence “I said this many times before and
let me repeat it again today” the meaning of ‘this’ and ‘it’ is not specified
and it has to come later in the chapter. This reference to something that has
to come yet, is called cataphoric reference.
d. Exophoric reference This type of reference looks outside for the things it
refers to. David Crystal’s Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics defines
it as “A term used by some linguists to refer to the process of a linguistic
Unit referring directly to the EXTRALINGUISTIC SITUATION
accompanying an utterance”.
e. Homophoric Reference. Homophoric reference is where the identity of the
item can be retrieved by reference to cultural knowledge, in general, rather
than the specific context of the text.
f. Comparative and Bridging Reference Comparative reference “The
identity of the presumed item is retrieved not because, it has already been
mentioned (will be mentioned) in the text.
3. Lexical Cohesion It refers to the relationship in meaning between lexical items in a
text and the particular content words and the relationship between them.
a. Repetition Repetition refers to words that are repeated in a text. This
includes words which are inflected for tense or number and words which are
derived.
b. Synonymy. Synonymy refers to words which are similar in meaning
such as “date” and “go out”.
c. Antonymy. Antonymy describes opposite or contrastive meaning such as
“Shy” and “Forward”.
d. Hyponymy and Meronymy. A word with a particular meaning that is
included in the meaning of the more general word for example dog and cat
are the hyponym of animal. Meronymy is where lexical items are in a ‘whole
to part’ relationship with each other.
4. Collocation. Collocation is the association between vocabulary items which have a
tendency to co-occur, such as combinations of adjectives and nouns as in ‘table and chair’,
hair dye’ ‘real-estate agent’, the ‘right direction’ etc.
5. Conjunction. Conjunction refers to words, such as ‘and’ ‘however’ that joins
phrases, clauses or sections of a text in such a way that they express a logical semantic
relationship between them.
6. Substitution and Ellipsis Substitute form is used for another language
item, phrase or group. For example “Try reading this book. That one’s not very good.”
Here, ‘one’s’ is substitution for book. In ellipsis some essential element is omitted from the
text and can be recovered by referring to a preceding element in the text.
7. Theme and Rheme Theme is the starting point of a clause; that is, what the clause
is ‘about’. The rest of the clause is the rheme. Genre is a term in widespread use to indicate
an approach to communication which emphasizes social function and purpose.
8. Thematic Progression The notion of theme and rheme are also employed in
the examination of thematic progression, or method of development of texts.
a. Constant Theme One theme of thematic progression is theme reiteration
or constant theme.
b. Linear Theme Another common pattern of thematic progression is
when the subject matter in the rheme of one clause is taken up in the theme
of a following clause.
c. Split Rheme Texts may, equally, include other kinds of progression such as
multiple-theme or ‘split rheme’ patterns. In multiple theme / split rheme
progression, a rheme may include a number of different pieces of information,
each of which may be taken up as the theme in a number of subsequent
clauses.
9. Focusing on Cohesion in Student Texts The work of Halliday and Hasan
(1976) influenced scholars and researchers by the early 1980s. The two terms were
distinguished then. Before their work, both the words were used interchangeably.
Cohesion is now understood to be a textual quality, attained through the use of
grammatical and lexical elements that enable readers to perceive semantic relationships
within and between sentences. Coherence refers to the overall consistency of
a discourse, its purpose, voice, content, style, form, and so on--and is in part
determined by readers' perceptions of texts, dependent not only on linguistic and
contextual information in the texts but also on readers' abilities to draw upon other kinds of
knowledge, such as cultural and intertextual knowledge.

CHAPTER - 7
CORPUSES APPROACHES TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

1. Central Idea of the Chapter Discourse analysis is basically a research activity

i.e. a micro level work on the text / spoken discourse as a single whole conveying
meanings collectively. In corpus analysis the data is fed to computers and modern
gadgetry to get certain out puts based on the information given in the discourse.
Corpus studies can make important contribution to our understanding of data /
characteristic of discourse. However, the completely computer based analysis can make
unnecessary generalizations which can lead to unrealistic outcomes and judgments.
2. What is Corpus Corpus is the collection of data usually stored and analyzed
electronically. They look at the occurrence and re occurrence of particular linguistic
features to see how and where they occur in the discourse.
3. Kinds of Corpora. There are following eight kinds of corpora:-
a. General Corpora.
b. Specialized Corpora. .
c. The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English.
d. The British Academic Spoken English.
e. The British Academic Written English Corpus.
f. The TOEFL Spoken and Written Academic Language Corpus
4. Design and Construction of Corpora. Data for general research is always
available in abundance. However if answer to a specific questions is required then we
have to design our own corpora to suit our requirements.
 5. Issues to consider in constructing a Corpus. While designing a Corpus many
factors need to be considered, like the size of corpus, form of expression like written
or spoken genre or in the form of monologue, dialogic and multi-party etc.
a. Authenticity, representativeness and Validity of the Corpus . In the
construction of corpus authenticity, representativeness and validity are
also important issues, that need due attention of the researchers.
b. Kinds of Texts to Include in the Corpus . According to (Hunston2002), the
kind of Corpus depends on the availability of texts as well as the validity.
He means to say that, for how much time it will be available for the purpose of
updating.
c. Size of the Texts in the Corpus. It depends that, some corpora aim for an
even sample size of an individual texts.
d. Sampling and representativeness of the Corpus . The important issue in
this regard to define what section of the society is being considered as
the population being researched on.
6. The Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus. The LSWE (Longman
Sspoken and Written English) corpus represents four major discourse types,
conversation, fiction, news and academic prose.
7. Discourse Characteristics of Conversational English Following are the
major characteristics as noted by Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English:-
a. Non clausal units in conversational discourse Conversational discourses
make wide use of non-clausal units i.e. utterances which do not contain an
explicit subject or verb.
b. Personal Pronouns & Ellipsis in Conversation Wide usage of
personal pronouns and ellipses in conversational discourse. It is
because of shared context in which conversation take place.
c. Situational Ellipsis in Conversation Speakers at times intentionally
skip certain words as they take it for granted that the listener understands
the immediate context.
 d. Non-clausal Units as Elliptic Replies in Conversation In the shared
social situation in which the conversation is taking place both speakers
know what is being talked about.
e. Repetition in Conversation In order to give added emphasis to a
point the spoken discourse has abundant repetitions in conversation.
f. Lexical Bundles in Conversational Discourse There is frequent
use of lexical bundles in conversational discourse such as “in addition to”,
“in order to”, “it is going to be”, “If you want to”, etc.
8. Performance Phenomenon of Conversational Discourse Following are the
important points of Performance Phenomenon of Conversational Discourse:-
a. Silent and Filled Pauses in Conversation The individuals fear to
lose their turn if they pause in the end. To retain their turn the speakers
tend to pause in the middle giving the impression of speaking the very next
moment.
b. Utterance launchers and filled pauses In conversational discourse
people use utterance launchers such “as well as”, “all right”, “okay”,
“fine”, “lets” etc. to take the turn and to fill pauses.
c. Attention Signals In Conversation Speakers often use other
persons’ names as an attention signal to make it clear to whom they are
speaking to.
d. Response Elicitors In Conversation A question tag is an example of
response elicitors in conversation.
e. Non Clausal Items as Response Forms Uh, Huh, Mum, Yeah, Okay, are
the examples of non-clausal items.
f. Extended Coordination Of Clauses In conversational discourse one
clausal unit is added to another clausal unit with such items “as, and, but
etc.”
9. Constructional principle of conversational discourse. There are key
principles which underlie the production of conversational discourse, which are following.
The principle of keep talking, the principle of limited planning ahead and the principle
of qualification of what has been said.
 a. Prefaces and Conversation. In conversation, the main part of speakers’
message is often preceded by a preface including fronting of clausal units,
noun phrase, discourse markers, linking adverbs, utterances launchers,
interjection etc.
b. Tags in Conversation. Speakers add tags in many ways to a
grammatical unit in conversational discourse by use of question tag at the
end of a sentence to reinforce what has just been said.
10. Corpus Studies of the Social Nature of Discourse. As Swales found
spoken discourse to be unpretentious in terms of vocabulary choice while using the
MICASE (Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English) he also found that spoken
discourse avoided name dropping and the use of obscure references. He concluded that
from the language point of view there are few barriers to cross - disciplinary oral
communication than there perhaps might be in written academic communication.
11. Collocation and Corpus Studies Corpus studies are also used to examine
collocation in spoken and written discourses for example Hyland and Tse’s 2004 study of
dissertation acknowledgement of collocation “special thanks”, Sincere thanks” and
“deep thanks”. They found that through this corpus how the writers expressed gratitude in
their conversation.
12. Criticism of Corpus Studies Corpus study has been severely criticized by
linguists saying that it is machine based orientation of Corpus Studies that leads to
atomized and misleading investigation of language use. Another criticism is that corpus
studies do not take into account the contextual aspects of text. However, these arguments
have been negated by Tribble saying that corpus studies enable contextual features such
as the social context of the text, communicative purpose of the text, roles of the
readers and writers of the text shared culture etc.
 CHAPTER NO 8
CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Central Idea of Chapter The chapter “Critical Discourse Analysis” explains that texts
are no longer constructed just by words but by combinations of other modalities such
as pictures, videos, and sound. The author argues that the use of these modalities make the
reader more of a ‘witness’ of the events. The chapter gives background information on
critical discourse analysis. Paltridge outlines some steps for carrying out critical discourse
analysis and some of the limitations of such analysis .
1. Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis Paltridge reproduces certain
principles for critical discourses propounded by Fairclough and Wodak which are as
under:-
a. Social and political issues are constructed and reflected in this course
Critical discourse analyses address social and political issues and
examines ways in which these are constructed and reflected in the use of
discourse.
b. Power relation are negotiated and performed through discourse This
principle suggests that it can be looked at through an analysis of who
controls conversational interaction, who allows a person to speak and
how they do this.
 c. Discourse reflects and reproduces social relation Discourse not only
reflects but also produces social relation. Both are established and
maintained through the use of discourse.
d. Ideologies are produced and reflected in the use of discourse Another
principle of CDA is that ideologies are produced and reflected in the use
of discourse. This includes ways of representing and constructing society
such as relation of power, relation based on gender, class ethnicity etc.
2. Doing Critical Discourse Analysis CDA “includes not only a description
and interpretation of discourse in context, but also offers an explanation of why and
how discoursed work” (Rogers). The analysis considers the framing of the text, fore
grounding and back grounding in the text. The analysis may also consider who is doing
what to whom i.e. agent - patient relation in the discourse and who has the most authority
and power in the discourse.
3. Critical Discourse Analysis AND Genre. The consideration of genre in
achieving a particular discourse goal is an important in approaching a critical
perspective as Flowerdew discusses the various genre that were involved in constructing
the view of Hong Kong as a world class city. These included committee meeting, policy
speeches, commission report and inception report, public for a, exhibition,
consultation digest and videos.
4. Critical Discourse Analysis & Framing A further way of doing CA is to examine
the way in which the content of the text is framed, Huckin looks at a newspaper report on
demonstration at nuclear test site in US in this way. The Demo described in this report,
framed as a confrontation between the group of protesters and law officials. The report does
not discuss the issues that motivated the protest.
5. Critical Discourse Analysis And Multi-Modality Many readers of the text are
constructed not just by the words but by the combination of words with other modalities such
as pictures, films or video images and sounds. The ways in which people reacted to the
events of 11 Sep. for example were very much affected by the images they saw on TV.
6. Critical Discourse Analysis And Identity Gordon discusses how a family in
the US uses language to create and socialize each other into a shared family political
identity.
7. Critical Discourse Analysis And World Wide Web Critical Discourse Analysis
can be widened with the help of World Wide Web. However the web material is not
authentic and is often misleading as it happens many times. Many a time the data given on
the web is wrong and sometimes it’s not even updated.
8. Criticism of Critical Discourse Analysis Critical Discourse Analysis has been
criticized vehemently maintaining that it is very similar to earlier stylistic analysis, the area of
literary criticism. Some critics believe that Critical Discourse Analysis does not always
consider the role of reader in consumption and interpretation of a text. Some of the critics
want Critical Discourse Analysis to be more demanding in tools of analysis.

CHAPTER NO 9
DOING DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
1. Central Idea of Chapter This chapter considers the issues that need attention
before embarking upon a discourse analysis project. The discussion revolves around
the question of how to bring quality in a research project:-
1. Developing a Discourse Analysis Project. Many issues need to be considered
while planning and carrying out a discourse analysis project. The most important is
research question. It is a key to any good research project. Cameron 2001 has suggested
that one important characteristic of a good research project is that it has a good idea.
These criterion include a well-focused idea about spoken and written discourse, an
understanding of how discourse analytic techniques can be used to answer the research
questions you are asking and so on.
2. Choosing a Research Topic Cameron says good ideas for research “don’t
just spring up from the researcher’s imagination, they are suggested by previous
research”.
3. Focusing a Research Topic Stevens and Asmar suggest, wiser heads know
that a good research project is, “marrow and deep”.
4. Turning the Topic into a Research Question At this stage of research it is
tried to change the selected topic into a research question. What she focuses that, we
should strike the balance between a value of the question and your ability to develop a
discourse analysis project you are capable of carrying out i.e. the project you have the back
ground, expertise, resources and access to data that are needed for the project.
5. Kinds of Discourse Analysis Projects. The author underlines many kinds of
discourse analysis projects which are as under:
a. Replication of Previous discourse Studies.
b. Using Different Discourse Data but the same Methodology.
c. Analyzing Existing Data From a Discourse Analysis Perspective
d. Analyzing Discourse Data From A Different Perspective
e. Considering the Validity of a Previous Claim
f. Focusing on Unanalyzed Genres
g. Mixed-Methods Discourse Studies
6. Two Sample Discourse Studies The two projects that follow are both examples
of studies which combine approaches to research in the analysis of structure:-
a. A Spoken Discourse Project Silence in the Japanese students’ tutorial
interaction in English:-
(1) Summary of the Study Nakane combines the technical of
conversation analysis with ethnographic in order to get multiple
perspectives on the question she was investigating.
(2) Aim of the Study The aim of her study was to examine the
communication problem faced by the Japanese students during
English medium university classes. She discovered from her research
that we know very little about happening in the main stream
university class room.
(3) Methodology of Study Conversation analysis of the student
interactions in the class room was done along with conducting
individual interviews, focus group discussions and administered
questionnaires.
(4) Results of the Study The study disclosed that silence were one
of the major problems for Japanese students and for teachers as well.
She reached the conclusion that the degree of silence varied among
the students.
 (5) Commentary on the Study These multiple data sources
provided for a detailed and fine grained analysis of the research
questions.
(6) Further Research She wants to say that her work on Japanese
silence needs to be further probed into and more data should be
accumulated
b. A Written Discourse Project The second study was ‘A contrastive
analysis of letters to the editor in Chinese and English’:-
(1) Summary of the Study Wang’s contrastive study of the letters to
the editor in English and Chinese is an example of a written
discourse project that drew on the frameworks of contrastive
rhetoric and systemic functional view of genre.
(2) Aim of the Study Wang’s study had several research questions like
in what ways are Chinese and English letters similar or different in
terms of their rhetorical structures to the editor.
(3) Methodology of Study Wang took ten letters to the editor in
Chinese and English published newspapers. He looked at the
schematic structure of each of the two sets of data, the rhetoric
types represented between the clauses and clauses complexes in
two sets of texts.
(4) Results of the Study Wang found that Chinese and English
letters to the editor shared some similarities at the level of schematic
structures but differ in cultural aspects and style of writing.
(5) Commentary on the Study . By employing approaches to
analysis from systematic functional genre studies and contrastive
rhetoric he was able to carry out a detailed examination between
similarities and differences of letters to editor in English and Chinese at
different level of analysis.
(6) Further Research Wang says that there are definitely limitation in
his work on Chinese and English data and so further data be
collected to improve the validity of the research.
7. Combining Discourse and other Research Perspectives Paltridge wants to
say that both the Nekene and the Wang studies drew on a no of different Discourse
Analysis and other research perspective to find their answers to their research questions
and they strengthened their studies by combining perspectives in the way that they have
done. These techniques of combining different perspectives and approaches to discourse
analysis are useful to solve the project under investigation that might be provided with just
one single perspective.
8. Evaluating a Discourse Analysis Project Each of the studies described
earlier suggest ways in which discourse analysis can provide insights into social
pedagogic and linguistic questions in this chapter. Tailor considers three key issues i.e.
reliability, validity and replicability of the project that had been carried out. Details are as
under:-
a. Reliability It means the consistency of the result obtained in the project.
There are two of its kinds i.e. internal reliability and external reliability.
b. Validity It refers to the extent to which a piece of research actually
investigates what it says it will investigate and the truth or the accuracy of
the generalization being made by the researcher.
c. Replicability It refers to the quality of a discourse project being repeated
in research on the similar lines as done earlier.
Conclusion
The material / book of Paltridge serves as a reference for students who want to
pursue their research / studies in discourse analysis. It’s useful both for the new
entrepreneurs and the research scholars. It explains discourse analysis and different
approaches to discourse, society, pragmatics, genre, grammar and corpus studies. An
extensive glossary at the end and the guidance as to further readings is a great help for the
researchers. For the advance level researchers the book proffers new perspectives on
approaches to discourse, along with an entire chapter dedicated to critical discourse
analysis.  Furthermore, the diversity of literature enables readers to discover areas that
were never interrogated upon before.