a) According to Schiffrin et al (2001), what are the three main categories in which all the

definitions of discourse analysis fall? The main categories in which all the definitions of
discourse analysis fall respond to the main approaches the field has had since its beginning as a
discipline. These include the formal approach, which sees it as a social element which may help
us understand our relationship, and that understand discourse as something that has
interaction as a central basement, and finally the sociological approach, which sees discourse
in relation to the notions of power and inequalities.

b) Explain the concept of adjacency pair within the context of Conversation Analysis. The
concept of adjacency pair is one of the main ideas within the subfield of Conversation analysis.
It concerns two utterances used in a conversation by two different people. These pairs of
utterances respond to a known formula that tie both of them together. Examples of adjacency
pairs can be a question and an answer or a request and a response to that request. The second
utterance is an “expected reaction” to the first given utterance.

a) Explain Scollon’s (2001) concept of mediational means within the framework of Mediated
Discourse Analysis. (Do not write more than 5 lines here). MDA does not see language as a
system of representation but if focus on tacit, unconscious mediated actions performed in
practice frames which create nexus of practices (“habitus” for Bourdieu). The Mediational
Means are the “tools” to perform the mediated action, but contrary to other types of analysis,
language is not the only one: technology or objects can be engaged in these mediated actions,
and as geosemiotic tells, where these exchanges take place have also meaning (“when
language is placed in real world”).

b) Explain the importance of the notion of ideology within the framework of Critical
Discourse Analysis. (Do not write more than 5 lines here). Discourse is the link between
society and ideology. For Van Dijk, all language is a manifestation of ideology. Foucault’s,
Bordieu’s and Bakthint’s theories explained that language constructs knowledge and reality. So
access to discourse forms is a source of power that can change people’s minds and actions.
The groups that have this power use languages through discourse, to enact and reproduce
their superior status. CDA tries to show how these strategies work, as a previous step to
change them and the hegemony of ideology.

a) Explain the concept of indexicality within Mediated Discourse Analysis, and explain the
differences between indexes, icons and symbols. Give examples of each one of the three.
(Do NOT write more than 10 lines here). Indexicality is something that can be used by the
speakers in order to convey meaning, a form of non-verbal communication as are signs.
Indexes are signs that are attached or point to something ( ). Icons are signs that resemble
what we are referring to (emoticons) Symbols are signs that depend more on conventional
meaning (library /book shop/ reading area). Their meaning may differ among different
communities.

b) Explain the notion of detached themes within the context of Functionalism. Discuss
different subtypes and provide examples. (Do NOT write more than 10 lines here). Some
themes are detached from the main clause. Absolute themes are a special type of detached
themes. They are normally constituted by a noun phrase which is not a part of the sentence
The war in Irak, he fought there Absolute theme Another part of detached themes are
dislocations. They are a constituent of the sentence they belong to, however, they are moved
to the left or to the right (they do not have their expected place). There is usually a pronoun,
acting as co-referent, in the sentence. She's beautiful, that woman or Your house, it's on fire!
right-dislocate theme left-dislocated theme

a) Briefly write about the main tenets and focus of the Interactional Sociolinguistic approach
to language.

b) What are the assumptions upon which the practices of Post-structuralism are grounded?
Who is considered to be the most important representative of the post-structuralist
movement?

Sobre el análisis narrative:

In the Narrative Analysis perspective, the analyst aims to find the regular structure of the text.
For Lavob, the narrative is "one method of capitulating past experience by matching a verbal
sequence of clauses to the sequence of events that actually occur". We are going to find the
elements of the narrative in this text. Abstract: For me the abstract of this narrative could be
the title since it is a sentence that summarizes the whole story. It tells us that the story is an
anecdote and that the main character is Einstein. So, "An Anecdote about Einstein" could be
the abstract. Orientation: In the orientation element, the reader/hearer can receive
information about the events and about the time and space in which these events took place.
In this narrative, this can be found in sentence 2 - Time: "in his first year", "on Christmas Eve"
and Space: "in Princeton". Complicating action: the complicating action of the narrative is a
sequence of clauses that describe the events. In this case we can find the complicating action
in sentences 3: "some children sang carols..." and 4: "knocked on his door..." "explained they
were..." Evaluation: the evaluation of a narrative is when the hearer/reader gets his/her
personal conclusion of it. In this text, the sentence that best suits for this purpose would be
number 1: "there was something elusively whimsical about Einstein". This is the impression
that the narrator (in other cases hearer/reader) has got from the whole story. Resolution: the
resolution of a narrative is the moment when the most reportable event is exposed. In this
narrative this can be found in sentences 5: "Wait a moment", "He put on his scarf..." and 6:
"took his violin...", "joining the children..." Coda: the coda is a sentence which signals that the
narrative is finished, so for me, the coda would be sentence 7: "he accompanied their singing
of "Silent Night" on his violin", because it explains what happened in the end and puts an end
to the narrative.

a.Explain the concepts of intentionality and intertextuality as two of the criteria that a
communicative event must satisfy (as explained by De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981). De
Beaugrande and Dressler define text as a communicative event that must satisfy seven criteria.
Among them are intentionality, which relates to the attitude and purpose of the speaker or
writer and intertextuality, which refers to two main facts: a) a text is always related to some
preceding or simultaneous discourse; texts are always linked and grouped in particular text
varieties or genres (e.g.: narrative, argumentative, descriptive, etc.) by formal criteria. Both
concepts are text-external according to Tischer.
b. Describe and define the two main elements found in the thematic structure of a clause.
Provide examples The thematic structure of a clause contains two main elements: theme and
rheme. Following Halliday, we shall say that the theme of a clause is what speakers/writers use
as the ‘point of departure’. The rest of the message constitutes the other element of the
thematic structure, namely, the rheme. THEME RHEME a) Peter doesn’t like that car b) That
car Peter doesn’t like c) What Peter doesn’t like is that car d) It’s that car Peter doesn’t like

a. Explain the concepts of cohesion and coherence as two of the criteria that a
communicative event must satisfy (as explained by De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981). De
Beaugrande and Dressler define text as a communicative event that must satisfy seven criteria.
Among them are cohesion, which has to do with the relationship between text and syntax.
Phenomena such as conjunction, ellipsis, anaphora, cataphora or recurrence are basic for
cohesion. Coherence has to do with the meaning of the text. Here we may refer to elements of
knowledge or to cognitive structures that are implied by the language used and that contribute
to the overall meaning of a given discourse. Cohesion and coherence are semantic concepts
and they are both part of the system of a language. Both concepts are text-internal according
to Tischer.

b. What is a corpus? What kinds of corpora can be used for discourse analysis? (Please, do not
write more than one page about this). According to Crystal, a corpus is “a collection of
linguistica data, either written texts or a transcription of recorded speech, which can be used
as a starting-point of linguistic description or as a means of verifying hypotheses about a
LANGUAGE (corpus linguistics)”. For Biber et al., the essential characteristics of corpus-based
analysis are: Empiricism; use of computers; use of quantitative and qualitative techniques and
use of a large and principled collection of natural texts. Reich’s taxonomy classifies corpora
according to: Medium: spoken corpora (eg. London-Lund corpus); written corpora (eg. LOB);
mixed corpora (eg. BNC) National Varieties: Historical Variation Geographical
variation/dialectal variation: Age: CHILDES Genre: Open-endedness: Availability: Online, ftp
servers, CD-Roms.

a. Explain Gumperz' concept of contextualization cues. Provide examples. Contextualization

cues is any verbal sign which when processed in co-occurrence with symbolic grammatical and
lexical signs serves to construct the contextual ground for situated interpretations, and
thereby affects how constituent messages are understood. Examples of contextualization cues
are: - intonation or any prosodic choices, - conversational code-switching, - style switching -
lexical or syntactic choices, and - facial and gestural signs.

a. Briefly explain the concept of frame within Goffman's analysis of interaction. Frame is an
important concept in Goffman’s analysis of interaction. Goffman studies the way in which
social actors organize their experience in terms of recognizable activities (e.g. a business
meeting, a lecture, a game of chess) which are the frames through which people structure
experience. Thus, the organization of framing activity is socially situated. Goffman’s frame
analysis shows how people can handle multiple, interdependent realities and therefore it
reveals the complexity of mundane social activities.

b. ) What are the two functions/elements of the information structure of a clause according
to Halliday? Do they always coincide with the thematic functions Theme and Rheme? Explain
and provide examples. The information unit is a structure made up of two functions: the New
and the Given. From a structural point of view, it can be said that all information units have an
obligatory new element and an optional given element. The latter is concerned with
information which is presented by the speaker as ‘recoverable’ (either from the linguistic co-
text, from what has been said before, or from the situational or cultural context). The former
(the new element) concerns whatever information the speaker presents as not recoverable by
the hearer. Under normal conditions, speakers/writers will choose the theme from what is
Given and will locate the New within the Rheme. But Given is not the same as Theme, and
New is not the same as Rheme. The theme is what the speaker chooses to take as her point of
departure, while the given is what the listener already knows. Thus: Theme+Rheme is speaker-
oriented Given+New is listener-oriented Therefore, the speaker can play with both the
thematic and the information structure of her discourse in order to produce a wide variety of
rhetorical effects. Examples: Prototypical case (Given coincides with Theme): (A: When are you
coming to Madrid?) B: I’m planning on going next month. Theme Rheme Given New Non-
prototypical case (where B plays with the two systems in order to produce a contrastive
effect): (A: Mary likes Madrid) B: Paris is where she wants to go, though!

a. Briefly write about the main tenets and focus of the Interactional Sociolinguistic approach
to language. The interactional sociolinguistic approach to Discourse Analysis is
multidisciplinary: it concerns the study of the relationships between language, culture and
society and has its roots in Linguistics, Anthropology and Sociology. It focuses upon situated
meaning. Two central issues are the study of the interaction between self and other and the
study of context. One of the main concerns of this approach is the study of the practices of
contextualization, a concept based on a reflexive notion of context. Gumperz and Goffman
have been the main contributors to the development of the interactional sociolinguistic
approach.

b. What are the assumptions upon which the practices of Post-structuralism are grounded?
Who is considered to be the most important representative of the post-structuralist
movement? The concept of ‘self’ as a singular and coherent entity is a fictional construct, thus
in order to study a given text a reader/hearer must understand how this discourse is related to
the writer’s/speaker’s own personal concept of self. Each human reader builds an individual
aim and meaning for a given text. Therefore the author’s intended meaning is secondary to the
meaning that the reader perceives (this phenomenon is known as ‘decentering’ of the author).
The meaning of a text, then, shifts in relation to the variables related to the reader’s identity.
None of the possible interpretations is considered to be the right one; all of them contribute to
the better understanding of a text. Michel Foucault (French philosopher and historian) came to
be regarded as the most important representative of the post-structuralist movement.

a. Briefly write about the main tenets and focus of Functionalism. Also, explain the concept
of communicative dynamism (Firbas, 1992). Functionalism grew as an alternative to the
abstract, formalized view of language presented by Transformational Grammar. Contrary to
Formalism, Functionalism relies on a pragmatic view of language as social interaction. It
focuses on the rules that govern verbal interaction. These rules are seen as a form of co-
operative activity, and their study helps the researcher describe the linguistic structures of
language in relation to the context in which they occur. Meaning, rather than form, is taken
into account, and both the extra-linguistic context and the purpose of communication play a
crucial role in this approach. Its origins can be traced back to the Linguistic School of Prague, in
the work of scholars such as Mathesius, Danes or Firbas, who emphasized the functional
aspects of the organization of information. According to Firbas, communicative dynamism is
“the relative extent to which a linguistic element contributes towards the further development
of the communication”

b. What is the basic assumption of the Variation Analysis approach to discourse? Who is its
most prominent figure? The basic assumption of variationists is that there are patterns of
language which vary according to the social environment. Thus, V.A. is concerned with the
variation and changes observed in language along different speech communities. The most
prominent figure within this approach is William Labov, who argues in favor of the inadequacy
of intuition as a source of information about language structures, as well as in favor of the
importance of the vernacular language (the variety showing the most systematic grammar of a
dialect).

a. Explain the concepts of acceptability and situationality as two of the criteria that a
communicative event must satisfy (as explained by De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981).
Acceptability concerns the preparation of the reader/hearer to assess the relevance or
usefulness of a text. Situationality indicates that the situation in which a text is produced plays
a key role in the production and reception of the message. According to Tischer, these two
criteria are text-external.

b. What are the different elements of a narrative, according to Labov? Broadly speaking
narratives contain a beginning, a middle, and an end, but if we look at them in detail, we shall
find all or some of the following elements according to Labov: Abstract: One or two clauses
summarizing the story. Orientation: One or more clauses which give information about the
place, time, the participants or the situation. Complicating action: Sequential clauses which
describe the events. Evaluation: The means used by the narrator to point out the aim of the
narrative, i.e., why it was told, or to give information on the consequences of the event for
human needs and desires. Result or resolution: The set of complicating actions which follow or
coincide with the most reportable event. Coda: A free clause at the end which indicates the
end of a narrative. It precludes the potential question “And what happened then?”.

b. Are theme, subject and topic the same thing? Illustrate your answer. Theme is a different
category from syntactic subject and from topic, even though the three tend to coincide in one
wording. Theme is the point of departure of the message; subject is a syntactic element of
clause structure and topic is what the text is about. My new neighbor is quite a character
Subject/Theme/Topic In the US, the people celebrate Thanksgiving in November. Theme
Subject Topic

a. Explain the concepts of intentionality and coherence as two of the criteria that a
communicative event must satisfy (as explained by De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981).
Intentionality has to do with the attitude of the speaker/writer. Coherence has to do with the
meaning of the text and with elements of knowledge or cognitive structures which are implied
by the language used and thus influence the reception of the message. According to Tischer,
coherence is text-internal and intentionality is text-external.
b. Explain the concepts of social actor and interaction order within the Mediated Discourse
Analysis approach. Social actor is a person who moves in the physical world and ‘gives off’
different signals (such as race, age, sex, etc.). Interaction order is the set of social relationships
we take up and try to maintain with other people who are in our presence.

a. Briefly explain (in no more than 5 lines) the difference between the formal and the
functional approaches to Discourse Analysis (as in Leech 1983 or Schiffrin 1994). In the formal
approach, the discourse is defined as a unit of language beyond the sentence. Harris viewed
discourse as the next level in a hierarchy of morphemes, clauses and sentences. The functional
approach defines discourse as language use. It gives much importance to the purposes and
functions of language. Discourse is an all-embracing concept which includes not only the
propositional content, but also the social, cultural and contextual contents.

b. What is the main concern of Variation Analysis (Labov 1972, 1996, 2004, etc.)? (Explain
this in no more than 5 lines). Variation Analysis is concerned with the variation and changes
observed in language along different speech communities. Variationists focus on distributional
patterns to discover differences between text types and they study linguistic change at the
different levels of linguistic analysis: semantic, phonological, syntactic and textual; they work
with samples of authentic speech data which leads them to seek the mode of speech called the
vernacular.

a. What is Positive Discourse Analysis mainly concerned with? (Explain this in no more than 5
lines) According to Martin, the aim of PDA is to engage in “heartening accounts of progress”
rather than in “discouraging analyses of oppression”, to focus on constructive social action,
rather than on the deconstruction of negative social action. Therefore, PDA is concerned with
what texts “‘do well’ and ‘get right’ in our eyes” (Macgilchrist, 2007), the emphasis being put
on the discourse we like rather than on the discourse we wish to criticize.

b. Explain (in no more than 5 lines) the concept of heteroglossia according to Bakhtin (1981),
within the framework of Post-structuralism. Klages defines heteroglossia as the collection of
all the forms of social speech, or rhetorical modes, that people use in the course of their daily
lives. For Bakhtin, discursive practice is essentially heteroglossic, which requires that language
is normally patterned into speech genres and that two or more genres normally co-exist in a
given discourse practice. Texts often contain the various voices that have been involved in
their production. For example, a film text normally includes the voice of the screenplay writer,
the director and all the people involved in its production.

a. What is a corpus? Give one example of a type of corpus (Do not write more than six lines
about this). According to Crystal, a corpus is “a collection of linguistica data, either written
texts or a transcription of recorded speech, which can be used as a starting-point of linguistic
description or as a means of verifying hypotheses about a LANGUAGE (corpus linguistics)”.
London Lund Corpus, COCA and BNC are examples of Corpus.

b. ) Define the concepts of theme and rheme. Provide examples. (Do not write more than six
lines about this). The thematic structure of a clause contains two main elements: theme and
rheme. Following Halliday, we shall say that the theme of a clause is what speakers/writers use
as the ‘point of departure’. The rest of the message constitutes the other element of the
thematic structure, namely, the rheme.

a. Explain the concepts of intentionality as one of the criteria that a communicative event must
satisfy (as explained by De Beaugrande and Dressler (1981). (Do not write more than five lines
about this). De Beaugrande and Dressler define text as a communicative event that must
satisfy seven criteria. Among them are intentionality, which relates to the attitude and purpose
of the speaker or writer. Intentionality is text-external according to Tischer.

b. Explain the concept of indexicality within Mediated Discourse Analysis, (Do not write more
than five lines about this). MDA give great importance to the material place where social
actions occur. This is the main concern of Geosemiotics, and the key to the analysis of any
human action is indexicality, i.e., the meaning of signs based on their material location. Hence,
all language takes a major part of its meaning from how and where it is placed.

a. ) Bakhtin is normally included within the scope of Post-structuralism even though his work is
previous and took place during the first half of the 20th century. Comment on his view of
language as dialogic. What did he mean by that assertion? (Do NOT write more than 6 lines
here). That language is dialogic entails the consideration of the utterance as the basic unit of
language, and they always contain an implicit respondent voice.In his conception, utterances
can never be isolated from the sequence in which they occur and they always hold a dialogic
relationship with previous utterances which have been voiced or which are presupposed. A
dialogic view of language opposes the Saussurean idea that language is an autonomous system
describable in terms of relationships between internal signs.

b. Discuss Goffman's concept of face and its role in spoken interaction. (Do NOT write more
than 6 lines here). Goffman argues that the self is a social construction, and one way of viewing
the self as a social, interactive construction is through the notion of face, i.e. “the positive
social value a person effectively claims for himself by the line others assume he has taken
during a particular contact” A crucial condition of interaction is the maintenance of face:
interactants are expected to behave in a manner that is consistent with this image in order to
be in face or to maintain face.

a. According to Schiffrin et al (2001), what are the three main categories in which all the
definitions of discourse analysis fall? 1. Anything beyond the sentence 2. Language use 3. A
broader range of social practice that includes nonlinguistic and non-specific instances of
language.

b. Explain the concept of adjacency pair within the context of Conversation Analysis. An
adjacency pair is a sequence of adjacent two utterances and produced by different speakers.
The first part normally expects a given second part: Greeting-greeting: (1st part) A: Hello. (2nd
part) B: Hello. Offer-Acceptance: A: Would you like a coffee? B: Yes, please. Apology-
minimization: A: Sorry. B: Don’t worry. It’s O.K.

a.What is the vernacular, according to Labov (1984)? (Do not write more than six lines about
this) The vernacular is the variety showing the most systematic grammar of a dialect and
acquired in pre-adolescent years and used by speakers when they pay minimum attention to
speech. In order to collect samples of the vernacular, variationists resort to sociolinguistic
interviews, which allow them to discover the regular rules of language and the social
distribution of variants. In these interviews the respondents are asked to tell narratives of
personal experience.

b. What is a pre-sequence within the framework of Conversation Analysis? Provide an

example. (Do not write more than 8 lines about this) Some sequences prefigure a turn which
contains a reason for the sequence. For example, a summons prefigures a turn which contains
the reason for the summons as in: A: Jim! (Summons) J: Yes? (Answer). Most pre-sequences
can be said to prefigure the specific kind of action that they potentially precede. Other clear
examples of pre-sequences are pre-closings, preinvitations, pre-requests, pre-arrangements,
pre-anouncements, etc.

a. What does Schegloff mean when he refers to talk-in-interaction as the focus of Conversation
Analysis? (Do NOT write more than 6 lines here) That they do not engage solely in the analysis
of ordinary conversation; rather, they are concerned with the study of talk-in-interaction
which includes not only normal, casual everyday conversation but also institutionalized forms
of talk (in the school, at the courts, at the doctor’s office, etc.). They use tape-recorded
conversations as source data since they consider it to be objective information whose analysis
can be replicated.

b. Bakhtin considered discursive practice as a heteroglossic phenomenon. What did he mean

and how does it conform to the post-structuralist approach to language? (Do NOT write more
than 8 lines here) For Bakhtin, discursive practice is essentially heteroglossic, which requires
that language is normally patterned into speech genres and that two or more genres normally
co-exist in a given discourse practice. Texts often contain the various voices that have been
involved in their production. For example, a film text normally includes the voice of the
screenplay writer, the director and all the people involved in its production.

a. Explain Scollon's (2001) concept of mediational means within the framework of Mediated
Discourse Analysis. (Do not write more than 5 lines here). Mediational means are the material
means (e.g. the body, dress and movements of the material actors) through which mediated
action is carried out. Mediational means are multiple in a single action, and they are polyvocal,
intertextual and interdiscursive. They inevitably carry histories and social structures with them.

b. Explain the importance of the notion of ideology within the framework of Critical Discourse
Analysis. (Do not write more than 5 lines here). Ideology establishes the connection between
discourse and society. It is shared by the members of a group to have an effective
communicative interaction. Ideologies control social groups and their discourse. Van Dijk
explains that ideologies are developed by dominant groups to reproduce and legitimate their
domination. They have also cognitive functions of belief organization which make up the basis
of discourse.

a. Explain the concept of indexicality within Mediated Discourse Analysis, and explain the
difference between indexes, icons and symbols. Give examples of each one of the three. (Do
NOT write more than 10 lines here) Indexicality is a universal feature of language, and it is
defined by Scollon as the property of the context-dependency of signs, especially language;
hence the study of those aspects of meaning which depend on the placement of the sign in the
material world. Icons are signs that resemble the objects being signed. E.g.: emoticons. Indexes
are signs which point to or are attached to the object. E.g.: an arrow. Symbols are signs which
are arbitrarily or conventionally associated with the object. E.g.: the signs of written language.´

b. Explain the notion of detached themes within the context of Functionalism. Discuss different
subtypes and provide examples. (Do NOT write more than 10 lines here) Some themes are
detached from the main clause. A subtype of these are normally lexical noun phrases which
stand outside the clause and are called Absolute Themes. E.g.: The war with Irak, everyone
thinks something should be done. Absolute theme Exp. Theme Dislocations are another
subtype of detached themes, which are different from absolute themes in that the dislocated
element is a constituent of the clause, and is repeated by a coreferential pronoun in its normal
position within the clause. E.g.: She’s beautiful, that woman. Right-dislocated theme Your
house, it’s on fire!

a.