What is a Discourse?

Discourse comes from the Latin word

‘discursus’ which means conversation or
speech.
It is a spoken and written communication
between people, especially serious
discussion on a particular subject.
Text is to Sentences as Discourse is to Utterances

Discourse Text
(utterances) (sentences)

Spoken Written
Discourse Discourse
Differences between
spoken and written
discourse
1. Written discourse is
more structurally
complex and more
elaborate than spoken
discourse.
2. Spoken discourse
is less lexically
dense than written
discourse.
3. Written discourse
has a high level of
nominalization: i.e.
more nouns than
verbs.
4. Written discourse
tends to have longer
noun groups than
spoken discourse.
5. Writing is more
explicit than
speech.
 6. Writing is more
decontextualized than
speech: Speech is more
attached to context than
writing because speech
defends on the shared
situation and background for
interpretation.
7. Spoken discourse lacks
organization and is
ungrammatical because it
is spontaneous, whereas
written discourse is
organized and
grammatical.
 8. Spoken discourse
contains more repetition,
hesitations, and
redundancy because it is
produced in real time.
(on the spot)
 9. Spoken discourse has
many pauses and filters,
such as ‘ahhh’, ‘er’, and ‘you
know’ so that speakers
give themselves time to
think about what they want
to say.
 10. Spoken discourse
contains more
uncompleted (fragments)
and reformulated
sentences.
TASK BY PAIR: COMIC STRIP
Read the text and highlight the
event by drawing a comic strip
of possible conversations in
the story.