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Chap I: What is discourse analysis?

Introduction to DA:

 Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the
contexts in which it is used.
 Beyond the level of a single sentence;
- Meaningful and unified text;
- Coherence
- The relationship between language and the context

Summary

 Definition of Text Analysis:

 The study of written and spoken texts
 The study of formal linguistic devices that distinguish a text from random sentences.

 Definition of Discourse Analysis:

 The study of language in use: language and the context.
 It studies the relationship between language and the contexts.
 It does so with reference to the purposes and functions for which the discourse was produced. As
well as the context within which the discourse was created
 Show how the linguistic elements enable language users to communicate in context.

 Definition of Conversation Analysis:

 The study of conversations, with close observation of the behaviour of participants in talks and on
patterns which recur over a wide range of patural data.

Spoken Written
 auditory  visual
 temporary, immediate reception  permanent; delayed reception
 prosody (intonation, stress, rhythm)  punctuation
 immediate feedback  delayed or no feedback
 a variety of attention and boundary  attention boundaries.pointers.et.,,
signals (including kinesle onex) limited to verbal devices
 planning and editing limited by channel  unlimited planning, editing, revision
 lexically sparse  lexically dense
 grammatically dense  grammatically simple
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Chap II: Cohesive device

Cohesion

1. REFERENCE

Reference Exophoric

(outside the text)

Endophoric cataphoric

(inside the text) (forward pointing)

anaphoric

(backward pointing)

Exophoric reference is a reference outside the text to the situation.(OUT)

Ex: It needs a coat of paint (if someone says so and points to some object)

Endophoric reference is a reference to items within the text. (IN)

It may be either cataphoric, ie. forward-pointing or anaphoric, ie. backwards-pointing

Ex:

Anaphoric reference: Doctor Foster went to Gloucester in a shower of rain. He stepped in a puddle right
up to his middle and never went there again.

Cataphoric reference: This is how he said it....

* cataphoric reference ( tham chiếu phía trước): Tham chiếu phía trước gợi ý những đối tượng sắp
được nhắc đến ở phía sau.

* anaphoric reference (tham chiếu phía sau): Tham chiếu phía sau là khi một từ hoặc cụm từ đề cập
đến một từ hoặc cụm từ khác được sử dụng trước đó trong văn bản.

Personal reference:

 Personal reference is by means of the personal pronouns, possessive pronouns (mine, yours,
etc.) and possessive identifiers (my, your, etc.).
 The third person pronouns are nearly always cohesive
 The first and second person pronouns may often have exophoric reference.
 Sometimes a pronoun, especially it, will refer back not to a noun or a noun phrase, but to a
longer stretch

Demonstrative reference:

 Demonstrative reference involves the demonstratives (this. that), the definite article (the) and
the adverbs here, there, now and then.
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 All these are a form of verbal pointing and indicate proximity in text to the sentence in which
they occur

Comparative reference:

 Comparative reference may be either general, expressing the identity, similarity or difference
between things, or particular, expressing a qualitative or quantitative comparison

2. SUBSTITUTION

Nominal substitution (the substitution of a noun): e.g."one"

- Nominal substitution involves the substitution of a noun as head of a noun phrase by one or
ones, or the substitution of a whole noun phrase by the same.
- Ex: My knife is too blunt. I must get a sharper one.

Verbal substitution (the substitution of a lexical verb): e.g. "do"

- Verbal substitution is by means of do (to be distinguished from the auxiliary do), and it
substitutes for the lexical verb
- Ex: 'Did you see Jim last week? - I did on Thursday'

Clausal substitution (the substitution of a clause): e.g."so"

- Clausal substitution is by means of so, for a positive clause and not, for a negative one. Here an
entire clause is presupposed
- Ex: Is there going to be a snow-fall?-'They say so.

3. ELLIPSIS

Nominal ellipsis: the omission of the head noun (liên kết lược bỏ danh từ trung tâm)

- Nominal ellipsis involves the omission of the head of a noun phrase, sometimes together with
some modifiers
- Ex: Which hat will you wear?-This is the nicest hat'

Verbal ellipsis: the omission of the lexical verb (lược bỏ cụm động từ phụ (dùng động từ chính))

- Verbal ellipsis involves the omission of the lexical verb from a phrase, and possibly an auxiliary
or two, recoverable from a previous verb phrase.
- Ex: 'Has she been crying?-'No, she has been laughing'

Clausal ellipsis: the omission of a part of parts of the clause (giản lược một số phần trong câu)

- Is not concerned with the ellipsis of whole clauses but with the ellipsis of large parts of clauses,
whole phrases and upwards
- Ex: Where has Jim planted the roses?-He has planted the roses In the front border

4. CONJUNCTION
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Additive conjunctions: and, furthermore, besides, incidentally, for instance

Adversative conjunctions: yet, however, nevertheless, on the other hand, on the contrary
Causal conjunctions: hence, therefore, consequently, as a result, that being so, otherwise
Temporal conjunctions: then, after that, previously, thereupon, meanwhile, finally, from now on.

5. LEXICAL COHESION

Reiteration:

 Repetition of the same word

- Ex: There was a large mushroom growing near her. She stretched herself up on tiptoe, an
peeped over the edge of the mushroom.
 Synonym
- Ex: I turned to the ascent of the peak. The climb is perfectly easy.
 Hypernym and hyponym
- Ex: Henry's bought himself a new Jaguar. He practically lives in the car

Collocation: conceptual field

- Ex: Book: page, title, read, turn over, shelf, library ...

COHESION (hình thức) COHERENCE (nội dung)

- Cohesive devices: reference, conjunction, - The underlying structure, organization, and
ellipsis, substitution, lexical cohesion (explicit connectedness
linguistic links to provide connectedness and
structure). Example:
After ten years of standardization, there should
Examples: be a healthy UK market for used models.
1. The Egyptians and the Assyrians were Curiously, there seems to be only one big second-
carrying standards some 5,000 years ago. hand PC dealer in London.
They were poles topped with metal
figures of animals or gods. - Contextual properties (con-text, meaning
2. Some 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians and with the text'): the way in which the text
the Assyrians were carrying standards. relates and makes sense in the situation in
These were poles topped with metal which it occurs.
figures of animals or gods.
Example:
- Internal properties of a text give it textual and A: That'll be the phone.
structural unity. However, they do not B: I'm in the bath.
necessarily give the text coherence. A: OK
Two aspects of coherence:
Example:
A: Which platform does the London train go Situational coherence: a situation in which a
from? text could occur
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B: London? My daughter lives in London. She Generic coherence: a text needs to occur within
married a banker there last year. the context of a particular genre.

Theme and Rheme

• Theme is the initial element in a clause, and everything
that follows the theme is rheme.
E.g.:
I. The cat (theme) ate the rat (rheme).
2. The rat (theme) was eaten by the cat (rheme).
• Three types of theme: topical, interpersonal, and
textual.
E.g.: Frankly (interpersonal theme), the movie (tropical
theme)was a waste of money. However, you (tropical
theme) should see it and make up your own mind.

Zig-zag
Theme 1 rheme 1

Theme 2 rheme 2

Theme 3 rheme 3
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Ex: As you will no doubt have been told, we have our

own photographic club (theme 1)cand darkroom. The
club is called 'Monomanor' (rhyme 1) and there is an
annual fee of £5 (rhyme 1). The money (theme 2)goes
towards replacing any equipment worn out by use, or
purchasing new equipment. Monomanor (theme 3) runs
an annual competition with prizes, judging being done
and prizes awarded at the garden party in the summer
term. Besides the competition, we also have talks and/or
film shows during the other terms.

Constant
Theme 1 rheme 1

Theme 1 rheme 2

Theme 1 rheme 3

Theme 1 rheme 4
Ex: The bat is a nocturnal animal. It lives in the dark.
There are long nosed bats and mouse eared bats also
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lettuce winged bats. Bats hunt at night. They sleep the

day and are very shy.

Multiple/split
Theme 1 rheme 1

Theme 2 rheme 2 Theme 3 rheme 3

Ex: As you will no doubt have been told, we have our

own photographic club and darkroom. The club is
called 'Monomanor (r1, zigzag)' and there is an annual
fee of £5 (r1, zigzag). Monomanor runs an annual
competition with prizes, judging being done and prizes
awarded at the garden party in the summer term. Besides
the competition, we also have talks and/or film shows
during the other terms. The money (T3, link with r1)
goes towards replacing any equipment worn out by use,
or purchasing new equipment.
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Exercises
A. Identify the theme pattern of each of the following texts.

1) The American Psychological Association (T1) specifies a documentation format

(R1) required by most psychology, sociology, communication, education and
economics instructors. This format (T2) includes parenthetical documentation (R2)
in the text that refers to an alphabetical reference at the end of chapters.
(Paltridge, 2000)
ZIGZAG
T1 R1

T2 R2
2) When Japanese people write their language (T1) (Japanese languages), they use
a combination of two separate alphabets as well as ideograms borrowed from
Chinese (R1). The two alphabets (T2) are called hiragana and katakana (R2). The
Chinese ideograms (T3) are called kanji (R3). Hiragana (T4) represents the 46 basic
sounds (R4) that are made in the Japanese language. Katakana (T5) represents the
same sounds (R5) as hiragana but is used mainly for words borrowed from foreign
languages and for sound effects. Kanji(T6) are used to communicate an idea (R6)
rather than a sound.
(Paltridge, 2000)
MULTIPE/SPLIT
T1 R1
T2 R2 T3 R3
T4 R4 T5 R5 T6 R6

3) The brain (T1) is our most precious organ (R1) -the one above all which allows
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us to be human. The brain (T1) contains 10 billion nerve cells (R2), making
thousands of billions of connections with each other. It is the most powerful data
processor (R2.1 hoặc R3) we know, but at the same time it is incredibly
delicate.(R2.1/R3) As soft as a ripe avocado, the brain (T1) has to be encased in the
tough bones of the skull, and floats in its own waterbed of fluid (R2.2/R4). An adult
brain (T1) weighs over 30lb and fills the skull. (R2.3/R5) It (T1) receives one-fifth
of the blood pumped out by the heart at each beat. (R2.4/R6)
The brain (T1) looks not unlike a huge walnut kernel (R3/R7): it is dome-
shaped with a wrinkled surface, and is in two halves joined in the middle. Coming
out from the base of the brain (T1.1) like a stalk is the brain stem (R3.1/R8). This
(T2) is the swollen top of the spinal cord, which runs on down to our 'tail'. (R3.2/R9).
Parts of the brain stem (T2.1) control our most basic functions: breathing, heart-beat,
waking and sleeping. (R3.3/R10)
*R2: R2.1; R2.2,…: chỉ sâu hơn thông tin của R2/ hoặc đánh thông thường
cũng được
*T1.1 là thông tin sâu của T1
*T2.1 là thông tin sâu của R8, vẫn là thông tin của T2
(McCarthy, 1991)
CONSTANT
T1 R1
T1 R2
T1 R3
T1 R4
T1 R5
T1 R6
T1 R7
T1.1 R8
T2 R9
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T2.1 R10
4) Sydney (T1) is Australia’s most exciting city (R1). The history of Australia
begins (R2) here (T1). In 1788 Captain Arthur Phillips arrived in Sydney (T1) with
11 ships and 1024 passengers from Britain (R3)(including 770 prisoners). Today
there are over 2 1/2 million people (R4) in Sydney (T1). It (T1)is the biggest city in
Australia, the busiest port in the South Pacific, and one of the most beautiful cities
in the world. (R5)
(From Paltridge, 2000)

CONSTANT
T1 R1
T1 R2
T1 R3
T1 R4
T1 R5

GERNES
DEFINITION
 Genres are types of spoken and written discourse recognised by a discourse community.
Example: lectures, conversation, speeches, notices, advertisements, novels, diaries,
shopping list.
 Each genre has typical features, some may be linguistic, some paralinguistic, and some
contextual and pragmatic.
 Some genres overlap, and one can contain another (e.g, a joke, a story)

CLASSIFICATION OF TEXT TYPES

Three main text types: expository, narrative, and argumentative
 Expository texts are to explain, inform, or describe
 Narrative texts are to narrite or to tell a story
 Argumentative texts are to argue to persuade the reader
Text types have schematic structures, for example:
 Instruction/Procedure: Goal - (Material) - Steps
 Argument: Thesis statement/position -Argument A, B, C, etc-Restatement of position
 Report: Tide - General statement - Description
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Chapter 3: Conversation Analysis

DEFINITION OF CA

An approach to study how conversation work; an attempt to find out patterns of interaction

TRANSACTIONAL INTERACTIONS

Transactional talk is for getting business done in order to produce some change in the situation. It could
be to tell somebody something they need to know, to effect the purchase of something, to get someone to
do something, or many other world-changing things.

Offer of service ^ Request for service ^ Transaction^ Salutation

INTERPERSONAL INTERACTIONS

Opening stages: Greetings ^ Initiating exchanges

Middle stages: Development of a wide range of topics
Ending stages: Pre-closing exchanges ^ Closings
ADJACENCY PAIRS
Utterances function Expected response
- Greeting Greeting
- Congratulation Thanks
-Apology Acceptance
- Inform Acknowledge
- Leave-taking Leave-taking
Pairs of such utterances are called adjacency pairs. One way in which meanings are communicated and
interpreted in a conversation is through use of adjacency pairs. Adjacency pairs are utterances produced
by two successive speakers in such a way that the second utterance is identified as related to the first one
as an expected follow up
PREFERENCE ORGANISATION/ STRUCTURE
First part Second part Preferred Dispreferred
• Request Acceptance Refusal
• Offer/Invite Acceptance Refusal
• Assessment Agreement Disagreement
• Compliment Acceptance Rejection
• Question Expected answer Unexpected answer
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SEQUENCE EXPANSION

 Pre-expansion/announcement
We can also use an adjacency pair as a pre-announcement of another adjacency pair. For example:
Eg.
A: Mary?
B: Yes?
A: What are you doing?
B: Nothing

 Insertion expansion
Sometimes we might also use what is called an insertion sequence; that is, when an adjacency pair
comes between the first and the second pair part of another adjacency pair. For example:
Eg.
Customer: I would like a turkey sandwich please.
Server: White or wholegrain?
Customer: Wholegrain.
Server: OK.

 Post-expansion
On other occasions we may follow an adjacency pair with a post-expansion; that is one adjacency
pair follows and expands another adjacency pair. For example:
Eg.
A: Do you like Virginia?
B: Yeah.
A: You do?
B: Well, not really.
TURN TAKING
How people manage turns in an interaction (e. how turns are taken)

 A brief silence
 Syntactic completeness
 Pitch level
Linguistic devices for getting the turn (eg. I wonder if I might say something, Hang on a minute, Shut up
will you, I can't get a word in edgewise, etc.)
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An examination of turn taking includes looking at these aspects

 How speakers move from one turn to the next

 The types of turns which are expected in response to other turns
 How people self-select (speak of their own agreement) or give up their turns to others
 What interruptions and overlaps occur.
*BACKCHANEL

 Linguistic means of not taking the turn or simply making it clear to the speaker that the
listener is attending to the message
 Backchannel responses are often more of phatic expressions than conveying significant
information. (backchannel vs front channel)
For example:
A: After all you have done for me, I think I couldn't move on
B:...(silence) [backchannel]
A: I mean I wasn't able to stand it. Couldn't stand.
B: Mm [backchannel]
*OVERLAP
The way speakers predict one another's utterances and often complete them for them, or overlap with
them as they complete
For example:
A: I'd like to get our [own.....
B: [A glossy for us would be good too
A:... I'd like to get our own so that maybe we can even put two together.
TOPIC MANAGEMENT
Knowledge of appropriate topics and taboo topics in particular settings (what people should and
should not talk about with specific categories of people)
An awareness of how speakers deal with changes in a topic, how they maintain a topic, and how they
repair the interaction when misunderstanding occur
*RELEXICALISATION
How speakers take up, repeat, and modify the vocabulary selections of others in order to expand,
develop, or change topics
* FEEDBACK
The way listeners show they are attending to what being said, can be verbally like hm, uuh huh, or
non-verbally through body position or eye contact.
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