Yule (2020): Discourse Analysis

1. How is the word 'discourse' usually defined?

 “language beyond the sentence”

2. What is the difference between cohesion and coherence?

 Cohesion: formal ties and connections within a text >created by structure and formal
ties (for example personal pronouns; >you refer to noun phrase by it)
 Coherence: “everything fitting together well”
 Does not exist in the words or structure of discourse
 Bringing (other) information from our experience
 It is people who “make sense” of what they read and hear (not the words)
 >>cohesion created by text
 >>coherence created by speaker/listener

3. How do speakers mark completion points at the end of a turn?

 By asking a question
 By pausing at the end of a completed syntactic structure like a phrase or sentence
 Signaling by body language
 >in classroom: teacher pointing at someone

4. What is a 'filled pause’?:

 “em, er, you know”

 Filler words
 Function of filled pause: we don’t want other person to take turn, signaling that own turn
isn’t over
 Pause before verb might be strategy

5. What is an 'insertion sequence'?

 An adjacency pair that comes between the first and second parts of another pair
 Answering question with another question
 Adjacency pair: sequence of utterances that are always together, predictability, expected
answer

6. What are hedges in discourse?

  Words or phrases used to indicate that we are not really sure what we are saying is
sufficiently correct or complete
 Uncertainty

7. What is an implicature?

 Speakers implying something that is not said

 Additional conveyed meaning

8. In the study of discourse understanding, what are scripts?

 Dynamic schema
 Image of something we have
 Script has series of conventional actions that take place
 You have a script for “Going to the dentist” and another one for “Going to the movies”
 Involves performance
 Based on cultural conventions

Session 2: Features of classroom discourse

 Padlet

Session 3: Classroom interaction and teaching

Task-based teaching is about creating opportunities for meaning-focused language use

‘The more confidently you can answer yes to each of these questions, the more task-like the
activity.

 Will the activity engage learners' interest?

 Is there a primary focus on meaning?
 Is there a goal or an outcome?
 Is success judged in terms of outcome?
 Is completion a priority?
 Does the activity relate to real world activities?'

Form focused:

 speaking to practise a new structure e.g. doing a drill or enacting a dialogue or asking
and answering questions using the ‘new' patterns
 or writing to display their control of certain language items

Task-like:

 Engages learners interest by making them read about American sights to be able to
communicate about them with a partner
 Focus on meaning (>reading about sights and considering what they would do, a few
phrases are given beforehand, but students are able to make up own sentences)
 Relation to real world activities

Not task-like:

 No goal or outcome
 Success not judged (not communicated in the task)
 Completion isn’t prioritized/communicated
Session 4: Classroom interaction and learning
Focus on forms
 Grammar
 Saying something correctly
 No focus on meaning

Focus on form
 Communicative context
 Students can choose what they want to say, still influenced by teacher
 Talking about summer holidays for example

Focus on forms
 No communicative context
 Teaching simple past for example

PPP
 Presentation, practice, production
 Teacher presents, teacher practice and then students are supposed to produce
something
 Expected features of PPP:
 Teacher centered
 I-R-F
 Student-teacher interaction

TBLT
 Task-based language teaching
 Students talking to each other
 Focus on communication between students
 Challenges I-R-F
 Outcome (in group projects for example)
 Focus on meaning (focus on form still possible)
 Context determines which language structures are taught

Tasks >TBLT

Classifying teacher questions

 Form: open or closed questions?
 Content: questions related to personal facts, outside facts or opinions?
 Purpose: questions that are for display or questions that are communication (often
teachers asks questions they know the answer for)
How can teachers classroom communication more effective?
 Content feedback (someone says something, you elaborate on it; student initiated talk)
 Choose relevant topics
Features of communicative classroom talk