What is Discourse

Analysis?
1st Group
1. Abimanyu Hanif Nashiruddin (216121044)
2. Nourma Indria Utami (216121144)
3. Lutfi Nur Azizah (216121153)
4. Tutik Murni Utami (216121163)
 Table of contents
01 02 03
What is Discourse A Brief Historical Discourse vs Text
Analysis Overview

04 05 06
Language in and Context Spoken vs Written
out of Context Language
 01
What is Discourse
Analysis
What is Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis is a rapidly growing and evolving field.
Current research in this field now flows from numerous academic disciplines that
are very different from one another.

Included are the disciplines in which models for understanding and methods for
analyzing, discourse first developed, such as linguistics, anthropology, and
philosophy.

But also included are disciplines that have applied – and thus often extended –
such models and methods to problems within their own academic domains, such
as communication, cognitive psychology, social psychology, and artificial
intelligence.
 A Brief
02 Historical
Overview
 British discourse analysis was greatly
influenced by
1. M. A. K. Halliday's functional approach 2. Sinclair and Coulthard(1975) at the University of
to language(e.g. Halliday 1973), which Birmingham, who developed a model for the
connects with the Prague School of description of teacher-pupil talk based on a
linguists. Halliday's frame work hierarchy of discourse units. Discourse analysis
emphasizes the social functions of has grown into a wide-ranging and
language and the thematic and heterogeneous discipline which finds its unity in
informational structure of speech and the description of the language above the
writing. sentence and an interest in the contexts and
cultural influences which affect language in use.
 03
Discourse
vs Text
There has been some confusion in the literature regarding the distinction
between “discourse analysis” and “text analysis”.

some researchers label their analysis “discourse analysis”, while others

claim they are doing “text analysis”, but the differences is often
inconsistent.

Some claim to make clears distinctions between “discourse” and “text”, but
a closer look reveals that their distinctions do not hold
Example
● Text
Is made up of sentences.
- A text is made up of sentences
having the property of
grammatical cohesion.
- Text analysis : Deals with
cohesion
● Discourse
Is the use of such sentences.
- A discourse is made up of utterances
having the property of coherence
- Discourse anaylisis : investigates
coherence
● Text
Text is defined in terms of
its being a physical product.
Meaning is not found in
text
● Discourse
Discourse is viewed as a process
Meaning is derived through the
reader’s interaction with the
text.
 04
Language in and
out of Context
 Language in and out of context
1. Context in language is what surrounds a word or piece of text. In order to understand
what words mean, we have to know something about the situation where they are
used. In print, a word, phrase or sentence has other text around it. This helps the
reader to understand the piece in question. It is fairly easy for native speakers to
understand, but not for ESL students. They can use photos, drawings, videos to
illustrate words and ideas so that ESL students get the gist.

2. Words are used out of context, only a small separate part of what was originally said
or written is reported, with the result that their meaning is not clear or is not
understood.
05 Context
● Context is the situation or background where
communication occurs.
● Context can be considered as the cause of a
conversation.
● It can be concluded that context is a bridge to
start communication.
Several Types of Context
Physical Context
• Includes the place where language use occurs in a communication, the objects presented
in the communication event, and the actions or behavior of the roles in the communication
event.

Epistemic Context
• Background knowledge that is known to both readers and listeners .

Linguistic Context
• Linguistic Context refers to the context of language used in everyday conversation and
refers to a common meaning.

Social Context
• Namely social relations and background settings that complement the relationship
between speakers.
 Spoken vs
06 Written
Language
Spoken vs Written Language

Spoken language is the primary form of linguistic communication.

Spoken language takes no visual form.
● Telephone calls (business or private)
● Service counters (shops, tickets, offices)
● Interviews (jobs, journalistic in official setting etc.)

Written language is the secondary medium of communication.

Written language is visible, written or printed.
Differences between Spoken and written
discourse
1. Grammatical Intricacy 2. Nominalization
Written discourse is more structurally Nominalization: Presenting actions and events as
complex and more elaborate than spoken nouns rather than as verbs.
discourse.
a. Written discourse has a high level of
Sentences in spoken discourse are short nominalization: i.e. more nouns than verbs.
and simple, whereas they are longer and
more complex in written discourse. b. Written discourse tends to have longer noun
groups than spoken discourse.
Embedded sentences is more of a written
discourse characteristic which means
having clauses
in the sentence.
3. Explicitness
Writing is more explicit than speech. This is because in written
discourse, we lack body language and gestures. This is not absolute as
it depends on the purpose of text.
A writer/speaker can state something explicitly or infer it depending on
how direct they want to be and what they want their listener/ reader to
understand.

e.g. a poem is not necessarily explicit and a university lecture is most

likely going to explicit even though it is spoken
Characteristics of Spoken Language
1. It can be done at the moment.
2. The audience is known to the delivering the message.
3. The pace of communication is generally determined by the speaker.
4. More personable and involve a shared situation between speaker and listener.
5. Is often less planned and contains less structure.
6. Once delivered, it cannot be changed or taken back. Spoken language cannot be
checked, changed or reformulated if it is once uttered.
7. The receiver of information must listen to the whole speech or presentation at once
in order to get the full meaning.
Characteristics of Written Language
1. More precise as words can be thought and carefully chosen.
2. Once written, words can still be changed or rearranged in order to make
communication more precise.
3. The receiver can spread reading out over a period of time so as to give full attention
to meaning.
4. Writing is a permanent record of information.
5. Written language is usually richly organized.
6. The meaning might be supported by visual graphics, but there are no nonverbal
communication cues to read.
7. It is less personable and can be very one-sided
Thank You!!