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The document discusses two views of discourse structure - as a product and as a process. It covers rank structure, discourse typology between spoken vs written and formal vs informal, conversation analysis including turn-taking mechanisms and turn types such as adjacency pairs and repair sequences. It concludes by noting the Birmingham School analyzed formal discourse while conversation analysis looked at casual conversation as a developing process.
The document discusses two views of discourse structure - as a product and as a process. It covers rank structure, discourse typology between spoken vs written and formal vs informal, conversation analysis including turn-taking mechanisms and turn types such as adjacency pairs and repair sequences. It concludes by noting the Birmingham School analyzed formal discourse while conversation analysis looked at casual conversation as a developing process.
The document discusses two views of discourse structure - as a product and as a process. It covers rank structure, discourse typology between spoken vs written and formal vs informal, conversation analysis including turn-taking mechanisms and turn types such as adjacency pairs and repair sequences. It concludes by noting the Birmingham School analyzed formal discourse while conversation analysis looked at casual conversation as a developing process.
1. Introduction 2. Rank structure 3. The Birmingham School of Discourse Analysis 4. Discourse typology: spoken and written; formal and informal 5. Conversation as a discourse type 6. Conversation analysis 7. Turn-taking 8. Turn types 9. Discourse as process 10.Conclusion Introduction • Pragmatics: providing a means of relating stretches of language to the physical, social, and psychological world in which they happen → like a snapshot of meaning. • discourse: the totality of all these elements interacting →like a moving film revealing itself in time. Rank structure • Definition: one way of representing the relationship of parts to a whole (figures 4 and 5, p. 45) The Birmingham School of Discourse Analysis
• Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) of University of
Birmingham provide a model to analyze the discourse type of school lessons. • the rank structure for these lessons is: lesson → transaction → exchange → move → act. • Acts (Table 1, p. 47) • Moves: opening (answering) (Follow-up) The Birmingham School of Discourse Analysis
• Implications for the language learner: when
we know of the structures of various discourse types and the way they develop, this knowledge may enable us to communicate successfully • Attention: Such structures are ‘conventional, and hence culturally variable’ (van Dijk and Kintsch 1983: 16) Discourse typology: spoken and written; formal and informal Spoken Written • often considered to be less planned and orderly, more open to intervention by the receiver. • difference in production and • using our hands and eyes reception: using our mouths and ears Discourse typology: spoken and written; formal and informal Formal Informal • planned • unplanned • explicit • implicit • integrated • fragmented • detached • involved → challenge for the foreign language learner due to the slow processing of language knowledge Conversation as a discourse type 1. It is not primarily necessitated by a practical task. 2. Any unequal power of participants is partially suspended 3. The number of participants is small. 4. Turns are quite short. 5. Talk is primarily for the participants and not for an outside audience. Conversation analysis • Associated with a group of scholars in the USA known as ethnomethodologists. • They proceed from the bottom-up trying to establish the smallest units first. → view discourse as a developing process rather than a finished product. Turn-taking • the end of one speaker’s turn and the beginning of the next’s. • overlap of turns occurs in only about 5% of conversation or less → speakers somehow know exactly when and where to enter (Ervin- Tripp 1979). • overlap between turns or pauses between turns often carry particular meaning. Turn-taking • turn-taking mechanisms vary between cultures and languages. → this helps to explain the awkwardness felt by the foreign learner in conversation. • efficient turn-taking also involves non-linguistic factors (eye contact, body position and movement) and/or intonation and volume. • the relative status of speakers or the role which one of them is playing are also important. Turn types • adjacency pair: the utterance of one speaker makes a particular kind of response very likely. • in an adjacency pair, there is often a preferred response (more common) and a dispreferred response (less common) Ex: offer acceptance (preferred) refusal (dispreferred) Turn types • an insertion sequence: the second part of an adjacency pair is delayed by an alternation of turns occurring within it. Ex: A: Did you enjoy the meal? B: (Did you? A: Yes.) B: So did I. • the topic of an insertion sequence is intimately related to that of the main sequence in which it occurs. Turn types • side sequence: a type of insertion sequence in which speakers switch from one topic to another unrelated one, and then back again. Ex: p. 54 → Insertion and side sequences prove that conversation is discourse mutually constructed and negotiated in time. In conversation, mutual formulation of the right amount of information for communication to take place is very common. Turn types • Repair: participants correct either their own words or those of another participant to achieve maximum communication. → mutual formulation of the right amount of information Turn types Ex: A: what have you got to do this afternoon? B: oh I’m *going to repair the child bar A: what do you mean CHILD bar B: uh it’s er metal bar goes acr – has to be fixed from one side of the car I mean from one side of the back seat to the other for the BABY seat to go on A: AH:::: (p. 55) Turn types • Another type of clarification is formulations of the gist (summary of the locutionary meaning of what has been said) or the upshot (the illocutionary or perlocutionary force being made explicit). Turn types • Pre-sequences: participants in conversation draw attention to, or prepare the ground for, the kind of turn they are going to take next. Ex: A: Are you free tonight? B: Yes. A: Like to go to that film? (p. 56) Discourse as process • Ethnomethodology views conversation as discourse constructed and negotiated between the participants following certain conventions (pauses, laughter, intonations, filler words, etc.) • culture-specific rules and procedures of turn- taking provide ample breeding ground for misunderstanding. Conclusion • The Birmingham School dealing only with formal discourse and with large structures • the ethnomethodologists dealing with local transitions and only with casual conversation. • Possibility that the two approaches may be developed and reconciled?