assignment 5

Discourse Analysis Approaches

Discourse analysis is the study of how stretches of language used in communication assume meaning, purpose and unity for their users.

For making simple, the analysis are study about:

•          How texts relate to contexts of situation and context of culture

•          How texts are produced as a social practice

•          What texts tell us about happenings, what people think, believe etc.

•          How texts represent ideology (power struggle etc.)

In analysing the discourse, the analysits study the text-forming devices with reference to the purposes and functions for which the discourse was produced, and the context within which the discourse was created. The ultimate goal is to show how the linguistic elements enable language users to communicate.

Doe to make easy to analyze, the analysist use an approach. However, there are several approaches available. The approaches are as follow:

1. Speech Act Theory
2. Interactional Sociolinguistics
3. Ethnography of Communication
4. Pragmatics
5. Conversational Analysis
6. Variation Analysis
7. SFL

For further explanation, those approaches will be disscus here.

Speech Act Theory

This approach use a logico-philosophic perspective on conversational organization  and focusing on interpretation rather than the production of utterances in discourse. The analysis figure of this approach are Austin 1955 and Searle 1969. From the basic belief that language is used to perform actions. Every utterance can be analyzed as the realization of the speaker’s intent (illocutionary force) to achieve a particular purpose. The unit of analysis is speech act (SA) or illocutionary force (IF). Principal problems of this approach is the lack of a one-to-one match up between discourse function (IF) and the grammatical form.

Interactional Sociolinguistic

The approach of intractional sociolinguistic is centrally concerned with the importance of context in the production and interpretation of discourse. The units of analysis in this approach are grammatical and prosodic features in interactions. The analysis figure of this approach are  Gumperz 1982 and Goffman 1959-1981. The basic concern here is the accomplishment of conversational coherence. Gumperz demonstrated that interactants from different socio-cultural backgrounds may “hear” and understand discourse differently according to their interpretation contextualisation cues in discourse. E.g. intonation contours, ‘speaking for another’, alignment, gender. While Schiffrin (1987) is focused on quantitative interactive sociolinguistic analysis, esp. discourse markers (defined as ‘sequentially dependent elements which bracket units of talk). She argues for the importance of both qualitative and quantitative / distributional analysis in order to determine the function of the different discourse markers in conversation.

Ethnography of Communication

The approache of Ethnography of Communication is concerned with understanding the social context of linguistic interactions: ‘who says what to whom, when, where. Why, and how’. The prime unit of analysis is speech event. Analysis of these components of a speech event is central to what became known as ethnography of communication or ethnography of speaking, with the ethnographer’s aim being to discover rules of appropriateness in speech events. The ethnographic framework has led to broader notions of communicative competence. Based on Hymes SPEAKING grid, it stated “Speech event comprises componen”.The Problem of this approach is lack of explicitness in Hymes’ account on the relationship between genre and other components of the speaking grid and their expression in language.

Pragmatics

Pragmatics formulates conversational behaviour in terms of general “principles” rather than rules. It provides useful means of characterizing different varieties of conversation, e.g. in interactions, one can deliberately try to be provocative or consensual. This principle seeks to account for not only how participants decide what to DO next in conversation, but also how interlocutors go about interpreting what the previous speaker has just done. This principle is the broken down into specific maxims: Quantity (say only as much as necessary), Quality (try to make your contribution one that is true), Relation (be relevant), and manner (be brief and avoid ambiguity)

Conversational Analysis

Refers to Garfinkel (sociologist), this approach concerns  to understand how social members make sense of everyday life while Sack, Schegloff, Jefferson (1973)tried to explain how conversation can happen at all. Two grossly apparent facts of this approach are: a) only one person speaks at a time, and b) speakers change recurs. Thus conversation is a ‘turn taking’ activity. Speakers recognize points of potential speekar change – turn constructional unit (TCU).

This approach drive some problems a) lack of systematicity- thus quantitative analysis is impossible; 2) limited I its ability to deal comprehensively with complete, sustained interactions; 3) though offers a powerful interpretation of conversation as dynamic interactive achievement, it is unable to say just what kind of achievement it is.

Variation Analysis

Variationists’ approach to discourse stems from quantitative of linguistic change and variation. Although typically focused on social and linguistic constraints on semantically equivalent variants, the approach has also been extended to texts. The problems in this approach is data is obtained from interviews.

L & W argue that fundamental narrative structures are evident in spoken narratives of personal experience. The overall structure of fully formed narrative of personal experience involves six stages: 1) Abstract, 2) Orientation, 3) Complication, 4) Evaluation, 5) Resolution, 6) Coda where 1) and 6) are optional. Strength of it are its clarity and applicability.

SFL (Structural-Functional Approaches)

In this approach, utterances may have multiple functions. The major concern here is the discourse analysis can turn out into a more general and broader analysis of language functions. Or it will fail to make a special place for the analysis of relationships between utterances. Refers to two major approaches to discourse analysis which have relevance to the analysis of casual conversation. They are the Birmingham School and Systemic Functional Linguistics. Draw on semantic theory (Firth 1957) and Palmer (1968) the approach Seek to offer functional interpretations of discourse structure as the expression and dimensions of the social and cultural context.

Source: The Power Point of Approaches to Discourse taken from sofwanunnes@wordpress.com