1. What is discourse analysis? Defining discourse analysis.

Reasons for using discourse

analysis

2. Text forming devices. Discourse versus text. Spoken and written texts

3. The relationship between speech and writing. Differences in form between written and
spoken language

4. The challenges of discourse analysis

5. Types of discourse

6. Tools of Inquiry. Social Languages, Conversations and Intertextuality

7. Figured Worlds in action and conflict. Different uses of figured worlds. Figured worlds
as tools of inquiry

8. Context. The role of context in interpretation

9. The correlations between form and functions. Situated meanings and frame problems

10. Coherence in the interpretation of the discourse

11. Reference in discourse: cohesion, substitution, ellipsis

12. Topic and the representation of the text (discourse) content: Thematic structure.
Thematization

13. Information structure and sentence structure. Given and New. The interaction of
information structure and thematic structure

14. An “Ideal” discourse analysis

 COURSE 1

What is discourse analysis?

Defining discourse analysis. Reasons for using discourse analysis

Discourse analysis is the study of language in use. Better said, it is the study of
language at use in the world, not just to say things, but to do things. People use language
to communicate, to co-operate, to express feelings and emotions.

The term ‘discourse analysis’ is used with a wide range of meanings that cover a
wide range of activities. According to Brown and Yule (1983: viii), the term is used to
describe activities at the intersection of different disciplines such as sociolinguistics,
psycholinguistics, formal linguistics, computational linguistics. Sociolinguistics is
primarily concerned with the structure of social interaction during spoken exchanges, and
the descriptions emphasize features of social context which are subjected to sociological
classification, using especially spoken data. Psycholinguistics is particularly concerned
with issues related to language comprehension in short texts or sequences of written
sentences. Formal linguistics is concerned with semantic relationships between
constructed pairs of sentences and their syntactic realizations. Computational linguistics
is particularly concerned with producing models of discourse processing. It works with
short texts constructed in highly limited contexts. It is obvious that all these approaches
have something in common, namely linguistics; all these approaches are closely related
to the study of grammar. However, there are also some other approaches that are not
concerned of the details of language, concentrating on ideas, issues, themes expressed
both in talk and writing.

In this course we take a primarily linguistic approach to the analysis of discourse.

We analyse how we use language in order to communicate and, in particular, how the
messages are constructed and interpret.

Any theory of discourse analysis offers us a set of tools with which to analyse
language in use. We consider that no theory is universally correct or can be applied in all
cases. Each theory offers tools to work better for some kind of data than they do for
others. Furthermore, every research should adapt the tools from a particular theory to the
expectations and demands of their study.

As a result, teaching discourse analysis can take two very different approaches:
descriptive and “critical”. In this course we will mostly use the former approach as we
look at meaning as an integration of ways of saying (informing), doing (action) and being
(identity), and grammar as a set of tools to bring about this integration. Let us analyse the
following examples:

e.g. Plants sure vary a lot in how well they resist to weather conditions.
Plants resistance to weather conditions displays a significant amount of
variation.

The first example is in a language we use when we want to talk “as a everyday
person”, not as a specialist of any kind. This is the identity (‘being’) it expresses. It is a
way of expressing an opinion based on one’s observations (of plants in this case). This is
an action (‘doing’). The sentence can be used to do other actions as well, such as show
surprise. The sentence is about plants. This is the part of what the sentence says
(informing).
The second example is said in a specialist style of language, one we would
associate with biology and biologists. It expresses one’s identity (‘being’) as being such a
specialist. It is not just expressing an opinion based on one’s observations of plants; it
makes a claim based on statistical tests of significance that are operated by the discipline
of biology, not any other person, including the speaker or the writer. This is an action
(‘doing’). The sentence is not about plants, it is about ‘plants resistance’. This is the part
of what the sentence says (informing).
The grammatical structure of the two examples is very different. In the first
sentence, the Subject of the sentence, which names the topic of the sentence, is the noun
‘plants’. But in the second example, the Subject is the noun phrase ‘plant resistance’.
‘Plant resistance’ is a noun phrase that expresses the whole sentence’s information and it
is a much more complex structure than the Subject of the first sentence. It is a way of
talking about an abstract characteristic of plants, and not the plants themselves. It is also
part of what makes this language ‘specialist’ and not ‘everyday’ language.
The phrase “significant amount of variation” in the second sentence uses an
abstract noun (variation) rather than the verb vary from the first sentence and combines
this noun with “significant amount”. This is again a way to talk about abstract things
rather than more concrete processes and things in the world. It is also part of what makes
the language “specialist” and ties it to tools (such as a statistical test of significance) in a
discipline, not only to an individual’s observations in the world.
So, the grammar of the two sentences offers us different ways to say things that
lead to different ways of doing (actions) or being (identity). If we look closer at the
structure of a language as it is used, it can help us uncover different ways of saying
things, doing things, and being things in the world.
There are two approaches we can use in order to get this:
a. Some approaches to discourse analysis, which are called descriptive, answer
the question by pretending that their goal is to describe how language works in order to
understand it, hoping to be able to explain how language works and why it works as it
does. Although this approach may have practical applications in the world, these
discourse analysts are not motivated by these applications.
b. Some other approaches to discourse are called critical and they answer this
question differently. Their goal is not just to describe how language works or even to
offer deep explanations. They also want to speak to and sometimes to intervene in social
and political issues, problems and controversies in the world. They want to apply their
work to the world in some ways.
Analysts who take a descriptive approach often think that a critical approach is
“unscientific” because the critical discourse analyst is influenced by his interest fro
intervening in some problems in the world.
My opinion is that all discourse analysis needs to be critical, not because
discourse analysts are or need to be political, but because language is political. We can
argue that any use of language gains its meaning from the practice of which it is a part
and which it enacts. We can also argue that such practices involve potential social goods
and the distribution of social goods. As a result, any full description of any use of
language would have to deal with “politics”.
Beyond this general point, language is a key we humans make and break our
world and our relationships through how we deal with social goods. Thus, discourse
analysis can explain problems and controversies in the world. It can explain the
distribution of the social goods.
Let us consider a third variant (note that this variant is odd, unlikely to be used) of
the first two examples.
e.g. Plants resistance sure exhibits a significant amount of variation.

Why do we say that this variant is odd? It mixes “everyday language” (sure) with
specialized language. Sure in the first sentence is a way to express one’s attitude and
emotion about what one has observed about plants. The speaker is impressed and a bit
surprised. But the voice of science in the second and perhaps third examples is not
supposed to express attitude and emotion. It is supposed to be the voice of reason. This is
one of the “rules” of the game of science.
Describing these rules is part of the job of any discourse analyst dealing with
language like in the previous examples.
Later in this course we will analyse a piece of scientific text where the specialized
language seems to be a way to hide the ethical and emotional dilemma while carrying out
an experiment. “Since this is the part of the saying, doing, being, going on in specific
language-in-use it is our responsibility to study it, even if we are then having to make
judgements with consequences in the world” (Gee, verde, pg. 10). As a result, in this
case, all discourse analysis is critical discourse analysis since all language is political and
it is part of how we sustain our world, to interpret our cultures. This is why the critical
discourse analysis is ‘practical’.