Assignment 4: Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis describes a range of research approaches that focus on the use of language. it has been used to understand a wide range of texts including natural speech, internet communication, political rhetoric, interview, journals, etc.

 Some (but not all) forms of discourse analysis have an explicit focus on the relationship between discourse and power, as dominant discourses define what is seen as truth within a given context.

There are some examples of discourse analysis types:

• Conversation analysis focuses on the ways in which language is used like how people reply to a spoken invitation, or the word used in any utterance.
• Discursive psychology applies the notion of discourse to psychological topics.
• Critical discourse analysis considers the social power implications
• Foucauldian discourse analysis based on the ideas of Foucault, consider the development and changes of discourses overtime.

Discourse analysis approaches:

Speech act

Speech act theory is concerned with what people do with language or it is concerned with the function of language.

Each speech act consists of 3 components:

•                 Locutionary act (the actual words which the speaker is saying);

•                 Illocutionary act (the intention of the speaker);

•                 Perlocutionary act (the effect of the utterance on the hearer).

Pragmatics

It is used to explain how we interpret implicatures. There are two types of implicatures:

•       Conventional implicatures do not require any particular context in order to be understood (or inferred)

•       Conversational implicatures are context – dependant. What is implied varies according to the context of an utterance.

Interactional Sociolinguistics

Centrally concerned with the importance of context in the production and interpretation of discourse.

Ethnography of Communication

Concerned with understanding the social context of linguistic interactions: ‘who says what to whom, when, where. Why, and how’.

Conversational Analysis

concern: to understand how social members make sense of everyday life.

Variation Analysis

fundamental narrative structures are evident in spoken narratives of personal experience.

Structural-Functional Approaches to Spoken Discourse

Refers to two major approaches to discourse analysis which have relevance to the analysis of casual conversation

The contribution of pragmatics to Discourse Analysis is a set of principles that constrains speakers’ sequential choices in a text and allows hearers to recognize speaker’s intentions.

Source:

Pustejovsky, James. Discourse analysis. Retrieved from http://pages.cs.brandeis.edu/~jamesp/classes/usem40a06/slides/DiscourseAnalysis.ppt  on 18 April 2012

Discourse Analysis. Retrieved from http://www.cprjournal.com/documents/discourseAnalysis.pdf on 18 April 2012