Discourse Analysis

ISBN-13: 9781138047082 / Twarda / 2024 / 352 str.

UK) Walker Brian (University of Huddersfield

Opis

Discourse Analysis provides an essential and practical introduction for students studying modules on the analysis of language in use. It explores the ways in which language is used and organised in written and spoken texts to generate meanings.

Spis treści

Acknowledgements

Figures

Tables

Activities

QR codes

IPA chart

Chapter 1

Discourse: Language, context, and choice

Introduction

What is discourse?

What is discourse analysis?

The nuts and bolts of discourse

Morphology

Phonology

Lexis

Lexical creativity

Graphology

Syntax

Semantics

Discourse

Text

‘Have you sheeted?’ – discussion

Discourse communities

Meaning potential

Understanding context

Expanding context (the role of background knowledge)

Context and relevance

Co-text

Spoken and written discourse

Discourse markers

Standard English (or the issue of convention)

Sociolinguistic Variables

Conclusion

Further Reading

Resources

References

Chapter 2

Organising Discourse: Thematic and information structure

Introduction

Organising discourse

Structure of the English clause

Subject and Predicator

Non-canonical Subjects

Object

Complement and Adjunct

Passive clauses

Summary of clause structure

Thematic structure

Theme and Rheme

Theme in declarative clauses

Subject as Theme

Marked themes

Theme in interrogative and imperative clauses

Marked themes

Theme in complex sentences

Compound Themes

Continuatives

Conjunctions

Conjunctive and modal adjuncts

Vocatives

Multiple elements

Special Themes

Clefting

Pseuodo-clefts

Fronted or preposed themes

Passive clauses

Information structure: Given and New

What is Given-New information?

Signalling Given-New information

Given-New and Theme and Rheme

Given injustice: the case of Derek Bentley

Given-New in spoken English

Stress and prominence

Given-New and special Themes

Conclusion

Answers to the activities

References

Chapter 3

Organising Information in Discourse: Cohesion

Introduction

Coherence and Cohesion in discourse

Reference

Endophoric versus exophoric reference

Endophoric reference: anaphora and cataphora

Personal, demonstrative, and comparative reference

Personal reference

Demonstrative reference

Comparative reference

Ellipsis and Substitution

Ellipsis

Substitution

Conjunction

Temporal

Additive

Adversative

Causal

Coordinating conjunctions

Conjunction summary

Reiteration (lexical cohesion)

Conclusion

Answers to activities

References

Chapter 4

Analysing spoken discourse

Introduction

How spoken discourse is analysed

Data used in this chapter

Spoken Interactions

Prosody in spoken discourse

Pauses

Intonation

Other prosodic features

Syntax

Turns, turn-taking and turn transition

Turns

Turn taking

Turn transition

Functional analysis of turns

Acts and actions

Form and function

Sequencing

Adjacency pairs

Support Acts

Sequence expansion

Sequence Coupling

Pairs with three parts

Preferred/dis-preferred responses

Backchannels

Overlapping talk

Summary of transcription conventions

Conclusion

Further reading

Resources

Answers to activities

References

Chapter 5

Analysing meaning in discourse

Introduction

What do we mean by meaning?

Conceptual meaning

Signifier, signified and referent

Connotative meaning

Affective meaning

Social meaning

Reflected meaning

Collocative meaning

Working out meaning in discourse: co-text and context

Entailment

Presupposition

Existential presuppositions

Logical presupposition

Lexical triggers

Syntactic triggers

Testing presuppositions

Presupposition and propositions

Presupposition and entailment

Conclusion

Further Reading

Answers to Activities

References

Chapter 6

Meaning and context

Introduction

What is pragmatics?

Implicature

Cooperative principle

Maxims

Flouting maxims

Flouting the maxims of Quantity

Flouting the maxims of Quality

Flouting the maxim of Relation

Flouting the category of manner

Violating maxims and opting out

Violate

Explicitly opt out

Infringement of maxims

Doing Implicatures in real discourse: Memes

Context, culture, and implicature

Conclusion

Further reading

References

Chapter 7

Politeness

Introduction

Face

Face threats and face-work

Using politeness strategies to mitigate face-threatening acts

On-record FTAs

Off-record strategies

The humble ‘hedge’

Non-linguistic considerations

Power (P)

Social distance (D)

Ranking of imposition (R)

A short analysis of football press conferences

Conclusion

Further reading:

Answers to activities

References

Chapter 8

Metaphorical meanings in discourse: Metaphor and Metonymy

Introduction

What is a metaphor?

The conceptual basis of metaphors

The experiential basis of metaphors

Novel metaphors

Analysing the ‘hiving’ metaphor

What do we map and why?

Novel metaphors in song lyrics

Extended metaphors

Metaphors in political discourse

Metonymy

Within-domain mapping

Metonymy or metaphor?

Ubiquity of metonyms

Metonymy and worldview

‘Karenymy’

Metaphors and Metonymies

A ‘moo’ point

Conclusion

Further Reading

Answers to activities

References

Chapter 9

Representing experience in discourse

Introduction

Sentences and clauses

Telling and retelling

Different ways of telling

Another way of telling:

Nominalisation

Passives

The transitivity model

Representing ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ experience

Material processes

Circumstances

Mental Processes

Representing ‘states’ of being and ‘having’: Existential and Relational Processes

Existential processes

Relational processes

Verbal Processes

The discourse situation

Case Study: A case of domestic violence

To convict or not to convict?

Analysing the initial crime report

Analysing the summary report (MG3) of the domestic violence crime

Relational processes in the MG3 account of the crime

Analysing the police Gatekeeper’s contribution to the case

Conclusion

Further Reading

Answers to activities

References

Chapter 10

Presenting other people’s speech, writing and thought

Introduction

What is discourse presentation?

Discourse presentation and different voices

Report, representation and presentation

Different types of discourse presentation

Direct Speech, Writing and Thought (DS/DW/DT)

Indirect Speech, Writing and Thought (IS/IW/IT)

Reporting clauses

Free Indirect Speech, Writing and Thought (FIS/FIW/FIT)

Presentation of Speech, Writing and Thought Acts (PSA/PWA/PTA)

Presentation of Speech, Writing and Thought (PS/PW/PT)

Summary

Attribution of source of original

Legitimation

Faithfulness

Conclusion

Further reading

Answers to activities

References

Chapter 11

Corpus linguistics and discourse analysis

Introduction

Corpus linguistics

What is a corpus?

What is corpus linguistics?

Corpus linguistics and discourse analysis

Sampling, representativeness and language variety

Language variety

Sampling

Representativeness

Corpus not always required!

Using corpus methods to analyse corpora

Word frequency analysis

Word frequencies and language change across time

Wordlists ranked by frequency

Concordance analysis

Sorted concordances

Categorising results

Making comparisons between corpora

Choosing a suitable reference corpus

Comparing LHRC against ICE-FLOB

Keyness and keywords

Statistical significance

Effect size: measuring the scale of the difference

Keyness

What counts as a keyword? Using statistical cut-offs to decide

Keywords in LHRC

Intra-corpus comparison

Collocation

Calculating collocates

Using statistical cut-offs to decide what counts as a collocate

Statistically salient collocates of ‘was’ in LHRC

N-grams

N-grams in the LHRC

Conclusion

Further Reading

Corpus tools

Corpora

Answers to Activities

References

Chapter 12

Doing a project in discourse analysis

Introduction

Thinking about discourse as the focus of a project

Systematicity and the three ‘R’s’ of research

Ethics

Informed consent

Observer paradox

Anonymity

Copyright

Developing a research project

Deductive and inductive research

Hypotheses

Objectives and research questions

Defining terms

Controlling variables

Data

Analysing your data

Writing up your research – doing academic discourse

Conclusion

Further reading

Answers to activities

References

Appendices

Appendix 1 Sample statement declaring consent for a study

Appendix 2 Information for participants

Index

O autorze

Patricia Canning is an assistant professor at Northumbria University, Newcastle (UK). Her recent publications include journal articles on the linguistic construction of domestic abuse police reports (2022; and with Nick Lynn, 2021). She is co-author of an independent report into what went wrong at the Champions League Final in Paris (2022) and has published research on the narrative evidence following the Hillsborough Football Stadium disaster (2018; 2021; 2023). She is author of Style in the Renaissance: Language and Control in Early Modern England (2011).

Brian Walker is an independent researcher. His published research focuses on corpus stylistics and using corpus linguistic approaches in the analysis of discourse.