27. Discourse features

Discourse exists in a form of a text. That’s why the 7 standards of textuality should be observed in a discourse.There are several principles:

1) ordering information

The inf. principle in the Eng. language – the already mentioned or obvious from the context inf.(Ex.:Do you know where John is? He is in the garden.( known inf., new inf.))

We focus our interest on the inf. placed at the beginning and at the end of a sentence.(Ex.: Jim invited Lucy to the night club.)

The effect of emphasis is achieved by putting the item into unfamiliar position. It’s often done with adverb. expressions, complements and infinitive phrases. Ex.: I may be old, but not stupid. Old I may be, but I’m not stupid.

2) discourse devices

We use various words/phrases at the beginning of a sentence to express the relationship btw what we are about to say and what we have just said. There are also words to link clauses. Sentence linkers:

• additive( give extra inf.): furthermore, in addition.

• adversative( introduce inf. which contrasts with what have been mentioned previously): nowhere, on the other hand, nevertheless, however.

• causal( introduce the result of previous inf.): so, as a result, for this reason.

• temporal( express a relationship of time or sequence with the previous inf.): then, after that, an hour later, finally, at last.

To make the text more cohesive and easier for listener to percieve it’s useful to practice parallel grammatical constructions. Ex.: She is probably going to fail the exam.—She is probably going to blame her teacher.

3) vocabulary and grammatical structures ( must be appropriate to the context they are used in. Most eng. words are neutral and can be used in any situation) Ex.: The show starts.(neutral) The performance commences.(formal)The show kicks off.(informal)

4) sociolinguistic features ( relate to very broad situational constrains on language use and chiefly identify the regional and social variety of language) Ex.: Cockney. They are relatively permanent features of the spoken and written language and we don’t have covcious control over them.

5)stylistic features ( identify personal preferences in usage or the varieties assosiated with occupational groups.) Ex.: lecturers, lawers, journalists.

These are relatively temporary feauture of our written and spoken language, over which we have some degree of consious control. We often adopt dif. group uses of lang. as we go through our day(family, job)

The differences btw spoken and written language : speech is a phonic substance, writing is a graphic substance.

28. Discourse and society.

Discourse communities and speech communities.

A key notion in the area of discourse anal.is the concept of discourse com. The group must have some set of shared common goals, some mechanisms for com-tion, and some way of providing the exchange of info-tion amongst its members . The way in which people communicate with each other and exchange info will vary according to the group. This might include meetings, newsletters and other types of written\spoke com-tion.

A dis.com.is a group of people who share some kind of activity(members of a club or association who have regular meetings, or a group of students). Dis.com. also interact with wider speech com.

Speech com. & spoken & written discourse A sp.com., in general linguistic, refers to any group of people that speak the same language. The notion of sp.com.is boarder than that of dis.com. It include dis.com. & the repertories & varieties of languages than members of speech com. use to interact with each other. The notion of sp.com.is important for the effective use of spoken & written dis. Smtime com-tion may only succeed when speakers recognize that they are part of the same speech commutity.

Dis. & language choise People may have a number of languages or language varieties they use to interact in their particular communities. The choice of language or language varieties may be determined by the domain the language is being used in, such as with family, among friends etc.

Dis., social class & social networks Social class & social networks represent different orders of generalization about social organization. Class accounts for the hierarchical structure of society , whereas network deals with the dimension of solidarity at the level of the individual & his\her everyday contacts.

Dis. & gender An examination of the ways language is used in relation to the social category, or rather the socially constructed category, of gender. Gender is not just a natural & inevitable consequence of one’s sex. It is rather part of the routine, ongoing work of everyday, mundane, social interactions, that is the product of social practice ( Weatherall 2002). Women’s lang. is different from men’s lang.

29. Discourse grammar. Functional grammar (FG) and functional Discourse grammar (FDG) are G models and theories motivated by functional theories of G. These theories explain how linguistic utterances are shaped, based on the goals and knowledge of natural language users. In doing so, it contrasts with Chomsky an transformational G. Functional DG has been developed as a successor to functional G, attempting to be more psychologically and pragmatically adequate than functional G.The top-level unit of analysis in functional DG is the D move, not the sentence or the clause. This is a principle that sets functional DG apart from many other linguistic theories, including its predecessor functional G. Functional G is a model of G motivated by functions^[3]. The model was originally developed by Simon C. Dik at theUniversity of Amsterdam in the 1970s^[4], and has undergone several revisions since then. There are a number of principles that guide the analysis of natural language utterances according to functional DG. Functional DG explains the phonology, morphosyntax, pragmatics and semantics in one linguistic theory. According to functional DG, linguistic utterances are built top-down in this order by deciding upon:1.The pragmatic aspects of the utterance.2.The semantic aspects of the utterance.3.The morphosyntactic aspects of the utterance.4.The phonological aspects of the utterance

EX: analyzes the utterance "I can't find the red pan. It is not in its usual place." according to functional DG at the interpersonal level. It consists of two D acts, one corresponding to "I can't find the red pan." and another corresponding to "It is not in its usual place."

• The first D. act consists of:1.A declarative illocutionary force 2.A speaker, denoted by the word "I" 3.An addressee 4.A communicated content, which consists of: a)A referential subact corresponding to "I" b)An ascriptive subact corresponding to "find", which has the function Focus

• c)A referential subact corresponding to "the red pan", which contains two ascriptive subacts corresponding to "red" and "pan", and which has the function Topic

• The second D. act consists of: 1)A declarative illocutionary force 2)A speaker3)An addressee 4)A communicated content, which consists of:a)A referential subact corresponding to "it", which has the function Topic b)An ascriptive subact corresponding to "in its usual place", which has the function Focus

• c)Within this subact there is a referential subact corresponding to "its usual place", which consists of:A referential subact corresponding to "its";An ascriptive subact corresponding to "usual";An ascriptive subact corresponding to "place".

32. Content analysis or textual analysis is a methodology in the social sciences for studying the content of communication.  The core questions of content analysis: "Who says what, to whom, why, to what extent and with what effect?."  It is used to determine the presence of certain words, concepts, themes, phrases, characters, or sentences within texts or sets of texts and to quantify this presence in an objective manner. There are two general categories of content analysis: conceptual analysis and relational analysis. Conceptual analysis can be thought of as establishing the existence and frequency of concepts in a text. Relational analysis builds on conceptual analysis by examining the relationships among concepts in a text. 

The objective of c.a. is to look upon the statement and signs in order to analyse them, to see the impact of content of the audience.

The units of c.a. are the smallest components of texts in which the occurrence of variable is examined. The units are either semantically (person, statement, unit of meaning) or syntactically (word, sentence, complete text) defined.

C.a. procedures:

• Semantic level (influence of syntactic structures on meaning formation, analyse the meaning of words and sentences).

• Syntactic level (analyse such features as letters, syllabals, words, sentences and their structures)