INTRODUCTION
In this unit, we shall be looking at Discourse Analysis, a discipline which emerged from Sociolinguistics. Discourse Analysis studies naturally-occurring discourse, which could be spoken or written. It arose in an attempt by linguists to study the organisation of language above the sentence. It is an approach that is a departure from the traditional approach to the study of language that focuses on the structure of language. The unit will discuss the notion of discourse and text, interactive and non-interactive discourse, the structure and features of discourse.
3.1 Text and Discourse
The terms discourse and text are used interchangeably, though there is a way in which scholars use them differently. A text simply refers to any instance of language use spoken or written. A text ranges from a word to a group of words that is meaningful in any particular context. A text is situated in a particular context (environment in which it is used). The meaning of a text can be deduced in the context in which it is used. One major feature of a long text is cohesion or the ties that exist within it, among the words and the clauses that make it up. A text is also said to be coherent or has coherence if the whole text is seen as being logically connected.
A discourse on the other hand is any connected, naturally occurring language. It may also be written or spoken. A discourse is not meaningfully interpreted without a look at the social context in which it is produced. The context will take into consideration many other things which we normally take for granted, such as pauses, gap fillers, mannerisms, interruption, kinesics, facial expression, and other physical acts which contribute to the interpretation of the discourse.
3.2 What is Discourse Analysis?
The term Discourse Analysis refers to an attempt to study language above the sentence or above the clause. It is concerned with the study of linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges and written texts. It involves an investigation of rules governing the production and perception of discourse.
Discourse Analysis is an area of interest to scholars in other disciplines such as literary critics, communication scientists, media scholars, philosophers, sociologists and anthropologists. It describes different kinds of discourse such as conversations, e.g.: doctor-patient conversation, family conversation, casual conversation, telephone conversation, court room discourse, political interviews, and so forth.
Other forms of discourse studied include: the Internet discourse, SMS text messages, newspaper reports, service-encounter, market discourse, talk shows, commercial advertisements, pulpit talk, and so forth.
The study of language in relation to the context in which it is used was greatly influenced by Bronislaw Malinowski, an anthropologist. He realised that the description of the language of a people is not complete without the cultural history behind the participants and the practices of their culture.
The modern approach to Discourse Analysis took its root in the work of M.A.K. Halliday and other scholars. The first attempt to study the structure of discourse from linguistic point of view was the work of Sinclair and Coulthard (1976). These scholars studied the organisation of classroom discourse and published their findings in a book titled: Towards an Analysis of Discourse: The English used by teachers and pupils.
Earlier before Sinclair and Coulthard, sociologists and anthropologists have shown some interest in conversation. Scholars such as Graffinkel (1967), Sacks, Schegloff and Jeffersons (1974)examined the structure of talk and looked at such issues as turn taking in discourse, opening and closing in discourse, topic management, overlaps in conversation, and so forth.
3.3 Interactive and Non-interactive Discourse
An interactive discourse is a discourse in which two or more people share ideas, taking turns and focusing on one or more topics, e.g., conversation. In an interactive discourse, there is cooperation between the interlocutors to ensure that the discourse is successful. In most cases, the interlocutors share a common cultural context; therefore, some contextual cues aid the interpretation of the discourse.
A non-interactive discourse on the other hand, has as its major characteristic, the domination by a speaker, who is constrained by the situation to control the discourse by determining who speaks, when they speak, and how they speak. Examples of non-interactive discourse are highly institutionalised discourses, such as public lecture, sermon, speech making, etc.
3.4 Discourse Structure
The Birmingham School sees discourse as a level above the sentence. Using the classroom discourse, Sinclair and Coulthard (1976) divided discourse into a five-unit scale called the discourse rank scale. The units are: Lesson, Transaction, Exchange, Move and Act.
Lesson occupies the highest rank in the scale and it refers to everything that takes place in the classroom from the point the teacher enters and the time he leaves. Transaction is the basic unit of interaction, which consists of minimal contributions made by two participants in the discourse. An exchange is a dialogue or discussion. It is one of the fundamental units that realise social interaction. The structure of an exchange is IRF (where I = Initiation, R = Response, and F = Feedback). The teacher initiates the discourse, the pupil gives the response and the teacher gives the feedback, e.g:
T (I): What is a noun?
P (R): A noun is the name of a person, animal, place or thing
T (F) Correct
Move is a single minimal contribution of a speaker at once. It consists of one or more acts. Act is the smallest unit in the discourse stratum. It has no structure except one goes below the level of discourse. Sinclair and Coulthard identify several classes of act used in discourse.
3.5 Discourse Features
Scholars have identified different features of discourse. Some of them, which will be discussed in this section are- turn taking, overlaps, adjacency pairs, and insertion sequences.
3.5.1 Turn Taking
Turn taking simply refers to the negotiation of the floor by the participants in a discourse. In conversations, speakers take turns. At any given moment, the turn that is in progress will typically belong to a single speaker. Participants in a conversation will not usually talk all at once. Conversely, there will not usually be stretches of time in which no one talks at all. This is not to say that simultaneous speech and silence never occur in conversations-they do. But when they occur, they are always treated as problems, which need to be ‘repaired’ .
Sacks and Schegloff (1974) observe that turn taking system provides a basic framework for the organisation of interaction, since it allows participants to alternate the floor, so talk is not uncoordinated.
Speakers are aware that a turn consists of one or more (but not fewer) “turn construction units” (grammatical entities like a complete clause or sentence). Turn construction unit may be delineated by intonation, stress or pause rather than grammar. Participants can use their knowledge of possible types of unit to project the end-point of the turn currently in progress. At the end of the turn or construction unit, is the “turn transition relevance place” (a point at which speaker- change may occur. To determine the end of a turn, the speaker needs to note a lot of things, such as:
• the content of what is said
• the prosodic structure of the speech
• the grammatical structure of the speech
• aspects of non verbal behaviour, such as gaze direction, etc.
When the turn transition relevance place is reached, what happens is not just a random, free for all situation. There is an ordered set of rules for the allocation of the next turn. Below are the possible options:
• the current speaker selects the next speaker
• the next speaker self-selects
• the current speaker may (but does not have to) continue
Turn allocation mechanism involves the current speaker doing any of the following:
• asking the next speaker a question
• naming the next speaker
• aligning the body or gaze so that the speaker is seen to be addressing a specific person at the end of his conversation.
3.5.2 Overlaps
Overlaps are simultaneous speech. Overlaps result from the speaker’s failure to project the end of the last speaker’s turn with complete accuracy. One kind of overlap is the one in which the new speaker comes in at the point where they think the last speaker will finish. This is regarded as unintended. The other type is the one in which the new speaker may start to speak at the point in the last speaker’s utterance. This is regarded as interruption, which is intended.
An overlap may not necessarily be in form of speech. The source may also be other things such as the ringing of a phone, a knock on the door, a sudden loud bang or sound, and so forth.
3.5.3 Adjacency Pairs
Most conversations, especially between two participants are coordinated in such a way that what the last speaker says constrains what the next speaker will meaningfully say. Thus, a question requests an answer, a greeting requests a greeting, and an offer requests an acceptance or a rejection and so forth. Spoken interactions are typically structured around pairs of adjacent utterances (utterances that occur one after the other). However, the pairs of utterances may be separated, by some elements as we can see in the conversation below:
A: What is your name?
B: Why do you want to know?
A: I just like you and want to be your friend.
B: Anyway I am Sandra.
In the conversation above, the question asked by A did not elicit an answer until B was sure of A’s intention. So B’s utterance rather than be an answer, was also a question, which A had to answer before B’s real response finally came. The embedded sequences of question and answer within the original pair are called insertion sequences.
SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE
Study the following interactions and bring out the salient discourse features in them:
(a) doctor-patient interaction
(b) preacher-congregation interaction
(c) buyer seller interaction in an open market
4.0 CONCLUSION
The study of Discourse Analysis points to the fact that language use is not socially unstructured. It shows clearly that people involved in naturally-occurring discourse are aware of some rules that guide their interaction. They know when to speak and when not to. Their speech is not always smooth as there are certain paralinguistic and non-linguistic factors that help to shape what they say.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this unit, we have examined Discourse Analysis, an offshoot of Sociolinguistics, which is the study of naturally occurring discourse (talk or writing). The unit is an exploration of the nature of Discourse Analysis, its features and the structure.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. What is Discourse Analysis?
2. Differentiate between interactive and non-interactive discourse.
3. How does a participant recognise his/her turn in a conversation?
4. Explain the term ‘adjacency pairs’ .
5. Explain the discourse structure using the discourse rankscale proposed by Sinclair and Coulthard.
6. Collect and record your own examples of a Nigerian language performing different functions.
7.0 REFERENCES/FURTHER READING
Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sinclair, J. M. & Coulthard, M. (1975). Towards an Analysis of Discourse, the English Used by Teachers and Pupils. Oxford: OUP.
Olateju, M. A. (1998). Discourse Analysis, Analyzing Discourse in the ESL Classroom. Lagos: Crossland Educational Services.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Sacks, H., Schegloff, E.A., & Jeffersons, G. (1974). “A Simplest Systematics for the organization of turn-taking in conversation”. Language, Vol. 50 (No 4), 696-735.
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