Approaches to Discourse

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Approaches to Discourse

• pakwidhi_unnes_at_yahoo.com
• Universitas Negeri Semarang

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Speech Act Theory (Austin 1955, Searle 1969)

• A logico-philosophic perspective on
  conversational organization focusing on
  interpretation rather than the production of
  utterances in discourse.
• From the basic belief that language is used to
  perform actions.
• Every utterance can be analyzed as the
  realization of the speakers intent
  (illocutionary force) to achieve a particular
  purpose.
• Neither Austin nor Searle were concerned with the
  analysis of continuous discourse.

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Speech Act Theory

• Unit of analysis speech act (SA) or
  illocutionary force (IF).
• Principal problems the lack of a one-to-one
  match up between discourse function (IF) and the
  grammatical form.
• Provides the insight that the basic unit of
  conversational analysis must be functionally
  motivated rather than formally defined one.
• Systemic name speech function (SF) central
  issue in discourse structure.

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Interactional Sociolinguistics (Gumperz 1982,
Goffman 1959-1981)

• Grows out of the work of anthropologists.
• Centrally concerned with the importance of
  context in the production and interpretation of
  discourse.
• Units of analysis grammatical and prosodic
  features in interactions.
• Gumperz demonstrated that interactants from
  different socio-cultural backgrounds may hear
  and understand discourse differently according to
  their interpretation contextualisation cues in
  discourse. E.g. intonation contours, speaking
  for another, alignment, gender.

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Interactional Sociolinguistics

• Schiffrin (1987) focused on quantitative
  interactive sociolinguistic analysis, esp.
  discourse markers (defined as sequentially
  dependent elements which bracket units of talk).
• Schiffrins unit of analysis turn.
• Basic concern the accomplishment of
  conversational coherence.
• She argues for the importance of both qualitative
  and quantitative / distributional analysis in
  order to determine the function of the different
  discourse markers in conversation.

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Ethnography of Communication (Dell Hymes (1972b,
1974)

• Concerned with understanding the social context
  of linguistic interactions who says what to
  whom, when, where. Why, and how.
• Prime unit of analysis speech event.
• Definition The speech event is to what analysis
  of verbal interaction what the sentence is to
  grammar It represents an extension in the size
  of the basic analytical unit from the single
  utterance to stretches of utterances, as well as
  a shift in focus from text to interaction.

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Ethnography of Communication

• Speech event refers to activities that are
  directly governed by rules or norms for the use
  of speech (Hymes 197256)
• Speech event comprises components (Hymes SPEAKING
  grid).
• Analysis of these components of a speech event is
  central to what became known as ethnography of
  communication or ethnography of speaking, with
  the ethnographers aim being to discover rules of
  appropriateness in speech events.
• Genres often coincides with speech events

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Ethnography of Communication

• The ethnographic framework has led to broader
  notions of communicative competence.
• Problem Lack of explicitness in Hymes account
  on the relationship between genre and other
  components of the speaking grid and their
  expression in language and
• Recognition of the close relationship between
  speech events and their social/cultural contexts.

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Pragmatics (Grice 1975, Leech 1983, Levinson
1983)

• Formulates conversational behaviour in terms of
  general principles rather than rules.
• At the base of pragmatic approach is to
  conversation analysis is Griceans co-operative
  principle (CP).
• This principle seeks to account for not only how
  participants decide what to DO next in
  conversation, but also how interlocutors go about
  interpreting what the previous speaker has just
  done.
• This principle is the broken down into specific
  maxims Quantity (say only as much as necessary),
  Quality (try to make your contribution one that
  is true), Relation (be relevant), and manner (be
  brief and avoid ambiguity).

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Pragmatics

• Provides useful means of characterizing different
  varieties of conversation, e.g. in interactions,
  one can deliberately try to be provocative or
  consensual.
• Significant problem it implies that
  conversations occur co-operatively, between
  equals where power is equally distributed etc.
• In reality conversations involve levels of
  disagreement and resistance power is constantly
  under contestation.

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Conversation Analysis (CA) (Harold Garfinkel
1960s-1970s)

• Garfinkel (sociologist) concern to understand
  how social members make sense of everyday life.
• Sack, Schegloff, Jefferson (1973)tried to explain
  how conversation can happen at all.
• CA is a branch of ethnomethodology.
• Two grossly apparent facts a) only one person
  speaks at a time, and b) speakers change recurs.
  Thus conversation is a turn taking activity.
• Speakers recognize points of potential speekar
  change turn constructional unit (TCU).

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Conversation Analysis (CA)

• CA identified TCU as the critical units of
  conversation, it has not specified exactly how a
  TCU boundary can be recognized in any situation.
• Models conversation as infinitely generative
  turn-taking machine, where interactants try to
  avoid lapse the possibility that no one is
  speaking.
• Contribution the identification of adjacency
  pairs conversational relatedness operating
  between adjacent utterances.

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Conversation Analysis (CA)

• Adjacency pair first and second pair parts.
• Major problems a) lack of systematicity- thus
  quantitative analysis is impossible 2) limited I
  its ability to deal comprehensively with
  complete, sustained interactions 3) though
  offers a powerful interpretation of conversation
  as dynamic interactive achievement, it is unable
  to say just what kind of achievement it is.

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Variation Analysis (Labov 1972a, Labov and
Waletzky1967)

• L W argue that fundamental narrative structures
  are evident in spoken narratives of personal
  experience.
• The overall structure of fully formed narrative
  of personal experience involves six stages 1)
  Abstract, 2) Orientation, 3) Complication, 4)
  Evaluation, 5) Resolution, 6) Coda where 1) and
  6) are optional.
• Strength its clarity and applicability.

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Variation Analysis

• Problems data was obtained from interviews.
• Variationists approach to discourse stems from
  quantitative of linguistic change and variation.
• Although typically focused on social and
  linguistic constraints on semantically equivalent
  variants, the approach has also been extended to
  texts.

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Structural-Functional Approaches to Conversation