Transcript Discourse Analysis & Grammar

Discourse Analysis &
Grammar
Spoken and written
discourses display
grammatical connections
between individual clauses
and utterances.
Some Common Items
Reference
Anaphoric- Things which has been said earlier
Exophoric- Only in spoken discourse
Cataphoric- Forward reference
Ellipsis
Substitution
Conjunction
Grammatical Cohesion and Textuality
Grammatical cohesion can be classified under 3 types i) reference,
ii) ellipsis/substitution and iii) conjunction.
i) Reference
Pronoun eg. He, she, it, him, they, etc
Demonstratives eg. This, that, these, those
Articles eg. The, a, an
Cataphoric referent ( Forward reference)
eg. 1. The teacher asked him to read so Ahmad read.
eg. 2. [2.15 (Mc Carthy, p.41)]
Anaphoric referent (Ties that point back to a previously established
referent)
eg. 1. The teacher asked Ahmad to read so he read.
Exophoric Reference (Looking outward- outside the
text). The referent is not in the immediate context
but is assumed by the speaker/writer to be of a
shared world, in terms of knowledge and
experience.
eg. The government are supposed to solve the
problems of the people
(The qs. which govt is inappropriate.)
Note: Language teachers and materials writers
need to monitor the degree of cultural exophoric
references in texts chosen for teaching to ensure
that the referential burden is not too great.
Ellipsis
Ellipsis is distinguished by the structure having some missing elements.
These elements are obvious from the context hence need not be raised.
Verbal ellipsis
eg. [2.17 MC p.43]
The children will carry the small boxes, the adults the larger ones.
(This verbal ellipsis is anaphoric)
Nominal ellipsis
eg. [2.20 MC p.43]
Nelly liked the green tiles; I preferred the blue.
Clausal ellipsis
Most common = subject pronoun omission.
Eg. [2.23 & 2.24 MC p. 44]
He said he would take early retirement as soon as he could and he has.
Group Activity
Identify examples of ellipsis in these
extracts
Page 44 ex.2 MC
Substitution
In substitution, word is replaced by another word. It also operates
either at nominal, verbal or clausal level.
Nominal
Do you want the blanket? Yes, I’ll take one (blanket)
Did you sing? Yes I did (sing)
The blankets needed to be cleaned. Yes they did (needed to be
cleaned)
Sometimes, the word ‘so’ is used as a substitution.
eg. I went to lock the gate. When I got there, I found somebody had
already done so.
Conjunction
Halliday (1985) offers a scheme for classification of
conjunctive relations.
Typeselaboration (in other words,rather)
extension ( and, but, alternatively),
enhancement ( in that case, cause effect, consequently),
additive (moreover, besides, furthermore, in addition),
adversative (although, but, eventhough, in contrast),
causal (show cause and effect),
temporal (then, to show time and place), etc.
Theme and rheme
English is a SVO language
Eg: She painted those beautiful pictures.
Theme= the topic (at the beginning of a
sentence)
Rheme= about the topic (comment about
the topic)
Tense and aspect
Tense- related to time
Aspect- related to how an action was
completed, habitual or continuous
Tense in English
2 tenses- simple present and simple past tense
Present tense
Present time
Eternal truth
Instantaneous use
Habitual use
Future use
Past tense
Action done with
Hypothetical situation
Past action that continues to present
Indefinite past
Completed action but don’t know when
Group Discussion
In which discourse would the knowledge of
grammar be more relevant?
Think of your approaches to teaching
grammar in your class. Could any of
these be considered discourse analysis
activities?
How does knowledge of discourse and
grammar change your current practice?