Facoltà di Studi Umanistici

Corso di Laurea in Lingue e Comunicazione Lingua Inglese The language of written advertisements Luisanna Fodde a.a. 2014/2015 1

Discourse Analisys

1- Language in Use

D.A. deals with language in context, linking the text/utterance with its social situation.

1960s and 1970s out of work in different disciplines: linguistics, psychology, antropology, sociology.

Contribution of semiotics and the French structuralists approach to the study of narrative.

Dell Hymes: speech in social settings (1964); Language as social action: speech-act theory, conversational maxims (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969, Grice, 1975), pragmatics, i.e. the study of meaning in context (Levinson, 1983; Leech, 1983).

Discourse Analisys

1- Language in Use

Every day we encounter or take part in a wide range of different types of spoken interactions….

Each situation has its own conventions and formulae, different role relationships, different purposes and different settings.

Discourse analysis is interested in all the above creating a fundamental distinction between:

LANGUAGE FORMS

and (grammatical, lexical, phonological) DISCOURSE FUNCTIONS (what we do with the language)

Discourse Analisys

1- Language in Use

D.A. is interested in the relationship between discourse forms (grammatical, lexical, phonological) and discourse functions.

Forms are the RAW materials which enable students to use language FUNCTIONALLY.

British D.A. was greatly influenced by the work of M.A.K

Halliday’s functional approach to language (1973). His framework emphasizes the social functions of language and the thematic and informational structure of speech and writing

A text is “language that is functional”, that is to say …….

D.A. is interested in the relationship between discourse forms (grammatical, lexical, phonological) and discourse functions.

In this functional perspective, a text is therefore always seen as

Forms are the RAW materials which enable students to use language FUNCTIONALLY.

realized, 2- the Context of Culture which is the ‘outer’, more external, or ‘higher-order’ context surrounding both the text and its specific Context of Situation.

A text, therefore, is basically made of meanings that, in order to be communicated, need to be encoded and expressed through a system of graphic , phonic or visual signs . As a thing in itself, it is a consistent semantic unit.

A text is both an object, a product of its environment, of its Context of Situation and Context of Culture, and an instance of social meaning in a specific situation.

The relation between text and context is a systematic and dynamic one: - on one hand, a text is the result of the context in which it is being realized and where language is being shaped to function purposefully; - on the other hand, a context is then realized in turn by the text: through a text a context is being created. (Halliday in Halliday & Hasan, 1985/ 1989: 10-11).

Context of Situation

Context of Situation is seen as being comprised of 3 components, or values, or dimension of variation: Field, Tenor and Mode, or, respectively:

FIELD:

what is going on?

TENOR:

who is taking part?

MODE:

how are the meanings being exchanged?

Field, Tenor and Mode.

Field – the nature of the ongoing social speech event and its subject matter, what is being spoken about; Tenor – the human participants in the interaction and the relationship between them, involving their status and discourse roles, as well as the attitude they take towards the subject matter and their interlocutors, Mode – the way that language is functioning in the interaction, which involves a series of features such as the degree to which the process of interaction is shared by the interlocutors, its ‘channel’, its ‘medium’ etc. (see Halliday & Hasan, 1985/ 1989: 12)

Discourse Analisys

Semantic meaning (without the context) serves a pragmatic purpose [pragmatics: what people mean]

Utterance (enunciato).

Linguists sometimes use utterance to simply refer to a unit of speech under study. The corresponding unit in written language is text.

Importance of context and shared knowledge.

Overheard during a flight: “I think we should keep him somewhere safe where he doesn’t hurt anyone”;

Discourse Analisys

1- Language in Use

Language as communicative purpose (function) Text: actual use, not an abstract unit of language (its purpose or function, something to act upon) What a terms denotes vs what it refers to

Discourse Analisys

Slow Children Crossing

P1’s intention P2’s interpretation mediated through mediated through DISCOURSE DISCOURSE P1-------------------------------------- TEXT ------------------------------------P2 speaker encoding writer

decoding

listener reader “I think we should keep him somewhere safe where he doesn’t hurt anyone”

Discourse Analisys

Semiotics (Barthes)

•

Sign = Signifier + Signified

• SIGNIFIER = physical representation of a thing or of a concept. It is the EXPRESSION. • SIGNIFIED = meaning. It is the CONTENT . •

CONTENT may be:

–

denotative

(the ‘brain’ definition) –

connotative

(the ‘deeper’ meaning - see, for ex., the word ‘dog’).

Discourse Analisys

Semiotics (Barthes)

•

“There is no place like home” (Dorothy, “The Wizard of Oz”).

•

HOME

(signifier, physical representation, the expression : morphological, phonetical, lexical)

•

HOME

(signified, the content): Denotative content : the brain definition: home as a building, the place where I live; Connotative content : the deeper meaning, the warmth, the atmosphere

Semiotics – Barthes

• Objects have meanings.

• Such meanings may be: – symbolic (= connotative meaning) • they have a metaphorical meaning – taxonomic (=denotative meaning) • they are included in a system where things are named and organized. • They are classified.

Barthes and the Rhetoric of Images

Semiotics – Barthes

• Objects, regarded as symbols, have connotative meanings • Connotative meaning of objects can be: –

Existential

• Related to life but with non-human elements – market –

Aesthetic

• Related to design – for instance, still nature –

Technological

• Related to technology – i.e., when the object is useful for something else

Discourse Analisys

2- Communication

Knowing a language (intuitive) vs knowing about a language (explicit knowledge of encoding conventions). Linguistic competence.

But our interpretation of a discourse involves more than our linguistic competence.

Examples: He done somefing really evil and now I’m gonna kill ’im.

Her as was has gone from we. We as is will go to she.

We also consider what is appropriate in a given situation.

Norms and forms of a language Task: ways in Italian to express disgust, from most formal to most informal.

Discourse Analisys

2- Communication

Proposition (we talk about something) Reference (we make a connection with context) Examples: His flight should be here any minute.

I’m on my way

Speech Act Theory (John Austin 1962, John Searle 1969) Locutionary Act Illocutionary Force Perlocutionary Effect

Discourse Analisys

2- Communication

Speech Act Theory (John Austin 1962, John Searle 1969) Locutionary Act Illocutionary Force Perlocutionary Effect

“Is there any salt?”

In uttering the locution "Is there any salt?" at the dinner table, one may thereby perform the distinct locutionary act of uttering the interrogatory sentence about the presence of salt, as well as the illocutionary act of requesting salt (illocutionary salt.

force of

request), and the further perlocutionary effect of causing somebody to hand one the

Discourse Analisys

2- Communication

Speech Act Theory (John Austin 1962, John Searle 1969) Direct and Indirect Speech Acts

Example (after a dinner with friends):

Man: Let’s have coffee at our place Wife: You’re working tomorrow…… This is an indirect speech act. The wife could have expressed the same message with a direct speech act: Man: Let’s have coffee at our place Wife: I am tired, I want to go to sleep

Discourse Analisys

2- Communication

Speech Act Theory (John Austin 1962, John Searle 1969) Direct and Indirect Speech Acts Direct Speech Act: grammatical form and communicative function (i.e. illocutionary force) correspond.

Indirect Speech Act: grammatical form and communicative function do not correspond.

Is there any salt??

Other examples (requests and proposals): - Would you like to meet for a coffee? - I have class….

- Can you call Samantha?

Discourse Analisys

2- Communication

Dell Hymes’s 4 aspects of communicative competence

Hymes' original idea was that speakers of a language have to have more than grammatical competence in order to be able communicate effectively in a language; they also need to know how language is used by members of a speech community to accomplish their purposes.

Four kinds of judgement:

1- Whether (and to what degree) something is formally possible 2- Whether (and to what degree) something is feasible 3- Whether (and to what degree) something is appropriate in relation to the context in which it is used 4- Whether (and to what degree) something is actually performed

Discourse Analisys

2- Communication

1- possible 2- feasible 3- appropriate 4- performed 1- Something possible within a formal system is grammatical 2- ( ambiguity ) Visiting aunt can be boring; I met a man with a glass eye called Eric; two sisters were reunited after 8 years at a checking counter; 3- (an act of communication which is pragmatically effective as an act of communication): using language inappropriately in different contexts 4- Co-occurrence (collocations): patterning in language; idioms; proverbs: They are been being careful; too many cooks spoil the broth; by and large; by hook or by crook…..

Discourse Analisys

Using language functionally

What we are doing with language (i.e. instructing, requesting, informing, exemplifying) is as importatnt as what we are saying.

The illocutionary force of performing an act:

Has he got news for you

This possible act of asking/requesting can become an informing speech act when/if contextualized in terms of the surrounding text and of the key feature of the situation

D.A. IS CONCERNED WITH THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND THE CONTEXT OF ITS USE.

DA and Written Discourse

Cohesion and Coherence

«Clare loves potatoes. She was born in Ireland».

• • The two sentences are cohesive (Clare/she)….

The pronoun provides a link with the proper noun Clare in the 1° sentence

But they are only coherent if …………….

• • • Cohesion is only part of coherence in reading and writing.

Cohesion is a guide to coherence, which is something created by readers in the act of reading a text.

Coherence is the feeling that a text makes sense and that it is not a jumble of sentences.

DA and Written Discourse

Cohesion and Coherence

«Clare loves potatoes. She was born in Ireland».

• • The two sentences are cohesive (Clare/she)….

The pronoun provides a link with the proper noun Clare in the 1° sentence

But they are only coherent if …………….

• • • Cohesion is only part of coherence in reading and writing.

Cohesion is a guide to coherence, which is something created by readers in the act of reading a text.

Coherence is the feeling that a text makes sense and that it is not a jumble of sentences.

DA and Written Discourse

Processing a text

The surface of a text is characterized by ‘markers’ of various kinds.

For example –ed suffix is a marker of pastness.

Cohesive markers/devices (pronouns, determiners, demonstratives, other items….)create links across sentence boundaries and chain together items that are related.

However, reading a text is more complex than that.

We have to interpret it and this depends as much on what both author and reader puts/ brings into it. The reader makes cognitive links in the text and recognizes textual

patterns

DA and Written Discourse

Processing a text

The reader makes cognitive links in the text and recognizes textual

patterns.

These patterns are manifested in functional relationships between pieces of text (textual segments): phrases, clauses, sentences or groups of sentences.

Such relationships can be of various kinds:

Phenomenon-reason

;

phenomenon-example

; cause-consequence; Problem-solution; instrument-achievement.

There are

signals/clues

that tell us how we should interpret the functional relation between segments. They are the supporting evidence to the cognitive activity of deducing the relation.

1- Second sentence is reason for the 1° (PHENOMENON REASON) 2- CAUSE –CONSEQUENCE (first two segments, subordination as supporting evidence). First 2 segments taken together as one single segment are in contrast with the rest. Note the signal provided by the syntactic parallelism…

COHERENCE and COHESION

•

I am tired because I went to bed late yesterday

– (a well cohesed and cohered sentence). •

I am tired because I will go to bed late tonight

– (a badly cohesed and cohered sentence)

COHERENCE and COHESION

•

Semantic coherence (= meaning) depends on:

– Lexical cohesion – Syntactical cohesion

Lexical cohesion

• • • • • •

Direct repetition Synonyms Super-ordination Antonyms Specific going to general reference Ordered series

Lexical cohesion (examples)

•

Direct repetition:

– We want want freedom, we money want happiness and we

Lexical cohesion (examples)

•

Synonyms:

– We demand freedom, we want happiness

Lexical cohesion (examples)

•

Super-ordination:

– The European Union has been organized as a federal state for commercial purposes.

Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK (… etc.) are its countries.

Lexical cohesion (examples)

• Antonyms (=opposite): – Above the tree there was a bird; watching at it below a cat was

Lexical cohesion (examples)

• Specific going to general reference: – Cuba is freedom .

holiday interesting sounds, exotic tastes and sexy It is a marvellous country where to go on

Lexical cohesion (examples)

• Ordered series: – The submarine was Then it reached sixty meters 30 m .

below the sea level.

DA & GRAMMAR

Spoken and written discourse show grammatical connexions between individual clauses and sentences.

3 types of grammatical links or cohesive devices:

1. REFERENCE 2. ELLIPSIS/SUBSTITUTION 3. CONJUNCTION

DA & GRAMMAR

1. REFERENCE

Links or cohesive devices: Pronouns, demonstratives, determiner the and expressions like such a.

(for a complete list, cfr. Halliday and Hasan, 1976: 37-9)

Anaphoric reference:

looks back in the text

Exophoric reference:

refers to the world outside the text (not truly cohesive, because its is not text-internal, but part of the reader’s active role in creating coherence)

Cataphoric reference

: we have to read on to understand the relation between the items and the referents (engaging the reader’s attention)

DA & GRAMMAR

1. A ANAPHORIC REFERENCE

Problems with ‘it’ and ‘this’ ‘that’ Also in other languages we may have problems with some cohesive items (‘sua’ in Italian, her? Your?; ‘lei’ , you?, she?) These items can be used when an entity has already been marked as the focus of attention, using by using a deictic word: a, the, my, this, that…

DA & GRAMMAR

1. ANAPHORIC REFERENCE

«Analyzing where a business stands in relation to its market and competition, enables it and potential threats. It to identify potential opportunities for growth is then possible to set strategic objectives and to predict the human financial resources needed to achieve (Intelligent Business, Intermediate, Longman: 23) them » «Globalisation is forcing businesses to make cost savings by reducing operating costs. One way to do Business, Intermediate, Longman: 58) this is by outsorcing…» » (Intelligent “Germany's Angela Merkel has restated her support for Jean-Claude Juncker to take over as president of the European Commission, at a mini-summit in Sweden. The chancellor said that while she was "happy" to say she wanted Mr Juncker for the top job, it was not "the main topic" of the two-day talks.” (BBC news, 10 June 2014)

DA & GRAMMAR

1.b EXOPHORIC REFERENCE

Related to the immediate context. Reference to a world shared by both sender and receiver.

«Leave it on the table» The Pope, the PM, the Queen.

Problems with L2 students: «Do you like the classical music?» (music being heard) «Do you like classical music?» (are you fond of that type of music?) “ The secure video conference room in the basement of the West Wing fell silent. Next to me , Secretary Bob Gates sat in his shirtsleeves with his arms folded and his eyes fixed intently on the screen. The image was fuzzy, but unmistakable. One of the two Black Hawk helicopters had clipped the top of the stone wall surrounding the compound and crashed to the ground . Our worst fears were coming true..”(The Times, 10 June 2014)

DA & GRAMMAR

1.C CATAPHORIC REFERENCE

Related to referents to come, to be mentioned later. Reader’s attention hooked.

The untold message is: «Read on and find out more».

«It has often been compared to New Orlean’s Mardi Gras as an outdoor celebration. Certainly New York’s Mulberry Street and surrounding block have been as crowded over the last few days as Royal and Bourbon Streets in the French Quarter are for the Mardi Gras. More than three million people are estimated to have celebrated the 61° annual Feast of the San Gennaro down in Greenwich Village since it began on Thursday». (The Guardian, 15 September 1987, quoted by McCarthy M. 1991: 42)

DA & GRAMMAR – Cohesive devices

2. Ellipsis and Substitution

Ellipsis: Omission of elements. Speaker/writer choice made on a pragmatic assessment of the situation.

«The children will carry the small boxes, the adult the large ones » (anaphoric); «If you could , I’d like you to be back here at 5.30» (cataphoric, but usually in front-placed subordinate clauses); Verbal ellipsis, more complex: A: Will anyone be waiting?

ellipsis) B: Bill will , I think (auxiliary echoing A: Has she remarried? B: No, but she contrasting) will one day, I’m sure (auxiliary

DA & GRAMMAR – Cohesive devices

2. Ellipsis and Substitution

Whole stretches of clauses may be omitted: «Matteo Renzi said he would add 80 euros to some salaries as soon as he could, and he has» Substitution is similar to ellipsis as it operates wither at the nominal, verbal or clausal level.

- One(s). I offered hima an ice cream. He said he didn’t want one.

- Do: Why don’t you find another boyfriend? I might do that.

-So/not: Do you need a lift? If there.

so , wait for me, if not , I’ll see you - Same: He chose the beef, I chose the same (I did the same )

DA & GRAMMAR – Cohesive devices

3. Conjunction

A conjuction presupposes a textual sequens, and signals a relationship between segments of the discourse.

Type Elaboration Extension Ehancement Sub-types apposition Examples In other words clarification or rather addition (adversative) and/but variation spatio-temporal causal-conditional alternatively there/previously consequently/in that case (Halliday 1935: 306)

DA & GRAMMAR – Cohesive devices (reference)

Syntactical Cohesion

• • • • –

Reference:

Personal pronouns

–

Demonstrative reference

–

Comparative reference

Substitution Ellipsis

Conjunctions

DEIXIS

Syntactical Cohesion - Deixis

• • • When considering the text, reference can be endophoric or exophoric

Endophoric deixis refers to other elements within the text Ex: Mark is here. He is 10 years old

•

Exophoric deixis refers to elements outside the text – in the context

Ex: Let’s go to there (people speaking know where the club is)

• • When looking at reference terms, deixis can also be ANAPHORIC or CATAPHORIC Anaphoric deixis occurs whenever a term has a reference before it appears – I love Sting’s songs.

His

last CD is terrific • Cataphoric deixis occurs whenever a term has a reference after it appears – I love

his

songs. Sting’s last CD is terrific

Syntactical cohesion – Deixis (examples)

• •

Personal pronouns

(

Endophoric

– anapora/cataphora – vs.

exophoric reference). Examples:

– Mary went to the cinema.

She wore a yellow coat (anaphora – endophoric reference) – She went to the library.

Mary wanted to buy a book (cataphora – endophoric reference)

Syntactical cohesion Deixis (examples)

• •

Personal pronouns

(Endophoric – anaphora/cataphora – vs.

exophoric

reference). Examples:

– Dialogue between two girl-friends (exophoric reference): – o A: I saw him at the pub yesterday.

– o B. Oh, did you? Was he cute, wasn’t he ?

Syntactical cohesion - Deixis (examples)

• o o o Demonstrative reference (deixis) Come here ! (= exophoric deixis) Do you like this ? (= exophoric deixis) To be or not to be.

endophoric deixis) That is the question. (= anaphoric, • Comparative reference (which tells the reader to look at the text with a specific purpose in mind) – There’s never been a better time to immerse yourself in the thrill of being part of the most exciting continent on earth – the home of couture, culture and cappuccino

Syntactical cohesion (examples)

• • • Substitution: • A hissing plume 30ft above. And roars straight out of a hole in the sky some the deluge carries on for another 30 m before tearing into the pool below’.

Ellipsis: • After all, jumping off a cliff into churning icy water behaviour suitable only for the insane – so I’ve decided that is I may as well go the whole hog (omission of ‘…

cliff into churning icy water

).

and jump off a

Conjunctions:

• And, that, but, etc.

• • • • • • • • • • •

EXERCISE: FIND OUT HOW COHESION AND COHERENCE ARE CONSTRUCTED (http://www.office-humour.co.uk/g/i/3792/)

Rob is a commercial saturation diver for Global Divers. He performs underwater repairs on offshore drilling rigs. Below is an E-mail he sent to his sister.

She then sent it to radio station 103.2 on FM dial in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, who was sponsoring a worst job experience contest. Needless to say, she won.

Hi Sue, Just another note from your bottom-dwelling brother. Last week I had a bad day at the office. I know you've been feeling down lately at work, so I thought I would share my dilemma with you to make you realize it's not so bad after all. Before I can tell you what happened to me, I first must bore you with a few technicalities of my job.

As you know, my office lies at the bottom of the sea. I wear a suit to the office. It's a wetsuit. This time of year the water is quite cool. So what we do to keep warm Is this: We have a diesel powered industrial water heater. This $20,000 piece of equipment sucks the water out of the sea. It heats it to a delightful temperature. It then pumps it down to the diver through a garden hose, which is taped to the air hose. Now this sounds like a darn good plan, and I've used it several times with no complaints. What I do, when I get to the bottom and start working, is take the hose and stuff it down the back of my wetsuit. This floods my whole suit with warm water. It's like working in a Jacuzzi.

Everything was going well until all of a sudden, my butt started to itch. So, of course, I scratched it. This only made things worse. Within a few seconds my butt started to burn. I pulled the hose out from my back, but the damage was done. In agony I realized what had happened.

The hot water machine had sucked up a jellyfish and pumped it into my suit. Now, since I don't have any hair on my back, the jellyfish couldn't stick to it. However, the crack of my butt was not as fortunate.

When I scratched what I thought was an itch, I was actually grinding the jellyfish into the crack of my butt. I informed the dive supervisor of my dilemma over the communicator. His instructions were unclear due to the fact that he, along with five other divers, were all laughing hysterically.

Needless to say I aborted the dive. I was instructed to make three agonizing in-water decompression stops totaling thirty-five minutes before I could reach the surface to begin my BR chamber dry decompression. When I arrived at the surface, I was wearing nothing but my brass helmet.

As I climbed out of the water, the medic, with tears of laughter running down his face, handed me a tube of cream and told me to rub it on my butt as soon as I got in the chamber. The cream put the fire out, but I couldn't poop for two days because my butt was swollen shut. So, next time you're having a bad day at work, think about how much worse it would be if you had a jellyfish shoved up your butt.