Transcript Approaches to Discourse

Approaches to Discourse
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Universitas Negeri Semarang
Speech Act Theory
(Austin 1955, Searle 1969)
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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
speaker’s intent (illocutionary force) to achieve a particular
purpose.
Neither Austin nor Searle were concerned with the analysis
of continuous discourse.
Speech Act Theory
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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.
Interactional Sociolinguistics
(Gumperz 1982, Goffman 1959-1981)
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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.
Interactional Sociolinguistics
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Schiffrin (1987): focused on quantitative
interactive sociolinguistic analysis, esp. discourse
markers (defined as ‘sequentially dependent
elements which bracket units of talk).
Schiffrin’s 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.
Ethnography of Communication
(Dell Hymes (1972b, 1974)
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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’.
Ethnography of Communication
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Speech event refers to ‘activities … that are directly
governed by rules or norms for the use of speech’ (Hymes
1972:56)
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 ethnographer’s aim
being to discover rules of appropriateness in speech events.
Genres often coincides with speech events
Ethnography of Communication
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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.
Pragmatics
(Grice 1975, Leech 1983, Levinson 1983)
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Formulates conversational behaviour in terms of general
“principles” rather than rules.
At the base of pragmatic approach is to conversation
analysis is Gricean’s 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).
Pragmatics
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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.
Conversation Analysis (CA)
(Harold Garfinkel 1960s-1970s)
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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).
Conversation Analysis (CA)
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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 turntaking 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.
Conversation Analysis (CA)
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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.
Variation Analysis
(Labov 1972a, Labov and Waletzky1967)
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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.
Variation Analysis
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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.
Structural-Functional Approaches
to Conversation