Units of analysis in discourse

Beyond the sentence

‘super sentence’ school. identifying and naming regularly recurring patterns in

discourse. grammarians formulate rules for describing the

sentences of a language in terms of those elements that are obligatory to the sentence and those that are optional.

Sentence= NP +VP + NP + [AdvP].

(NP = noun phrase; VP = verb phrase; AdvP = adverbial phrase):

Beyond the sentence

NP VP NP AdvP

I enjoyed the movie yesterday

She has an interview tomorrow

They're seeing us tonight

They might be joining us next week

Beyond the sentence

‘discourse grammars’

we can describe well-formed sentences in terms of optional and obligatory elements.

discourse grammars would specify those optional and obligatory elements that would distinguish between coherent and non-coherent discourse.

Beyond the sentence

T: The questions will be on different subjects, so, er, well, one will be about, er, well, some of the questions will be about politics, and some of them will be about, er...what? S: History. T: History. Yes, politics and history and, um, and...? S: Grammar. T: Grammar’s good, yes ... but the grammar questions were too easy. S: No. S: Yes, ha, like before. S: You can see ... ((inaudible)) T: Why? The hardest grammar question I could think up – the hardest one, I wasn’t even sure about the answer, and you got it. S: Yes. T: Really! I’m going to have to go to a professor and ask him to make questions for this class. Grammar questions that Azzam can’t answer.((laughter)) Anyway, that’s um. Thursday ... yeah, Thursday. Ah. But today, er, we’re going to do something different ... S: ...yes ... T: ... today, er, we’re going to do something where we, er, listen to a conversation – er, in fact, we’re not going to listen to one conversation. How many conversation’re we going to listen to? S: Three? (Nunan: 1989).

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T: The questions will be on different subjects, so, er, well, one will be about, er, well, some of the questions will be about politics, and some of them will be about, er...what? S: History. T: History. Yes, politics and history and, um, and...? S: Grammar. T: Grammar’s good, yes ... but the grammar questions were too easy. S: No. S: Yes, ha, like before. S: You can see ... ((inaudible)) T: Why? The hardest grammar question I could think up – the hardest one, I wasn’t even sure about the answer, and you got it. S: Yes. T: Really! I’m going to have to go to a professor and ask him to make questions for this class. Grammar questions that Azzam can’t answer.((laughter)) Anyway, that’s um. Thursday ... yeah, Thursday. Ah. But today, er, we’re going to do something different ... S: ...yes ... T: ... today, er, we’re going to do something where we, er, listen to a conversation – er, in fact, we’re not going to listen to one conversation. How many conversation’re we going to listen to? S: Three? (Nunan: 1989).

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Initiation T: The questions will be on different subjects, so, er, well, one will be about, er, well, some of the questions will be about politics, and some of them will be about, er...what?

Response S: History. Evaluation T: History. Yes, politics and history Initiation and, um, and...? Response S: Grammar. Evaluation T: Grammar’s good, yes ... re

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Sinclair and Coulthard called this three-part structure an exchange'. • The three components making up the

exchange they called moves, which were made up of speech acts.

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They found that entire lessons consisted of transactions, which were made up of these three-part exchanges. Each transaction, within the lesson is explicitly signalled by a 'framing' move consisting of a phrase such as. OK, right, then, now.

The basic building block of the lesson, then, is the speech act, which is an utterance described in terms of its function. Some of the speech acts are as follows:

ACT FUNCTION EXAMPLE

Accept Shows the teacher has heard and accepts the st.'s utterance

OK, Good

Bid Signals student's desire to respond

Sir! Teacher

Nomination Teacher selects student for response

Azzam

• This model is used to draw up 'rules of discourse' which specified the optional and obligatory elements within a given exchange.

• This method is therefore similar to that followed by sentence grammarians described earlier.

• Why classrooms?

1. A convenient places to start

2. They make a formal environment where there are clear rules of procedures

3. Functions and power relationships between participants are well defined

The applicability of the ‘super sentence’ metaphor on different types of interaction

Developing a set of ‘rules’ to describe the previous text:

Question

Answer

question types in English: Yes-No Questions Wh-Questions Tag questions Choice Questions Hypothetical Questions Embedded questions Leading questions

Then… there is no one-to-one relationship between form and

function in other discourses, such as telephone exchange.

There are other types of interaction in which the underlying patterns are relatively easy to perceive. Examples might include simple shopping transactions, parts of courtroom ritual, marriage ceremonies and so on.

When if comes to casual conversation, it becomes much more difficult to devise rules for capturing the regularities in the interaction.

This does not mean that there are no rules and regularities, merely that they are much more difficult to identify.

The problem in attempting to use the grammatical sentence as a metaphor for analysing discourse is that, like any metaphor, when applied too rigidly, it begin to break down. returning to the sentence pattern

Sentence= NP +VP + NP + [AdvP]. Compare with:

1. I had a party yesterday 2. Yesterday, I had a party

returning to the sentence pattern Sentence= NP +VP + NP + [AdvP].

We would also need to place restrictions on the NP and VP elements to make our rule more precise.

For example, we would need to specify that the main verb in the VP must be transitive, thus disallowing sentences that do not require or allow an NP to follow the VP; for example:

1. Tom died 2. Annie smiled

In the case of discourse, if we were to take this type of analysis beyond the level of the sentence, we would need to develop a ‘discourse grammar' which would specify what utterances or sentences were optional and obligatory within a given discourse.

However, tightly specifying what is or is not allowable beyond the level of the single utterance is almost impossible.

Adjacency Pairs

certain classes of utterances in conversations conventionally come\co-occur in pairs.

Example: question answer greeting greeting invitation acceptance(declination) offer acceptance (refusal) acceptance rejection compliment acknowledgement acceptance/rejection) request grant (Clark & Clark, Ch. 6)

1. Offer A: Like a lift? -acceptance B: You saved my life. -refusal B: Thanks, but I’m waiting for my friend 2. Compliment A: That’s a nice shirt. -acceptance B: Thanks -rejection B: Well, I think it makes me look old -agreement B: It’s quite nice, isn’t it? -shift B: Judy found it for me. -return B: Thanks, I like yours too. 3. . Blame A: You broke the glass - denial B: I didn’t do it. - admission B: Sorry, I didn’t see it.

Adjacency Pairs

A: How much was it? B: Pound fifty. even here there are problems in predicting what will occur in discourse.

A: How much was it? B: Oh, you don't really want to know, do you? A: Oh, tell me. A: Wasn’t cheap. A: Was it a pound? B: Pound fifty.

Adjacency Pairs

The Adjacency pair may be separated by a number of intervening utterances which make up what is known as an insertion sequence.

A: How much was it? B: Oh, you don't really want to know, do you? A: Oh, tell me. A: Wasn’t cheap. A: Was it a pound? B: Pound fifty.

Such insertion sequences are common in all forms of

interaction; and make the specification of optional and obligatory elements within discourse extremely difficult.

Adjacency Pairs

The Adjacency pair may be separated by a number of intervening utterances which make up what is known as an insertion sequence.

A: How much was it? B: Oh, you don't really want to know, do you? A: Oh, tell me. A: Wasn’t cheap. A: Was it a pound? B: Pound fifty.

Such insertion sequences are common in all forms of

interaction; and make the specification of optional and obligatory elements within discourse extremely difficult.

Adjacency Pairs