1. Discourse Analysis.pptx complete notes

Complete notes of discourse

1. What is Discourse Analysis?

2. Discourse - means the text, that is, the language used, plus the context in which it appears . “I’m hungry” is a bit of discourse that could mean a variety of things, depending on the context. Discourse Analysis - means “the study of language in use ”. It can be analyzed without context, e.g. “I’m hungry” is a subject, a verb and an adjective. To do discourse analysis means – one can take account of those individual words and the use of language in many different contexts, and understanding those contexts is necessary if we want to understand language.

3. Kiran : You got an Iphone ….. Anum : You cow. Cow ---may be used as a slur to insult, but it means intimacy , friendship. This is discourse analysis. Individual words, phrases and clauses have meaning on their own, but they can only be understood by looking at their co-text , the words that surround them, and at their context , the real-world situations in which the words are used.

4. In Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Humpty Dumpty says, “When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” Alice is unconvinced and asks if people can use words to mean more than one thing. Humpty Dumpty replies , “ The question is which is to be master – that’s all.” Discourse analysts, and linguists in general, agree with Mr Dumpty. Words mean what people want them to mean. It doesn’t matter that the dictionary might not list “We’re friends” as a meaning of cow. A discourse analytic look at Kiran and Anum’s exchange makes it clear that they agreed that it meant that.

5. DA - investigates how language constructs meaning in specific contexts. It investigates not only the linguistic features of texts and spoken discourse but also the social practices, power dynamics, and cultural norms that shape and are shaped by discourse. DA can be applied to various forms of communication, including spoken conversation, written texts, media narratives, and institutional discourse. D A - is an interdisciplinary field that examines language use beyond the sentence level, focusing on the social context and implications of communication. It encompasses various approaches and methodologies, making it a rich area of study in linguistics, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies.

6. Discourse – “the meanings made from the text in interaction with those features of context which are deemed relevant, e.g., tone of voice, facial movements, hand gestures”. Kirsten Malmakjar (2010 ). “any sequence of language in written or spoken form larger than a SENTENCE”. Geoffrey Finch (2000) D iscourse analysis is centrally occupied with two main linguistic functions: the interpersonal, and the textual. The interpersonal because it is focusing on the way in which we use language as a means of interacting with others , and the textual because it also focuses on our ability to construct COHERENT/COHESIVE 'texts'.

7. The distinctive aspect of 'discourse', however, is that it stresses the communicative dynamics of language. In this sense analyzing discourse means investigating all those features which are part of the total communicative act : CONTEXT of utterance, TENOR of relationships, MODE of discourse, and so on. All those features which are part of what the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin has called the 'concrete living totality' of language.

8. Key Concepts: 1. Text and Context : DA emphasizes the relationship between text (the actual language used) and context (the situational, cultural, and historical background). Context includes factors such as the participants, their roles, the setting, and the purpose of the communication. 2. Intertextuality : This concept refers to the way texts refer to/interact with one another. Understanding intertextuality helps analyze how meanings are constructed through connections between different discourses . Inter-discursive practices

9. 3. Power and Ideology : Discourse is seen as a site of power relations. Analysts explore how language can maintain or challenge power relations and ideologies, examining who has the authority to speak and how language can marginalize certain voices. 4. Identity and Subjectivity : DA investigates how individuals construct their identities through discourse, revealing how language reflects and shapes personal and collective identities.

10. 5. Cohesion and Coherence : Cohesion refers to the grammatical and lexical linking within texts, while coherence relates to the overall meaning and logical flow. Both are essential for understanding how discourse is structured and understood.

11. Approaches To DA 1. Conversation Analysis (CA): Focuses on the structure and organization of spoken interaction. It examines turn-taking, pauses, repairs, speech acts, and other features that facilitate communication . – Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson 2. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA): - associated with Norman Fairclough and Teun A. Van Dijk Aims to uncover the relationships between language, power, and ideology. CDA critiques social inequalities and examines how discourse maintains or challenges these inequalities .

12. 3. Foucauldian Discourse Analysis : - Michel Foucault, it explores how discourse shapes knowledge and power, emphasizing the historical and cultural contexts of language use. Foucault(1972 ) characterizes discourses as ways of talking about the world which are intricately bound up with ways of seeing and understanding it. Discourses define and delimit what is possible to say and not possible to say (what to do or not to do) with respect to the area of concern of a particular institution, political program, etc. For example, different religions have their own discourses which delimit explanation of natural behavior. Roman Catholicism now accepts that the universe began with ‘the big bang’ (scientific discourse) but that God initiated it (religious discourse).

13. 4. Narrative Analysis: Investigates how stories and narratives are constructed, focusing on structure, perspective, and the role of narratives in shaping social realities. 5. Digital Discourse Analysis : analyzes online interaction, social media discourse and the effect of digital technology on communication

14. Methodological Approaches 1 . Textual Analysis : Close reading of texts to identify linguistic features, themes, and patterns . 2. Interview Analysis : Analyzing transcriptions of interviews to understand how participants construct meaning.

15. 3. Ethnographic Methods : - involves detailed observation and analysis of communicative practices within specific cultural settings. It explores how language is used to create and maintain social relationships Dell Hymes – a communicative event – analyzes setting, participants, ends, act sequence, key, instrumentalities, norms and genre.

16. Ethno-methodologists study the conventions of conversation such as turn-taking, i.e . how people know when it's their turn to speak, and the use of adjacency pairs - the formulaic pairing of utterances, greeting-greeting, apology-acceptance , which allows people to negotiate stock situations . They analyze strategies for beginning and ending a conversation , how topics enter and disappear, and the ways in which acts of politeness and face-preservation are performed. On the basis of such analyses ethno-methodologists seek to establish the underlying 'norms' or rules of conversation which speakers and hearers implicitly follow.

17. 4. Corpus analysis : used to analyze large collections of texts to identify patterns and trends in language use . 5. Discourse markers : Examines specific linguistic features (e.g., connectors, hedges, modal verbs) to understand how they contribute to the construction of meaning . 6. Frame analysis : Identifying the cognitive structures or "frames" through which people interpret and understand social phenomena.

18. Applications Discourse Analysis has applications across numerous fields, including: 1. Sociolinguistics : Understanding language variation and change in social contexts. 2. Media Studies : Analyzing how media representations influence public perception and discourse. 3. Education : Examining classroom interactions and educational materials to improve teaching practices. 4. Health Communication : Investigating how language affects patient-provider interactions and health narratives.