Discourse and the sentence

Defining discourse
Discourse analysis
The scope of discourse analysis
Sentence and utterance
Discourse and the sentence

1. Defining discourse Discourse is the creation and organization of the segments of a language above as well as below the sentence. It is segments of language which may be bigger or smaller than a single sentence but the adduced meaning is always beyond the sentence. The term discourse applies to both spoken and written language, in fact to any sample of language used for any purpose. Any series of speech events or any combination of sentences in written form wherein successive sentences or utterances hang together is discourse. Discourse can not be confined to sentential boundaries. It is something that goes beyond the limits of sentence. In another words discourse is 'any coherent succession of sentences, spoken or written' (Matthews, 2005:100). The links between sentences in connected discourse are as much important as the links between clauses in a sentence.

2. discourse analysis One starting point is the following quotation from M. Stubbs' textbook (Stubbs 1983:1), in which discourse analysis is defined as: A: concerned with language  use  beyond the boundaries of a sentence/utterance, B: concerned with the interrelationships between language and society, C: as concerned with the interactive or dialogic properties of everyday communication.

3. M. Stubbs' textbook (Stubbs 1983:1): The term discourse analysis is very ambiguous. I will use it in this book to refer mainly to the linguistic analysis of  naturally occurring connected speech or written discourse . Roughly speaking, it refers to attempts to study the organisation of language above the sentence or above the clause, and therefore to study  larger linguistic units , such as conversational exchanges or written texts. It follows that discourse analysis is also concerned with  language use in social contexts , and in particular with  interaction  or dialogue between speakers.

4. Discourse analysis does not presuppose a bias towards the study of either spoken or written language. In fact, the monolithic character of the categories of speech and writing has been widely challenged, especially as the gaze of analysts turns to multi-media texts and practices on the Internet. Similarly, one must ultimately object to the reduction of the discursive to the so-called "outer layer" of language use, although such a reduction reveals quite a bit about how particular versions of the discursive have been both enabled and bracketed by forms of hierarchical reasoning which are specific to the history of linguistics as a discipline e.g. discourse analysis as a reaction against and as taking enquiry beyond the clause-bound "objects" of grammar and semantics to the level of analysing "utterances", "texts" and "speech events"; see also: discourse analysis as engaging itself with meaning that cannot be located in the "linguistic system".

5. Another inroad into the development of a discourse perspective is more radically antithetical to the concerns of linguistics "proper". Here the focus is on the situatedness of language use, as well as its inalienably social and interactive nature - even in the case of written communication. Coming from this end, the sentence/clause as a primary unit of analysis is dislocated irredeemably and "moving beyond the sentence" becomes a metaphor for a critique of a philological tradition in which the written has been reified as paradigmatic of language use in general. In this version, discourse analysis foregrounds language use as social action, language use as situated performance, language use as tied to social relations and identities, power, inequality and social struggle, language use as essentially a matter of "practices" rather than just "structures", etc.

6. The scope of discourse analysis Discourse analysis has grown into a wide-ranging and heterogeneous discipline which finds its unity in the description of language above as well as below the sentence and an interest in the contexts and cultural influences which affect language in use. For example A asks; 'why are you weeping?' B replies; 'shocked.' The reply of B is not a sentence according to the standard sentence pattern but the meaning is clear and it is context that leaves no doubt in the mind of A about the cause and effect of B's being shocked thus discourse is the creation and organization of language above as well as below the sentence.

7. It is segments of language which may be bigger or smaller than a single sentence but the adduced meaning is always beyond the sentence. It is not only concerned with the description and analysis of spoken interaction but it deals with written discourse. People daily encounter hundreds of written and printed words: newspapers, recipes, stories, letters, comics, notices, instructions, leaflets pushed through the door, and so on. They usually expect them to be coherent, meaningful communications in which the words and/or sentences are linked to one another in a fashion that corresponds to conventional formulae, just they we do with speech.

8. Discourse analysis has received ever-increasing attention from different disciplines. It includes taxonomy, speech act theory, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnographies of communication, pragmatics, conversation analysis, and variationist discourse analysis and ranges from philosophy to linguistics to semiotics to sociology to anthropology, and so on. Such a wide range of its fields indicates that the notion of discourse is itself quite broad. This may also suggest why discourse analysis has emerged as a special interest in the past few decades—the fact that diverse fields find the study of discourse useful indicates larger cultural and epistemological shifts.

9. Sentence and utterance Although there might appear little difference in the kind of information which is presented in these alternative formulations, there is considerable difference in the purpose for which these formulations are made. A sentence is an exemplificatory device and that its function is simply to give concrete realization to the abstract features of the system of language. Sentences are an exemplification of linguistic rules while utterances are a direct realization of linguistic rules.

10. It is an important point to make clear the relationship between them: utterances being 'derived' from sentences, or sentences 'underlying' utterances. Sentences are simply construct devised by linguists to exemplify the rules of the language system and that a speaker therefore may have no knowledge of the sentences as such at all. An illiterate speaker has an innate knowledge of the rules of the language system acquired through his natural linguistic development and he composes his utterances by direct reference to them and not by reference to sentences.

11. One might say that sentences exemplify the rules which the speaker realizes in the making of utterances. The knowledge one has of one's language can be expressed in the form of sentences since a grammar is defined as a description of the sentences of language. What the speaker of a language knows is sentences. This comes out clearly when Chomsky speaks of language acquisition; 'Clearly, a child who has learned a language has developed an internal representation of a system of rules that determine how sentences are formed, used, and understood.' (Chomsky 1965:25)

12. Discourse and the sentence We have, then, two different kinds of language as potential objects for study: one abstracted in order to teach a language or literacy, or to study how the rules of language work, and another which has been used to communicate something and is felt to be coherent This latter kind of language – language in use, for communication- is called discourse; and the search for what gives discourse coherence is discourse analysis. It is important to notice that the distinction between these two kinds of language ) is often more a question of the way we use or think about a particular stretch of language which someone has used in communication and treat it as a sentence for a translation exercise, or an object for grammatical analysis.

13. Conversely, it is possible to take a sentence from a language teaching or linguistic textbook, go to the country where the language is spoken, say it to someone in an appropriate situation and achieve something by saying it. Discourse may be composed of one or more well-formed sentences – indeed it often is- but it does not have to be. It can have grammatical “mistakes” in it, and often does. Discourse treats the rules of grammar as a resource, conforming to them when it needs to, but departing from them when it does not. Discourse can be anything from a grunt or single expletive, through short conversation and scribbled notes, or a lengthy legal case.

14. What matters is not its conformity to rules, but the fact that it communicates and is recognized by its receivers as coherent. This leads us to the disturbing conclusion that there is a degree of subjectivity in identifying a stretch of language as discourse- it may be meaningful and thus communicate to one person in a way which another person does not have the necessary knowledge to make sense of- yet in practice we find that discourse is usually perceived as such by groups, rather than individuals.