What Is Discourse

Analysis?
Group 1:
Birgita Angela
Dewa Gede Abisha Yogananda
Adriel Horacio Amadeus
 An overview of discourse
analysis

Table of Particular issues of interest to

Contents discourse analysts

Different views of discourse

analysis
 What is "Discourse"?

In linguistic, 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.
 Discourse analysis examines patterns of
language across texts and considers
the relationship between language and
What is the social and cultural contexts in
which it is used.

Discourse
Analysis? Discourse analysis also considers the
ways that the use of language presents
different views of the world and
different understandings.
The term “discourse analysis” was first introduced by Zellig Harris in
1952 as a way of analyzing connected speech and writing.

Harris' two main interests:

The examination of language beyond the level of the sentence
The relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic behavior

“connected discourse occurs within a particular situation – whether

of a person speaking, or of a conversation, or of someone sitting
down occasionally over the period of months to write a particular
kind of book in a particular literary or scientific tradition”
The Relationship
Between
Language and
Context
 Examples:
An air traffic controller says to a Me to my friend when we are
pilot: waiting to pick someone up at
“The runway is full at the the airport:
moment” “The runway is full at the
(means it is not possible to land moment”
the plane) (means an explanation of why
the plane is late landing and not
the instruction to not land the
plane)
 Van Dijk explained the meaning of
context, namely 'It is not the social
situation that influences (or is
The Relationship influenced by) discourse, but the way
the participants define (original
Between emphasis)’ the situation in which the
discourse occurs”
Language and Chimombo and Roseberry (1998) argue
the primary purpose of discourse
Context analysis is to provide a deeper
understanding and appreciation of texts
and how they become meaningful to
their users.
 The Discourse
Structure of Texts
 Discourse analysts are also
The Discourse interested in how people
organize what they say in the
Structure of sense of what they typically say
first, what they say next, and so
Texts on in a conversation or piece of
writing.
 Examples:
In English culture: In Japanese culture:

Dear Mr. Jun, Dear Mr. Jun,

I would like to inform you … Good morning! It’s such a

beautiful day today here in
Osaka.
…
Cultural Ways of Speaking & Writing

Languages has many social and cultural contexts that are

unique to each of them, details such as who is speaking to
whom, about what, for what purpose, where and when.

Example: Different in cultural ways of buying and selling things

in different. If you by lunch in a takeaway shop in an English-
speaking country, you might have to say things such as please
and thanks, more so than if you do this in Japan.
 Social researchers, for example, might
argue that all their work is concerned with
the analysis of discourse, yet often take up
the term in their own different ways.

Different Views Discourse analysis has shifted from highlighting

of Discourse one aspect of language usage to another, as well

as being used in different ways by different
researchers.
Analysis Parallelism (a repeat of grammatical structures for
rhetorical effect), 'who clauses' (lowering the
processing load of the speech so listeners focus on
the content of the clauses that follow, and 'rule of
three' in Barack Obama's victory speech.
 - Discourse as the social construction of reality see texts
as communicative units which are embedded in social
and cultural practices.

Discourse as - Discourse is shaped by language as well as shaping

language.
- It's also shaped by the discourse that has preceded it
the Social and that which might follow it.

Construction Wetherell's analysis of an interview with Princess

Diana in 2001. Princess Diana shows through the use

of Reality of language how she 'construes' her social world,

presenting herself as a sharing person and Prince
Charles as 'a proud man who felt low about the
attention his wife was getting'.
 Discourse and socially
situated identities

The way we display our identity is influenced by the way

we dress, the gestures we use, and the way/s we act and
interact. Other factors include the ways we think, the
attitudes we display, and the things we value, feel, and
believe.
 Discourse and socially
situated identities

According to Gee (2011), the ways we make visible and

recognizable who we are and what we are doing involves
more than just language and involves acting, interacting,
and thinking in certain ways.
 Discourse and The Princess of Wales in the
Panorama interview knows how to
socially situated enact the discourse of a Princess
being interviewed about her private
identities: Example life in the open and public medium
of television.
On the other hand, this discourse may
be different (but still related) to the
discourses in her role as mother of her
children, and the public and private roles
and identities she had as the wife of the
Prince of Wales.
As such, given discourse can involve
https://www.nationalworld.com/news/people/diana-panorama-investigation-why-
lord-dyson-ordered-report-on-martin-bashirs-1995-interview-with-princess-of-wales- more than just one single identity
3243508
(ibid.).
 Discourses:
involve the socially situated identities that
we enact and recognize in the different
settings that we interact in.
include culture-specific ways of performing
Discourse and and culture-specific ways of recognizing
identities and activities.
socially situated include the different styles of language that
we use to enact and recognize these
identities: identities (different social languages (Gee
1996 )).

Conclusion Involve characteristic ways of acting,

interacting, feeling, showing emotion,
gesturing, dressing, and posturing.
Involve ways of valuing, thinking, believing,
knowing, speaking and listening, reading,
and writing (Gee 2011).
 Discourse and
Performance
Gee explains that:
a Discourse is a ‘dance’ that exists in the abstract as a coordinated
pattern of words, deeds, values, beliefs, symbols, tools, objects, times,
and places in the here and now as a performance that is recognizable
as just such a coordination. Like a dance, the performance here and
now is never the same. It all comes down, often, to what the ‘masters of
the dance’ will allow to be recognised or will be forced to recognize as
a possible instantiation of the dance. (36)

 Discourse and
Performance
The notion of performativity derives from speech act theory and the work of the
linguistic philosopher Austin. It is based on the view that in saying something, we do
it (Cameron and Kulick 2003).

For example, If one has said “I promise” that means they have committed themself to
do something. Once a priest or a marriage celebrant says “I now pronounce you
husband and wife”, that means the couple has ‘become’ husband and wife.

Thus, performance brings the social world into being (Bucholtz and Hall 2003)

 Discourses are socially constructed, rather than

‘natural’. People ‘are who they are because of
(among other things) the way they talk’ not
‘because of who they (already) are’ (Cameron
1999: 144).

Discourse and For example, the way a rap singer uses

language, what they rap about and how they

Performance present themselves as they do this, all

contribute to their performance and creation

of themselves as a rap singer (Pennycook

2007).

https://watsup.tv/music/11549/rap-and-culture-around-the-
world.html
 At the same time, we are not necessarily who
we are because of how we look physically or
where we were originally born.

Example: Otsuji (2010: 189).

Otsuji’s parents are ethnically Japanese. She

Discourse and was born, however, in the United States.

She has lived in Japan, as well as in Scotland,

Performance
Singapore, Holland, and Australia.
When she tells this to a Japanese person in a
casual meeting a frequent reply is ‘Then you
are not Japanese’.
This is despite the fact that Otsuji is
Japanese in appearance, speaks Japanese, has
lived in Japan, and has strong family
connections in Japan.
 Discourse and
intertextuality
Bazerman (2004: 83) argues that “We create our texts out of the
sea of former texts that surround us, the sea of language we live in.
And we understand the texts of others within that same sea.”

All texts may implicitly or explicitly cite other texts. Thus we ‘make
sense of every word, every utterance, or act against the background
of (some) other words, utterances, acts of a similar kind’ (Lemke
1995: 23). So it can be argued that all texts are in an intertextual
relationship with other texts.
 Discourse and
·Casablanca (1942) as discussed by Umberto
Eco (1987):
the film Casablanca was made on a very
intertextuality: small budget and in a very short time. As
a result, its creators were forced to
Example improvise the plot as they went.
Casablanca has been so successful
because it is not a single kind of film
genre but a mixing of stereotyped
situations that are drawn from several
different kinds of film genres.
As the film proceeds, the audience
recognizes the film genres that they
recall and recognizes the pleasures
experienced when watching these kinds
of films.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/
 Discourse and ·Wang’s (2007) study of newspaper commentaries in
Chinese and English on the events of September 11:
One of the most striking differences found was
intertextuality: that in the Chinese texts the writers often drew
their views from other sources but made it clear
Example they were not the authors of the texts. They did
not attempt to endorse or take a stance toward
these views.
In the English language texts, the writers took the
points of view they were presenting as widely
held within their community and did not try to
distance themselves from them.
Many of the differences can be traced back to
the different sociocultural settings in which the
text occurred, and especially the role of the
media in the two different countries.
As such, Media discourses, while are often global,
are, at the same time, often very local (Machin
and van Leeuwen 2007).

https://www.businessinsider.com/september-11-911-newspaper-headlines-2018-9

 Summary and Conclusion

Discourse analysis considers the relationship between language and the
social and cultural contexts in which it is used. It considers what people
mean by what they say, how they work out what people mean, and the
way language presents different views of the world and different
understandings. This includes an examination of how discourse is shaped
by relationships between participants, and the effects discourse has upon
social identities and relations.
 Summary and Conclusion
Discourse analysis takes us into the ‘bigger picture’ (Riggenbach 1999) of
language description. It takes us into the social and cultural settings of
language used to help us understand a particular language choice.
Specifically, it takes us beyond description to explanation and helps us
understand the ‘rules of the game’ that language users draw on in their
everyday spoken and written interactions. Furthermore, there are many
ways in which one could (and can) approach discourse analysis. What each
of these ways reveals is, in part, a result of the perspective taken in the
analysis, and the questions that have been asked.
Thank You!
Do you have any questions for us?