MAGISTER

OPOSICIONES AL PROFESORADO

Escuela Oficial de Idiomas (Inglés)

TEMA 8

ANÁLISIS DEL DISCURSO. COHESIÓN Y COHERENCIA: CONECTORES Y MARCAS DE ORGANIZACIÓN TEXTUAL. ANÁFORA Y CATÁFORA. DEIXIS. REFERENTES.

0. INTRODUCTION: DISCOURSE.

1. COHESION AND COHERENCE.

1.1. Lexical cohesion.

1.2. Reference.

1.2.1. Personal reference.

1.2.2. Demonstrative reference.

1.2.3. Comparative reference.

1.3. Conjunction.

2. DEIXIS.

3. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

4. TOPIC-BASED UNIT.

0. INTRODUCTION: DISCOURSE

The study of discourse takes us from syntax and sentence types towards discourse analysis/pragmatics and utterances.

Simple sentences can be divided into four major syntactic types. Declaratives are sentences in which the subject is present normally preceding the verb, e.g.:

My mother saw you yesterday.

Interrogatives are sentences which are formally marked. In the case of yes-no questions the operator is fronted before the subject, e.g.:

Did my mother see you yesterday?

In wh-questions the interrogative word is fronted, e.g.:

Who saw you yesterday?

Imperatives are sentences which normally have no grammatical subject, and the verb has the base form, e.g.:

Tell me a story.

Exclamations are sentences which have an initial what or how phrase. Inversion is not common, e.g.:

What wonderful weather!

These four syntactic types have four discourse functions as semantic counterparts: Statements are mainly used to convey information. Questions are mainly used to seek for information. Directives are mainly used to instruct people to do things. Exclamations are primarily used to express amazement, anger, surprise...

We do know that these two classes do not always match, e.g.:

- exclamative exclamation:

How clever you are!

- interrogative exclamation:

Isn't he clever!

The four semantic classes of discourse function distinguish these functions at a very general level but we can analyze how the semantic classes of sentences are used in actual utterances. An utterance in this sense is an act of verbal behaviour, a speech act.

In speech act analysis (where we can find an overlap of pragmatics and discourse analysis), we study the effect of utterances on the behaviour of speaker or hearer using a threefold distinction:

- locutionary act: the bare fact that a communicative act takes place.

- illocutionary act: the act that is performed as a result of the speaker making an utterance such as requesting, inquiring, promising, welcoming. Occasionally, the speaker explicitly refers to the illocutionary act being performed by using a performative verb. The British philosopher Austin was the first to point out that many utterances do not communicate information but are equivalent to actions. When someone says "I apologize", "I name this ship Titanic" ... the utterance conveys a new reality: to say is to perform.

There are thousands of possible illocutionary acts. Searle sets up five basic types:

· representatives: the speaker is committed, in varying degrees, to the truth of a proposition, e.g.: affirm, believe, deny ...

· directives: the speaker tries to get the hearer to do something, e.g.: challenge, command, request ...

· commissives: the speaker is committed, in varying degrees, to a certain course of action, e.g.: guarantee, pledge, promise ...

· expressives: the speaker expresses an attitude, e.g.: apologize, deplore, congratulate...

· declarations: the speaker alters an object or situation by making the utterance, e.g.: I resign, You're sacked ...

· - perlocutionary act: the particular effect the speaker's utterance has on the listener, e.g.: amusement, surprise, warning.

As we can see both pragmatics and discourse analysis are centrally concerned with the study of factors that govern our choice of language in social interaction and the effect of our choice in others especially in conversations as this is considered to be the most fundamental and pervasive means of conducting human affairs.

The success of conversational discourse depends on the speakers' whole approach to the interaction. Grice's Cooperative Principle describes the fact that people try to get along with each other by following certain conversational maxims that underlie the efficient use of language:

1. the maxim of QUALITY: try to make your contribution one that is true.

a. Do not say what you believe to be false.

b. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

2. the maxim of QUANTITY: Give the right amount of information.

a. Make your contribution as informative as is required.

3. the maxim of RELEVANCE: Be relevant.

4. the maxim of MANNER: Be perspicuous.

a. Avoid obscurity of expression.

b. Avoid ambiguity.

c. Be brief.

d. Be orderly.

The maxims form a necessary part of the description of linguistic meaning, even if they can be flouted or broken, and they are a very important part of this search for units longer than a sentence. They try to explain, by means of conversational implicatures, why we sometimes mean (discourse analysis-pragmatics/utterance) more than we say (syntax-semantics/sentence). We are now going to study the basic unit of this approach: the utterance.

1. COHESION AND COHERENCE.

When a speaker of any language hears or reads a passage of the language which is more than one sentence, he/she can normally decide whether it is just a series of unconnected sentences of whether they form a unified whole. Here we are going to differentiate both of them clearly.

TEXT means, in linguistics, any passage, spoken or written, on any length, that forms a unified whole. We normally know whether we are dealing with a text or a collection of unrelated sentences, although this does not mean that there can never be any uncertainty about it.

Since we can normally establish the difference between what it is a text and what it is not, we can also establish a series of objective factors involved. A text may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may be anything from a single proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to an all-day discussion or committee.

A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or sentence; and it is not defined by size. A test is sometimes envisaged by some kind of super-sentence, a grammatical unit that is larger than a sentence but is related to a sentence in the same way that a sentence is related to a clause, a clause to a group, etc.

The best way to regard a text is as a semantic unit, a unit of meaning. It is related to a clause or sentence by the coding of one system in another. A text does not consist of sentences; it is encoded in sentences.

4. TOPIC-BASED UNIT.

1. BASIC ELEMENTS.

1.1. Our school.

Our school is situated in na middle class neighbourhood and our pupils' parents show concern for their sons and daughters' future valuing education highly. Studying English is considered to be very important and we assume it is widely accepted that modern languages make a twofold contribution to the curriculum in providing linguistic/literary experience as well as human/social experience. Underlying these there is a fundamental aim of enabling learners of foreign languages to understand the foreign languages for effective communication.

1.2. Our pupils.

Our pupils are now studying the third year at the Official School of Languages. They are now 17 and in the stage Piaget termed as formal operational. Our pupils can think abstractly, solve logical problems and follow the scientific method. Adolescents with formal operational thought often reason about moral dilemmas at post-conventional levels. They base their moral judgements on their own personal values and standards, not on social conventions or the persuasion of authorities. They also show a tendency called adolescent egocentrism. They tend to think that they are more important and unusual that they really are.

2. GENERAL AIMS.

In our methodological approach, emphasis will be placed on activities in which our pupils use language for communicative purposes since it is felt that this is an integral part of successful language learning. It is therefore our main task as teachers to ensure that our pupils get a variety of activities which foster both learning and acquisition. The general aim of all our teaching is to train pupils for communicative competence, which comprises:

ELEMENTS OF COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE

· grammar competence

· discourse competence

· strategic competence

· sociolinguistic competence

· sociocultural competence

This is not an easy task and we must plan our lessons carefully. The main role we play is that of organiser. We start the ball rolling by telling our pupils what they are going to talk, read, write or speak about; get the activity going by helping those with problems and finally organise feedback.

ESQUEMA

ANÁLISIS Y ARTICULACIÓN DEL DISCURSO. COHESIÓN Y COHERENCIA. ANÁFORA Y CATÁFORA. LOS CONECTORES. DEIXIS.

0. INTRODUCTION: DISCOURSE.

*Above the sentence: - text analysis (written)

- discourse analysis (spoken)

*Discourse/text: from sentence to utterance

*Syntactic types: - declaratives

- interrogatives

- imperatives

- exclamatives

*Semantic types: - statements

- questions

- directives

- exclamations

*Pragmatic level: - utterances: . locutionary

. illocutionary

. perlocutionary

*Illocutionary acts: - representatives

- directives

- comissives

- expressives

- declarations

*Grice's Cooperative principle: - quality

- quantity

- relevance

- manner

1. COHESION AND COHERENCE.

*Text.

*Cohesion: relations in discourse

*Halliday and Hassan distinguish five kinds of cohesive relationship linking sentences: - reference

- substitution

- ellipsis

- lexical cohesion

- conjunction.

1.1. Lexical cohesion.

*Reiteration

*Collocation

CUESTIONES BÁSICAS

1. SYNTACTIC TYPES OF SENTENCES.

2. COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE.

3. LEXICAL REITERATION.

4. CONJUNCTION AS A COHESIVE RELATION.

5. DEIXIS TYPES.

RESPUESTAS

1. SYNTACTIC TYPES OF SENTENCES.

Simple sentences can be divided into four major syntactic types:

Declaratives are sentences in which the subject is present normally preceding the verb, e.g.:

My mother saw you yesterday.

Interrogatives are sentences which are formally marked. In the case of yes-no questions the operator is fronted before the subject,e.g.:

Did my mother see you yesterday?

In wh-questions the interrogative word is fronted, e.g.:

Who saw you yesterday?

Imperatives are sentences which normally have no grammatical subject, and the verb has the base form, e.g.:

Tell me a story.

Exclamations are sentences which have an initial what or how phrase. Inversion is not common, e.g.:

What wonderful weather!

2. COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLE.

The maxims form a necessary part of the description of linguistic meaning, even if they can be flouted or broken, and they are a very important part of this search for units longer than a sentence. They try to explain, by means of conversational implicatures, why we sometimes mean (discourse analysis-pragmatics/utterance) more than we say (syntax-semantics/sentence).

the cooperative principle

1. the maxim of QUALITY: try to make your contribution one that is true.

a. Do not say what you believe to be false.

b. Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.