Stephen van Vlack
Sookmyung Women`s University
Graduate School of TESOL
Discourse Analysis
(Spring 2006)
Week 7 - McCarthy, Chapter 3 and PD, Chapter 6 and James (1998) Chapter 5 - Answers
1. There are two aspects of vocabulary in discourse analysis: one is reiteration and the other organizing or signalling words which is used in a broader text. Choose one of the two and briefly explain with examples.? (McC3)
Vocabulary is the largest area of study for the learners of new languages. Most researchers agree that vocabulary should be taught in context because its meaning can be various in different situations. If learners are not aware of this feature, misinterpretations miscommunications may occur or. This chapter talks about how vocabulary items are related in texts and what learners and teachers of English should be aware of in relation to vocabulary.
According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), there are vocabulary patterns in written and spoken texts, which are coherently related. They suggest there are two principal kinds of models to describe the relations between vocabulary items in texts; collocation and reiteration. In this chapter, reiteration is the main focus. According to the article, lexical reiteration means either restating an item in a larger part of the discourse by direct repetition or else reasserting its meaning. Vocabulary is semantically related in the text, in which direct repetitions, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, superordinates and so on are used for lexical cohesion. For example, writers do not always repeat the same words in their writing; they make various choices of vocabulary which is strongly and semantically related to the topic, but are still different. In the case of speaking, people bring up the topic and expand it by reiterating the topic through their own vocabulary or take up one another's vocabulary as a sign that they accept that person`s topic. Both in written and spoken texts, people tend to choose variations, which may be very natural. Too much direct repetition may be unnatural. Proficient speakers seem to engage in this creative process rather automatically. To get used to NS' reiteration in discourse, teachers should, above all, teach learners synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, and superordinates and have them practice how they can make various choices so that they can understand and at the same time use these vocabulary items in different situations naturally and appropriately.
There is a somewhat different type of lexical relation in discourse which is probably more creative as regards vocabulary usage, which involves when our expectations as to how words are conventionally used are disturbed. Writers or speakers often challenge the accepted norms of vocabulary usage patterns in order to get the reader`s/listener`s attention. In such instances, and they are somewhat commonplace, there should be a readjustment in interpreting the meaning of the lexical items because the lexical relations are valid in particular texts although the interpretation may not correspond to dictionary definitions. Such irregular uses of the relations/connections between words and the reactions such uses get shows clearly that there are established patters for readers and listeners. Words are linked in a text and listeners/readers expect certain words to be licensed to replace one another or to be used together. Language teachers should make learners aware of this use of words in contexts and differences in meaning in different contexts so that learners will someday be ale to interpret each case individually.
There are distinctions in lexical items. A lexical item can be part of either a closed system or an open system. Such words are often referred to as grammatical vs. lexical words, function words vs. contend words or empty words vs. full words. First of all, closed systems carry the grammatical meanings of demonstrative like he, this, and a. Second, open systems are composed of creative words such as monkey, sculpture, and noise. However, there is another type of lexical item which shares qualities of both. We call them discourse organizing words. The words in this third type usually organize and structure the argument. They also take the role of signalling. For example, we can call words like issue, problem, assessment, situation, solution, and prospects as a signalling words. The role of discourse organizing words are not limited to providing information about only details but also extend to broader textual functions. That is, they provide a signal to the reader of what larger textual patterns are being realized. And discourse organizers often contribute to our awareness that a pattern is being realized. There are two major textual patterns. One of them is problem-solution, which is about how organizing words have been used to wrap round a long problem-solution text. For example, problem, response, solution, and evaluation are included here. The other is claim-counterclaim, which is about how to organize claim and counterclaim patterns. Words such as claim, assert, state, truth, and false are examples of this type.
Lexical choice
Have you ever thought about why we choose 'problem' among problem, drawback, and snag? We cannot find 'snag' or 'come up with' in formal scientific reports. Therefore, we need to teach the relationship between vocabulary and register when we teach textual signalling That is, lexical choice within the identified clusters will depend on two things as below:
context - textbook, magazine, news report etc.
audience - cultured, educated, readers of the popular tabloid press etc.
There are two types of vocabulary in discourse. One is written/formal/cultured vocabulary and the other is informal/direct idiomatic phrases. When we suggest the problem-solution pattern in informal discourse, we can use expressions as below:
to be in a fix, to be up against a brick wall, to come up trumps, to be up a gum tree
2. There are several forms and patterns of different types of talk: adjacency pairs, exchanges, turn
taking, transactions and topics, interactional and transactional talk, etc. Choose one and briefly explain about it, and consider whether there are things that can be taught and practiced to assist language learning.? (McC5)
1)Turn-taking
In real interactions, turn-taking occurs smoothly, with only little overlap and interruption, and only very brief silences between turns. Moreover, it shows three major features: 1) back-channeling, which is showing to the speaker that I am attending to the message mm, ah-ha, yeah, no, right, sure 2) utterance- completions, which means the listener 's completing the utterances for the speaker and 3) overlaps, which means that more than one person speak at the same time. When the turn shifts, there often exist several linguistic devices such as syntactic completeness, changes in the pitch level(falling intonation to signal one's turn will be ended soon), and etc. In addition, speakers need to follow certain conventions to get the turn: they need to choose the right form based on formality and appropriacy to the situation. In order to get the turn, therefore, we need to be attentive to linguistic clues mentioned above and follow certain conventions which helps choose the right form based on formality and appropriacy to the situation
Turn taking in itself is something that may not need to be 'taught', but specific linguistic realizations can be presented and practiced and significant cultural differences can at least be pointed out to the learner so that learners can function appropriately in terms of ending or getting the turn. In order to do so, teachers need to choose the right teaching materials. That is, teaching materials needs to be authentic so that learners can get exposed to how turn-taking works in real situations. Teachers also need to be careful when they design classroom activities. The looser the restrictions on what and when people may say, the more naturally the turn-taking emerge. Last but not least, teachers need to raise learners' cultural awareness with regard to turn-taking. Teachers can introduce the idea that different cultures require different norms of turn-taking by having them compare and contrast learners' culture and the target culture, or just draw their attention to the target norm of the target culture. Teachers can give explicit instruction on body language and linguistic devices which can be used to realize turn-taking.
2) Transactions
Transactions refer to talks for getting business done, whose openings and closings are marked with markers such as right, now, so, okay, or high key for openings & low key for closings. The optimal approach for practicing transactional talk is task-based learning where learners open and close talks in order to achieve a specified goal within a specified time limit.
3) Topics
There are various definitions for a topic: 1)structural view- a talk bounded by certain topic and/or transactional markers(lexical and phonological markers), 2)semantic view- with different content, 3)interactive view- more than one person makes an utterance relevant to it, 4)pragmatic view- perceived as relevant by participant in talk, 5)purely surface cohesion view- where chains of lexical cohesion peter out, and 6)dominating view- titles for the subject matter of speech events. Then, how topics start, grow, change, end? Topics are raised for a variety of reasons to achieve a certain goal or just to keep the talk going. And change in topics is signaled either by linguistic resources which include lexical devices(changes in vocabulary) and phonological devices(falling intonation and a short pause for ending a topic jumping to high key for opening a new topic).
So far, language teachers have concentrated on the vocabulary of topics. But the interactive features of topics also can be taught and practiced such as the use of markers(opening &closing), pitch changes, summarizing and evaluating.
4) Interactional and transactional talk
The first topic I am going to present is about Interactional and Transactional talk. Transactional talk is for getting business done in the world. For example, people talk in order to produce some change in the situation that pertains. On the other hand, interactional talk is for establishing roles and relationships with another person prior to transactional talk, confirming and consolidating relationships, expressing solidarity, and so on. However, the talk is hardly all one thing or the other. In natural data, even in the most strictly transactional of settings, people often engage in interactional talk such as exchanging chat about the weather and many unpredictable things. It has implications for classroom teaching. As belton(1988) mentioned, teachers have over emphasised transactional language at the expense of interactional. By teaching students these talk style, we can help them not to be embarrassed when they face unpredictable interactional talk before transactional talk.
5) Stories, anecdotes, jokes
The second thing I am going to tell you is about stories, anecdotes, jokes. The ability to tell a good story or joke is a highly regarded talent, probably in all culture. Discourse analysts tried to describe what all narratives have in common.
One anaylst , Labov(1972) specified elements that are commonly found in normal narratives. They are as follows.
(Abstracts) : short statements of what the story is going to be about
e.g) I must tell you about an embarrassing moment yesterday.
Orientation : the time, place and characters for the reader/listener
e.g) you know that secretary in our office, well, last week..
Complicating events : the main events that make the story happen
e.g) Xerox machine caught fire.
Resolutions : how the events sort themselves out
e.g) and she got $2000 compensation
(Codas) : a bridge between the story world and the moment of telling
e.g) and ever since, I've never been able to look at a mango without feeling sick.
Evaluation : making the story worth listening to /reading 1) by directly telling one's audience 2) by a number of devices internal to the story exaggeration (he came in with this huge, gi-normous watermelon.) recreating noises (and she went scr-r-r-u-nch, splat) 3) by constantly evaluating individual events
Then why do we learn these? Because, some things can be observed and taught and practised in relation to storytelling, and listening activities based on storytelling are a good way of raising awareness of narrative skills. To do this, we need to learn markers that are used in narratives : common openers, regularly occurring markers for complicating events
(1) common openers
Did I tell you about....
Have you heard the one about...
I had a funny experience last week..
(2) regularly occurring markers for complicating events
Next thing we knew...
And as if that wasn't enough..
The markers mentioned above are not given in dictionaries, and often absent from coursebooks too, though it is every bit as important as the written-text counterparts such as 'once upon a time.' When we look at real data, two things are notable. First one is about stories which collaboratively made by more than one person. Next one is about listener who is active by constantly reacting and asking questions.
Here are also teaching implication. Teachers who want to train learners in narrative skills would think of listeners as well as tellers. Activities involving joint telling are also possible using real data from radio, television chat show. Because these make more authentic contexts than the single narrator telling a tale to a wall of silence.
6) Speech and grammar
In written language, clause and sentence structure are clearly defined.
However, in speech, especially in unprepared speech, there are several ungrammatical mistakes even made by native speakers. Then what are the mistakes? They are verbless clauses, ellipses, lack of concord and omitted relative particles, false starts, slips of the tongue and so on.
e.g) The thing is is that I don't know her number.
There's a few problems are likely to crop up.
Therefore, language teachers wishing to encourage natural talk have to adjust their standards when it comes to correcting learners. That is we need to decide which features we should correct and which are the sorts os features we might let pass as typical of the kinds of things found even in native-speaker conversational.
3. What are speech acts and how do they work in shaping discourse? (PD6)
locutionary acts
illocutionary acts
perlocutionary force
We started talking about speech acts last week and this week we will go into some depth about some of the basic terminology related to speech acts. Basically speech acts consist of two different types of forces which wind up creating a third force. The first of these is the locution. When we speak of locutionary acts we are basely thinking about the specific form which the speaker is putting together. Locution basically has to do with movement and in this case the movement of muscles in the mouth to create specific linguistic forms. A locutionary act has a locutionary force, which is related of course to what the forms mean in the linguistic way. This locutionary force is matched up within the illocutionary force. The illocutionary force comes from an illocutionary act, which is basically the intent underlying the speech. In this way we can think of illocutionary force as being basically the function of the utterance.
Every speech act has two levels or forces (locutionary and illocutionary) and the overall effect of the speech act is determined by an interplay between these two forces. The important thing for us here is that the interplay between these two forces (the perlocutionary force) can only be determined in context. It is only in context that a new listener can make a decision about the interplay between these two different levels within speech acts. So, for example, if somebody says something like, "Sit down." The perlocutionary force of this speech act is going to vary tremendously depending on whether the addressee is actually sitting down or not. The context, in a very real sense, determines the meaning or force of the utterance.
As we create piece of discourse we are really be using speech acts as one of the important building blocks of our overall strategy towards the creation of discourse. I should be obvious in the above description direct speech is going to have a much stronger locutionary force which matches the illocutionary force. In situations where the illocutionary force does not match the locutionary act or force very well then we wind up with a strong perlocutionary force. Speakers go to create language they think about these things and an unconscious way in this is how discourses created.
5. What are discourse markers and how are they related to context? (PD6)
Discourse markers are forms which are used to highlight or overtly mark certain aspects or intentions in discourse! Discourse markers are used as signals which we insert within the discourse to give the listener lots of cues and clues as to how we are structuring our discourse. Discourse markers allow us to lead the listener and to get them to focus their attention on aspects of our discourse which we think are important. In this way discourse markers are in parity of two comprehension in speaking. Good speakers must use discourse markers in a very clear and patterned way.
Discourse markers, or the actual shape the discourse markers hold, occur on basically two different levels which makes them somewhat confusing and tricky to most people. The first of these levels is the linguistic level. So, a discourse marker like 'so' has certain meanings associated with it as a linguistic unit. It is used as an intensifier as well as a causal clause connector. These linguistic meetings show that 'so' a function word but of different types. It also occurs as a discourse marker in this case it is really hard to pin down all the different possible meanings of 'so'. Often the uses of discourse markers are idiosyncratic and always use of discourse markers are prey to contextual variables. In this way we can see the discourse markers really only acquire their particular use from the context. In a way we can think of discourse markers is almost being blank forms which simply acquire use from context and in many cases any kind of discourse marker form would actually fit in to a specific situation. In the text resell the sample of 'and' being used not to connector to conjoin ideas but actually this a disconnector to limit ideas.
In a way we can consider the development of discourse markers as a kind of evolutionary or developmental process in how language has developed. We could argue that all discourse markers at some point or content words and that they, with frequency, turned into function words and that they also developed a discourse marketing function based in part on their role as a functional unit of language.
For us as language teachers discourse markers are particularly problematic. This is because their meaning is very much prey to context when we are speaking. The other major problem is that discourse markers are use very differently in speaking and writing. This should not come surprised us because the chief difference between speaking and writing is how each relates to context. In speaking we react to context and use context, but rarely do we create context. Writing is quite the opposite. Writing basically revolves around the creation of context. In this way we would expect the discourse markers in writing to the much more fixed than in speaking. Based on this they are actually using different ways. As teachers we need to know some of these main distinctions between speaking and writing and discourse markers are one of them. As a writing teacher myself I often find that my students make tremendous mistakes using discourse markers. Table right using certain discourse markers to like they are speaking, and they will often speak using discourse markers and a way that is more suitable for writing. This obviously shows a high level of confusion in the student's mind. We, as teachers, need to clear this up.
I think we often send the wrong message by not clearly understanding the difference between spoken in written forms. We must and discourse markers are at the center of this.
6. How are strategics and styles in discourse related to rhetorical aims? (PD6)
Rhetorical aims refers to the overall goal of our entire piece of discourse. In this way rhetorical aims existed level far above and far more general than individual speech acts. We generally use a tort claims to refer to longer, more formal types of discourse and often monologues. When creating a piece of discourse we need to think about what are rhetorical aims are and based on that devise a strategy for how we passed think we're going to achieve those rhetorical aims. The achieving of these aims often involves using different styles in our discourse or switching back and forth between different styles as a particular type a strategy. One thing that we need to remember about this is that it is highly culturally bound. Different cultures will use different types of strategies. So, a strategy is appropriate in one cultural setting will not be appropriate in another. Another thing to remember is that styles linked speaker to certain speech community which may or may not be highly valued by listeners. So, the bottom line here is that any kind of style or any kind of strategy which a speaker uses in producing discourse must be made in relation to what they know about the listeners. If the listener is not able to interpret the speakers intention in the same way as the speaker actually intended that and there's going to be a mismatch in meaning.
We need to think of speaking as an almost magical process where for speaking to actually be effective the speaker and the listener need to actually become almost one person. The become one person in that their minds need to be interpreting the input in the same way. This sounds almost impossible but it occurs to all of us thousands of times in the course of the day and for someone is it occurs in several different linguistic codes or languages. And remember is that we're constantly shifting back and forth between using and being exposed to different styles and strategies. We don't seem to have too much difficulty with this most of the time because when we ourselves function as interlocutors, or when we are exposed to discourse and by some other interlocutor, printing is based on specific patterns which are normal to us. Again, the number of strategies and the number of different styles within a specific cultural group are highly limited. The people use them put them together is a little more varied, but the basic core is extremely limited.
Performance relates to the functions that we wish to fulfill. It is much larger or more inclusive idea than speech acts which generally refer to single utterances and their intention (illocutionary force) and their effect (perlocutionary force). The idea for performance comes from the Russian linguistic Roman Jakobsen and includes many different levels or areas which a speaker needs to focus on as they produce a piece of discourse. In Jakobsen's model they're basically three different levels or areas that a speaker needs to focus on. They are the basic level related to content or message, and interpersonal level which relates to how the speaker portrays themselves and how they think about the audience, and finally a level to the actual communicative functions. These are shown below grouped to their different levels.
Content (referential function)
Message (poetic function)
Addresser (self-expressive function)
Addressee (rhetorical function)
Contact (phatic function)
Linguistic and discourse conventions (metalingual function)
7. What are some of the major learning contexts available in the Target Language (TL) environment and how do they affect pragmatic development? (PD6)
When people go to the target language environment some of the main contexts which are available to them occur at both a social and sometimes professional level. The bottom line is that within the target language environment a learner is generally exposed to more input as well as different types of input. This could be said to be the main advantage of a target language environment, particularly for pragmatic development. The data on length of stay in the target landed environment is mixed and doesn't fully support the idea that target language environment is necessarily a better place for students to learn over a longer term. A large amount of input in enough itself is not necessarily the best determiner of how well someone is going to learn a language and in particular the pragmatic aspects of a language. More important would seem to be the type of input which people are exposed to and what they need to do in response to that input. Work-related or professional experience seems to have the largest effect on pragmatic development in the overseas setting. We can imagine that this would be due to the real and important effects of failure and the type of setting. People would need to focus attention and pay more attention to small mistakes they make to avoid making any large mistakes which might actually get them fired or kicked out of the country as a result of being fired. When more is on the line obviously people are going to pay more attention and be more careful. Such results underscored the difference between input and intake, a distinction first mentioned by Corder in 1967. Looking at a lot of this data we find that input is virtually irrelevant if people do not process that input. Even if people manage to encode the input it still doesn't mean that they are processing it. Processing seems to be the main important ingredient in being able to notice mistakes. Thus, studies which examined how people interact with peers show a very slow and sometimes nonexistent development in pragmatic skills. There are several reasons for this. One is that with people you know while you don't need to worry about your mistakes because they will still manage to understand you despite some strange language that you put together. The second observation is that when dealing with familiar people the other speaker is going to alter her or his input to match your output meaning that you are probably not going to be able to get the exposure to the type of input you need to develop your own abilities more. The same type of situation has been observed in different countries in relation to foreigner talk. Simplifying any kind of input to match what is believed to be the level of the person you're engaging with may simply involve giving them the wrong models. This occurs often and we might even go so far as to say that this is what generally happens in the target language environment to most foreigners and particularly foreigners who are ethnically marked. Thus, there is little truth to the myth that going to the target land environment is a simple to avoid any language acquisition difficulties. In order for a stay in the target language environment to actually work out to produce a great effect on the learners, the learner needs to actually go out and engage native speakers in a multitude of different contexts and actually pay attention to what's going on around them. On the other side, the target language environment needs to support the presence of foreigners by not patronizing them or treating them differently than other people but actually treating them the same as native speakers in the same type of environment. Thinking about Koreans going overseas to study in English-speaking countries we find that both the situations are often lacking.
8. How do foreign or second language setting affect pragmatic development? (PD6)
With this question we can suddenly focus on what it might be like in different classrooms based on a foreign language situation or a second language situation. Studies and in both situations really don't find a huge difference between what is actually done in the classroom. For us it should be clear that what should be done in the classroom depending on the different environments must be different. The main difference between the ESL situation and the EFL situations is the quantity and quality of input available outside of the classroom. This availability of input outside the classroom in the target language environment means that in the ESL class what a teacher really needs to do is to try to explain the the input to the students are exposed to. She doesn't need to provide practice because they may be getting that in the real world. What the ESL teacher needs try to do is make sense of the input surrounding her students so that they are confident in engaging others and basically in getting more input. She needs to teach them about how to react to input. Basically what the ESL teacher needs to do is to put a frame around all the input the students are getting. The EFL situation is different. In the EFL situation the teacher not only needs to put a the frame around the input but needs to also provide input and various types of input. This doesn't mean that all the input is coming from the teacher herself. She needs to collect input, and good sources of input, from other places and then try to get the students to practice this input. So in the EFL situation most of what will happen in the classroom should be practice. This is what studies conducted in EFL classroom situations have told us.
9. What conclusions can we draw from the research on environmental effects in pragmatic development and how can we use them in our own teaching? (PD6)
The most important conclusion we derive from all this is a happy one which basically states that we can actually teach pragmatic skills in the EFL classroom. Of course it is not easy, but it is possible and if we really want to teach language production and especially speaking, we will need to be very careful about how we can use the classroom setting to the full advantage of our students. Any focus on speaking is going to cause a necessary paradigm shift in the classroom. Not only are we going to have to choose the input we use carefully, sequencing it on some of the principles of pragmatic development we have talked about in this class but we are going to have to try to get the students to practice what they learn. Overt teaching of pragmatic patterns is valuable, but should play a rather small role in the EFL class, as should the overt teaching of anything, since it is probably not the best use of valuable class time. Most of the class should be involved with trying to get the students used to doing things as a response to the input they are exposed to. We need to prepare them for the outside world, even though it might be several years away. This is based on research which has reported that it is not necessarily the amount of input students receive which make the difference but rather what they do with the input. This means we have to carefully choose input based on our sequential plan and its degree of authenticity reflected by native speakers norms and get them to notice it and practice with it.
The second stage involves getting the students to notice and use the input in a variety of ways and in a variety of different situations. This means we have to create a special kind of atmosphere in the classroom. Foreign languages cannot be taught like other subjects for to be used successfully they need to be integrated into not only our behavior but our world view and cognition. The only way of doing this is to create a sociocultural setting in the classroom. We need to create a social microcosm within our class. Our classroom needs to be like a special space where people are expected to behave differently and actively do things differently. In addition, we need to make sure that we create classrooms that are highly contextualized. We know that context is essential in being able to understand and interpret utterances. There is no meaning without context and speaking is a reaction to or use of context. Thus a speaking-based classroom with no real context is impossible. Also, it is important that we vary to different contextual patterns, and in a meaningful way, so that the students can practice more diverse situations. Controlling the variables is the key.
10. Which mode of error do you think might be more harmful, productive or receptive? (Ja5)
While it is much harder to determine receptive errors, it is also definitely true that receptive errors are generally a lot more harmful than productive errors. In order to understand why this is true we need to go back and take a look at how people actually learn and what the relationship between production and reception in our linguistic system is. We need to learn a little bit about the brain and how it works. It should be clear to all of us that reception is primary. Students in the Human Learning and Cognition class are well aware of the simple fact that everything which we know and which we have learned must comes originally from our system of perception.
Perception is the system that drives every other system in the brain including, of course production (remember here that linguistic production is merely a specialized type of movement, both cognitive and physical). Any of the language which we or our students produce is a product of our reception. The product, however, is not necessarily direct. This means that just because you hear something doesn`t mean that it automatically enters into some sort of productive capability in the same form. While humans as well as chimps do have a specialized set of neurons called mirror neurons which allow people to actually mimic what they perceive around them, these mirror neurons are really only a tiny part of how we actually learn. We have a well developed and continually growing (as well as changing) set of neuronal connections. All our systems (cognitive and physical, and the distinction is somewhat incidental) are the product of (are housed in) the billions of connections between the synapses in the brain. It is neither easy nor always possible to create new connections quickly and in the same way they were perceived for a vast amount of reasons we cannot go into here.
Without going into excessive detail, suffice it to say that we learn first and foremost through perception. This means that mistakes which we make in processing receptive input/data are going to affect our entire system, and eventually production. Since systems are made out of perceptive data then perception errors are like poison to the entire system, including production. In this way, we could claim that all errors are perceptive in origin. Mistakes may be productive in origin, but errors are most definitely exclusively perceptive. This does not mean production itself does not exacerbate errors which or receptive in origin. As far as production goes, the more often we produce an error, the more likely we will be to reproduce that air and the stronger the error becomes in our internal cognitive system.
11. For speaking which type of error do you think might be the most problematic? (Ja5)
My personal belief based on the things I have read is that lexical errors would tend to be the most important. This is based, to a great extent, on my belief that lexis is at the center of our linguistic system. By focussing our own attention on the role of lexis in language we can see that lexis is the intersecting point that connects sound and structure with meaning. This means that it is not necessary so easy to distinguish between substance, text and discourse errors because they all might have lexis as a mitigating factor.
Aside from this, research has shown that lexical errors tend to have the greatest negative impact on comprehensibility.