Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Discourse Analysis (Spring 2004)

Week 14 - McCarthy, Michael. (1991) Discourse analysis for language teachers. Cambridge: CUP. Chapter 3, Discourse analysis and vocabulary, pp. 64-87 and Chapter 5, Spoken language, pp. 118-146 - Questions

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.

Vocabulary is the largest area to the learners of new languages. Most of people 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, it may occur mis interpretations or miscommunications. This article talks about how vocabulary items are related in the texts and what learners and teachers of English should be aware of.

According to Halliday and Hsan, 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 book, 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 direct words in their writing; they make various choices of vocabulary which is strongly and semantically related to the topic. In the case of talks, people bring up the topic and expand it by reiterating their own or take up one another's vocabulary. Both in written and spoken texts, people tend to choose variations, which may be very natural; too much direct repetition may be unnatural. People seem to be rather automatic in this creative process. To get used to NS' reiteration in discourse, teacher should teach learners synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, superordinates and give them practice how to make various choices so that they can understand and at the same time use these vocabulary in different situations naturally and appropriately.

There is somewhat different type of lexical relation in discourse which is probably more creative in vocabulary usage, where our expectations as to how words are conventionally used are disturbed. Writers or speakers rearrange the meaning of the usage of vocabulary in which readers or co-speakers interpret the meaning appropriately in the context. There should be readjustment in interpreting because lexical relations are valid in particular texts only so the interpretation may not correspond to dictionary definitions. Language teachers should make learners aware of this difference in meaning in different context and learners should interpret each case individually.

There are distinctions in language which are called closed systems versus open systems. They are often called 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 creative words such as monkey, sculpture, and noise. However, there is another concept which shares qualities of both. We call them discourse organizing words.

This third type of words 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. prospects as a signalling words. The role of discourse organizing words are information about not only detail but also broader textual functions. That is, there is a signal to the reader 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 exampes, problem, response, solution, evaluation are included in here. The other is ��claim-counterclaim, which is about how to organize claim and counterclaim patterns. The words such as claim, assert, state, truth, and false are examples.

Lexical choice

Have you ever think about Why we choose 'problem' among problem, drawback, and snag? We cannot find 'snag' or 'come up with' in the formal scientific report. 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. The 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 belows:

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.

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.