Stephen van Vlack

Sookmyung Women`s University

Graduate School of TESOL

Discourse Analysis (Spring 2004)

Week 5 - DA Chapter 5; PD Chapter 4 - Answers

1. What is intertextuality and how does it work? (DA)

-Lack of creativity.

-Using text to create text.

Intertextuality is an idea first proposed by Bahktin and introduced to the West by Julia Kristova. The basic idea behind intertextuality is that we used surrounding texts when we speak. We `appropriate` pieces of language that we hear in our surroundings. What this really means is that we are not nearly as creative as maybe some generative linguists like Chomsky would lead us to believe. What intertextuality tells us is that in actuality when people go to speak they end up using surrounding texts in order to form their utterances. But this all boils down to this a lot of what we actually do is repeat what we have already heard. This really should not come as a huge surprise to us because if we think logically we are forced acid question where else would our language come from. Again, nothing is created from nothing. All sources of creation have to have a source and in languages case the source is language. Intertextuality occurs on two different levels or planes as is often said. Thus, there is a vertical plane and horizontal plane of intertextuality. I'm not sure that these names really help us understand the difference between horizontal and vertical so I will use the terms micro and macro respectively. Intertextuality on the microlevel correlates to basic forms. This would include the actual combination of words people use, how they save them, and even topics that people will talk about. We learn all these things or experience with the world, thus socialization is really the underlying forced which gets us to learn everything. Vertical intertextuality or the macro level corresponds to larger types of organizational patterns. These patterns include larger ways of grouping extended discourse, and we will talk more about this specifically below. Be advised that the word patterns which I have used here is of the utmost importance. In looking at this we can get an idea that language is really nothing more than a series of patterns occurring on different levels and following what we are talking about here today two basic levels; micro and macro.

2. What is register and how does it work? (DA)

Register is basically often another term for what Kristeva calla horizontal intertextuality. Register relates to the actual forms of language. The basic idea is that as people move from situation to situation they have to shift the forms they use in order to adapt to that situation. This adoption can come as a result of conscious processing; that is, the individual wants to adapt it makes it conscious choice to do so, or it can come about as a subconscious process where people adapt whether they are aware of it or not. Two important things to remember about register is that it is dependent upon context. So the context determines to register is going to be used. This of course also arises from the simple idea that is removed from context context different registers will be present. Thus, in a way, register shift is really closely tied to what we talked about last week in the idea of speech accommodation. If people want to accommodate to those around him they will shift towards them in their register if they do not want to accommodate the end table either not make register shift from the previous register are they will actually make a shift away from the register with spoken around them in that context. Another important detail of register is that in order to register shift you need to know the norms of that register. And not only do you need to know the norms but you need to have these norms specially marked in the brain for that register to you can register shift without causing difficulty or interference from other registers. Thus, register shift is often seen as being the intralingual version of code switching it would need to operate on the same psychological as well as neurological and linguistic principles in order to come about properly. Register shift of course relates to the specific forms of people are going to use, which includes two large extent the vocabulary choices they're going to make an of course what surrounds the central core of those vocabulary choices. It also includes of course the speed with which they're going to speak the accent they're going to use as well as the topic they're going to choose to talk about not to mention nonverbal language as well. All these things will alter the language performance on the speaker on a microlevel.

For example when a person goes to an academic conference they're going to have to speak on topics that are related to that conference and in a way that people in that conference expect them to speak. This would include of course the right vocabulary, the right speed and even the right type of explanatory processes. As soon as that same person leaves the conference and even with the same conference goers and goes to a bar or restaurant to register is probably going to shift. Not only will topics change but the voices of those involved will change. The speed of their speech will change as well as the patterns of language which they use. All of us shift our register several times in the course of a day and we could even say that the true test of how proficient a person is in the language, be donated speaker or non-native speaker, is how many different registers they are able to function in. We therefore see that register is really extremely important basis of our language behavior. And please, don't forget that in order to speak of register somebody has to learn to register through exposure, copying, and extending. Exposure is key if we want our students to appropriate structures to speak.

3. How do genres affect the shape of discourse? (DA)

We all have a basic idea of what genres are. We observe them on TV and read them in books. A genre refers to a specific type of linguistic endeavor. The specific types are formulated according to certain similarities in patterning. Thus a tragedy, as a type of genre, needs to follow certain patterns in the way it unfolds. Genres are part of a vertical sense of intertextuality and to such form a macro type of patterning for language. Certainly, while each genre has its own particular register, the genre goes beyond that register in the way that it must conform to certain larger sets patterning. Thus, a tragedy without an actual tragedy cannot be a tragedy. Or specifically, the tragic part needs to come at the end and not at the beginning. Thus, ordering is extremely important element to a genre. The giving of genre has been part of a very large type of function. What we think about how this relates to speaking maybe it's easier to put it this way: if I need to tell someone something I have this overall functional need, which we can call macro function. This macro function will also be composed of microphone is which together create the macro function or a discourse event as I realize that I need to feel this macro function will immediately start to think about how I'm going to approach the issue. These approaches to issues are basically genres. In deciding how to talk to someone I always need to choose a certain type of genre. Of course I try to pick genre which bets suits the situation as well as a person to talking with. So genres, like registers are subject to contextual variables. What's interesting is there are a limited number of genres in any given language set. So we really think about it for English we can probably name a dozen or couple dozen different genres that native speakers need to know and order to function in the world. Likewise, other languages have certain sets of genres. Some of the genres overlap and others don't. From a teaching viewpoint genres are very important for us because native speakers use their knowledge of genres to both create and interpret discourse. So when I go to tell someone something and I choose a specific genre in which to frame my overall discourse I am also assuming that the listener has access to that genre that is nose about the genre, and will be able to use that knowledge to quickly determine what it is am trying to talk about. This is important and it means that we have to somehow try to go about teaching genres to our students. Genres study is often left to very high level speakers of the language based on the mistaken assumption that genres only relate to sophisticated literature. This is simply not true genre relates to speaking and writing (language production) at all levels. The pal were genres is that they allow us to make predictions about where a conversation will go. They are extremely effective tools in shaping discourse and thereby allowing people to create discourse that others can understand.

4. How are plot and coherence related? (DA)

Plot generally refers to the overall sequencing or patterning of events along a time line within a piece of discourse. Thus, the plot basically tells us what's going to happen first and then what's going to happen after that and what's going to happen next. As such, plot is certainly a part of a horizontal or macro level of intertextuality. The knowledge of a type of plot allows a careful reader or listener to be better able to understand what has just transpired in a piece of discourse and what will come in the future text through the coding of certain points in relation to the plot. As a plot twists and turns new scenes and events are set up which bring the reader or listener along with the story The plot sets up sections and signals changes in the same way we might expect the inclusion of good cohesive devices to do. In this way coherence are devices which make the plot line visible (cognitively) to the reader or listener. It is interesting to note that plots themselves are highly formalized. Johnstone (2002) mentions a computer program designed to help people write which contains 18 different basic plot lines or formulas. Plot works along with genre (micro) and cohesion (macro) to enable a reader or listener to be able to make important predictions about what will come in the overall discourse.

Estimates of how much a native speaker actually understands in the general conversation or actually quite low. Some researchers have said that as little as 60 percent of an overall conversation needs to be understood for comprehension. This means that the listener is somehow feeling in all the empty spaces in the conversation which they don't understand for whatever reason. Certainly during the course of conversation our attention waxes and wanes thus not allowing us to process all the language we hear. He can be assumed that the only way to people are able to feel in such huge gaps in the conversation would be by being able to identify genre and plot in using acknowledged to make predictions about what was missing. Member that for most people in conversation we don't need to hear the a lot of the actual words. But we do need here are the words, like cohesive devices, which allow us to form large ideas about how a text is interconnected in the ideas which there then linked in that text in the overall propositions which are certainly linked to genres.

It is interesting to note that this ability to be able to feel in missing details is a very general part of our cognition. A very simple example comes from our system of vision. When you see things there is always a blind spot in your field of vision. So, as you look at this computer screen you're not actually seeing the entire screen. A certain sectional of it is missing at any one time. Your brain sees the entire computer screen, thus enabling you to process the words and letters which are on the screen, because your eyes dart back and forth thus covering up your blind spot. But the blind spot is always there innocently fielded by the memories of what was in your field of vision at one time that is no longer there. I then knowing this helps us understand a little bit about how people process language. In a linguistic event there are always parts missing. The difference between a low-level user of language and a higher level use of language may very well be how well they feel in these missing parts. We know that low-level students really don't listen very well. They can't because they have no strategies for listening. Turning us on its year these low-level users are not going to be able to speak very well either because the same knowledge which allows them to create the strategies strategies they require for listening is going to be used for speaking.

5. How does knowledge of pragmatics relate to discourse ability? (PD)

In a very general sense our knowledge of pragmatics is our knowledge of language. This of course is language in a usage sense. I think I've mentioned before in this class that may need to make a distinction in language teaching between the teaching of language and teaching about language. Teaching about language really involves simply teaching details or facts relating to the structure of a particular language, and really this is what we do in the classroom of the most part. We do this because it's relatively easy to test. Teaching about language, however, will have little or no affect on actual language use if certain connections are not made. These connections are basically about pragmatics. The knowledge of pragmatics then is the link that we need to establish between knowledge about language and knowledge of language. Only and knowledge of language will allow our students to begin to speak, and the use language, and create and interpret discourse. So, obviously we need forms the kind of forms we teach when they teach about language but we need to take this one step further and shift from the `about` phase to the `of` phase of teaching. But it is really not just that simple.

The studies we are reading have told us that knowledge of pragmatics lags behind the actual use of this knowledge. Again this should not come as a huge surprise to us. We already studied the difference between competence and performance. Competence, obviously, relates to knowledge, while performance relates to actual use. Our knowledge of pragmatics is often hard to use because usage varies tremendously based on context. The only way to understand how this usage can vary based on the context is to actually do it. Learners need to go through a series of trial and error is using certain forms (as a related to certain functions) in different contexts and seeing where they work and where they don't work. Simple one-to-one foreign function mapping does not work in language in this is what makes things tricky. It is these socio-pragmatic skills which have to be developed. Research, sadly, has shown that such skills do not generally develop outside of the target language environment. Something knowing this gives us an impetus to try to me the skills developed by creating a sociocultural atmosphere in the classroom because the classroom is the only place where are learners are going to be able to practice this. This means that we are going to seriously need to reshape not only what happens in the classroom but how we assess our students in our programs if we are really serious about getting our students to shift from a teaching paradigm restricted to teaching about language to one which integrates teaching of language.

6. What is speech act theory and why is it important? (PD)

Speech act theory is an idea developed by Austin in the 1950s. It really marked the beginning of pragmatics a separate feel the study within linguistics by defining the basic underlying mechanisms of pragmatics; namely, speech acts. The speech at really is is an action to the buy certain forms. Thinking about this we can see that really speech acts are functions. So, speech act theory is really about how certain forms in language perform certain acts or functions. Austin's basic idea is that each form has an underlying intent or purpose which speakers use. As we can see from Kasper and Rose (2002) there are certain speech acts such as requesting, explaining, apologizing and many others. Each of these basically correlate to a function, or what we now call functions. These of course are not the macro level functions which we mentioned above but rather than micro level or linguistic level functions. They serve specific purposes within an overall piece of discourse. Thus a macro level function which controls a piece of discourse would need to be composed of several micro level functions. These microlevel functions are speech acts.

For us as teachers who want our students to use the target language the importance of speech acts cannot be underestimated. Again, as we been saying throughout this course, people do not just talk. Anything we say must occur with in a functional frame. This means, then, that our students need to understand what speech acts are. At this point then, once they figured out with speech acts are, they need to find forms which match those speech acts. In essence speech acts revolve around form to function mapping. Afford to function mapping creates a speech act. Should be remembered though that the function must precede the form. Whenever we speak it comes from a specific need, that is the function. From this need we then have to find words which will allow us to fill this need. The question then is, how do we did us?

Speak acts would need to develop based on observation, appropriation, and then finally use. This use within lead to further and better use of the speech act. As teachers we need to teach speech acts but we need to know which speech acts we need to teach base in our students use or requirements in the target language. Certainly the research that we read about shows a certain developmental pattern in speech acts. This developmental pattern pertains both to the functions themselves as well as the forms which are mapped onto the functions.

There are three basic trends we can observe from the literature on developmental cycles in the development of pragmatic competence/use. These trends not only tell us how speech acts might develop, but they give us a clear indicator how we might want to go about teaching speech acts to our students. The three continuum are:

-submissive speech acts - more powerful speech acts

-routine formulas - repetition of formulas - expansion of formulas

-directness to indirectness

These three different continuum need to be tempered with a couple of different observations about how pragmatic knowledge develops.

-more knowledge than performance

-context important in developing sociopragmatic skills

Taking all these things into a talent we are left with a fairly clear idea about how we maybe want to go about teaching speech acts to our students. Their couple things in the above continuum that we need to mention briefly though. This important of these is the way in which speech acts develop. As was mentioned in research cited in Kasper and Rose (2002) the actual forms seem to develop in similar way. This can be linked actually to what we read in Johnstone as well in relation to appropriation and intertextuality. Children or new learners to a language in the event that they're actually exposed to real language will appropriate forms at those languages. These are unanalyzed forms. This means that the speaker doesn't necessarily know the role of each of the elements in the form. They simply memorize them as a solid chunk which is linked to a specific function. They have no idea that subject, object, verb, or any other grammatical categories or grammatical functions. They simply memorize the chunk and how to use it at least in the situation which was first used. At some point then they are able to use this chunk themselves. They go out and they try it and through some said of series a trial and errors they will determine where they can use it in or they can't use it in that present form. The actual form of the chunk is going to be very important because the formal determine in what type of situation that particular chunk can be used. Remember that in addition to moving from formulaic chunks to more expanded, idiosyncratic chunks of learners also develop a long a continuum of direct to indirect. This means that as their chunks become more their own they're also making them more direct which in English means much more complex syntactically and lexically. As teachers we need to be aware of these different developments so that we didn't tried to sequence a learning program for our students.This also means that we have to try to get our students to appropriate material from input. We'd ever need to set up and assumed relationship between the input and output which is actually a little bit different than Krashen had envisioned 20 years ago. Rather than focusing on simplified, comprehensible input, we need to focus on contextualized, but not completely comprehensible input. The contextualization is key to the input being comprehensible, or more comprehensible despite the different forms that are present. The basic idea is that if we want our students actually produce language we need to give them input that is at a higher level. This is quite a different viewpoint of language teaching than you might have been exposed to before but it is certainly worth thinking about in the data on pragmatic development really supports this.

7. How is pragmatic transfer related to L2 pragmatic development? (PD)

The first thing to remember is that transfer is related to all language development. Honestly transfer plays a very important role in subsequent language acquisition principally because the learner already has a wide range of knowledge about language in general as well as their own language stored in their brain. This of course, is a good thing but it can also cause problems especially when we think about pragmatic development. As was discussed above pragmatic development can be equated a very real sense with linguistic development so long as we are focusing on the use of language and this development occurs as a result of form to function mapping. In such a situation transfer is absolutely unavoidable. Transfer here is unavoidable because once we have identified functions, which we do his children for the most part, it is these functions which we used to direct all our actions in our lives. In fact we could probably say that it is through these functions that we actually view the world. Functions are how we interact not only with each other but with the world in general. Thus, when a subsequent language learner, even in the target language environment, is confronted with a need, even if that is a new need and one which they have not encountered in their first language, there still going to have to map their new form onto an old, pre-existing function. It takes a very long time for a subsequent language learner to be able to create their own new functions in the new language. Therefore transfer here is really unavoidable because were not just dealing with language forms which are separate from reality. We are dealing with linguistic functions many of which are not sufferable from the reality of the world because they come from the reality of the world.

As regards transfer, there are two types which I'm sure you know about already; positive and negative. What we need to remember is that positive transfer, and particularly for functions which are very similar in their basic sense across languages, fairly common, in fact probably more common than negative transfer. In Kasper and Rose (2002) they said studies which claim that in the early stages of development positive transfer seems to be more common and that in latter stages of development of proficiency levels higher negative transfer becomes more prevalent. I wouldn't read too much into this. It might sound we hear but this is actually what we would expect when we think about language development relating around use. The more people are able to use the language to more mistakes they're going to make. We're going actually see instances of negative transfer which we didn't see previously simply because at the lower levels speakers can support the knowledge they have with action. One way you can try to enhance positive transfer is through your feedback strategies. We often focus way too much a negative feedback and not enough on positive feedback. By focusing your own and your students attention on what they are doing right through well chosen and motivating positive feedback we are actually giving our students important information about how to actually do things. Negative feedback doesn't really work for well because were not telling people how to do things were just telling him what they did wrong which really doesn't help them to do it right. So it's important that we use feedback as a way of enhancing positive transfer.