Discourse

ASSIGNMENT

English Language Teaching

Discourse

Jayshree Kunchala Sem:3 Roll No:10 Guided By: Prof.&Dr.Dilip Barad

Submitted To : Department of English, M.K.Bhavnagar University

4/10/2014

Introduction

Discourse

Definition of Discourse

 Foucault presents possibly the best definition of discourse. He says “systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, and course of Acton, beliefs and practices that systematically construct the subject and the world of which they speak. Originally it has roots in the Latin language. The term assumes slightly different meaning in different context but in literature discourse mean speech or writing normally longer than sentences which deals with a certain subject formally in the form of writing or speech in other words discourse is a presentation of language in its entirety while performing an intellectual inquiry in particular area or field i.e. Theological discourse or cultural discourse.

The study of discourse is the study of language independently of nation of the sentence. This usually involves studying longer (spoken and written) text but above all it involves examining the relationship between a text and the situation in which it occurs. So even a short notice saying no bicycles can be studied as a discourse. A discourse analyst would be interested in the following question about the notice. Who wrote the the notice and to whom it is addressed example a person in author addressing it to a general public this might explain what appear be a rather abrupt elliptic imperative. Don’t ride/park your bicycle here! How do we know it means? In fact in the situation it was taken from the windows of a bicycle hire shop it meant we have no more bicycle hire and the most plausible interpretation was that the shop was informing potential customers that it had run out of bicycles. So the grammar was not an imperative but a statement. What factors unable us to interpret this? They are clearly not ‘in’ the text but are an interpretation based on the text in its context.

Grammatical (syntactic) analysis of sentences has no such constraints on it. Sentences can be studied in isolation as blocks of language illustrating well or ill formed grammar. Sentences grammarians consider questions about the circumstances of production and reception in contexts as something of a distraction for them all that is necessary to know about No Bicycles is that it is a noun phrase one which is licensed to act as subject or as an object  complement what is missing from the usual sentence structure are abstract element such as verb phrase and a noun phrase to act as subject. Who or what the subject is can be specified by the kind of subject permitted by the chosen verb this is what grammarians by well formedness.Discourse analysts are also interested in things being well formed but by quite different criteria. For discourse analysts the questions of who uttered the words no bicycles where when and for whom and with what goal are all relevant to and interpretation as to whether the act of utterance is well formed for this reason. Discourse analyst work with utterance words written in spoken in specific context rather than with sentences of words conforming or not to the rules of grammar for the construction of phrases clauses.  

Discourse analysts study both spoken and written text although sometimes a rather artificial distinction made between those who worked with written text generally deferent model have grown up for analyzing spoken and written language. It is widely agreed there is no simple single differences between speech and writing the most useful way to conceive of the differences between speech and writing the most useful way to conceive of the differences is to see them as scale along with individual texts can be plotted. For example casual conversation tends to be highly involved inter personality detachment or distancing oneself by one speaker or another is often seen as socially problematic. Public notice on the other hand tend to be detached we cannot speak in absolute only about what is most typically created ‘online’ or spontaneously and received in real time writing is most typically created offline composed at one time and read at another usually at time for reflection and revision can exaction would be real time emailing by two computers simultaneously on line to teach other one of the reason why email is felt to be more like than writing.

The terms text and discourse are often used inter changeably to refer to the language beyond the sentence example the study of any utterance  part of context but equally a distinction is sometimes a made between text as a product of language use for example public notice saying cycling forbidden or transcript of a novel or an academic article or a transcript of conversation and discourse as the process of meaning creation and interaction whether in writing or in speech. A further complication is that the terms texts linguistics and discourse analysts have respectively become strongly associated with the study of either written text or spoken reading or transcripts both approaches made significant contribution to applied linguistics and language teaching both go beyond the notion of language   teaching both both go beyond the notion of language as an abstract system of examine language in social context in the focus on producers and receivers of language as much as language and as an influential force first emerged in the early 1970 and since then has been has been predominantly associated with studies on the spoken language. In the 1960 considerable interest built in the sociologically oriented study of language with hymens work 1964 inspiring from ethnography as much as from linguistic providing grounding for a socially oriented model of spoken language. Also in the 1950. Mitchell and the published seminal article on the relationship and roles and the physical settings in which talk occurred.

Discourse analysis emerged in this climate of growing interest in the mourning creation in real situation where text alone insufficient evidence for the linguist.

And settings, participants and goals of interaction came to the fore. It is this brooded emphasis on setting and other nonlinguistic features of integration that sets spoken discourse analysts apart from text linguistics although in recent years with the emergence of genre analysis and critical discourse analyses see current and future trends and direction below distinctions between predominantly spoken discourse  analysts apart from text linguist although in recent years with the emergence of genre analysis and critical discourse analysis see current and future trend below distinction between predominantantly written text and predominantly spoken discourse analyses have blurred somewhat. An important and influential study of spoken discourse was carried out by.

Conclusion

Discourse rather than a language and sentences it takes the line the speech and writing need to be considered in their separate manifestation and that separating them reses important for issues of description but what units written and spoken language is both media communication can be studied social context and through a real text this means a theory of language of evidence is externally existing in social world not inside the linguist had intuition. This last point profound resonance in a practical way in which applied a language teacher conduct their own proffesitional discourse and shape them slaves as a perceptional community as well as in our attitudes to syllabuses.