Discourse Analysis

What is Discourse Analysis?

Discourse analysis is the study language and the deeper meaning in ways language is used. People use various ways of communication not only by verbal conversations but also letters, e-mail, and even body language. The object of discourse analysis is all these kinds of communication. Coulthard lists the main concerns of discourse analysis as “how speakers take and relinquish the role of speaker, how social roles affect discourse options in terms of who speaks when and what they can talk about, how non-verbal signaling works and how the actual form of utterances is conditioned by the social relationship between the participants” (11). Discourse analysis is focused on the relationship between a speaker and a listener and the context of situation.

What is Discourse?
To understand this field, it is necessary to know what discourse is. The term ‘discourse’ has three definitions: language beyond the level of the sentence, language behaviors linked to a social practice, and language as a system of thought. Let’s take a look at each definition, and then the significance and methods of discourse analysis.

Definition 1:  Language Beyond the Level of the Sentence
▼ Discourse analysis and interpretative repertories

Discourse analysis investigates a variety of kinds of data. For example, analysts study spoken accounts generated during informal interviews, research papers published in formal academic journals, and letters between scientists.They also investigate verbal and textual materials such as television current affairs programs, the official record of speeches in the House of commons and newspaper reports, for instance. Accounts drawn from recordings of interviews between researchers and respondents are a common source of data in discourse analysis.

Definition 2: Language Behaviours Linked to a Social Practice

"What is Meant by "Discourse Analysis"?" notes that "Discourse analysis foregrounds language use as social action, language use as situated performance, language use as concerned with social relations and identities, power, inequality and social struggle language use as essentially a matter of "practices" rather than just "structures", etc." Social practice is reflected in language behaviours.

Definition 3: Language as a System of Thought

Thought takes place within a mental language. There is no such thing as universal truth, as truth and knowledge depend on historical and cultural information. What this means is that when some people talk about terrorists, others might talk about the same people as freedom fighters. Terrorist means a person who takes part in terrorism and freedom fighter means a person who use violence to remove a government from power. One is negative, but the other has a positive meaning. Differences in ideas about truth/knowledge such as these words are often caused by differences in social and historical situations. 

Why is Discourse Analysis Studied?

Language has been studied by focusing on the meaning of units, such as a word or a sentence. However, this style of study is not enough for linguists to explain the meaning of utterances. For example, think about this sentence: I am 20 years old now. The meaning of the sentence is clear. But it is necessary to know the situation or context to understand who is “I” or when is “now”. Coulthard introduces the statement of Firth: “language is fundamentally ‘a way of behaving and making others behave’ and therefore ultimately the linguist must concern himself with the ‘verbal process in the context of situation’” (1) .The aim of studying discourse analysis is to understand the interaction in language. By studying this field, we will be able to catch the meaning of utterance from different points of view.


How to study Discourse Analysis
In our life, the way of communication which is most frequently used is the conversation, and one of the main branches of Discourse Analysis is the Conversation Analysis. 

What is Conversation Analysis?
Conversation analysis is one of the ways to study Discourse analysis focusing on a spoken language: conversations. How a conversation is composed is analyzed in this field. Gee explains that Conversation Analysis is “a detailed form of discourse analysis that sees conversation as the basic human communicational form and seeks to explicate how people produce and reproduce social order through talk and orientation to talk and each other in social interaction” (204).

How to Analyse Data

●Transcription

Linguists make a transcription to analyze conversations. They record an interesting conversation and copy what is said like a script of a play, but a lot more detailed. This written version of the conversation is called a transcription.

     

Various conventions for recording conversations are used when writing the transcriptions. "Transcription convention used in Conversation analysis is usually based on the system developed by Gail Gefferson" (43). There is a list of marks to show the conventions used. Click here to see it ↓
http://www.justinecassell.com/discourse09/readings/IntroducingLanguageInUse-Chapter2.pdf

Using the transcription, a conversation is analyzed from various points of view such as turns, overlap, interruption, silence, adjacency pairs, and so on.
 
Key Words
Transcription : a conversation that is represented in writing
Overlap: a case of where more than one speaker speaks simultaneously
Interruption: an attempt to take the floor from the current speaker
Adjacency pairs: the pair of utterance that is pertinent, relevant, fitted and somehow related to the immediately prior utterance


Discussion
What are your goals when you study discourse analysis?
How do you think discourse analysis can be used in society?

Works Consulted

"Conversation Analysis: Analysing Talk-in-Interaction". Web. 22 Oct. 2013.     <http://www.justinecassell.com/discourse09/readings/IntroducingLanguageInUse-Chapter2.pdf>.
Coulthard, Malcolm. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. New York: Longman, 1989.
Print.
Gee, James P. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. London: Routledge, 2011. Print. 
Romax, Helen, and Janet Frink. "Interpreting Images of Motherhood: The Contexts and Dynamics of Collective Viewing". Sociological Research Online. SAGE Publications; 31 Aug. 2010. Web. 22 Oct. 2013. <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/15/3/2.html>.

"What is Meant by Discourse Analysis?" English Studies. n.d. Web. 17 July 2013.

 <http://www.english.ugent.be/da>.

Wooffitt, Robin. Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis: A Comparative and Critical Introduction. London: SAGE, 2005. Print.