KINDS OF VERBS (From the angle of sentence patterns)

KINDS OF VERBS (From the angle of sentence patterns) 1 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Mr Trương Văn Ánh 2 REFERENCES 1 Guy Cook (1989), Discouse, Oxford University Press 2 Halliday M A K (1994), Discourse Analysi[.]

1DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Mr Trương Văn Ánh

3 McCathy Michael (1991), Discourse analysis for

language teachers, Cambridge University Press.

4 Nunan David (1998), Introducing Discourse

Analysis, Penguin English.

5 Fromkin & others (1999) An Introduction to

Language Thanh Nien Publishing House

6 Gleason, H.A (1961) An Introduction to

Descriptive Linguistics: English Morphology N.Y Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc

7 Jackson, H (1981) Analyzing English: An

Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics

Pergamon Institute of English

8 Jacobs, Roderick A (1995) English Syntax A

grammar for English Language Professionals

OUP

Chapter 1 What is discourse analysis?

What is discourse?

Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used

Discourse analysts study language in use:

written texts of all kinds, and spoken data, from conversation to highly formal forms of speech

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a   

c - Hi

- Hi How are you?

- I’m fine, thanks And you?

- Not bad

d Tomorrow there will be no class Students may stay home and self-study

…

Discourse versus text

Discourse analysis focuses on the structure of naturally spoken language as found in conversation interviews, commentaries and speeches

Text analysis focuses on the structure of written language, as found in such text as essays, notices, road signs and chapters

(Crystal, 1987)

Some scholars talk about “spoken or written” discourse, other about “spoken or written” text

(Crystal, 1987)

It means discourse and text can be used almost synonymously But a distinction is always there and that in discourse has some social purpose

while text fulfills the function of communication of some meaning only As suggested by Michel Stubbs (1983), who treats text and discourse as more or less synonymous

text is non-interactive that’s it only fulfills the function of conveying some meaning But discourse

is always involved in two ways responses in some formal or informal conversation and dialogues, etc

Hawthorn (1992) further says “discourse is a linguistic communication seen as a transaction between speaker and hearer While text is also a linguistic communication (either spoken or written) seen simply as a message coded in its auditory or visual medium”

To conclude we can say discourse and text have something in common as both use the medium of language whether in sign language Both have some meaning that they try to convey.

But text has a limited scope as compared with discourse In other words, we can say discourse is

language And text deals with the written form of language Discourse has different forms as discourse of advertising,

discourse of racism, discourse of medical, etc But text has no such forms Discourse can be found with in text And not vice versa Text has its maximum interpretation in its ownself but discourse has a lot of things above the language level.

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Spoken versus written language

Although spoken language emerged before written language, written texts are much more than merely “talk written down”

With the emergence of cultures based on agriculture rather than hunting and gathering, people needed permanent records which could

be referred to over and over again

Halliday (1985b) suggests that written language

is used for action (public signs, product labels, television and radio guides)

Ex: (1a) Go in and make yourself at home.

(1b) Someone went in and made himself at

home

Linguistically, written language tends to consist of clauses that are internally complex, whereas with spoken language the complexity exists in the ways

in which clauses are joined together

(1c) Like Vincent d’Indy, a disciple of Ceasar Frank, Chausson shares with them a dreamy, even idle poetry, sumptuous but precise orchestration, and an enemy that is intimate rather than powerful, ascetic rather than importunate.

(1d) This morning Associate Professor Dean Wolfe will talk about the science of music at half-past eleven, and we’ll hear some fascinating things such as musicians playing music backwards – but most of it will be played forwards!

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The written text, 1c, seems to have more information packed into it This text contains only one main clause, in contrast with the spoken text

in which there are several clauses chained together in an additive fashion

If the speaker above had had the opportunity to present the same content in written form, he may produced:

(1e) This morning at half-past eleven, Associate Professor Dean Wolfe will present a program titled

“The science of music”, in which the listeners will experience a number of fascinating things, including music played backwards – although most will be played forwards!

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Lexical density

Spoken and written language also differ in the ratio

of content words to grammatical or function words (Content or lexical words include nouns and verbs, adjectives, adverbs while grammatical words include such things as prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions, interjections and articles)

The number of lexical or content words per clause

is referred to as lexical density

In the following example, there are twelve content words in a single clause, and it therefore has a lexical density of twelve.

(1f) The use of this method of control unquestionably leads to safer and faster trains running in the most adverse weather conditions

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A spoken version of the above text might be as

follows:

(1g) You can control the trains this way and if you

do that you can be quite sure that they’ll be able to run more safely and more quickly than they would otherwise no matter how bad the weather gets

In (1g), there are ten content words (control, trains, way, sure, run, safely, quickly, bad, weather, gets) distributed between five clauses, which gives the text a lexical density of two.

The density of written language is also reinforced

by the tendency to create nouns from verbs

on what they write characteristic of

good writer

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Halliday (1985b) calls this process of turning verbs

into nouns grammatical metaphor.

(Verbs are transformed into “things” and represented as nouns It is this transformation which led Halliday to use the term “metaphor’

Exercises on lexical density

1 He learns English well so that he can teach well

in the future

2 We call him Teo

3 Jack often helps the poor with some seasonal jobs

4 Because they committed stealing a car, they

were put in prison then

5 They can food in a factory which exports to

many countries

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He can study English.

They were engineers

They were learning French then

They can can food in the factory

His will will affect their future

He should emphasize the importance of his study.The word should should be emphasized in this

sentence

Well, I am well today

1 Jack learns better than his friends do.

2 He does love her more than his friend does

3 The son is more handsome than his younger is

4 They saw the log with a saw

5 A sheep greets him baa, baa

6 The students do an exercise in the class

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Spoken and written language also differ in terms of the demands that they make on the listener or

situation, as there is in face-to-face interaction

Transactional language is that which occurs when participants are concerned with the exchange of goods and services.

Interpersonal language, on the other hand, occurs when the speakers are concerned with socializing

In cosidering the purposes for which language is used, we can distinguish between “transactional” language, which is language used to obtain goods and services, and “interpersonal” language, which is language used for socializing.

THE END