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1、Chapter One IntroductionThe term “discourse analysis” was first employed by Z. Harris in his Discourse analysis in 1952 which was considered the prelude to modern discourse analyses. Since the 1980s, many works on discourse analysis have appeared such as Discourse Analysis: A Social Linguistics Anal
2、ysis on Nature Language by Michael Stubbs (1982); Discourse Analysis by Gillian Brown and George Yule (1983); Introduction to Discourse Analysis by Malcolm Coulthard (1985); Discourse and literature by Van Dijk (1985); Discourse by Buy Cook (1989); Discourse Analysis for Language Teacher by Michael
3、McCarty (1991); Discourse and Language Education by Evelyn Hatch (1992); An Introduction to Discourse Analysis : Theory and method by Jamaes Paul Gee (1999) to name a few. In China Essentials of Text Analysis (1988) by Huang Guowen might be the earliest book which gives a systematic introduction to
4、discourse analysis theory. Text Cohesion and Coherence (1994) by Hu Zhuanglin makes a contrast analysis on English and Chinese discourse. An Introduction to Text Linguistics (1994) by Wang Fuxiang makes an introduction to the Chinese discourse which promotes to the development of discourse analysis
5、in China. The different approaches and perspectives adopted to study human communication make it difficult to present an exact definition of discourse analysis. It would be nice if we could squeeze all we know about discourse into a handy definition. Unfortunately, as is also the case for related co
6、ncepts as language, communication, interaction, society and culture, the notion of discourse is essentially fuzzy. (Van Dijk, 1997: 1). In pursuing these areas of research, discourse analysis employs a variety of research methods, ranging from ethnographic fieldwork and conversation analysis to corp
7、us-based analyses, elicitation techniques, and detailed analysis of video- and audio-recorded data. There is no standard paradigm of description in discourse analysis. This paper describes some of the different approaches to discourse analysis and suggests that a multi-dimensional approach should be
8、 adapted in discourse analysis.Some people might claim that discourse understanding is a simple matter of linguistic decoding. Virtually any utterance can be used to show that this hypothesis is wrong. There is a gap between knowing what a sentence of English means and understanding all that a speak
9、er intends to communicate by uttering it on any given occasion. Since discourse is a social activity and the way an utterance constitutes a particular form of action emerges from its placement within a larger social activity, therefore, in order to understand the language of social interaction it is
10、 important to understand its socio-cultural and psychological background as well. This means that discourse analysis is not restricted to a single discipline but is essentially interdisciplinary.Chapter Two Different Approaches to Discourse AnalysisThis paper describes five approaches to discourse a
11、nalysis 1. Hallidayan Approach 2. Speech Act Theory 3. Conversation Analysis 4.Relevance Theory 5. Ethnography of Communication 6. Mental Approaches. There is a certain degree of overlap between the approaches, but the initial hypotheses vary considerably. They also differ in that they regard meanin
12、g differently, either as a linguistic or a social phenomenon. Schiffrin differentiates these approaches according to three criteria:(i) The individual participants of an interaction and their intentions, social acts and speech acts, linguistic competence and world knowledge.(ii) Linguistic interacti
13、on of the participants as a product of cooperation.(iii) The type of communication.(Schiffrin, D. (1994). Approaches to discourse) 1. The Functional Analysis of English: A Hallidayan ApproachSystematic and functional grammar is the most important grammarian theory in language study which was put for
14、ward by M.A.K. Halliday and has a strong influence in China. Halliday recognizes three macrofunctions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. The ideational function is to convey new information, to communicate a content that is unknown to the hearer. This function is present in all language use. T
15、his is because whatever specific use one is making of language he has to refer to categories of his experience of the world. The ideational function is a meaning potential. The whole of transitivity system, for example, is part of the ideational component. In this respect, this function not only spe
16、cifies the available options in meaning but also determines the nature of their structural realizations. The interpersonal function embodies all uses of language to express social and personal relations. This includes the various ways the speaker enters speech situation and performs a speech act. Th
17、is function is realized by mood and modality. Mood shows what role the speaker selects in the speech situation and what role he assigns to the addressee. If the speaker selects the imperative mood, he assures the role of one giving commands and putting the addressee in the role of one expected to ob
18、ey orders. Modality specifies if the speaker is expressing his judgment or making a prediction (i.e. “It will rain tomorrow.”)The textual functions refers to the fact that language has mechanisms to make any stretch of spoken or written discourse into a coherent and unified text and make a living me
19、ssage different from a random list of sentences. This can be seen from the following two sets of sentences:1. John saw a handbag in a field. John walked across a field and picked up a handbag. John took a handbag to the Police Station and John handed in a handbag as lost property. When John had hand
20、ed in a handbag as lost property, John went home.2. John saw a handbag in a field. He walked across the field and picked up the handbag. He took the handbag to the Police Station and handed it in as lost property. When John had done this, he went home.We find that the second set of sentences reads m
21、uch more like a coherent text than the first, though their ideational and interpersonal function are exactly the same. The textual function can also highlight certain parts of the text. For example, in “such books I never read, but good poetry I do enjoy reading”, “such books” and “good poetry” are
22、highlighted. Attention is drawn to them because they have been moved before their subject and predicator.In his Towards a Closer Relationship Between the Study of Grammar and the Study of Discourse (1997), he gives a description from the following three aspects:1) Text and cohesion2) Theme-ryheme an
23、alysis 3) Information structure1.1 Text and cohesionSystematic and functional grammar theorists have been concerned to provide a tighter, more formal account of how speakers of English come to identify a text as forming a text. Functional grammar theorists like Hillday & Hasan are concerned with the
24、 principle of connectivity which bind a text together and form a co-interpretation. Holliday & Hasan take the view that the primary determinant of whether a set of sentences do or do not constitute a text depends on cohesive relationships within and between sentences, which create texture: A text ha
25、s texture and this is what is provided by the cohesive relation (1976:2). Cohesive relationships within a text are set up where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another. The one presupposes the other in the sense that it cannot be effectively decoded except
26、 by recourse to it(1976:4). A paradigm example of such a cohesive relationship is given (1976:2):Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a fireproof dish. Of this text they say: “It is clear that them in second sentence refers back to (is anaphoric to) the six cooking apples in the first sen
27、tences. This anaphoric function of them gives cohesion to sentences, so that we interpret them as a whole; the two sentences together constitute a text (1976:2). Halliday & Hasan outline a taxonomy of types of cohesive relationships which can be formally established within a text, providing cohesive
28、 ties which bind a text together.1.2 Theme-rheme analysisThere is a long tradition of discussing topic (theme) and comment (rheme) in the context of analyzing the informational structure of discourse but these attempts never really moved beyond the sentence-pair boundary. In other words, they were n
29、ot properly contextualized. It started in the Prague School tradition of analyzing themes and rhemes in sentences, an approach based on the assessment of the assumed information flow (communicative dynamism) within them. The main problem in describing the theme-rheme-structure of sentences lies in t
30、he fact that various semantic (ideational) and pragmatic (interpersonal) criteria and the criterion of the linguistic form may be applied. A simple explanation of theme in English is to think of it as the idea represented by the constituent at the starting point of the clause. This has been expresse
31、d by Halliday as “the point of departure of the message. A clause begins with a realization of the theme. This is followed by the realization of the rheme, which can be explained as being the rest of the message: THEME-RHEME One of the heuristic starting points of the theme-rhyme discussion is the f
32、act that sentences in discourse contain some information which the speaker presupposes to be known by the hearer and some information which the speaker asserts. The former is often referred to as old or given information and the latter as new. Thus the theme-rheme contrast hinges on the presence or
33、absence of anaphoric ties to the previous text. With regard to nouns, this means that the difference between definiteness and indefiniteness can serve as an indicator of anaphoricity. Another point of departure is found in what is being spoken about. In English, this is often mentioned as the first
34、element in a sentence and also often serves as the subject. But the fact is that these different aspects have not been clearly separated and thus this whole area seems rather impenetrable. 1.3 The Two Dimensions of Information Structure new and given information in discourseExtremely important aspec
35、t of a functional grammar is the way information is structured in communication. The terminology that is used to describe Information Structure and its semantics is simultaneously various, and under-formalized. Yet it seems that all definitions have some elements in common. They all draw at least on
36、e of the following distinctions: (i) a “topic/comment” or “theme/rheme” distinction between the part of the utterance that relates it to the purpose of the discourse, and the part that advances the discourse; (ii) a “given/new” distinction, between parts of the utterance-actually, words which contri
37、bute to distinguishing the content from other alternatives that the context makes available and those parts that are comments all of them. There are differences among the theories of course. Some, like Hallidays (Halliday:1967), view these two distinctions as orthogonal, applying at independent leve
38、ls of structure. Here, we consider how information is packaged within such small structures and particularly, what resources are available to speakers and writers for indicating to their addressees the status of information which is introduced into the discourse. Scholars of the Prague School before
39、 the Second World War instituted the serious study of information structure within texts. They studied what the called the communicative dynamism of the elements contributing to a sentence, within the framework of functional sentence perspective, the Prague School view of information as consisting o
40、f two categories: new information, which is information that the addressor believes is not known to the addressee, and given information which the addressor believes is known to the addressee (either because it is physically present in the context or because it has already been mentioned in the disc
41、ourse). In interaction activities the structure of the interplay of new information and given information constituting information unit thus are called information structure1.3.1 Information structure in terms of its phonological manifestations Information units are directly realized in speech as to
42、ne groups. The speaker distributes the quanta of information he wishes to express into these phonologically defined units. Tone groups are distinguished phonologically by containing one, and only one, tonic syllable. The tonic syllable is characterized as having the maximal unit of pitch on it. Tone
43、 groups, being produced in spoken language, are also related to the rhythm of spoken language. In Hallidays terms, each foot begins with a stressed syllable and contains any number of following unstressed syllable. The tone syllable functions to focus the new information in the tone group. Suprasegm
44、ental phoneme can affect thematic meaning and information structure. Suprasegmental phoneme (nucleus, tone, tone unit) can be attached to the same utterance in different ways according to the speakers communicative intention. The new information can be a syllable, a phrase even a sentence. E.g. Were
45、 going to the races (Quirk, 1985:1364) New information (NI) in this sentence depends on the context.The whole sentence is NI: A: Whats on today? B: Were going to the races. NIThe predicate is NI: A: Whats on today?B: Were going to the races. NIThe tail adverbial phrase is NI A: Whats on today? B: We
46、re going to the races. NIIt is important to remember, as Halliday stressed, that it is not the structure of discourse which determines whether information is treated by the speaker as new, and marked with phonological prominence, or treated by the speaker as given/known, and not marked with phonolog
47、ical prominence. It is, on the contrary, the speakers moment-to-moment assessment of the relationship between what he wants to say and his hearers informational requirements. Take once again Were going to the races for instance: A: Whos going to the races?B: Were going to the racesA: Have you decide
48、d whether youre going to the races?B: Yes, we are going to the races.The nucleus is on we and are respectively, which affects the information structure and the communicative value. We assume that the limited resources of intonation are regularly exploited by the speaker to mark a range of discoursal functions, a range which the marking of information as either new or given. With respect to information structure, intonation operates like an on/off switch. The speaker either treats the information as new and marks it wit
