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Discourse analysis

What's discourse analysis?

Discourse analysis is sometimes defined as the analysis of language "beyond (oltre) the sentence". This contrasts with types of analysis more typical of modern linguistics, which are chiefly (principalmente) concerned with the study of grammar. Discourse analysis studies larger chunks of language as they flow together. Some discourse analysts consider the larger discourse context to understand how it affects the meaning of the sentence. Discourse analysis deals with language in context linking the utterance (affermazione) with its social situation.

Reframing is a way to talk about going back and re-interpreting the meaning of the first sentence. Frame analysis is a type of discourse analysis that asks, "What activity are speakers engaged in when they say this?", "What do they think they're doing by talking in this way at this time?".

Speech acts

A speech act is something expressed by an individual that not only presents information but performs an action as well. Speech acts can be analyzed on three levels:

Microfunctions -> Austin

• A locutionary act: the performance of an utterance, the actual utterance and its apparent meaning, comprising any and all of its verbal, social and rhetorical meanings, all of which correspond to the verbal, syntactic and semantic aspects of any meaningful utterance.

  L'esecuzione di un'espressione, l'espressione reale e il suo significato apparente, comprendente tutti i suoi significati verbali, sociali e retorici, che corrispondono agli aspetti verbali, sintattici e semantici di qualsiasi espressione significativa.

  For example the phrase "Don't go into the water" (a locutionary act with distinct phonetic, syntactic and semantic features) counts as warning to the listener not to go into the water (an illocutionary force). If the listener heeds the warning the speech act has been successful in persuading the listener not to go into water (a perlocutionary effect).

  Per esempio la frase "Don’t go into the water" (un atto locutionario con caratteristiche fonetiche, sintattiche e semantiche distinte) conta come avvertimento per l'ascoltatore di non andare in acqua (una forza illocutoria). Se l'ascoltatore ascolta l'avvertimento l'atto di discorso è riuscito a persuadere l'ascoltatore a non andare in acqua (un effetto perlocutionary).

• An illocutionary force: the active result of the implied request or meaning presented by the locutionary act. The notion of an illocutionary act is closely connected with Austin's performative and constative utterances: an utterance is performative if and only if it is issued in the course of the "doing of an action" by which he means the performance of an illocutionary act. Austin introduced the illocutionary act by means of a contrast with other aspects of "doing" by "speaking": the illocutionary act is an act performed in saying something as contrasted with a locutionary act, the act of saying something, an act performed by saying something. One way to think about the difference between an illocutionary act (command, promise, declaration) and a perlocutionary act (listener's reaction) is that in each case a declaration, command or promise has necessarily taken place in virtue of the utterance itself, whether the hearer believes in or acts upon it. When somebody says, "Is there any salt?" at the dinner table, the illocutionary act is a request ("please give me some salt") even though the locutionary act (the literal sentence) was to ask a question about the presence of salt.

• A perlocutionary effect: the actual effect of the locutionary and illocutionary acts, as viewed at the level of its consequences. It is in some sense external to the performance and it may be thought of as the effect of the illocutionary act via the locutionary act. "By the way, I have a CD of Sting, would you like to borrow it?" where its illocutionary function is an offer, while its intended perlocutionary effect might be to impress the listener or to encourage an interest in a particular type of music.

So, we can say that locution is what was said and meant, illocution is what was done, and perlocution is what happened as a result.

In the course of performing speech acts we communicate with each other. The content of communication may be identical with the content intended to be communicated. However, the meaning of the linguistic means used may also be different from the content intended to be communicated. One common way of performing speech acts is to use an expression which indicates one speech act, and indeed perform this act, but also performs a further speech act, which is indirect. One may, for instance, say "Peter, can you close the window?" thereby asking Peter whether he will be able to close the window, but also requesting that he does so. Since the request is performed indirectly, by means of directly performing a question, it counts as an indirect speech act. An even more indirect way of making such