Lingua e Traduzione Inglese 2

Lingua e traduzione inglese II

Discourse is a term with various senses, like:

• All phenomena of symbolic communication between people, usually through spoken or written language or visual representation
• General communication that takes place in specific institutional contexts (scientific discourse, legal discourse...)
• A whole act of communication involving production and comprehension, not necessarily entirely verbal, which takes place in a real context, among two or more participants

The last definition is the most important. The concept of discourse is different from the concept of text.

Definitions by scholars

D. Crystal offered the definition of these terms:

• Discourse = a continuous stretch of language longer than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative
• Text = A piece of naturally occurring spoken, written, or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis. It is often a language unit with a definable communicative function, such as conversation

G. Cook

• Discourse = stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposeful
• Text = a stretch of language interpreted formally without context

Chimombo and Roseberry

• Discourse = a process resulting in a communicative act
• Text = the communicative act itself (discourse) that takes the form of a text consisting of written and spoken words, but also sign language intended to communicate information of some kind

D. Nunan

• Discourse = communicative events involving language context
• Text = the written record of a communicative event which conveys a complete message

Text analysis

Text analysis consists in the study of the formal linguistic devices that distinguish a text from random sentences. The task of this analysis is the text-forming devices with reference to purposes and functions for which the discourse was produced, as well as the context, to show how the linguistic elements enable language users to communicate in context.

Discourse analysis

Discourse analysis is multidisciplinary. The approach to this concept is primarily:

• Linguistic
• To develop the ability to use Critical Discourse Analysis, inspired by Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), based on Halliday's systemic functional linguistics. It takes from it the idea that discourse has 3 main functions:
  • Ideational = the reality referential function of Jakobson, perceptions
  • Interpersonal
  • Textual = Language is a social act; the importance of the social context, communication needs context. Without it, it is difficult to interpret the communication. The situation and the cultural context affect the way we use language because we change the way we communicate according to the situation.

Language is a social act meaning that we produce consequences linked to the language; we act with it. Discourse is ideologically driven. R. Vowel says that the relation between form and content is not arbitrary or controversial, but form signifies content. There is beyond every discourse the intention to promote many values.

For Fairclough, CDA is discourse analysis which aims not to systematically explore the often opaque relationship of causality and determination between discursive practices, events, texts, and wider social and cultural structures, relations, and processes; to investigate how such practices, events, and texts arise out of and are ideologically shaped by relationships between discourse and society. It is itself a factor securing power and hegemony.

Key elements of discourse

There are some key elements linked to the concept of discourse: language, language producers/recipients, context (which must be real, a physical place), and functions (we use language in order to perform some actions in a context).

Context

The linguistic context establishes events that create collisions between different parts of the text. Non-linguistic context is identified by a number of elements:

• Culture = we operate within a cultural context based on codes and rules that affect the communicative behavior of people
• Situation = the place where we communicate affects the way people interact
• Participants = social status, age, gender; these features help to characterize the way the discourse is produced
• Relationships between participants = the type of relationship affects people's communication. We have to respect these rules in order to succeed in communication.
• Channel = spoken or written discourse
• Topic = what we talk about, write about, and how it is communicated
• Purpose = the intent often does not coincide with what the reader understands

Channel

There is a distinction between written and spoken discourse. Written discourse is more formal than spoken discourse like essays, etc. Spoken discourse is more confident and informal, recorded stretches. When we speak, we tend to hesitate, we need to take time, and when we start a discourse, we may change direction.

Typical differences

Typical differences in terms of:

1. Situation = speaker and hearers are both present, no need to make explicit reference to the environment, while the presumption is that the reader is remote in time and place. There is a need to make explicit reference to the environment.
2. Manner of Production = as the recipients of the message are there, when I produce discourse, I can check their expression. The speaker may monitor events thanks to immediate feedback from the audience. For the written discourse, this is impossible, an advantage is the time that we have to articulate the discourse, we can check a dictionary, grammar books, etc.
3. We tend to use expressions, gesticulate, tone of voice, body language; these things are part of communication. Half the communication, of course, they are not available when we write, so we can use orthographic conventions and devices to give emphasis.
4. Form of production = in spoken language, it is usually less structured from a synthetic point of view: incomplete utterances, limited subordination, active declarative forms (passive forms); the structure of discourse is simpler. In written discourse, the structure is much more elaborated. Usually more elaborate use of syntax: complete sentences, subordinate clauses, impersonal passive contractions.
5. In spoken discourse, there is a prevalence of paratactical (Parataxis = a sequence of principal clauses) style which means the omission of connectors and markers, use of conjunctions (and, but, or if), implicit connections between utterances. In written discourse, we use Hypotactical style, the use of logical connectors (besides, however, although), of complementizers (that), temporal markers (when, while), and we tend to organize the discourse with rhetorical organizers (firstly, in conclusion).
6. Low lexical density consists of the presence of certain lexical categories like nouns, adjectives, verbs with functional nouns. So in spoken discourse, we tend to use pronouns, auxiliary verbs, function words because we tend to use explicit form in spoken language (Verbal Style). In written language, there is high lexical density, and a prevalence of content words, words that contain significant (nouns, verbs, compound noun phrases), use of nominalization (Nominal style).
7. Limited use of more than 2 pre-modifying adjectives, in English written language we can use more than 2 adjectives, there is a large use of pre-modified noun phrases, a large use of post-modifying noun elements, relative clauses (who, which).
8. In spoken discourse, we tend to use topic-comment structure, sometimes anticipating the object. In written discourse, we tend to use the Canonical structure, subject-predicate structure.
9. In speaking, we tend to prefer the article structure, prevalence of active constructions with indeterminate group agents; we prefer this. In written discourse, there is a larger use of passive constructions with impersonal subjects.
10. Use of generalized vocabulary (a lot of, thing, got, do, nice, stuff) in spoken discourse. In written discourse, there is a use of specific vocabulary.
11. In speaking, we tend to repeat a word many times; this is a characteristic of syntactic form within the same text. In written language, we tend to avoid repetition of the same syntactic within the same text.