Discourse Analysis in Linguistic

Discourse Analysis in Linguistic

Discourse analysis is an existential, structural and semiotic study of texts and the reader's reaction. Its features are that the hidden meanings of the text, the context of its creation, probable interpretations by the reader/listener, etc. are revealed.

Abstract

The aim of the work is to compare two different texts (spoken and written), analyze the field, mode and tenor of each, as well as find differences and similarities between them. Only one text is liable to such profound analysis. The article “Working-from-home Dream Now a Reality” was chosen by me as an author of this post together with my colleagues from work (most of our papers you can read here). Understanding how cohesion functions in the text and its importance to texture is an essential thing for students who deal with linguistics that is why the emphasis was put on the cohesive analysis of the text. In the second part of the work, some teaching methodology was reviewed and the texts were used in order to create some practical exercises.

Part 1

Identification of the texts

Both texts which are given cover the same field on the whole. This field is career opportunities. However, they differ in their topics. The article exposes the advantages of working from home, the possibility, which is rendered popular with the developing of new technologies and globalization. The other text reveals a person’s opinion on different job opportunities. The mode of the article is written from the cohesion analysis provided below. The mode of the other text is spoken. It can be proved by the vocabulary, which is used (it is definitely not as reach and variable as in the article), the numerous repetitions and unnecessary words, especially words which indicate sounds (er, erm), pauses made within sentences or even within one word indicated by ellipses in the printed version of the text. All these are the evidences that a person, who was interviewed, did not have much time to think over his answers. The article is, on the contrary, well-planned and organized, which means that the author had time to think before arranging information into sentences and creation the text with such a consistent texture.

The characteristics of tenor of the texts are following. The article is written by a professional with the certain purpose to bring the information to a reader. The author even uses his authority to influence the reader’s point of view and incline him to create a certain opinion. In this case, the opinion is that working from home is the dream of millions and the advantages of such tendency are provided by the writer in the article, while there are no clear disadvantages. In the other text, there is the personal opinion on the topic of different places of work, which is supported mostly the feelings of the person who speak and examples from personal life. The information, which is provided in the text, seems to be not very trustworthy and authoritative to the reader.

Cohesive analysis of the article

For deeper and profound analysis, the article “Working-from-home Dream Now a Reality” was chosen. The purpose of the analysis is to identify the features of cohesion in the article and give proof of its huge importance for the meaning of the text, its content and genre. The article concentrates on the advantages of working from home rather than working at offices. The style of writing is journalistic and includes examples, interviews, and arguments to support the main idea. It also represents the opposite point of view of the people who do not support the trend, but does not provide as much information on it as it does on the advantages of the trend. According to Halliday and Hasan, texture is the main aspect for text, which makes it meaningful, without it a text would consist of isolated sentences without any connections. Cohesion is the aspect, which plays an important role of the link needed to provide such connections. There are different types of cohesion found in the text, such as references, substitutions, ellipses, conjunctions. Owing to references, conjunctions and lexical cohesion of the text is very consistent. This is the reason why the information in the article is easy to read and perceive, and, on the whole, the text is informative and amusing.

Referencing in written text allows the writer to trace the introduced participants through the entire text avoiding repetitions. In the text, there were indicated several types of references. First of all, personal references which are represented by noun pronouns (he, they, you, it) and possessive determiners (my, its, their, your). For example, the man who was interviewed for the article, Sunjit Patel, in the text is represented not only by his name, but most often by pronoun “he”, throughout the text. In the interview, which was given in the article, the man uses possessive determiner “my”, when identifying his son and boss. Secondly, demonstrative references help to follow the information through location (this, these, that, those). As an example, it is worth to mention several cataphoric demonstrative references as they are used not as often as anaphoric. Anaphoric references are the type, which refers to the information that was previously mentioned while cataphoric refers to the facts that will be mentioned further in the text. In this article, the examples of cataphoric demonstrative references are, “the benefits” in line 18 that refers to the advantages that increase work efficiency of employees listed further in the passage (saving money on the office space; avoiding traveling to work and saving time for employees; relaxed atmosphere and flexibility); “the flexibility” in line 26 also goes before the explanation of it (“the flexibility” which “home working allows”); “this response” in line 38 is identified, subsequently, by the continuation “to a query about home working”. Next group of references presented in the text is comparative references. These are the references, which give the opportunity for a rider to identify similarities and dissimilarities in a text. In this text, they are represented by these adverbs and adjectives: more, better, twice as many as, the same, the main, smaller.

There are no substitutions, but there are few ellipses in the text. They also contribute to the maintaining the wholeness of meaning of the article. Substitutions and ellipses are purposely used to avoid repetitions in a text. For example, in line 14 “the main reason is” refers to the reason “for rapidly-growing trend”; in line 29 “and have been really enjoying it” refers to “I”; in line 42 in the questions “Ambulance drivers?”, “Firefighters?” some words were omitted because they were mentioned in the previous question “Can surgeons work from home?”

Conjunctions are represented in the text by additive (in addition), adversative (but, otherwise, though) and casual conjunctions (so if, therefore).

Lexical cohesion is responsible for vocabulary usage in a text. Lexical selection, in the article, provides it with great texture and meets the topic requirements. For example, in the text “working from home” (line 5) is substituted by noun “home working” in lines 18, 30 and 37. “People who work from home” (line 7) later are called “home workers” in line 23.

The highlighted sentences provide very nice example how the information could be received from a piece of text without giving it straightly, but leaving a chance to a reader to make his own logical assumption from combining two pieces of information. The sentences, “For the last three years he has been working from home” and “I have been working from home since my son was born” together tell us that the son of the man is three years old.

Part 2

I am familiar with undergraduate American college students who are between eighteen and twenty four years old. Their major is journalistic and they are eager to broaden their knowledge on linguistic, especially, concerning the practical side of the field of science. They are very much interested in writing textual articles, which can be pleasant to read and easy to understand.

The group, which I am working with, has linguistic background, so the time for explaining some specified terminology can be reduced and used in a more relevant way. When some questions on terminology will appear, it can be discussed during the process of explanation the topic, which was chosen for the lesson, but there is no need to assign a separate lesson for it, because they are the second year students. To my mind, it is an essential thing to spend some time on discussing strategies for learning, which can be found useful. As far as they have had the experience of studying at the university the previous year, they can offer some strategies they are familiar with and which are useful for them. The strategies can be combined with those new offered by me and, as a result, the effectiveness of learning process can be increased. The class lasts for an hour and a half and it is conducted two times per week.

According to the needs of the students, I would highlight written discourses in the article, which are responsible for making the language of the text more lively, and, what is more important, responds to the style of writing and the topic of the article. I would offer some exercises on expending the students’ vocabulary making them searching for different synonyms and antonyms. Additionally, I would use the article “Working-from-home Dream Now a Reality” to make an exercise on looking for and classifying references, because this article has a lot of examples of them. Another good exercise is to substitute conjunctions with others. Also, it would be a good idea to practice writing skills and expend linguistic knowledge through rewriting the article and conveying the opposite point of view but using the same cohesion tools, which are widely used in the article. As to the other text, the most useful exercise for future journalists to my mind would be to try to use the interview and write the article on it (as a home assignment). After that a cohesion analysis, for example, can be made in class. On the whole, these samples would be very useful in class.