Showing papers on "Discourse analysis published in 1982"

Oral and Literate Strategies in Spoken and Written Narratives.

Abstract: Comparative analysis of spoken and written versions of a narrative demonstrates (1) that features which have been identified as characterizing oral discourse are also found in written discourse, and (2) that the written short story combines syntactic complexity expected in writing with features which create involvement expected in speaking. Quintessentially literary devices (repetition of sounds and words, syntactic structures, and rhythm) are shared by written literary language and ordinary spontaneous conversation because both are typified by subjective knowing and by focus on interpersonal involvement. In contrast, expository prose and content-focused oral genres, such as lectures and instructions, may be typified by objective knowing and by focus on content.*

Dialogue Games: An Approach to Discourse Analysis

Abstract: Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Linguistics and Philosophy, 1982.

Interpreting discourse: Coherence and the analysis of ethnographic interviews

Abstract: (1982). Interpreting discourse: Coherence and the analysis of ethnographic interviews. Discourse Processes: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 1-32.

On The Differences Between Spoken and Written Language

Abstract: Drawing on research studies in (socio)linguistics, discourse analysis, and literacy, this paper provides a synthesis of findings about lexical and syntactico-semantic differences between spokken an

An analysis of narratives: Identifying central, supportive, and distracting content∗

Abstract: (1982). An analysis of narratives: Identifying central, supportive, and distracting content. Discourse Processes: Vol. 5, No. 3-4, pp. 195-224.

Feminist Discourse and Its Discontents: Language Power, and Meaning.

Abstract: The feminist thinker who wishes to tackle the puzzles of power and take up questions of meaning must consider the nature of language itself. There are several reasons for this. First, debates over whether or not discourse is inevitably or necessarily domination, a form of "power over" others, provides much of the exciting interplay of diatribe and dialectic, polemic and philosophical argumentation, that characterize contemporary debates in social and political theory. Some writers on the text as power are feminists; others are not.1 But all who explore these issues are intrigued by the peculiar relationship between author-text-reader along some vector of power. A mild version of the thesis that power infuses discourse is stated by Paul Foss: "Discourse has become the arena for the generation and propagation of historically specified norms and socially adequate forms of power."2 Sheila Rowbotham puts the case more urgently: "Language conveys a certain power. It is one of the in-

New Developments in Systemic Linguistics

Abstract: Part 1 Testing the theory: probabilities in a systemic-functional grammar - the clause complex in English, Christopher Nesbitt and Guenter Plum the centrality of intonation in English - an experimental validation of some aspects of M.A.K. Halliday's theory of intonation in a Canadian context, James D.Benson et al. Part 2 Descriptive semiotics: text analysis in operation - a multi-level approach, Eija Ventola. Part 3 Educational linguistics: systemic linguistics and the communicative language syllabus, Robin Melrose. Part 4 Ideological linguistics: court discourse as genre - some problems and issues, Sandra Harris. Part 5 Discourse analysis: towards a systemic flowchart model for discourse structure, Robin P.Fawcett et al. Part 6 Cognitive linguistics: describing language as activity - an application to child language, Erich Steiner. Part 7 Literary stylistics: ideational meaning and the "existential fabric" of a poem, David Butt. Part 8 Language pathology: systemic linguistics and language pathology, Nigel Gotteri.

Elaborations: When do they Help and When do they Hurt?

Abstract: Theories ofmemory and text processing have begun to emphasize the important role of elaborative processing. The support for this wie is tenuous, most of it beingcorrelational Few studies have been concerned with whetheror not memory is better when the author (or experimenter) provides the embellishment. Most have only looked at effects of elaboration when the readergenerates embellishments, possible confounding degree of effort with degree of elaboration. Experiments are described here where the elaborations are given to the reader. The paper specifies those situations where memory is improved by elaborations, and those that hurt retention.

Joking Apart: Some Recommendations Concerning the Analysis of Scientific Culture

Abstract: This paper is an attempt to show that scientific humour is an important topic analytically, because it reveals with particular clarity some of the interpretative resources by means of which scientists create social meaning. A discourse analysis is presented of a recurrent participants' `proto-joke' dealing with communication among scientists, of a satirical article appearing in a `joke journal', and of a cartoon. This analysis adds further support to prior work on the nature of scientists' interpretative repertoires; as well as describing some of the organizational forms which are used to construct scientists' humour. It is suggested that there is no difference, in general principle, between the social production of humour and the social production of, say, consensus or controversy; in other words, that the phenomena traditionally investigated by sociologists of science are best conceived, like humour, as highly variable outcomes of the interpretative procedures used by scientists to organize their versio...

What is the Ultimate Question? Some Remarks in Defence of the Analysis of Scientific Discourse

Abstract: As Tom Gieryn' is clearly aware, there is a tendency to oversimplify intellectual boundaries in the course of lively academic debate. No doubt he is right in suggesting that commentators have previously often used the term 'Mertonian' rather carelessly in devising a background within which the originality of their own work can become evident. It seems likely that we all characterize intellectual movements to which we do not belong in ways which seem bizarre to those named as insiders. Thus one of our immediate responses to his paper is: 'No, you've divided the field in quite the wrong way. The major division is between discourse analysis and everything else. In particular, it was extremely misleading to put our recent work on scientific discourse in the same category as the "relativists" or "constructivists"'. This response may itself seem bizarre to some people. But for those of us engaged in discourse analysis, this is the way the field appears. Because Gieryn does not appreciate or take notice of analytical or methodological differences which seem crucial to us, he combines his discussion of discourse analysis with that of quite dissimilar studies. Given the way in which he has organized his text to show that 'this kind of approach' fails to deal with such 'genuinely sociological phenomena' as power, institutions, and the like, it is appropriate for him to treat all studies which avoid this conventional terminology as equivalent for purposes of his exposition. But by mixing together such disparate studies, he produces a muddled and misleading account of discourse analysis as well as a confused and confusing appraisal. This would not matter too much under normal circumstances, where most interested parties would either have already read the relevant studies or could easily do so if they wished. But this case is different. For very little analysis of scientific discourse has yet appeared in print. Gieryn's criticisms

On tense alternation and the need for analysis of native speaker usage in second language acquisition

Abstract: A description of the rules for the use of the conversational historical present in American English is given in order to demonstrate the necessity of taking such information into account when applying discourse analysis to second language research. It is argued that native speaker intuition is inadequate as a basis for judging the discourse errors of language learners. A recent study of tense avoidance by Godfrey (1980) is discussed in order to point out the difficulties facing researchers doing pioneering work in the use of discourse analysis for the study of second language acquisition.

Discourse strategies: Socio-cultural knowledge in conversational inference

Abstract: Conversational inference , as I use the term, is the situated or context-bound process of interpretation, by means of which participants in an exchange assess others' intentions, and on which they base their responses. Recent studies of conversation from a variety of linguistic, psychological, anthropological and sociological perspectives, have shed light upon a number of issues important to the study of conversational inference. It is generally agreed that grammatical and lexical knowledge are only two of several factors in the interpretation process. Aside from physical setting, participants' personal background knowledge and their attitudes toward each other, sociocultural assumptions concerning role and status relationships as well as social values associated with various message components also play an important role. So far, however, treatment of such contextual factors has been primarily descriptive. The procedure has been to identify or list what can potentially affect interpretation. With rare exceptions, no systematic attempts are made to show how social knowledge is used in situated interpretation. Yet we know that social presuppositions and attitudes shift in the course of interaction, often without a corresponding change in extralinguistic context. As we have argued in previous chapters, the social input to conversation is itself communicated through a system of verbal and nonverbal signs that both channel the progress of an encounter and affect the interpretation of intent. It follows that analysis of such ongoing processes requires different and perhaps more indirect methods of study which examine not the lexical meanings of words or the semantic structure of sentences but interpretation as a function of the dynamic pattern of moves and countermoves as they follow one another in ongoing conversation.

Comprehensive Discourse Analysis: An Instance of Professional Peer Interaction.

Abstract: While studies of written text continue to engage students from a number of disciplines, investigations of naturally occurring talk have increased exponentially in the last decade. This paper reports on such an investigation, a comprehensive discourse analysis of talk among professional peers (in a doctoral dissertation defense), attending to an instance of problematic communication and to some possible implications and interpretations of such nonsuccesses in social interaction. The method employed is an adaptation of Labov and Fanshel. (Communicative nonsuccess, comprehensive discourse analysis, interaction among professional peers, naturally occurring talk, social structure, and language use.) The study of discourse appears to be moving toward the status of a "grownup" disciplinary practice, grownup both in its increasing acceptance by traditional practitioners from the many fields in which it has roots and in its own revolutionary (Tyler I980: 831) remove from disputation over priorities of formn and content and discovery of "reality in the everyday accomplishments of those who get the work of the world done" (ibid.). While studies of written text continue to engage students from many disciplines, investigations of naturally occurring talk have increased exponentially in the last decade. This paper reports ongoing work on text from an extended conversational event, attending to an instance of problematic communication and to some possible implications and interpretations of such nonsuccesses in social interaction. Rich as the literature on analysis of conversational discourse has become (too rich to need reference) it reflects continuing difficulties of researchers with some fundamental methodological (and practical and ethical) and theoretical problems. Two central problems are: (i) for a variety of reasons (including, nontrivially, limits on human energies and time resources), few analysts have been able to undertake the project of "comprehensive discourse analysis" called for by Labov and Fanshel (1977: 354); that in which analysts are "accountable to an entire body of conversation, attempting to account for the interpretation of all utterances and the coherent sequencing among them"; (2) data which are less than fully satisfactory for a variety of reasons including, nonexhaustively: (a) a paucity of texts of complete speech events, and of events involving more than 0047-4045/82/010015-33 $2.50 ? I982 Cambridge University Press

The Semiotics of Two Speech Styles in Shokleng. Sociolinguistic Working Paper Number 103.

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter highlights that speech style is a complex linguistic sign vehicle composed of numerous types of signals that manifests considerable functional richness. The multifunctionality of speech styles is apparent in the fact that it is perfectly conceivable for two linguistic utterances to be functionally equivalent in propositional or semantico-referential terms and yet to form parts of distinct speech styles, and in the fact that a given linguistic sign vehicle can be put to multiple social ends. The hypotheses seem to follow naturally from the general conception of speech style as indexical signal. Ritual wailing is characterized at the sound level by the following features–a sing-song intonation pattern, creaky voice throughout, and broken voice, that is, rapid-fire glottal stops coupled with intonational modulation used intermittently on certain protracted vowels. The formal characteristics of Shokleng ritual wailing and origin-myth telling can be grouped into two general classes, according as they seem to fall under the principle of expressive restriction, or formal amplification.

English and German

Abstract: The past decade has witnessed intensive activity in Textlinguistik (discourse analysis) among German linguists (cf., Kallmeyer and Meyer–Herrmann 1980). This, of course, is not an entirely new phenomenon. Such basic works on German syntax as Drach (1940) and Boost (1964) paid attention to relationships between sentences within discourse and/or their impact on word order.

Toward a rhetorical epistemology

Abstract: This essay offers a prolegomenon for a systematic theory of rhetorical epistemology. Rather than advancing a fully‐developed theory of the epistemic function of rhetorical discourse, the authors delineate some of the important assumptions, definitions, and relationships upon which their theory is constructed. It is posited that rhetorical discourse is the description of reality through language and that knowledge is justified true belief. Examining the inherent interface between rhetoric and knowledge, the authors conclude by underscoring the differentiative, associative, preservative, evaluative, and perspective functions of epistemic discourse.

English and Marathi

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to compare and contrast some discourse features of English and Marathi. The paper is divided into four parts. The introductory sections review the main theoretical approaches for discourse analysis in general and discourse in South Asian languages in particular. Some of these insights are later used in this study. The first sections of part 2 point out the role of sociocultural differences in the discourse patterns of English and Marathi. The second section of part 2 focuses on the differences in the morphological and syntactic patterns which are used as discourse strategies in Marathi and English.

The role of scripts in the comprehension and retention of texts

Abstract: Three aspects ofthe script construct are considered. First, the contnbution of scripts to the connectedness among adjacent sentences is discussed. Second, research generated by the script concept in the area of t ex t recall and t ext recognition is reviewed. This research suggests that the structural and processing characteristics of scripts are similar to those of such other memory units äs propositions and Schemata. Third, script-mediated facilitation in reading comprehension is treated and facilitation results obtained in a priming experiment are presented. In this experiment subjects read a sequence of sentences, one sentence at a time, and judged each sentenceas sensible or not. Both the speed and accuracy offudging a sensible sentence were facilitated when it waspreceded by a sentence derivedfrom the same rather than from a different script. We account for these results by assuming that subfects have instantiated the script elicited by the preceding sentence and that this benefits the processing of the related target sentence. In the conclusion, several questions on the structure of scripts and on script instantiation are raiscd. * We gratefully acknowledge the support of NSF grants BNS-8104958 and SPI-8165076 and the hospitality extended by the Department of Psychology at Carnegie-Mellon University to the first author where he worked on the present research. Send reprint requests to: Karl Haberlandt, Department of Psychology, Trinity College, Hartford, CT, 06106, U.S.A. 0165-4888/82/0001-0029 $2.00 Text 2 (1-3) (1982), pp. 29-46 © Mouton Publishers, Amsterdam 30 Karl Haberland t and Geoffrey Bingham

Genuine versus Simulated Suicide Notes: An Issue Revisited Through Discourse Analysis

Abstract: Classic studies of written suicide notes have sought to develop criteria for discriminating genuine from simulated notes. In this article, the authors provide a method of discourse analysis and apply this method to the discrimination of genuine from simulated notes used in previous studies. Reports of significant differences among language measures as well as the results of a multiple discriminant analysis using the discourse analysis are reported. In addition, a language profile of the suicidal individual is given along with suggestions for research and clinical use of the method.

Cop talk and media use

Abstract: This article reports on the ways police officers in their everyday conversations reference the entertainment media.

Making Amends: A Grammar-Based Analysis of Children's Social Interaction.

Abstract: An observational study of the discourse of making amends was undertaken with the aim of producing a performance grammar to account for the sequence of moves in this particular domain of social interaction. Amends-making, or reme dial interchanges, are interruptions of ongoing interactions which function to repair social relations when something inappropriate or awkward has tran spired. In 90 hours of observation in kindergarten to fourth-grade classrooms, 1,248 instances of remedial discourse were recorded. A finite-state grammar was developed which accounted for 84% of the observed interchanges. The grammar preserved aspects of the structure of remedial rituals noted by Goff man (1971) and suggested some additional properties of remedial discourse. It provided a framework within which age and context effects on remedial per formance were examined. These findings were discussed in light of the strengths and limitations of this type of grammar for describing discourse.