Showing papers on "Discourse analysis published in 1991"

The skills of argument

Abstract: Introduction Scope of the Investigation The investigation to be described focuses on an individual's thinking processes, and as such it relates most directly to the sizable psychological literature on thinking and reasoning. Yet the work also addresses issues that are prominent in a number of other disciplines. From a philosophical perspective, the present work relates to an increasing interest shown by philosophers in the nature and logic of natural language argumentation (Walton, 1989). As already mentioned, philosophers of education such as Scheffler (1965) have noted the importance of reflective thinking about thought, but their ideas have not been connected explicitly to the analysis of argumentation. Here we offer those with philosophical interests an analysis of elementary argumentive reasoning that is grounded in empirical data about the competencies and incompetencies that people exhibit in their argumentive reasoning about everyday topics. From a language perspective, the present work relates to a growing area of research within discourse analysis pertaining to discourse that is argumentive (Grimshaw, 1990). What are the unique features that characterize argumentive in contrast to other kinds of discourse? Although it does not investigate social discourse directly, the research presented here, focused on the cognitive prerequisites of competent argument, offers some insight regarding the language of argument. From sociological and political perspectives, the present work is relevant to a growing understanding of the complex interrelations that exist between individual and sociological processes (Dowd, 1990).

Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers

Abstract: Discourse Analysis for Language Teaching gives a practical introduction to the field of discourse analysis and its relevance for language teaching. It begins by answering the question 'What is discourse analysis?' and examines how discourse analysts approach spoken and written language. Different models of analysis are outlined and evaluated in terms of their usefulness to language teachers. This is followed by chapters on discourse-oriented approaches to grammar, vocabulary and phonology. The final section looks at spoken and written language in the light of native-speaker and learner data and considers examples of teaching approaches. Discourse Analysis for Language Teaching has a very practical orientation, and the text is interspersed with reader activities with guidance on appropriate responses at the end.

Research on teacher's knowledge: the evolution of a discourse

Abstract: L'A. analyse l'evolution de la recherche centree sur le raisonnement de l'enseignant en etudiant le langage et le discours des recherches considerees, du point de vue des theoriciens post-structuralistes, tels que Foucault (M.) et Reiss (T. J.)

Interactive Written Discourse as an Emergent Register

Abstract: Text transmitted electronically through computer-mediated communication networks is an increasingly available yet little documented form of written communication. This article examines the syntactic and stylistic features of an emergent phenomenon called Interactive Written Discourse (IWD) and finds that the concept of “register,” a language variety according to use, helps account for the syntactic reductions and omissions that characterize this historical juxtaposition of text format with real-time and interactive pressures. Similarities with another written register showing surface brevity, the note taking register, are explored. The study is an empirical examination of written communication from a single discourse community, on a single topic, with a single recipient, involving 23 experienced computer users making travel plans with the same travel advisor by exchanging messages through linked computers. The study shows rates of omissions of subject pronouns, copulas, and articles and suggests that IWD ...

Curriculum Action Research: A Handbook of Methods and Resources for the Reflective Practitioner

Abstract: Historical and philosphical background The teacher as researcher and professional. Action Research Methodology Observational and narrative research methods Non-observational, survey and self-report methods Discourse analysis and problem-solving methods reflective and evaluative methods. Problems and Issues in Action Research Analysing action research data Towards critical communities of discourse: Networks dissemination and the ethics of action research.

Introduction to discourse studies

Abstract: Introduction to Discourse Studies follows on Jan Renkema’s successful Discourse Studies: An Introductory Textbook (1993), published in four languages. This new book deals with even more key concepts in discourse studies and approaches major issues in this field from the Anglo-American and European as well as the Australian traditions. It provides a ‘scientific toolkit’ for future courses on discourse studies and serves as a stepping stone to the independent study of professional literature. Introduction to Discourse Studies is the result of more than twenty-five years of experience gained in doing research and teaching students, professionals and academics at various universities. The book is organized in fifteen comprehensive chapters, each subdivided in modular sections that can be studied separately. It includes • 400 references, from the most-cited contemporary publications to influential classic works; • 500 index entries covering frequently used concepts in the field; • more than 100 thought-provoking questions, all elaborately answered, which are ideal for teacher-supported self-education; • nearly 100 assignments that provide ample material for teachers to focus on specific topics of their own preference in their lectures. Jan Renkema is a member of the Department of Communication and Information Sciences at Tilburg University, The Netherlands. He is also editor of Discourse, of Course (2009) and author of The Texture of Discourse (2009). In 2009, a Chinese edition of Introduction to Discourse Studies was published by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

The Constitution of Expert-Novice in Scientific Discourse!

Abstract: This paper argues that an examination of expert-novice relationships in unfolding interaction should not proceed from the static and unidirectional view that knowledge and status are distributed as functions of a priori categories such as age, gender, and hierarchical rank. Although analysis of interactional sequences from the group meetings of a university physics team reveals the co-occurrence of professional status and expertise in some segments of the data, we show, through a conversation analytic approach, that the constitution of expert-novice in dynamic interaction is a much more complicated, shifting, moment-by-moment reconstruction of Self and Other, whether within a speaker's talk or between speakers. We demonstrate that the constitution of a participant as expert at any moment in ongoing interaction can also be a simultaneous constitution of some other participant (or participants) as less expert, and that these interactionally achieved identities are only candidate constitutions of Self and Other until some next interactional move either ratifies or rejects them in some way. This way of viewing expert-novice relations can help account not only for the bidirectionality postulated in those models of apprenticeship, socialization, and learning which are based on activity theory but also for change and innovation in communities of practice. The implication for research raised by this study is that the analysis of language use ought to go beyond the extrinsic social, cultural, and biological identities of speakers and recipients; it should include an analysis of how utterances constitute these identities and how utterances are organized despite these identities.

Knowledge, Ideology & Discourse: A Sociological Perspective

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Mannheim's sociology of knowledge 3. The interiors of Mannheim's legacy 4. The origins of the theory of ideology 5. A modern approach to ideological critique 6. From signification to discourse 7. Discourse, knowledge and critique 8. Science and language 9. Culture and the perspective of women 10. Knowledge, ideology and discourse 11. Analysing knowledge as ideological discourse 12. A future for the sociology of knowledge as discourse analysis

Discourse Features of Written Mexican Spanish: Current Research in Contrastive Rhetoric and Its Implications.

Abstract: In the instruction of composition skills in both English and Spanish, teachers need to address language features at the text level, not just at the sentence level.1 Many times students may master the vocabulary and the grammar of a language and still be unable to produce acceptable compositions because of problems due to conflicting discourse patterns-that is, the organization and development of text via the logical arrangement of ideas. This paper will analyze discourse features of compositions written in Spanish by secondaryschool students in Mexico, will draw comparisons with those written in English by Anglo-American students in the United States, and will discuss the implications of the results of this research for teaching and evaluating composition skills in Spanish language programs.

Remediation as Social Construct: Perspectives from an Analysis of Classroom Discourse.

Abstract: In this paper, we examine remediation as a social construct, as the product of perceptions and beliefs about literacy and learning, and we illustrate some ways in which inaccurate and limiting notions of learners as being somehow cognitively defective and in need of "remedy" can be created and played out in the classroom. We will look closely at one student in one lesson and detail the interactional processes that contribute to her being defined as remedial-this specific case, however, is also representative of common kinds of classroom practices and widespread cultural assumptions, ones we've seen at work in our other studies (Hull and Rose, "Rethinking"). In order to better understand these cultural assumptions and the ways they can affect classroom practices, we will attempt to combine an empirical, fine-grained analysis of classroom discourse with broader historical and cultural analyses. We want to place a teacher's instructional and evaluative language in the contexts that we believe influence it, that contribute to the practice of defining students as remedial. We write this paper believing that, however great the distance our profession has come in understanding the students and the writing we call "remedial," we have not yet come far enough in critically examining our assumptions about our students' abilities-assumptions which both shape the organization of remedial programs and orient daily life in remedial classrooms. Engaging in such an examination is not so easy, perhaps because as teachers of remedial writing, we have good intentions: we look forward to our students' growth and development as writers; we want to teach our students to be literate in ways sanctioned by the academy and the community beyond. And,

Critical language awareness 1 part II: Towards critical alternatives

Abstract: . In this, the second of a two‐part paper, we briefly explore the notion of Critical Language Analysis (or Critical Linguistics in a generic sense), and indicate how this approach might contribute to more critical Language Awareness programmes. We also argue that the diverse objectives which are usually given for Language Awareness programmes appear to be given particular desocialising weightings in actual materials, and we suggest a way of articulating the various objectives that might accord with a critical perspective. We end with an example of how Critical Language Awareness can be incorporated into a family history writing project.

Narrative Discourse and Teacher Knowledge

Abstract: This article looks at teacher knowledge as a joint construction of teachers and researchers. It focuses on narrative discourse as a representational medium for formulating knowledge in the specific setting of the research interview. The article analyzes the contrasting narrative practices of two teachers in terms of how they formulate versions of self. These practices are seen as differentially situating the two teachers in terms of the large-scale research networks within which knowledge is constituted.

Young Children's Strategies in Learning the "Book Language" of Information Books.

Abstract: Although there has been a lot of research on young children learning about the book language of written story discourse recently, very little is known about how they acquire understandings of other nonstory genres. This article first describes several distinctive discourse features of typical information books written for young children by comparing them to aspects of book language realized in typical storybooks. Then 4 kindergarteners’ repeated “pretend readings” of three typical information books are analyzed to reveal the strategies by which these children learn the characteristic linguistic properties of this genre.

Story generations: From dialogical Interviews to written reports in police interrogations

Abstract: This paper discusses story generation processes in police interrogations and in the writing of police reports. Data consist of 30 interrogations with reports on charges of t Heft, shop-lifting andfraud. Since most factors are kept constant, data permit of a dose comparison of two versions of the 'same' story, one being told in the dialogue between the police officer and the suspect, and the other one produced äs a monological report written by the police officer. There are a number of important differences between the spoken and written narratives. Apart from the difference in language varieties (conversational language vs. police report prose), we find that the monological text has a more clearly elaborated narrative structure and a legally relevant perspective. In addition, the Iransformation from spoken dialogue to written text involves changesfrom vagueness to precision.fr om relative incoherence to coherence and a clear chronology, from emotionality to an objectively identified sequence of events and actions etc. These processes are illustrated by a dose analysis of one example interrogation. Results are discussed in terms of theories of orality vs. literacy, genre type s (institutional routines, differences between lay and Professional rationalities) and situated story-telling.

What discourse is not

Abstract: This paper presents an evaluation of the role and function of discourse analysis in relation to claims that it promotes critical interventions within psychology. Discourse analysis challenges the function, truth claims and methodological adequacy of psychological practices, through attending to difference, resistance, relativism and reflexivity. However, these features pose theoretical and conceptual difficulties, particularly if a theoretically motivated position is attributed to the framework itself, rather than the ways it has been taken up and used. I explore how these issues are played out in the arenas of (a) research practice, (b) teaching discourse analysis, and (c) everyday discursive clashes. As with other approaches that have generated methodological innovations, discourse analysis can work to support, rather than challenge, mainstream psychological practices. In order to maintain the fruitful dynamic of discourse analysis, therefore, we should acknowledge the political concerns that m...

Drunken speech and the construction of meaning: Bilingual competence in the Southern Peruvian Andes

Abstract: This article examines the language use of drunken speakers in a bilingual community of the Southern Peruvian Andes. When drunk, speakers are less constrained in their linguistic choices by considerations of individual linguistic competence and of differential status between speaker and addressees. Cultural norms of heightened potency and diminished responsibility allow drunken speakers to extend their linguistic repertoires and to challenge established social relations. Spanish and Quechua carry very complex and ambiguous meanings related to local conceptions of power and evaluations of an Hispanic and a pre-Hispanic past. Drunks exploit the ambiguities in implicit social meanings that normally function to maintain the status quo as they use their extended communicative competence to present alternative views on the nature of social relations. (Bilingualism, language and power, social anthropology, South America)

Tying it all in: Asides in university lectures

Abstract: Here 1 show how professors at a major American university use asides, local breaks in topicality, to increase global semantic coherence and pragmatic consistency, as well as to evoke in students a variety of interpretive frames. My findings indicate a need for analysis re-evaluating basic concepts of discourse unity and the use of interpretive frames, and my analysis provides a rigorous explanatory model. Other areas in which my findings suggest further research are the structure of multiple-strand discourse, where one component of the discourse provides a running commentary on another, and the devices for creating simultaneous clear demarcation of and strong cohesion between discourse episodes. Finally, my findings call for revision of current materials for teaching academic listening comprehension and for less immediate goalorientation in applied analysis.

From language to communication

Abstract: Contents: Introduction. The Nature of Language: From Magic to Semantics. Modern Linguistics. Language and Cognition: Comprehending Messages. Meaning. Pragmatics and Discourse. Discourse and Global Organization. Discourse and Local Organization. Sociolinguistics and Communication.

Discourse Analysis and City Plans

Abstract: The use of discourse theory as a tool for critical analysis has been ex plored by several planning theorists. Two understandings of discourse can be identified in planning literature: the understanding derived from Ha bermas's critical theory which has been adapted for planners by John Forester, and the understanding based on Foucault's work which has been employed by Christine Boyer. Brief summaries of these two tradi tions are followed by a reading of planners' own major discourse — the city plan — in order to identify some of its enduring discursive traits. The significance of these traits is then discussed in terms of some of the key tenets of current postmodern theory.

6. Toward a History of Modern Sociolinguistics

Abstract: IT APPEARS TO BE A REGULAR PART OF North American culture that when something is declared to be new, few people care to ask a question about what in effect distinguishes the allegedly novel idea or approach from the old. The past is soon forgotten, and people are happy to be part of a trendy present which holds out the promise of becoming the future. There are, of course, reasons for this phenomenon-historical, sociopolitical, and economic; however, an analysis of these reasons is not my concern here. I am simply trying to explain why linguists on this continent usually lack a historical consciousness regarding their own field of study and, as a result, can be easily led into believing claims of novelty, discontinuity, breakthrough, and revolution made by someone in favor of a new product or, for that matter, a theoretical stance. I still recall my own astonishment about the enthusiasm of my teachers for "sociolinguistics" during the late 1960s, which then was, as it is still today, largely associated with the name of William Labov (cf. Macauley 1988, 154-57). In this paper I refer mainly to this brand of sociolinguistics rather than the line of research pursued by scholars coming from sociology (e.g., Bernstein 1960, 1971, Fishman 1972), which is better defined by the phrase SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE; or research programs laid out by scholars with anthropological backgrounds, such as Hymes' ETHNOGRAPHY OF SPEAKING (e.g., Hymes 1974), and by scholars who favor an interactionist, discourse analysis approach (e.g., Gumperz 1971). Given what I noted in my opening sentence, I probably should not have been surprised to find next to nothing on the history of "sociolinguistics" when I first ventured to investigate the subject several years ago.' But I expected a scholar like Dell Hymes, who has written on other aspects of the history of linguistics during the past twenty-five and more years (see Hymes 1983 for a collection of his papers in this area), and who published, among other things, a book called Foundations in Sociolinguistics (1974), to have enlightened us on the origins, sources, and development of the field. However, one searches in vain for any such account in the bibliography of this prolific writer. The closest thing that I could find to date on the history of sociolinguistics was Yakov Malkiel's (1976) paper, which traces its development from Romance scholarship via dialectological work. There are a few brief textbook accounts of the history of sociolinguistics (e.g., Wolfram and Fasold 1972, 26-32; Bell 1976, 28-29; Milroy 1987, 5-11), but these go little

Themes, Thematic Progressions, and Some Implications for Understanding Discourse

Abstract: This article explores some of the confusion and sources of that confusion in the research relating parts of clauses to the communicative roles that they play. It proposes that M.A.K. Halliday's sys...

Communication and cultural interpretation

Abstract: (1991). Communication and cultural interpretation. Quarterly Journal of Speech: Vol. 77, No. 3, pp. 336-342.

Academic contributions to psychological counselling. 2. Discourse analysis and the formulation of case-reports

Abstract: The composition of psychological case-reports can be studied in terms of discourse analysis This examines the rhetorical features of reports and contributes to the work of critical evaluation and constructive revision The coherence of case-reports is dealt with mainly in terms of substantive logic, which consists in identifying and interrelating the component statements of one or more arguments used to explain a case Practical suggestions are made about analysing arguments with the help of a word processor Local cohesion in normal linear test also affects comprehension; diagrams and hypertext are mentioned Factors affecting the production of a case-report include the reporter's expertise and the difficulty of the task The reporter's understanding of, and ability to deal with, a case are likely to be modified in the process of reflecting on and revising a report Preparing a case-report is an exercise in problem-solving Such exercises can be used in training-a tutorial outline is provided t

‘l was just doing X ... when Y’: Some inferential properties of a device in accounts of paranormal experiences

Abstract: This paper presents an analysis ofa two-part device which occurs spontaneously in spoken recollections ofone class of extraordinary personal experiences. This device is identified äs was just doing X ... when Y'. It is argued that there is a culturally-based scepticism about Claims to have experienced the paranormal. This paper reports on the ways in which the first pari of Ms device is used by Speakers to counter potentially negative inferences which may be drawn about someone simply by virtue of their claim to have encountered paranormal phenomena. The analysis focuses on the ways in which Speakers assemble descriptions of what they were doing at the time of the onset of their experience, and some interactional tasks addressed through the way in which these recollections are formulated. Finally, some inferential consequences of the two partedness of the device