Language let loose upon the world Discourse Language let loose upon the world

Textuality the phenomenon of sentences belonging together which is achieved through cohesion and coherence cohesion: a range of linguistic strategies which enable users to know that sentences belong together coherence: the semantic principle which allows users to state that a text makes sense

Context Context is very important (remember the example about the hot coffee > context allowed us to establish whether the speaker’s utterance was declarative, imperative or exclamative) Discourse exists in real life situations

Communicative acts See also Speech Acts (Austin) The full meaning conveyed in discourse is not necessarily the apparent or literal meaning conveyed merely by the words which are spoken or written in single sentences or utterances. > see example p. 187 Politeness Implication > meaning is hinted at rather than stated explicitly Inference > meaning is deduced

Branches of linguistics Pragmatics > interpretation of meaning which is not explicit Sociolinguistics > some overlapping, but it is rather concerned with communities Discourse analysis > can be understood in different ways Discourse from the point of view of Foucault: http://www.brocku.ca/english/courses/4F70/discourse.php http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics

Spoken discourse Non-fluency > typical of spontaneous speech Coordination to join clauses Low frequency of passive constructions comment-topic structure (p. 190 repetition of he > rarely found in writing)

Lexical cohesion in a cohesive text lexical links between sentences are expected lexical words belonging to the same semantic field or lexical set are employed The orchestra is touring Europe. The musicians will perform in Rome tomorrow. lexical cohesion makes a text the output of a deliberate choice

Semantic field and Lexical set Semantic field: a theme or topic created by the occurrence of words of associated meanings within a text Lexical set: a group of words belonging to the same word class and closely related by their meanings e.g.: the names of fruits

Repetition a linguistic item may be repeated within a sentence or in more than one sentence lexical word phrase clause sentence sound (Ouse p. 195) The orchestra is touring Europe. The orchestra will perform in Rome tomorrow. the repetition of grammatical words is not a cohesive device parallelism: the structural repetition of a linguistic pattern

Phonological effects Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. (Vladimir Nabokov)

Reference 2 items can be co-referential = they refer to the same referent Anaphoric reference Cataphoric reference Antecedent anaphor cataphor (cataphors refer towards in the text) Endophoric reference Normally DEICTIC Exophoric reference > related to the situation or context in which the discourse occurs

Deictic pairs time place person now/then, today/yesterday, today/tomorrow place here/there, this/that, these/those person I/you, I/we, he/they

Ellipsis We use language in an efficient and economic way and do not favour repetition unless it is for emphasis or for clarification Ellipsis is the omission from a clause or sentence of an element which can nevertheless be inferred (usually because it is recovered from elsewhere) Ellipsis is particularly common in conversation

Discourse markers Interjections Monitoring devices More frequent in spontaneous spoken language They operate outside normal clause and sentence structure, providing instead orientation points relating to the text in which they occur.

Register Field = use and subject matter of a text Mode = speech or writing (transmission) Tenor = relationship between its participants These factors will affect the degree of formality Written texts also involve choices with regard to layout Genre = particular type identifiable by its form > experience teaches us what to expect (comedians make use of this awareness for comic effect) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dWMIuipn_c (a funny video showing what happens when people do not behave as you expect them to behave)

Homework Read p. 185-211 (8.1-8.11)