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Unit 19: Discourse

• Cohesion - grammatical relationship between parts of a sentence essential for its interpretation; Notes
• Coherence - the order of statements relates one another by sense;
• Intentionality - the message has to be conveyed deliberately and consciously;
• Acceptability - indicates that the communicative product needs to be satisfactory in that the
audience approves it;
• Informativeness - some new information has to be included in the discourse;
• Situationality - circumstances in which the remark is made are important;
• Intertextuality - reference to the world outside the text or the interpreters' schemata;
Nowadays, however, not all of the above mentioned criteria are perceived as equally important in
discourse studies, therefore some of them are valid only in certain methods of the research.
19.3 Features of Discourse

Since it is not easy to unambiguously clarify what a discourse is it seems reasonable to describe
features which are mutual to all its kinds. To do it thoroughly Saussurean concepts of langue and
parole are of use. Ferdinand de Saussure divided the broad meaning of language into langue,
which is understood as a system that enables people to speak as they do, and parole - a particular
set of produced statements. Following this division discourse relates more to parole, for it always
occurs in time and is internally characterized by successively developing expressions in which the
meaning of the latter is influenced by the former, while langue is abstract. To list some additional
traits: discourse is always produced by somebody whose identity, as well as the identity of the
interpreter, is significant for the proper understanding of the message. On the other hand langue
is impersonal that is to say more universal, due to society. Furthermore, discourse always happens
in either physical, or linguistic context and within a meaningful fixed time, whereas langue does
not refer to anything. Consequently, only discourse may convey messages thanks to langue which
is its framework.

19.4 The Functions of Discourse Analysis
As the highest unit of language above the sentences or the clause is discourse. It has the main
functions or targets just like the function of language, that is to transmit information in social
communication. So the study of discourse analysis is to lead the language users to understand
thoroughly about the discourse and also are qualified to produce a well-formed discourse. It is
important that the recifient gets the information correctly. For instance, when the doctor tells a
nurse how to administer medicine to the patients, a policeman gives direction to the travelers, or
a salesman explains the products to the buyers and so on. In each case, it matters that the speaker
or writer should make what he/she says writes clear by. Every speaker or writer is expecting that
his/her utterances or written text will be understood and appreciated by the recifients. In this
situation, of course, the speaker or the writer will try to find the best way to make all events easily
reported or uttered. So discourse is an appropriate unit for this purpose. Finally, it can be insisted
that the function of discourse is defined as to organize a larger idea of a writer or a speaker (that
the sentence has failed to do) and to arrange that the idea into a coherent satate so that the
recifients will easily comprehend what tha writer or speaker means. That is why, as the consequence,
the goal of language will be obtained. So, the main function of discourse is as the best way to
convey information in the terms of communication. But, however, the participants, either the
speaker (writer) or hearer (reader) should certainly understand thoroughly about the discourse
and its structure or organization.

19.5 Types of Discourse

Not only is discourse difficult to define, but it is also not easy to make a clear cut division of
discourse as such. Therefore, depending on the form linguists distinguish various kinds of

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