Page 273 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Unit 19: Discourse

sophisticated the linguistic output is to be the more thorough knowledge of grammar gains Notes
importance. Moreover, it is essential not only for producing discourse, but also for their perception
and comprehension, as many texts take advantage of cohesive devices which contribute to the
unity of texts, but might disturb their understanding by a speaker who is not aware of their
occurrence.
Anaphoric reference, which is frequent in many oral and written texts, deserves attention due to
problems that it may cause to learners at various levels. It is especially important at an early stage
of learning a foreign language when learners fail to follow overall meaning turning much attention
to decoding information in a given clause or sentence. Discourse analysts have analyzed
schematically occurring items of texts and how learners from different backgrounds acquire them
and later on produce. Thus, it is said that Japanese students fail to distinguish the difference
between he and she, while Spanish pupils have problems with using his and your. Teachers, being
aware of possible difficulties in teaching some aspects of grammar, should pay particular attention
to them during the introduction of the new material to prevent making mistakes and errors.
The most prominent role in producing sophisticated discourse, and therefore one that requires
much attention on the part of teachers and learners is that of words and phrases which signal
internal relation of sections of discourse, namely conjunctions. McCarthy claims that there are
more than forty conjunctive words and phrases, which might be difficult to teach. Moreover,
when it comes to the spoken form of language, where and, but, so, then are most frequent, they
may take more than one meaning, which is particularly true for and. Additionally, they not only
contribute to the cohesion of the text, but are also used when a participant of a conversation takes
his turn to speak to link his utterance to what has been said before.
The foregoing notions that words crucial for proper understanding of discourse, apart from their
lexical meaning, are also significant for producing natural discourse in many situations support
the belief that they should be pondered on by both teachers and students. Furthermore, it is
advisable to provide learners with contexts which would exemplify how native users of language
take advantage of anaphoric references, ellipses, articles and other grammar related elements of
language which, if not crucial, are at least particularly useful for proficient communication.
Application of Discourse Analysis to Teaching Vocabulary
What is probably most striking to learners of a foreign language is the quantity of vocabulary used
daily and the amount of time that they will have to spend memorizing lexical items. Lexis may
frequently cause major problems to students, because unlike grammar it is an open-ended system
to which new items are continuously added. That is why it requires close attention and, frequently,
explanation on the part of the teacher, as well as patience on the part of the student.
Scholars have conducted in-depth research into techniques employed by foreign language learners
concerning vocabulary memorization to make it easier for students to improve their management
of lexis. The conclusion was drawn that it is most profitable to teach new terminology paying close
attention to context and co-text that new vocabulary appears in which is especially helpful in
teaching and learning aspects such as formality and register. Discourse analysts describe co-text
as the phrases that surround a given word, whereas, context is understood as the place in which
the communicative product was formed.
From studies conducted by discourse analysts emerged an important idea of lexical chains present
in all consistent texts. Such a chain is thought to be a series of related words which, referring to the
same thing, contribute to the unity of a communicative product and make its perception relatively
easy. Additionally, they provide a semantic context which is useful for understanding, or inferring
the meaning of words, notions and sentences. Links of a chain are not usually limited to one
sentence, as they may connect pairs of words that are next to one another, as well as stretch to
several sentences or a whole text. The relation of words in a given sequence might be that of
reiteration or collocation, however, analyst are reluctant to denote collocation as a fully reliable
element of lexical cohesion as it refers only to the likelihood of occurrence of some lexical items.
Nevertheless, it is undeniably helpful to know collocations as they might assist in understanding
of communicative products and producing native-like discourse.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 267