Page 276 - DENG504_LINGUISTICS

Linguistics

Notes One other frequently occurring arrangement of texts is based on general-specific pattern which is
thought to have two variations. In the first one a general statement is followed by a series of more
specific sentences referring to the same broad idea, ultimately summarized by one more general
remark. Alternatively, a general statement at the beginning of a paragraph might be followed by
a specific statement after which several more sentences ensue, each of which is more precise than
its predecessor, finally going back to the general idea.
As McCarthy points out, the structure of patterns is fixed, yet the number of sentences or paragraphs
in a particular part of a given arrangement might vary. Furthermore, one written text might
contain several commonplace patterns occurring consecutively, or one included in another.
Therefore, problem-solution pattern present in a text might be filled with general-specific model
within one paragraph and claim-counterclaim in another. As discourse analysts suggest making
readers aware of patterning might sanitize them to clues which enable proper understanding of
written communicative products.
Self-Assessment
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Harris mentioned the analysis of whole discourse in .............. .
(a) 1952 (b) 1950 (c) 1947 (d) 1915
(ii) The article ‘Discourse Analysis’ was published by .............. .
(a) Schiffrin (b) Edmonson (c) Harris (d) None of these
(iii) The discourse is a structural event manifested in linguistic behaviour or whereas a text is
an arrangement of structural linguistic expressions which forms a unit–stated by ..............
(a) Stubbs (b) Henry Guntur Tarigan
(c) Edmonson (d) Linde
(iv) The first modern linguistic who commented the study of relation of sentences and the
name discourse analysis–coined by .............. .
(a) McCarthy (b) Harris (c) Linede (d) Edmonson

19.8 Summary

• Discourse analysts do what people in their everyday experience of language do instinctively and
largely unconsciously: notice patternings of language in use and the circumstances (participants,
situations, purposes, outcomes) with which these are typically associated. The discourse analyst's
particular contribution to this otherwise mundane activity is to do the noticing consciously,
deliberately, systematically, and, as far as possible, objectively, and to produce accounts
(descriptions, interpretations, explanations) of what their investigations have revealed.
• Since the study of language in use, as a goal of education, a means of education, and an
instrument of social control and social change, is the principal concern of applied linguistics,
indeed its raison d'être, it is easy to see why discourse analysis has such a vital part to play
in the work that applied linguistics does, and why so much of the work that has been done
over the last few decades on developing the theory and practice of discourse analysis been
done by applied linguists (Widdowson, Candlin, Swales, for example) or by linguists (notably
Halliday and his followers) for whom the integration of theory and practice is a defining
feature of the kind of analysis is done by linguists who would not call themselves applied
and much by scholars in other disciplines - sociology, psychology, psychotherapy, for example
- who would not call themselves linguists.
• Discourse analysis is part of applied linguistics but does not belong exclusively to it; it is a
multi-disciplinary field, and hugely diverse in the range of its interests. For many the interest
in discourse is beyond language in use ( Jaworski & Coupland, 1999, p. 3) to "language use
relative to social, political and cultural formations . . . , language reflecting social order but
also language shaping social order, and shaping individuals' interaction with society."

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