Discourse StructureM.A (English)

Dr. Abdelrahim Hamid Mugaddam

Words, phrases, clauses and sentences have certain kinds of structures not others.

There are ways of signaling the beginnings, internal parts and ending of conversational turns and moves, paragraphs, stories , and arguments.

Certain repeated turns and moves to perform certain speech acts.

Conventions are created to produce the above structures.. This makes ways of building and understanding discourse easily available.

Sets of conventions for constructing phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Intersection of discourse and grammarSentence level: sets of conventions used to

form phrases, clauses and the sentences… how this influences and is influenced by the ways in which these conventions are deployed in discourse.

E.g. research on ‘themes’ and ‘rhymes’ explores how the structure of sentences arises in part out of requirements of ‘information flow’ from one sentence to another.

Utterance that are longer than sentences conversations, paragraphs, stories and arguments.

What do we mean by saying that discourse is structured?

.. On the basis of internal patterns and regularities we can formulate generalizations about which kinds of units precede and follow which other kinds of units, both in single-sentence and in longer texts and conversations.

We make these claims without insisting that structural rules are innate

Without positing a discourse generating machine in the mind that operates only by applying structural rules.

Utterances and talks are not sometimes a result of structural rules but the result of repetition of partly or completely unanalyzed chunks of previous discourse.

It is often assumed that oral discourse is unplanned and sometimes chaotic “random” or unstructured.

Conversation sounds odd if expectation of it structure are not met

Telephone : conversation-closing turnsWe need to ask questions about the

structure.. What is talk made for? And how? What kind of information needs to go through?

Words and lines!Word boundaries: gonna lotta!Apron napron, blubeberry..Lines; Acoustic unit as well as a grammatical

one

Turns and moves!Conversation consists of a bit of talk by one

speaker, then a bit of talk by another, then by another and so on.

These units are called “turns”A turn begins when one speakers starts to

speak, and ends when he or she stops speaking.

Asking question, interruption, overlap

Conversational “move” defined functionally rather than structurally..

A move may take one or more sentenceA: Could you put this letter in the mailbox?B: Sure!AlternativelyA: Can I ask you a favor?B: Sure ! What is it?A: Could you put this…

Paragraph & EpisodeTopic sentence followed by supporting

sentences!Becker (1965) 2 main patterns: Topic slot

(T)followed by Restriction slot(R), then Illustration (I)

Second: Problem (P) and proceeds one or two solution(S)

Discourse Schemata & Structure of NarrativeVan Dijk (1986) print news story: sequence

of structural slots… starting with summary, main story, ending with evaluative or predictive comment.

Reflects the writer and reader’s cognitive “schemata” for such article.. A pre-formed expectation about structure and content that simplifies informatioon-processing.

Labov (1970)Narrative structure:1. Abstract: summary2. Orientation: characters and settings3. Complication: clause and phrases that

recapitulate the sequence of events.4. Result/resulution5. Evaluation: what is interesting or unusal

about the story6. Code: the story is over

Organization of conversationExplicit rules for how one is supposed to

behave in conversation.Don’t talk with your mouth fullDon’t interruptDon’t hog the conversationSex, medical problems, bathroom, humor.. Is

not dinner table conversation

Conversation styleHow polite conversation is supposed to be:

how to book a job interview, getting an invitation to join a university sorority, self-presentation skills..

Talking about conversation!“not being able to get a word in edgewise”“putting your foot in your mouth””so and so talk too much/is too shy/laughs at

his own jokes/talks about herself a lot”“small talk”, “polite conversation”, “visiting”,

chatting”

Old and new information!Old a new information:My father, he is fit to be tiedThat house on Grant Street it was right by

the graveyard

Cohesion!Halliday and Hassan (1976) : Cohesive

DeviceReferenceSubstitution: A:Do you think we’ve held the most of the

high school students to this point?B: Hope so.EllipsisTeacher: Is anyone here a physics major?Student: I am (a physics major)

Lexical cohesion: using the same words repeatedly, or using words that point to one another in various ways, such as antonyms, synonyms, hyponyms.

A: what are the techniques you need to keep in mind when you’re writing for a general audience or a lay audience?

B: keep it simpleA: keep it simple. Okay, can you be a little

more specific?A; OKAY. USE NON-TECHNICAL

VOCABULARY? Okay, is technical vocabulary ever okay for a lay audience? Or , a general audience?