Discourse Analysis Lecture 1

General Requirements
Attendance:
- lecture attendance: 50%
(3-4 sessions out of 7)
- tutorial attendance: 70%
(5 sessions out of 7)
Activity: participation in class discussions + homework
Grade: 40% activity (class activity + a written assignment) + 60% the exam grade
Outline of Tutorials
Course 1: Introduction. Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis (I)
Course 2: Introduction. Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis (II)
Course 3: Positioning and Point of View
Course 4: Intertextuality
Course 5: Linguistic Tools for Doing Discourse Analysis
Course 6: Prejudice in Discourse
Course 7: Advertising in Discourse
WHAT IS DISCOURSE?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z02Ie8wKKRg

(1) language in use in society / meaning making through language / semiosis

(used as an uncountable noun)
all the phenomena of symbolic interaction and communication between people,
usually through spoken or written language or visual representation
(Bloor & Bloor 2007: 6)
(2) Discourse is frequently used to refer to the general communication that takes place in
specific institutional contexts. For example, we can talk about the discourse of science, legal
discourse, and so on. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 7)
... it is an abstract concept that does not bear much relationship to individual
communicative events since each of these discourses is realized in different ways
depending on the situation involved. Thus the discourse of science includes many types

of interaction, including lectures, research reports, theoretical discussions, to name but a

few. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 7)
the language associated with a social practice
Q&A:
What types of interaction/genres can we identify in the following categories of discourse:
political discourse; legal discourse; media discourse?
(3) Discourse used as a countable noun also reflects a particular worldview, position or
ideology, such as liberal discourse, conservative discourse etc. (Fairclough 2003) See
handout
WHAT IS TEXT?
Text is a product of discourse. It is normally used to describe a linguistic record (a text) of a
communicative event. This may be an electronic recording or a written text, which may or may
not incorporate visual materials or, in the case of an electronic text, music. (Bloor & Bloor
2007: 7)
Texts are specific instances of dicourse. They can draw upon various discourses (in the sense of
worldview), instantiate particular types of interaction (genres), and incorporate other texts
(intertextuality).
They are characterised by such elements as cohesion, coherence, intentionality etc.
Discourse domain is the term for a socially recognized context within which the
discourse takes place. If we talk of scientific discourse, science is the domain. [...] A
domain may have a narrower focus and embrace, say, the social setting in which the
discourse takes place. Thus offices, universities, and places of worship along with their
recognized structures may be seen as domains. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 8)
Domains consist of social practices and genres.
Q&A:
What is the domain of media discourse?
What is the domain of BBC news?
People within specific domains engage in social practices. Technically, these people are
often referred to as actors. Social practices are human behaviours which involve
following certain socially established conventions (some may say rules) within which
the actors have some degree of individual freedom and opportunities for unique
behaviour. Most social practices involve knowledge of linguistic and discoursal
conventions in whole or in part. [...]
The knowledge and skills required to engage in social practices are part of socially
shared knowledge. They may have been picked up through experience or contact with
other actors or they may have been learned via specific instruction within the home
environment or as part of education or training. [...] A single instance of a social practice
is a social event, which when language-based (such as a committee meeting) is also
known as a speech event. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 8)
Social practices can be seen as articulations of different types of social element which are
associated with particular areas of social life the social practice of classroom teaching in
contemporary British education, for example.
Elements that make up a social practice:
Action and interaction
Social relations
Persons (with beliefs, attitudes, histories etc.)
The material world
Discourse (Fairclough 2003: 25)

 Identify the domain and the social practice in the following:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cosu2tyqdgQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C21Pm1BUsRw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36MEsWC1Pzc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOL7wzEIZSc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeULGbSbsuU

Genre is the term used for a specific product of a social practice. It is a form of
discourse, culturally recognized, which, more or less, obeys socially agreed
structures. [...] Examples of literary and linguistic genres are novels, poems, university
lectures, biology lab reports, letters, theatre reviews. [...]
Genre is also sometimes used as a term for social events that use regular linguistic and
discoursal patterns, such as committee meeting, and thus, to some extent, can overlap
with the term social practice. Genres can also be seen from the point of the institutions
within which they evolved. Thus, minutes of meetings, annual reports, business
correspondence are associated with business institutions; lectures, seminars, tutorials,
textbooks, notes, essays, and examination papers are associated with educational
institutions. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 8)
See Handout
Genre is a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative
purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic
community in which it regularly occurs. Most often it is highly structured and conventionalized
with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and
functional value. These constraints, however, are often exploited by the expert members of the
discourse community to achieve private intentions within the framework of socially recognized
purpose(s). (Swales cited in Bhatia 1993: 13)
Other definitions of genre(s):
a socially ratified way of using language in connection with a particular type of social
activity (Fairclough 1995: 14)
ways of acting or interacting through speaking or writing (Fairclough 2003: 26)
Participanta and social roles
The participants [in social practices] are those persons who are engaged in a specific act of
discourse. These may be speakers, listeners, readers, writers and each will be playing a social
role. The term role is used much as it is in drama where an actor plays a role in a film or
dramatic production. Most of us are called on to play many roles in our normal everyday life.
For example, take a man named Ahmed. At home, he is a husband and father but, during his
working day, he is an architect. He is also an accountant of the local tennis club where, on
Saturday mornings, he acts as an umpire. In each of these roles he is engaged in different social
practices, is likely to use different genres and the language associated with those practices and
genres. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 10)
Q&A:
What are your social roles? Do you use language differently when you perform them?

If one day you were to become the subject of local news, what social roles could you distinguish
in that context?
Discourse Analysis has been employed:
(1) to identify and describe how people use language to communicate; (2) to develop methods
of analysis that help to reveal the categories (or varieties) of discourse and the essential features
of each; and (3) to build theories about how communication takes place. (Bloor & Bloor 2007:
12)
Critical Discourse Analysis is a branch of discourse analysis which starts from the premise that
there is a social problem or wrong (in a particular social context, related to certain social
domains and practices) which has a linguistic/discursive aspect, for example discrimination,
manipulation or other practices that involve unequal power relations. Its main purposes are to
analyse discourse in order to reveal such problems and power relations, so that they may be
rectified.
Activity:
This activity invites you to engage in an (imaginary) social act and consider its relationship with
language and discourse. Imagine that you are dissatisfied with some expensive product you have
purchased (for example, a computer, a refrigerator, or a camera); what means do you have for
complaining?
Consider whom you would contact (participants in the potential exchange), how you would
contact them (possible modes and genres), what responses you would expect, what your intended
outcome would be, and how you would hope to achieve it. Consider how you feel with respect to
your relationship with the company that produced the product in terms of power relationships.
Would you feel in a position of power or weakness?
References:
Bhatia, V.K. (1993). Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London and New
York: Longman.
Bloor, M. And Bloor, Th. (2007). The Practice of Critical Discourse Analysis: An Introduction.
London: Hodder Education.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London:
Routledge.