DISCOURSE ANALYSIS:

TOPIC & THE REPRESENTATION OF DISCOURSE

CONTENT

Juvrianto CJ
juvrianto.chrissunday@yahoo.com
 ABSTRACT

This paper illustrates about topic and the representation of discourse content. The data
studied in discourse analysis is always a fragment of discourse and the discourse
analyst always has to decide where the fragment begins and ends. There do exist
boundaries when the topic begins and ends. The notion of topic is clearly an
intuitively satisfactory way of describing the unifying principle which makes one
stretch discourse ‘about’ something and the next

The treatment of topics as a grammatical term, identifying a constituent in the

structure of sentence. The term topic then as found in description of sentence
structure is essentially a term which identifies a particular sentential constituent. the
comprehension of English texts depends not only on knowledge of the language, but
also o extra-linguistic knowledge, particularly related to the contexts in which the
texts occur. Speaking topically' is an obvious feature of casual conversation in which
each participant contributes equally and there is no fixed direction for the
conversation to go.

To know the continuity between one topic to others topic in doing discourse here the
role of topic boundary marks. How we can marks the end of one topic before
beginning in a new topic even in speaking or writing form.
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

In learning language it cannot be separated with the way to learn context or

situation where languages use by human being in their life. As know we know that
by doing interaction to others, people use language to speak and show what things
they put in their mind. The relation between language and the context when which is
the language used it is called as discourse. In terms discourse analysis concerns itself
with the use of language in a running discourse, continued over a number of
sentences, and involving the interaction of speaker or writer and auditor or reader in a
specific situational context. Discourse analysis has been known during 1970s that has
relation with other disciplines including linguistics, semiotics, psychology,
anthropology and sociology.
According to Linda Wood and Rolf Kroger (2000) Discourse analysis is not
only about method, it is also a perspective on the nature of language and its
relationship to the central issues of the social sciences. More specifically, we see
discourse analysis as a related collection of approaches to discourse, approaches that
entail not only practices of data collection and analysis, but also a set of
metatheoretical and theoretical assumptions and a body of research claims and
studies. Therefore there are so many reasons why we should learn about discourse
analysis. First, people never communicate things in either a natural or objective way.
This, according to a discourse analyst, simply means that our language always seeks a
particular response when we use it. Second, by studying discourse analysis it will be
promoting ourself as a critical consumer of information and the last One of which
would be that the language we use in everyday life is used by everybody. It might
sometimes be incoherent or nonsensical, but nevertheless we can usually comprehend
it.
In communicate their own idea it cannot be separated with the discourse.
Doing discourse means people are expected to do in oral or written form. There are so
many topics that people use but it should have the relevance and coherence in doing
communication. Now in this chapter we will talk much about topics in discourse,
how to begin and ends the discourse, sentential topic, discourse topic, relevance and
speaking topically, speaker’s topic and topic boundary marks.
 CHAPTER II
DISSCUSSION

In this discussion, there are some terms will be discussed. All of them are
presented below:

1. Discourse fragments and the notion ‘topic’

As know we know there are so many kinds of data around of us. The piece
data chosen for study can only be partially analyzed by certain requirements. For
extract we can see the investigation by someone primarily interested in intonation.
The data selected should has relation with certain requirement. Data selected
(Intonation) then certain requirements (Spoken, Audible and Depending on the level
of Investigation) and we can also look from the additional information (Age, Sex, and
Linguistic Background of the Speaker). After analyzing the data we will get
‘empirical claims’ about intonation.

The data studied in discourse analysis is always a fragment of discourse and

the discourse analyst always has to decide where the fragment begins and ends. There
do exist boundaries when the topic begins and ends. In order to divide up a lengthily
recording of conversational data the analyst is often forced to depend on intuitive
notions about where one part of a conversational ends and another begins.

The notion of topic is clearly an intuitively satisfactory way of describing the

unifying principle which makes one stretch discourse ‘about’ something and the next
stretch ‘about’ something else, for it is appealed to very frequently in the discourse
analysis literature. The identification of topic is rarely made explicit. In fact, topic
could be described as the most frequently used, unexplained, term in the analysis of
discourse.
2. Sentential Topic

Topic is associated with the descriptions of sentence structure. According to

Hocket,(1958) a distinction can be made between the topic and the comment in
sentence in that speaker announces a topic and then says something about it. The
treatment of ‘topic’ as a grammatical term, identifying a constituent in the structure
of sentence. The term topic then as found in description of sentence structure is
essentially a term which identifies a particular sentential constituent. By realizing that
topics consist of some parts we can know the sentence structure to identify sentential
constituent. We are considering topic as a grammatical constituent of any kind. Topic
as what is being talked about in a conversation and identifiable as one part of
sentence.

3. Discourse Topic

To distinguish the term of discourse topic with sentential topic Keenan & Schieffelin
(1976) emphasize is that discourse topic is not simple NP, but a proposition. Then
based on Bransford (1973) reported his experiments that the comprehension of
English texts depends not only on knowledge of the language, but also o extra-
linguistic knowledge, particularly related to the contexts in which the texts occur. He
also find out that someone comprehension and recall of a passage significantly better
when he or she is given the topic of passage before reading the text. While for the
someone who is not given the topic of the passage before reading as extra-knowledge
reading may give some possible judgment over the text.

The difficulty of determining a single phrase or sentence as a topic of piece of printed

text is increased when fragments of conversational discourse are considered. In any
conversation, what is being talked about will be judged differently at different points
and the particpants themselves may not have identical views of what each is talking
about. People do, however, regularly report on what a conversation was about. There
are informal ways of expressing the topic, even in conventional discourse.
 a. Topic framework

The notion of topic seems to be the central organizing principle for a lot of discourse.
It may enable the analyst to explain sentences or utterances should be considered
together. Rochester & Martin(1979) found that discourse of thought –disordered
speakers and the coherent discourse of normal speakers. A potentially large number
of different ways of expressing the topic of even short written text determine topics
will always be set of possible expressions of the topic. Based on Tyler (1978) the
topic can only be one possible paraphrase of sequence of utterance. A
characterization of topic which allow possible expressions, including titles to be
considered correct, thus incorporating all reasonable judgement what is being talked
about.

From the content of the text the analyst can determine what aspects of the context are
explicitly reflected in the text as formal record of the utterance. Those aspects
reflected to the context which are directly reflected in the text and which need to be
called to interpret the text is called as activated features of context. It is not difficult
fragment to work with, it has a one participant talking in response to another request
for information.

Aspects of the speaker’s assumption about his hearer’s must also considered in
relation to the elements which the speaker does make explicit in his contribution. For
analyzing the topic we can use assignment of values to indexicals such us I, you, here
and now. The topic framework consists elements derivable from the physical context
and from discourse domain (people, places, entities, events, facts, etc.). In this case
we should notice that we should concentrated on only the elements which are
activated that is relevant to the interpretation of what it is said.
 b. Presupposition pools

Presupposition pools which contains information constituted from general

knowledge, from the situate context of the discourse, and the completed part of
discourse and from the completed part of the discourse itself.

Within the presupposition pool for any discourse, there is a set of discourse subjects.
Because it is part of shared assumptions of the discourse participants that these
discourse subjects exist, they do not need to have their existence asserted in the
discourse. The number of discourse subjects in a presupposition pool shared by
participants who know each other quite well is potentially very large. Remembering
that any discourse data to which the analyst has access will only be a fragment, it
would be extremely difficult to predetermine the complete set of discourse subjects
which participant share prior to particular discourse fragment. The problem to be
faced is that of limiting the choice of contents of even partial set in some non-
arbitrary way. The most important principle involved in this selection of Vememan's
discourse subjects must have to do with their relevance to the particular discourse
fragment under consideration. If, in a stretch of conversational discourse, the
participants involved can be independently known to have potential discourse
subjects, within their shared presupposition pool This would lead to the conclusion
that the relevant 'discourse subjects' for a particular discourse fragment must be those
to which reference is made in the text of the discourse.
c. Sentential Topic and Presupposition pools

This definition of topic has a certain intuitive appeal, in the sense that what two
participants are concentrating on, in their conversational. There are, however, two
basic problems here (Venneman,1975) First, this definition of topic seems to be based
on the same 'topic = single term title'. A second objection is identifying the topic in a
discourse fragment. of what the most probable context was, both verbal and non-
verbal, for these two discourse fragments. That is, the reader will be forced to use
these 'texts' to reconstruct, not just some relevant discourse subjects in the
presupposition pool, following Venneman, but rather some of the elements of the
topic framework existing when these discourse fragments were produced.
4. Relevance and Speaking Topically

Once the elements in the topic framework and the interrelationships between
them have been identified, the analyst has some basis for making judgements of
relevance with regard to conversational contributions. We have characterised as a
convention of conversational discourse - 'making your contribution relevant in terms
of the existing topic framework' - could be captured more succinctly in the expression
speaking topically. We could say that a discourse participant is 'speaking topically'
when he makes his contribution fit closely to the most recent elements incorporated
in the topic framework.
Speaking topically' is an obvious feature of casual conversation in which each
participant contributes equally and there is no fixed direction for the conversation to
go. Both forms are based on the existing topic framework, but the distinction derives
from what each individual speaker treats as the salient elements in the existing topic
framework. It is quite often the case that a speaker will treat what he was talking
about in his last contribution as the most salient elements and what the other speaker
talked about, though more recent, aless salient.
5. Speaker’s Topic

So far we have considered the notion of 'topic' in discourse in terms of what

the participants share. The 'topic framework', as an analytic device, is essentially a
means of characterising the area of overlap in contributions to a discourse. However,
we may neglect aspects of conversational discourse associated with different speakers
having different personal 'topics'. So far, we have been concentrating on describing
the 'conversational topic', but neglecting the notion of speaker's topic. Characterising
the individual speaker's topic as 'what I think we're talking about incorporates both
that element which the conversational analyst add intends to abstract as the 'topic of
conversation' for the participant’ information.
 6. Topic boundary markers.

To know the continuity between one topic to others topic in doing discourse here the
role of topic boundary marks. How we can marks the end of one topic before
beginning in a new topic even in speaking or writing form.

a. Paragraph

Written discourse is divided into paragraphs whose boundaries are marked by

indentations. Topic-shifts in written discourse then could be identified with the
beginning of each new paragraph. Topic-shifts is between two contiguous pieces of
discourse which are intuitively considered to the different 'topics', there should be a
point at which the shift from one topic to the next is marked.
b. Paratones

So far we have concentrated on structural markers in written discourse. At the

beginning of a paratone, the speaker typically uses an introductory expression to
announce what he specifically intends to talk about. This introductory expression is
made phonologically prominent and the whole of the first clause or sentence in each
paragraph. Paratones may be uttered with raised pitch. At the end, there is an obvious
'completion point'. In 'turn-taking' terms, it is a point at which another speaker is free
to take over.
 CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

Topic has a big role when people doing discourse. Topic is something that
what we are talking about. In doing a god discourse between speaker and listener they
have to have ideas about the topics and they can speak well and avoid to do the
overlap. There are some terms that we can get from this topics how we can move
from one topic to other topic through topic-shift and turn-taking in doing discourse.

A hypothesis underlying much of the work we shall report is that there is a

sfecific connection between 'discourse topic' and 'discourse content'. The former can
be viewed as, in some sense, consisting of the 'important' elements of the latter. If the
representation of discourse content can be presented as a hierarchy of elements in the
discourse, then the top-most elements are natural candidates for treatment as the 'most
important' components of the discourse topic. If it can also be shown that people
remember these top-most elements better than others, then this might be evidence that
what we have 'in our heads' after reading a text are those elements which constitute
the discourse topic. In order to evaluate such an approach, we have to consider
critically how such representations of discourse content are arrived at.
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Keenan, E. L. (ed.) (1975) Fonnal Semantics of Natural Language Cambridge

University Pres

van Dijk, T. A. (1977) Text and Context London: Longman

Venneman, T. (1975) 'Topic, sentence accent, and ellipsis: a proposal for their formal
treatment' in (ed.) E. L. Keenan