Pre-Test Discourse Analysis

Pre-Test Discourse Analysis

Part A

Please explain briefly

1.      What is DA ?

2.      Please mention 2 major areas of DA

3.      Mentions each 3 experts in DA and their works

4.      Mention each 3 experts in one specific area of DA and their works (e.g. title of journal, books, or name of theory)

Part B

Explain the DA/CDA terms below (CHOOSE 3 ONLY)

1.      Discourse

2.       Discursive psychology

3.      Text

4.      Inter-dicipline

5.       Discursive practice

6.      Social practice

ANSWER

Part A

1.      Discourse analysis (DA) is a general term for a number of approaches to analyze written, vocal, or sign language use, or any significant semiotic event. Discourse analysis is a broad term for the study of the ways in which language is used in texts and contexts. Also called discourse studies.

2.      2 major areas of DA

3.      3 experts in DA and their works

Crystal (1987:112) “…error analysis is a technique for identifying, classifying and systematically interpreting the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a foreign language, using any of the principles and procedures provided by linguistics.”

Brown (1980:166) defines error analysis as “…the process to observe, analyze, and classify the deviations of the rules of the second language and then to reveal the systems operated by learner.”

Discourse analysis is concerned with language use as a social phenomenon and therefore necessarily goes beyond one speaker or one newspaper article to find features which have a more generalized relevance. This is a potentially confusing point because the publication of research findings is generally presented through examples and the analyst may choose a single example or case to exemplify the features to be discussed, but those features are only of interest as a social, not individual, phenomenon." (Stephanie Taylor, What is Discourse Analysis? Bloomsbury, 2013)

4.      3 experts in one specific area of DA and their works (e.g. title of journal, books, or name of theory)

 Hodges, B.D., Kuper, A., & Reeves, S. (2008) Discourse Analysis. British Medical Journal. 337

Part B

Discourse Analysis is the investigation of knowledge about language beyond the word, clause, phrase and sentence levels. All of them are the basic building blocks of successful communication. In discourse analysis researchers have to infiltrate language as a whole beyond the micro level of words and sentences and look at the entire body of communication produced in a given / particular situation. Discourse analysis refers ‘to attempts to study the organization of language above the sentence, or above the clause, and therefore to study larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges or written texts’ (Stubbs 1983:1). However, Michael Stubbs redefines Discourse in his later work as ‘It is therefore more accurate to say that text and discourse analysis studies language in context: how words and phrases fit into both longer texts, and also social contexts of use’ (Stubbs 2001a:5).

Discursive psychology (DP) is a form of discourse analysis that focuses on psychological themes in talk, text and images. In discursive psychology the focus is not on psychological matters somehow leaking out into interaction; rather interaction is the primary site where psychological issues are live. It is philosophically opposed to more traditional cognitive approaches to language. It uses studies of naturally occurring conversation to critique the way that topics have been conceptualized and treated in psychology.

Discursive Practice is a theory of the linguistic and socio-cultural characteristics of recurring episodes of face-to-face interaction; episodes that have social and cultural significance to a community of speakers. This book examines the discursive practice approach to language-in-interaction, explicating the consequences of grounding language use and language learning in a view of social realities as discursively constructed, of meanings as negotiated through interaction, of the context-bound nature of discourse, and of discourse as social action. The book also addresses how participants’ abilities in a specific discursive practice may be learned, taught, and assessed. 

Social practice is a theory within psychology that seeks to determine the link between practice and context within social situations. Emphasized as a commitment to change, social practice occurs in two forms: activity and inquiry. Most often applied within the context of human development, social practice involves knowledge production and the theorization and analysis of both institutional and intervention practices.

Definition of Error Analysis, Discourse and Discourse Analysis

Definition of Error Analysis, Discourse and Discourse Analysis

Norrish(1987) “…error is a systematic deviation, when a learner has not learnt something and consistently gets it wrong”

Cunningworth(1987:87) “Errors are systematic deviations from the norms of the language being learned.”

Norrish (1983:8) says that a mistake is an inconsistent deviation that is sometimes the learner ‘gets it right’ but sometimes wrong.

Richards et.al (1985:95) state that mistake, made by a learner when writing or speaking,  is caused by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness, or other aspects of performance. Richards et.al (1985:96) “Error analysis is the study of errors made by the second and foreign language learners.”

Brown (1980:166) defines error analysis as “…the process to observe, analyze, and classify the deviations of the rules of the second language and then to reveal the systems operated by learner.”

Crystal (1987:112) “…error analysis is a technique for identifying, classifying and systematically interpreting the unacceptable forms produced by someone learning a foreign language, using any of the principles and procedures provided by linguistics.”

https://talimenam.blogspot.co.id/2014/12/what-is-error-what-is-error-analysis.html

Discourse analysis is concerned 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, and within a framework of social and cultural conventions" (Abrams and Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms, 2005)

Discourse analysis is concerned with language use as a social phenomenon and therefore necessarily goes beyond one speaker or one newspaper article to find features which have a more generalized relevance. This is a potentially confusing point because the publication of research findings is generally presented through examples and the analyst may choose a single example or case to exemplify the features to be discussed, but those features are only of interest as a social, not individual, phenomenon."

(Stephanie Taylor, What is Discourse Analysis? Bloomsbury, 2013)

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."

(Linda Wood and Rolf Kroger, Doing Discourse Analysis. Sage, 2000)

Discourse studies, says Jan Renkema, refers to "the discipline devoted to the investigation of the relationship between form and function in verbal communication" (Introduction to Discourse Studies, 2004).

Dutch linguist Teun van Dijk, author of The Handbook of Discourse Analysis (1985) and the founder of several journals, is generally regarded as the "founding father" of contemporary discourse studies.

http://grammar.about.com/od/d/g/discanalysisterm.htm

Richards et al., (1996:127), error analysis has been conducted to identify strategies which learners use in language learning, to track the causes of learner’s errors, obtain information on common difficulties in language learning or on how to prepare teaching materials.

Michaelides, (1990:30) states that the systematic analysis of student’s errors can be of great value to all those concerned, i.e., teachers, students and the researchers. For teachers it can offer clear and reliable picture of his students’ knowledge of the target language.

Willcott, (1972:73) conducted an error analysis to discover some of the problems that native speakers of Arabic had with the syntax of written English.  

Corder (ibid), argues that "what has come to be known as error analysis has to do with the investigation of the language of second language learners." One of the main aims of error analysis is to help teachers assess more accurately what remedial work would be necessary for English as a Second Language (ESL) students preparing for an English Language test, so as to help students avoid the most common errors.

E-Book of 

Cook (1989: 156) views discourse as "a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful unified and purposive", whereas Nunan (1993) asserts that discourse means "a stretch of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as related in some way".

Kress (1985) defines discourse as "Systematically organized sets of statements which give expression to the meanings and values of and institution".

Parker (1992) views discourse as "interrelated set of texts, and the practice of their production, dissemination, and reception, that bring and option into being".

Discourse analysis is a broad and complex interdisciplinary field as Brown and Yule (1983) explain that the term has focused on different aspects for different disciplines.

Schiffrin (1994: 1), discourse analysis is "a rapidly growing and evolving field" and "widely recognized as one of the most vast, but also one of the least defined, areas in linguistics".

Slembrouck (2005:1) provides a broad definition that the term discourse analysis refers mainly to the linguistic analysis of naturally occurring connected speech or written discourse.

Structuralist (or formalist) viewed discourse as a particular unit of language. It is "language above the sentence or above the clause" (Stubbs, 1983: 1). In many structural approaches, discourse is viewed as a level of structure higher than the sentence or higher than another unit of text.

In accordance with McCarthy (1991), discourse analysis is a vast area within linguistics, encompassing as it does the analysis of spoken and written language over and above concerns such as the structure of the clause or sentence.

Discourse analysis is interested in ascertaining the constructive effects of discourse through the structure and systematic study of texts (Hardy,2001 in Phillips and Hardy,2002).

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/english-language/discourse-and-discourse-analysis-english-language-essay.php

Proverb and Idioms

PROVERB

Proverb is a brief, simple and popular saying, or a phrase that gives advice and effectively embodies a commonplace truth based on practical experience or common sense. A proverb may have an allegorical message behind its odd appearance. The reason of popularity is due to its usage in spoken language as well as in the folk literature. Some authors twist and bend proverbs and create anti-proverbs to add literary effects to their works. However, in poetry, poets use proverbs strategically by employing some parts of them in poems’ titles such as Lord Kennet has written a poem, A Bird in the Bush, which is a popular proverb. Some poems contain multiple proverbs like Paul Muldoon’s poem Symposium.

There are some examples of proverb:

·         Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

·         Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone.

·         Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

·         All that glitters is not gold.

·         An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep.

·         The old horse in the stable still yearns to run

Examples proverb in literature:

1.      From Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart:

“If a child washes his hands he could eat with kings.”

If you remove the dirt of your ancestors, you can have a better future. Everyone can build his/her own fame.

“A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing.”

Everything happens for a reason and for something not for nothingness.

“A child’s fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm.”

Children who obey their mothers are not punished.

2.      From William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:

“The weakest goes to the wall.”

The weak people are never favored.

“He that is strucken blind cannot forget

The precious treasure of his eyesight lost.”

A man who loses his eyesight can never forget the importance of lost eyesight.

“One fire burns out another’s burning,

One pain is lessen’d by another’s anguish.”

(http://literarydevices.net/proverb/)

IDIOM

Idioms exist in every language. An idiom is a word or phrase that is not taken literally, like “bought the farm” has nothing to do with purchasing real estate, but refers to dying. Idiom also refers to a dialect or jargon of a group of people, either in a certain region or a group with common interests, like in science, music, art, or business.

Common idioms that refer to people include:

• A chip on your shoulder - means you are holding a grudge
• High as a kite - means you are drunk or on drugs
• Sick as a dog - means you are very ill

Idioms that refer to your actions would be:

• Rub someone the wrong way - meaning to annoy or bother
• Jump the gun - would mean to be doing something early
• Pay the piper - means you need to face the consequences of your actions

Some idioms use color words to convey other meanings. For example, there are several that use the word “blue:”

• “The blues” can refer to both a style of music and feeling sad.
• If something occurs rarely, it is said to happen “once in a blue moon”, because a blue moon is two full moons in one month, which doesn’t happen often.
• “Out of the blue” means something happens that was unexpected.  

Learning a Language with Idioms

Because of idioms, learning a language can be complicated. After you can conjugate verbs, and know a lot of words, you may still have difficulty speaking the language with native users.

This is partly due to the use of idioms and would also depend of which region of a country you were in. Idiom usage is not just regional, but also varies according to people’s interests and social groups.

The best way to pick up on the meaning of certain idioms would be to converse with people and ask them for a clarification of the idiom if you are not clear about the idiom they used. There are also sites on the Internet which will help explain the meaning of idioms.  

Idioms In the Arts

There are many idioms in the field of music.

• If you “fine tune” something, you make small improvements to it.
• “Changing your tune” means changing your mind.
• If you are “whistling Dixie” or “whistling in the dark” you are overly positive about something.
• If you try and make a decision too early without knowing all the facts, people may tell you that “it’s not over ‘till the fat lady sings.”

Drama and dance have idioms, too, like:

• “Break a leg” means good luck.
• If you are a “ham” you overact.
• If you say, “it takes two to tango” you mean that more than one person is at fault or involved.
• If you “tap dance” your way out of a sticky situation, then that implies that you get out of it in a clever way.
• Being “in the spotlight” means you are the center of attention.

Remember, a group of people with shared interests such as the arts or business will have their own idioms. As with all idioms it will be easier to understand the idioms if you concentrate on what is being said and ask questions about the meanings of the idioms.

(http://examples.yourdictionary.com/idiom.html)