Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis

Reiteration词项重现
repetition of lexical items. A reiterated item may be a repetition of an earlier item, a synonym or near-synonym, a super-ordinate, or a general word.通过同一词项的复现、词项间的同义及近义关系(synonymy)或上下义关系
一般来说，可以从形式/结构（formal /structural）角度来给“语篇”下定义,，也可 以从功能呢的（functional）角度下定义。 从结构方面看，“语篇”是大于句子的语 言单位。 从语言学的角度看，词素小于词，词小于词 组或短语，短语或词组小于分句或小句，分句 或小句小于句子，句子小于语篇。 从功能的角度看，“语篇”是使用中的语言。
• The commonest presumed reference items are: • The definite article the; • Demonstrative pronouns this, that, these, those; • Pronouns he, she, they, it, elationships which link the meanings of utterances in a discourse or of the sentences in text. • It concerns people’s ability to match the text with their experience or their understanding of the word.
Conjunction连词
• An item or a process whose primary function is to connect words or other construction. – I was not invited. Otherwise, I would have been there.
Reference参照，指称
the relationship between a word and what it points to in the real world . In our discussion of cohesion, that sort of reference is called “presented reference”给出的指称 (i.e. it introduces sth new to the text), as distinct from “presumed reference”假定指称 (i.e. mentioned in such a way that we need to retrieve their identity from somewhere else in the text).
• • 1.George studied law in Cambridge. And he is now a lawyer. 2.George studied law in Cambridge. He is now a lawyer.
• The absence of the conjunctions “and” in the second sentence does not affect coherence at all. We know from our experience that being a lawyer is a likely outcome of studying law.
• • e.g. There is a house near the river. That is John’s.
• the replacement of one item with another. It is often used to avoid repetition. a relation between words and constructions, and they have same function. A: I’ve lost my dictionary. (substituted) B: Get a new one. (substitute)
• "语篇分析"研究的是交际中的语言，它涉及 的是语言与它的使用情景（即语境）之间 的关系。语言的表达形式既可以是口头的 （spoken），也可以是书面的（written）。 具体地说，交际中与语言使用有关的问题 的都属于语篇分析的内容。
Topics of Discourse Analysis:
Topic and comment
• Topic话题: what the utterance is about. • Comment述题: what is said about the topic.
Contrast
• Contrast: a noun phrase occurs in opposition to another noun phrase in the discourse.
Substitution 替代
Ellipsis省略
Leaving out a construction of a sentence for reasons of emphasis or style, and the omitted parts can only be recovered by the reader from the previous discourse. John bought some chocolates, and Joan some biscuits. A: Are you watching TV? B: Yes, I am.
Cohesion and Coherence
• a text or a discourse is not just a concatenation of clauses, it forms a unified, coherent whole。
• Cohesion 衔接
• the grammatical and / or lexical relationships between the different elements of a discourse. • Five cohesive devices：Reference，Substitution， • Ellipsis，Conjunction ， Lexical cohesion
• How do language users arrange information within discourse? • Given and new information • Topic and comment • Contrast
Given and new information
• Given information: known to the addressee • New information: unknown to the addressee.
Collocation词项同现
the tendency of certain lexical items to co-occur.
通过“经常共同出现的词项间的联系”来实现衔接功能
More than 2000 patients are dying annually while waiting for transplants……the shortage of organs is so acute.(每年有2000多个等待器官移植的病人濒于死亡 ,……(人体)器官的短缺非常严重。) 英语中transplant与organ具有限定和被限定的组合搭配的 语义关系:organ transplant。英文就凭这种关系可将前后 句有力的衔接起来。而汉译一开始只出现个“移植”,便会 使读者茫然,所以应作“器官移植”,即由语义搭配关系的同 现变成了“器官”这个词汇直接重复,从而保证译文的明确 的连贯性
• In summary, there can be no meaning cohesion without coherence, but coherence without cohesion may be perfectly possible.
• expressions that are commonly used in the initial position of an utterance and are syntactically detachable from a sentence.
(hyponymy)来实现衔接功能
There is a boy playing with fire. The boy is going to burn himself if he doesn’t take care. (repetition) The lad is going to burn himself if he doesn’t take care. (synonym)
What is discourse analysis?
• Discourse analysis also called :Discourse linguistics/ discourse studies/ text analysis. • The study of how sentences in spoken and written language form larger meaningful units such as paragraphs, conversations, interviews, etc.
• coordinator并列连词 (and, but…) • subordinator 从属连词 (because, when) • conjunctive adverbs连接副词 (however, indeed …)