Sheila Choirul Istifa (2201409059)
405-406
5th assignment of TAL
Approaches to Discourse
Through this chapter, I will discuss several approaches to discourse analysis based on the seventh-meeting material available. First approach is speech act theory. This approach is developed by Austin (1955) and Searle (1969). The basic unit of analysis is speech act (SA) or illocutionary force (IF). From the basic belief that language is used to perform action, Austin and Searle state that the basic unit conversational analysis must be functionally motivated rather than formally design one. The systemic name of this approach is Speech function (SF), the central issue in discourse structure.
The second approach is Interactional Sociolinguistics and developed by Gumperz (1982) and Goffman (1959-1981). It is concerned with the interpretation of discourse and importance of context in production. The unit of analysis is grammatical and prosodic features in interaction. In other side, Schiffrin (1987) is focusing on quantitative interactive sociolinguistics analysis, especially discourse markers. His basic concern is on the accomplishment of conversational coherence and the unit’s analysis is turn.
Ethnography of communication is the third approach. It is developed by Dell Hymes (1972b, 1974). It concerns with understanding the social context of linguistics interaction: ’who says what to whom’, when, where, why, and how. The prime unit of analysis is speech event which has some components. The analysis of the speech units’ components then we called ethnography of communication or ethnography of speaking. Then the ethnography framework has led to broader notion of communicative competence.
The fourth approach is pragmatics (Grice 1975, Leech 1983, Levinson 1983). This approach formulates conversational behavior in terms of general “principles” rather than rules. The base of pragmatic approach is conversation analysis called Gricean’s cooperative principle (CP). This principle seeks to account how participants do in next conversation and how the interlocutor goes about interpreting the previous speaker has just done. This principle is divided into some maxims: quantity (say only as much as necessary), Quality (try to make your contribution one that is true), Relation (be relevant), and manner (be brief and avoid ambiguity).
The fifth approach is conversational analysis (Harold Garfinkel 1960s-1970s). It is a branch of ethnomethodology and the concern is to understand social members make sense of everyday life. There are two grossly apparent facts here, that is only one person speaks at a time, and speakers change recurs. Thus conversation is a ‘turn taking’ activity. Models conversation as infinitely generative turn-taking machine, where interactants try to avoid lapse: the possibility that no one is speaking.
The sixth approach is Variation analysis (Labov 1972a, Labov and Waletzky1967). This approach is branch of quantitative of linguistics of change and variation. Labov and Waletzky argue that fundamental narrative structures are evident in spoken narrative of personal experience. Its structures involve six stages: Abstract, orientation, complication, evaluation, resolution, coda (abstract and coda are optional). Although typically focused on social and linguistic constraints on semantically equivalent variants, the approach has also been extended to texts.
The seventh approach is structural functional approach to conversation. It refers to two major approaches of discourse analysis which relevance to the casual conversation: Birmingham School and Systemic Functional Linguistics. The conversational structure attempts to relate the description of conversational structure to that of other units, levels, and structures of language.
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