Discourse Analysis : theory and practice
Week One
•1. Development of Discourse Analysis
•2. Basic theories to discourse analysis
•3. distinction of some basic terms
•4. Interest of discourse analysis
1. Development of discourse analysis
•Contrastive analysis and error analysis
•Contrastive analysis (Fries, 1945; Lado 1957)
  Lado: the obstacle of learning a foreign language is the presence of the first language or rather the interference of the mother tongue.
Contrast between the target language and the first language in order to predict what difficulties learners might have.
Problems with CA
•1. too many predictions so that people do not know what to do.
•2. in areas where no predictions are made, problems do occur.
•3. Language has surface structure and deep structure. Similarities in surface structure do not necessarily mean similar in deep structure, while surface structures can be different but deep meanings might be the same.
Values:
•1. for preparing teaching materials
•2. to allocate time of teaching
•3. to orient proficiency test
•4. students with different language backgrounds may have different errors or different problems.
Error Analysis
•Around 1968 when Chomskian theory was in full swing.
•Language is rule-governed, creative and unique to individual person.
•Early stages rely on L1, gradually more on L2.
•Learners become the center of attention.
•Learner’s language is called Inter-language, approximate system, or idiosyncratic dialect.
Interlanguage (Selinker 1975)
•When the leaner produces TL, he would produce a set of utterances which are neither identical to the hypothesized corresponding set of utterances produced by a native speaker
of TL, nor the set of utterances produced in his mother tongue. It is a separate linguistic system based on the observable output which results from the learner’s attempted production of a TL norm. This linguistic system is called inter language.
Approximative system
Second/foreign language learning is a continuum as shown below.
•LsundefinedLa1undefinedLa2undefinedLa3undefinedLa4undefinedLanundefinedLt
•discourseLs = source language
•La = approximative language
•Lt = target language
Idiosynchracy
•Any spontaneous speech intended by the L2 learner is meaningful in that it is systematic in its own right.
•The language of the L2 learner is a kind of dialect or idiolect particular to a certain person.
Error analysis
•…is a kind of contrastive analysis between the learner’s interlanguage and the target language norms.
Ways of doing error analysis:
•Describe the errors: intralingual and interlingual
•Interpretation of errors
•Developmental errors and mistakes
•Mother tongue interference
•Beneficial to the teacher in terms of what part is understood and what is not.
•Errors are part  of learning.
•Errors can be used by teacher researchers as data for analysis on how language is learned or why errors are made.
2. Basic theories of discourse analysis
•Theory of text linguistics:
•Van Dijk (1972)
•De Beaugrande (1980)
•Haliday & Hasan (1976)
•Theory of sociolinguistics and pragmatics
•Theory of functional grammar
•Theory of applied linguistics
  and Contrastive rhetoric
3. Distinction between discourse and text
•Text usually refers to the linguistic forms in a stretch of language, and those interpretations of them do not vary with context. In linguistics, texts have often been discussed as though their meanings were constant for all users. (Brown & Yule, 1983)
•Discourse, as opposed to text, is a stretch of language in use, taking on meaning in context for its users, and perceived by them as purposeful, meaningful and connected. ( Brown & Yule 1983)
•A discourse is a coherent stretch of language
•Text is a string of language whose overt structure satisfies certain explicit linguistic criteria. (Enkwist, 1978)
•A text is a string of language around which the receptor can build a coherent, non-contradictory universe of discourse.
•In a sense, text and discourse share similar features and therefore are interchangeable.
4. General interests of discourse analysis
•1. Sentence based text models: explain inter-sentential relations (cohesion) and how sentences get their textual fit through theme-rheme or topic-comment focus. (clause and sentence level and linguistic in nature)
•2. Predication-based models: peculiar arrangement of text depends on a specific strategy and sentences are textualized into text types as narrative, argumentative, or descriptive. (macro-function-oriented, and sociolinguistic in nature)
•3. Cognitive text models: why writers use certain text strategies in given context and what is the role of cognition in text processing.(macro and cognitive feature)

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