Gillian Brown and George Yule: Discourse Analysis— A Review Article
Gillian Brown and George Yule: Discourse Analysis— A Review Article
discourse
上海电力学院 苏燕萍
Abstract： This is a review article of Discourse Analysis, an introduction of theories of discourse analysis, collaborated by Gillian Brown and George Yule. The article gives a review on the book from different angles, investigating the advantages and disadvantages of the work. This book is helpful for beginners to cross the threshold of discourse study.
Keywords：discourse analysis; multi-disciplinary issue; review article
1.Introduction
Discourse analysis, as a young branch of learning sprung up in 1940s, has undergone a tremendous development. Like any study of multi-disciplinary issues, it was denied and ignored by some scholars for a long time. But nowadays it becomes a prosperous subject.
Many publications on this issue have come out. We can look back on a substantial expanse of work on it. Surveys and readers are widely available: An Introduction to Discourse Analysis (Coulthard, 1977); Discourse Analysis: A Social Linguistics Analysis on Natural Language (Stubbs, 1982); Discourse and Literature (Van Dijk, 1985); Discourse (Cook, 1989); Discourse and Language Education (Hatch, 1992); An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method (Gee, 2000), etc.
From above-mentioned discourse analysis works, we can see the diversity and prosperity of the study in this field. We also can see different researchers adopt different approaches to discuss the same field from different perspectives. “The benevolent see benevolence and the wise see wisdom.” The book we will discuss is Discourse Analysis collaborated by professor of Cambridge University Gillian Brown and professor of State University of Louisiana George Yule in 1981. Although it has been published for a long time, it is still authoritative today for its comprehensive introduction of various theories and approaches in discourse analysis and systematic illustration on how humans use languages to communicate and how addressers construct linguistic messages and how addressees work
on linguistic messages in order to interpret them. All in all, it is classic work for beginners to engage in discourse analysis to cross the threshold.
2. An overview of the book
This book in general is a comparatively comprehensive introduction to discourse analysis theories. Research fruit, in relation to this branch of learning, such as psychology, sociology, philosophy and computational linguistics, has been woven in this process to enrich discourse study today. And in this book, the authors basically take a linguistic perspective. They focus on how humans use language to communicate and how addressers construct linguistic messages for addressees and how addressees work on linguistic message in order to interpret them.
In Chapter One, the authors emphasize language forms and functions. They distinguish two functions of language: transactional and interactional; inquire into the differences and relations between spoken language and written language. They also make a distinction between sentence which is the unit for the grammar study and utterance which is the unit f
or discourse analysis to found a basis for.
Chapter Two consider the effect of situational context on discourse. Context is a vital notion which all the discourse analysis activities are based on. In relation to context, such terms reference, presupposition, implicature and inference are surely applied to describing the use of language in context. Subsequently, they introduce some theories centered on “context” such as Firth’s and Hymes’ viewpoints. In order to help readers to understand the important concept “context”, the authors then put forward two principles: Local Interpretation Principle and Analogy Principle as cues.
Chapter Three examines some of the uses of the term “topic”. They explore how the notion of “topic” relates to representation of discourse content.
Chapter Four focuses on discussing the effect of linearization in discourse, how what is presented first limits the interpretation of what follows and how decisions on the matisation provide the overall structure within which the addressee interprets the discourse.
Chapter Five investigates even further into the smallest units of discourse. They also consider how information is packaged within such small structures and what resources are available to speakers and writers for indicating to their addressees the status of information which is introduced into the discourse.
Chapter Six has extended the study from the structure of small chunks of language to the structure of large chunks of language. The main problem to be solved must be about “cohesion” of the discourse. They quote Halliday and Hasan’s viewpoints that the primary determinant of whether a serious of sentences do or do not constitute a text depends on cohesive relationships within and between the sentences, which create texture. Then they explore what the hearer base his identification of the speaker’s intended referent on and what forms referring expressions take. At last, they discuss the uses of pronouns in discourse and try to discover on what basis the addressees understand the referring content of pronouns.

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