A brief introduction to DA as discussed in class

2. DISCOURSE STUDIES
Module 1
Cris Martinez
2009

3. What do we mean when we refer to
DA?
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
TEXTUAL LINGUISTICS
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Enouncing Theory
Textual Grammar
Pragmatics
Sociolinguistics
Psycholinguistics
CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Trans/multidisciplinary studies

4. DISCOURSE STUDIES
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MULTI-VOICED TEXTS
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CONCEPTS OF CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
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GENDER AND DISCOURSE
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IDEOLOGY AND DISCOURSE

5. WHAT IS A TEXT?
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Halliday and Hassan(1976): whether a set of sentences
do or do not constitute a text depends on the cohesive
relationshisp within and between the sentences, which
create TEXTURE (texture is provided by cohesive
relationships)
Brown and Yule(1983): a text is the “verbal record of a
communicative event”.
Lotman(1987): the text is presented to us not as the
realization of a single message in any language, but as a
complex device that stores a number of codes, capable
of transforming the received messages and generate
new messages, an informational generator that has the
features of a person with a highly developed intellect.

6. Basically, texts may be analyzed from…
Their “inside” (how texts are built: cohesion and coherence) HallidayHasan(1976), Brown and Yule(1983)
Their “outside”(how, as topological units, they get together with other
texts), Bahktin(1986)

7. Daniel Chandler says…
“The notion of intertextuality problematizes the idea of a text having
boundaries and questions the dichotomy of 'inside' and 'outside':
where does a text 'begin' and 'end'? What is 'text' and what is
'context'? The medium of television highlights this issue: it is
productive to think of television in terms of a concept which
Raymond Williams called 'flow' rather than as a series of discrete
texts. Much the same applies to the World Wide Web, where
hypertext links on a page can link it directly to many others.
However, texts in any medium can be thought of in similar terms.
The boundaries of texts are permeable. Each text exists within
a vast 'society of texts' in various genres and media: no text is
an island entire of itself. A useful semiotic technique is
comparison and contrast between differing treatments of similar
themes (or similar treatments of different themes), within or between
different genres or media.”
from “Intertextuality” http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem09.html

8. Mihail Bahktin
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“The desire to make one's speech understood is only an abstract aspect of the speaker's
concrete and total speech plan. Moreover, any speaker is himself a respondent to a greater or
lesser degree. He is not, after all, the first speaker, the one who disturbs the eternal silence
of the universe. And he presupposes not only the existence of the language system he is
using, but also the existence of preceding utterances--his own and others'-- with which his
given utterance enters into one kind of relation or another (builds on them, polemicizes with them,
or simply presumes that they are already known to the listener). Any utterance is a link in a very
complexly organized chain of other utterances.”
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“The words of a language belong to nobody, but still we hear those words only in particular
individual utterances, we read them in particular individual works, and in such cases the words
already have not only a typical, but also (depending on the genre) a more or less clearly reflected
individual expression, which is determined by the unrepeatable individual context of the
utterance.”
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“Neutral dictionary meanings of the words of a language ensure their common features and
guarantee that all speakers of a given language will understand one another, but the use of
words in live speech communication is always individual and contextual in nature . Therefore,
one can say that any word exists for the speaker in three aspects: as a neutral word of a
language, belonging to nobody; as an other's word, which belongs to another person and
is filled with echoes of the other's utterance; and, finally, as my word, for, since I am dealing
with it in a particular situation, with a particular speech plan, it is already imbued with my
expression.”
Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Contributors: M. M. Bakhtin - author, Caryl Emerson - editor, Michael Holquist - editor, Vern W. McGee - transltr. Publisher: University
ofxas Press. Place of Publication: Austin, TX. Publication Year: 1986. Page Number: iii.

9. MULTI-VOICED TEXTS
(Polyphony)
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INTERDISCURSIVITY
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TRANSTEXTUALITY
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Intertextuality
Paratextuality
Metatextuality
Hypo(hyper)textuality
Architextuality
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10. An interesting “aside”
 INTERTEXTUALITY
SEMANTIC AND PRAGMATIC ASPECT OF VERBS OF REPORTING
Because of the kind of training we have received as teachers, we usually
take verbs of reporting as a grammar point and we concentrate on the study
and practice of the “verb patterns” involved. However, from a discursive
perspective, these verbs are definitely loaded with information we usually
overlook which may help us and our students read beyond the printed text.

11. Intertextuality refers typically to indirect speech. Grammar implications
apart, indirect discourse …
is less autonomous,
 shows blurred traces.
 presupposes an interpretation of others’ discourse.
 reveals the subjective/ideological position of the speaker (cf. the traditional
belief that when we report we are “reproducing” the original message)
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WHAT DO VERBS OF REPORTING CONTRIBUTE?
THEY...
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express the illocutionary force : advised/suggested
assume truth-falsehood: disclosed the fact
give hints as to the phonetic realization: shouted/yelled
characterize a text type: argued /narrated
locates the discourse in a communicative situation: replied /rebutted

12. What’s more…
 THE USE OF QUOTES....
 suggests emphasis
 disclaims responsibility for what is being
said
 underestimates /creates irony

13. “The debts of a text to other texts are seldom acknowledged
(other than in the scholarly apparatus of academic writing). This
serves to further the mythology of authorial 'originality'. However,
some texts allude directly to each other - as in 'remakes' of films,
extra-diegetic references to the media in the animated cartoon
The Simpsons, and many amusing contemporary TV ads (in the
UK, perhaps most notably in the ads for Boddington's beer). This
is a particularly self-conscious form of intertextuality: it
credits its audience with the necessary experience to make
sense of such allusions and offers them the pleasure of
recognition. By alluding to other texts and other media this
practice reminds us that we are in a mediated reality, so it can
also be seen as an 'alienatory' mode which runs counter to
the dominant 'realist' tradition which focuses on persuading
the audience to believe in the on-going reality of the
narrative. It appeals to the pleasures of critical detachment
rather than of emotional involvement.” Daniel Chandler,
op.cit.

14. What is it that TRANSTEXTUALITY in
general contributes to us speaking/writing
subjects(remember “interchangeability”)to
produce or understand messages?

15. Try explaining someone why these titles are more meaningful than other standard
ones…(this is how polyphony helps us understand particular texts). Give as much
information as possible to clarify the “hidden” implications
The Simpson’s...
 Homer's Odyssey
 There's No Disgrace Like Home
 Moaning Lisa
 The Telltale Head
 The Crepes of Wrath
 Simpson and Delilah
 The War of the Simpsons
 A Streetcar Named Marge
 Selma's Choice
 The Last Temptation of Homer
 Bart of Darkness
 Bart Sells His Soul
 Much Apu About Nothing
http://www.snpp.com/episodes.html (where you can download full scripts with comments on the cultural
http://www.snpp.com/episodes.html
and intertextual sources?

16. What about this one? Why is it that we find it funny
or infuriating? Where do the “other voices” come
from?

17. Some very recent news…try doing the same as
what you did in The Simpson’s titles.