Lecture 12: discourse analysis

1. Discourse analysis – the study of language in use.

Text as a unit of the highest level manifests itself as discourse in verbal communication. Therefore actual text in use may be defined as discourse. Discourses are formed by sequence of utterances. It is obvious that many utterances taken by themselves are ambiguous. They can become clear only within a discourse. Utterances interpretation, or discourseanalysis, involves a variety of processes, grammatical and pragmatic. By pragmatic processes we mean the processes used to bridge up the gap between the semantic representations of sentences and the interpretation of utterances in context. Quite often, the sentence may be ambiguous:

His soup is not hot enough

The hearer must not only recover the semantic representation of the sentence uttered, but decide who the referential expression he refers to, whether the ambiguous word hot means very warm or spicy, whether the vague expression his food refers to the food he cooked, the food he brought, the food he served, the food he is eating, etc.

Besides, utterances have not only propositional content but illocutionary force, and ambiguities may arise at this level:

You’re not leaving

The hearer must not only recover its explicit propositional content, but also decide whether it is a statement, a question or an order. Furthermore, utterances have not only explicit content but also implicit import:

A: Would you like some coffee?
B: Coffee would keep me awake.

The hearer (A) must recover the implication that B does not want any coffee (or, in some circumstances, that he does).

2. Maxims of conversation.

Understanding the meaning of a discourse requires knowing a lot of things. There are times when people say (or write) exactly what they mean, but generally they are not totally explicit. They manage to convey far more than their words mean, or even something quite different from the meaning of their words. It was Paul Grice who attempted to explain how, by means of shared rules or conventions, language users manage to understand one another. He introduced guidelines necessary for the efficient and effective conversation. He defined these guidelines as Cooperative Principle. Cooperative Principle presupposes that conversation is governed by four basic rules, Maxims of Conversation. There are four of them:

1. The Maxim of Quality
Do not say what you believe to be false
Do not say for what you lack adequate evidence
2. The Maxim of Quantity
Make your contribution as informative as required
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required
3. The Maxim of Relevance
Be relevant
4. The Maxim of Manner
Be clear
Be orderly

3. Implicatures of discourse.

Communicative maxims make it possible to generate inferences which are defined as conversational implicatures and conventional implicatures. Conversational implicatures aresuch components of an utterance that are not expressed semantically but are understood by communicants in the process of communication: Was it you who broke the cup? This question presupposes: Someone has broken the cup. If you did not do that your normal reaction would be: What cup?, while the answer I didn’t do that shows that you know about the fact. Conversational implicatures are universal, they do not depend on the language used. The second type of implicatures, conventional implicatures, are derived from a definite lexical or grammatical structure of an utterance: I saw only John (conventional implicature – I didn’t see anyone else), Even Bill is smarter than you (Everybody is smarter than John, John is stupid).

4. Implicatures and indirectness.

Both kinds of implicatures are of great interest for discourse analysis. When there is a mismatch between the expressed meaning and the implied meaning we deal with indirectness. Indirectness is a universal phenomenon: it occurs in all natural languages. Let us see how conversational implicatures arise from Maxims of Conversation and thus create indirectness.

A). In the following example Polonius is talking to Hamlet:
Polonius: What do you read, My Lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.

In this dialogue Hamlet deliberately gives less information than is required by the situation and so flouts the Maxim of Quantity. At the same time he deliberately fails to help Polonius to achieve his goals, thereby flouting the Maxim of Relevance. The Maxim of Quantity is also flouted when we say: Law is law, woman is woman, students are students. This makes us look for what these utterances really mean.

B). In the utterance You’re being too smart! the Maxim of Quality is flouted and the hearer is made to look for a covert sense. Similarly, the same maxim is flouted with metaphors. If I say: He is made of iron, I am either non-cooperative or I want to convey something different.

C). The Maxim of Relevance can also be responsible for producing a wide range of standard implicatures:
A: Can you tell me the time?
B: The bell has gone.

It is only on the basis of assuming the relevance of B’s response that we can understand it as an answer to A’s question.

D). A number of different kinds of inference arise if we assume that the Maxim of Manner is being observed. The utterance The lone ranger rode into the sunset and jumped on his horse violates our expectation that events are recounted in the order in which they happen because the Maxim of Manner is flouted.

One more explanation of the fact why people are so often indirect in conveying what they mean was put forward by Geoffrey Leech in his book “Principles of Pragmatics”. He introduces the Politeness Principle which runs as follows: Minimize the expression of impolite beliefs; Maximize the expression of polite beliefs. According to G.Leech, the Politeness Principle is as valid as Cooperative Principle because it helps to explain why people do not always observe Maxims of Conversation. Quite often we are indirect in what we say because we want to minimize the expression of impoliteness:

A: Would you like to go to the theatre?
B: I have an exam tomorrow.
B is saying ‘no’, but indirectly, in order to be polite.

Theoretical Grammar
Kolomiytseva O.A.