Discourse Analysis Lecture 2

Outline:
Overview of the main concepts introduced in Lecture 1
The importance of social context in discourse analysis
What is socially shared knowledge?
Situational and cultural context
The importance of social context in discourse analysis
Consider the following sentences:
Their parents lent them a credit card.
For now, Bridget was being put through her paces on the island of Tenerife.
What can you say about the intended purpose of these sentences? What do they
communicate, to whom and about what/whom (referents)? Is the context clear?
Language can properly construct meaning only when it is part of a wider social event. It
both needs context and helps create context at the same time. [...] In systemic functional
linguistics, a language, in an abstract sense, has meaning potential, which is to say that
the words (lexis) and grammar along with the sound systems of the language are
available for us to use to make meaning. The meaning evolves [...] in specific instances
within contexts of situation. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 17)
What is socially shared knowledge ?
Socially shared knowledge sometimes known as mutual knowledge is knowledge
that is used by participants in a communicative act. We need shared knowledge to
communicate even in a one-to-one conversation. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 17)
Lack of shared knowlegde may lead to:
breakdown in communication
misunderstandings
quarrels
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UpTLLnkJlQ
But shared knowledge can also be used to manipulate.
Mutual knowledge can be categorized into the following types:
knowledge of certain facts relating to subject matter;
wide cultural knowledge, such as an understanding of major celebratory festivals,
religious and/or ethical customs, or the legal system;

 knowledge of how people behave with respect to their social roles within social
hierarchies;
knowledge of the institutional practices of specialist discourse communities, such
as workplace groups, schools, government, clubs and societies and their related
genres;
knowledge of the moral values of the groups to which participants belong;
knowledge of the co-text and context in a specific communicative event;
knowledge of the individuals involved as discourse participants in the immediate
communicative event.
(Bloor & Bloor 2007: 18)
What is the shared knowlegde in the following ad excerpt?
Signs of aging, sagging skins and wrinkles? Fight back!
Speech community
It is generally used to refer to a group of speakers who share common features of
language because they frequently interact with each other. An example might be the
people of a certain geographical region or social group that share a common dialect of a
language [] Most people in the world today are members of more than one social group
and switch speech styles and even languages at different times depending on who they
are with or what theyare engaged in. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 9)
shared speech styles
Discourse community
Refers to communities where the people concerned may meet frequently or rarely or
sometimes not at all, but still communicate and develop specific discourses. Traditionally,
these have often been professional, business or academic communities, who read the
same reports or journals, publish in the same journals, write letters to each other, and so
on. There are also communities of people who share the same hobbies or interests.
(Bloor & Bloor 2007: 9)
Situational and cultural context:
...context has often been considered under the two separate headings of context of
culture and context of situation. The context of culture includes the traditions, the
institutions, the discourse communities, the historical context and the knowledge base of
the participants (which may, of course, be mono-cultural, cross-cultural or multi-cultural).
Like situations, culture is under a process of continuous change. Cultural and situational
elements are often so closely intertwined that it is extremely difficult to see them in
isolation. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 27)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWFPHW7BCCI
Roughly, the context of situation focuses on the various elements involved in the direct
production of meanings in a particular instance of communication. Since analysts ...
generally work with specific texts, or instances of discourse, they need to take account of

the setting (or social environment), identity of the participants, and so on, in order to be
able to make valid generalizations. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 27)
Thus, in matters of politeness, for example, the ways in which we show respect (either
linguistically or otherwise) and the rules for who should show respect to whom are part
of the context of culture, but in the course of a specific conversational exchange, the
power relationships between the participants and whether or not they conform to social
expectations are part of the context of situation. (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 27)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrZh_iFRUpY
For this purpose, a set of questions can be asked, concerning: content,
participants, the relationship between text producer and intended
addressee/recipient, purpose of communication.
It is essential for a discourse analyst to examine how the situational and cultural
context produces, even constrains, or contributes to changing meaning.
Context is often dynamic, it changes.
Who is talking to whom about what? Why? What is their purpose? What effect are they
having (or trying to have)? (Bloor & Bloor 2007: 29)
...at the most practical level, for a given context, the analyst will seek to identify:
the setting (or place/s) of the event;
time or times and aspect of the event;
mode and medium of the event (face to face; one speaker to many listerners;
written to be read; television; illustrated text, for example);
participants and their roles in the event;
topic/s, themes (including distance of participants from the topics);
purpose of the discourse event and purposes of the participants;
attitude of the participants;
the dynamics of the situation (How do events, participants, topics, attitudes, and
so on, change during the course of the discourse event?)
the genre (where applicable).
(Bloor & Bloor 2007: 29)
Another important contextual aspect regards the institutional influence and constraints on
discourse.