DISCOURSE ANALYSIS BY BRIAN PALTRIDGE

CHAPTER 1
WHAT IS DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
By shamimnazish@hotmail.com

Central Idea of the Chapter The first chapter, What is

Discourse Analysis?, surveys discourse analysis, its
origin, and the issues that interest discourse analysts. In
this chapter the writer gives us basics and description
of discourse analysis and dilates upon different
accounts of linguists from Zellig Harris and Fairclough
to Mills. Zellig, had two main interests i.e. the
examination of language beyond the level of sentence
and the relationship between linguistic and non-linguistic
behavior. The relation between language and context has
been comprehensively presented for the readers as a
food for thought
1. What is Discourse Analysis Discourse Analysis is
the investigation of knowledge about language
beyond the word, clause, phrase and sentence
levels. All of them are the basic building blocks of
successful communication. In discourse analysis
researchers have to infiltrate language as a whole
beyond the micro level of words and sentences and look
at the entire body of communication produced in a given /
particular situation. Discourse analysis refers to attempts
to study the organization of language above the
sentence, or above the clause, and therefore to study
larger linguistic units, such as conversational exchanges
or written texts (Stubbs 1983:1). However, Michael
Stubbs redefines Discourse in his later work as It is
therefore more accurate to say that text and
discourse analysis studies language in context:
how words and phrases fit into both longer texts,
and also social contexts of use (Stubbs 2001a:5).

a. Relationship Between Language And Context

The basic consideration of Discourse Analysis is
relationship between language and the
situations wherein it is produced. It analyzes and
investigates both spoken and written interactions.
In the broader context, its not only the conversation
that is taken into account in discourse analysis, but
also the societal customs and practices as well
that make the entire web of social fiber /
behaviors.
b. Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics This chapter
will highlight pragmatics that is the prime
consideration of the ways in which people mean
more than what they say in spoken and written
discourses. Paltridge discusses Discourse Analysis
from pragmatic point of view.
c. The Discourse Structure Of Text Discourse
Analysts are interested in how people knit into a
structure what they intend to convey to others in a
conversation or in a piece of writing. For Example
there are cultural differences of greetings in Japan
and USA. In US they are very short while in Japan
they include weather and other details in greetings.
As they say greetings from HOT and SIZZLING
Tokyo instead of only the word of greetings which is
not a requirement in English
d. Cultural Ways Of Speaking And Writing The
author criticizes the study of the Ethnography of
communication by Dell Hymes. The cultural context
 remains the most important aspect that needs
attention of analysts, researchers and critics.
Paltridge maintains that though Hymes analyzed
cultural point of view but he ignored social and
cultural context in language occurs.
e. Communicative Competence & Discourse
Communicative competence is knowing about
the structures that are normally used while
communicating in a given language. It revolves
around the knowledge of speakers as to how to
respond to different speech acts as faced during
day to day situations. Communicative competence
consists of four components i.e. grammatical
competence, socio linguistic competence discourse
competence and strategic competence.
f. Discursive Competence Discursive competence is
not only language related and text level
knowledge but also includes complex factors
beyond text which are required for useful
communication. Discursive competence draws
together the notion of textual competence generic
competence and social competence.
2. Different Views of Discourse Analysis It is
the analysis of functional language i.e. the language
currently in use in context. Paltridge has discussed
different uses of discourse analysis i.e. the one is
textually oriented and the other is social constructionist
use of discourse analysis. The first view only concentrates
on language features of text while the second one talks
about the text in social and cultural settings. Paltridge
has focused more on discourse analysis from the
second point of view. Both of these aspects can
hardly be ignored in a realistic discourse analysis.
Different features of text are important
components but at the same time the contextual
settings cannot be separated from the textual
features to scrutinize / analyze the intended
meaning.
a. Discourse as the Social Construction of
Reality The author here discusses that
through discourse we always construct our
social reality and she gives the example of
BBC Panorama interview in which Princess
Diana doesnt only talk about herself but while
she talking she also constructs her social
world in a way that she wants people to see.
b. Discourse And Socially Situated Identities
Similarly, whenever we speak or pen
something down we construct our socially
situated identities. A speaker can construct
multi identities in a single stretch of
discourse. For example, when a speaker, in an
interview, tells that his son goes to Chicago
University, he establishes his identity of being
a father and a husband. In the same very
interview if he discloses it to the audience that
he is a high ranking officer in the Army, he
constructs his second identity of being an
army office. It includes the way we dress, the
way we act and interact influences.
c. Discourse And Performance Sometimes our
discourse not only shows the intentions and
 identities, it actually performs the intended
functions. Its based on the view that in
saying something we do it. For example
when it is said, I promise and I now pronounce
you man and wife The act has been performed
i.e. the couple has become man and wife.
d. Discourse And Intertextuality All text
whether spoken or written, takes meanings
from other texts and refers to other texts.
So, this way they are in an intertextual
relationship with other texts. Casablanca movie
in which different genre such as adventure
patriotic war propaganda are mixed up.
3. Difference Between Spoken And Written
Discourse There are a no of differences b/w
spoken and written discourse. The differences are as
under:-
a. Grammatical Intricacy and Spoken Discourse
Researchers have shown that speech as well
as writing is grammatically complex and
different from each other. The written language is
more complex grammatically compared to the
spoken version of discourse
b. Lexical Density in Spoken and Written
Discourse Discourse analysts like Halliday
maintain that written discourse is more lexically
dense than the spoken form. It used thicker and
comparatively difficult lexicon to convey the
meaning.
c. Nominalization In Written And Spoken
Discourse Nominalization refers to the process of
forming nouns from other word class than nouns.
 For example red+ness=redness. It occurs where
actions and events are presented as nouns
rather than verbs. In written discourse the
process of nominalization takes place on
higher level while in spoken discourse there is low
level of nominalization.
d. Explicitness In Spoken And Written Discourse
Writing is more explicit than speech.
Explicitness in writing and speech depends on the
purpose of the text as well as listeners and readers.
e. Contextualization In Spoken And Written
Discourse Some of the spoken genre is
decontextualized and some of the written genre
is also decontextualized while some are not. In
the written discourse the contextualization has to
be established before starting the major
discussion/explanation. The spoken genre, such as
academic lectures, is decontextualized.
f. The Spontaneous Nature Of Spoken Discourse
Spoken discourse is often produced
spontaneously so sometimes it is disorganized in
comparison to writing as Halliday points out writing
is, a highly idealized version of the writing
process
g. Repetition Hesitation and Redundancy in
Spoken Discourse Spoken discourse being
produced spontaneously and without any
preplanning, contains abundant repetition hesitation
and redundancy because it is produced in real time
and it contains pauses and fillers.
h. A Continuum Of Differences between Spoken
and Written Discourse
 There are no binding rules of differentiating
between spoken and written discourse as
spoken and written styles may intermingle with
each other in forms.
CHAPTER NO 2
DISCOURSE AND SOCIETY
1. Central Idea of the Chapter In this chapter the author
talks about the notion of Discourse Community and
the related notion of speech Community and both of
these influence what we say and how we say and
which language variety we choose to use as we are
engaged in discourse. Further she talks about social and
gender identities. Partridge argues that speakers have a
linguistic repertoire from which they can make different
choices in different situations. The notions of gender and
identity are thoroughly discussed
as important topics in the area of discourse and society.

2. Discourse Communities and Speech Communities

Discourse community is a group of people who work
or live together. Members of discourse community have
shared goals, values and beliefs. Camerons study
of telephone call centre in the UK is an example of
discourse community. These communities have shared
goals, same vocabulary and similar living environments
that elicit language.

3. Speech Communities and Spoken / Written

Discourse A speech community refers to any group of
people that speak the same language such as
Hindko, Pashto and Urdu etc. from general linguistic
point of view. The term refers to people who not only use
 the same language but also have the opportunity to
interact with each other, from socio-linguistic point of
view. However, Paltridge says that it is not only the
language that defines speech community but also we
need to keep in mind various factors like society,
geography, culture, politics and ethnicity.

4. Discourse and Language Choice People use a

particular variety of language to keep the intended
meanings limited to the group that shares the secrecy
of information/meaning. Like some of young school
students in Pakistan invented the term GF meaning
Girl Friend. They use the term to avoid disclosing the
fact that they have a girl friend or who their girl friend is.

5. Discourse Social Class & Social Networks The use

of spoken and written discourse also depends on
social class network people belong to. A group of
speakers may appear to be very similar in social class
membership but they differ in use of language as they
interact in social networks.

6. Discourse and Gender Earlier works have talked

about discourse and gender in terms of biological
category of sex but the present research talks in relation
to the socially constructed category of gender. Paltridge
also agrees the later view. As Simone De Beauvoir
says, one is not born but rather becomes a
woman. Then she talks of the two approaches namely
Dominance Approach and the Difference or Cultural
Approach. The Dominance approach maintains that
there are clear differences in the use of language as a
result of male dominance over the female. The cultural
 approach believes that boys and girls live in different sub-
cultures in the way that people from different social and
ethnic backgrounds might be described as being part of
different sub cultures. Resultantly boys and girls learn
different ways of using the spoken discourse. It includes
the notion of desire as we have discussed that gender
is socially constructed but sexual desires are not
constructed.

7. Discourse and Identity Paltridge talks about two views

of language and identity. One view is variationist
perspective and the other one is post structural
perspective. The variation is perspective looks at the
relationship between social variables in terms of
variation in the use of linguistic variables. However,
post structural perspective on language and identity
focuses on this view that identity is constructed
through discourse. Camerons example of this in her
discussion of how a group of male US college students
constructs heterosexual masculinity through the talk
they engage in while watching TV in their college dorm.

a. Identity and Casual Conversation Through use of

conversation people establish social identities as
Eggins and Slade argue that people do not engage in
casual conversations just to kill time but rather to
negotiate social identities as well as clarify and extend
interpersonal relations. To quote Cameron when we
speak, we are telling other people something
about ourselves.

b. Identity and Written Academic Discourse Identity

is even constructed in our academic writing as in
 spoken or other written discourse. As Hyland argues,
almost everything we write says something about
us and the sort of relationship that we want to set
up with our readers.

8. Discourse and Ideology. Texts are neither

ideology free nor objective. A spoken or written genre
is never created without an objective. It always
intends to convey or propagate a message to the
readers / listeners. There are a number of ways in
which ideology might be extracted from a text. This may
include tracing underlying ideology from linguistic
features of a text unpacking ideological presupposition
underlying the texts.

CHAPTER - 3
DISCOURSE AND PRAGMATICS
1. Central Idea of the Chapter. Chapter 3,
Discourse and Pragmatics, clarifies the relationship
between language and context. This section shows
that both pragmatics and discourse analysis share an
interest in the relationship between language and
context and how language is used to perform different
speech acts. The chapter begins by defining pragmatics
i.e. the study of meaning in relation to the context in
which the discourse is being produced.
2. Language, Context and Discourse. Use of Language
in context is very important in discourse
analysis. Same language carries different meaning in
different context. For example, the word duck in
normal English language is only the bird. The same
word duck while being used in cricket would mean
 zero score. So, what determines the meanings of
discourse is the use of discourse in context. However,
there are other factors which also play very important
role like physical, social contexts and the mental world
and roles of people involved in the interactions.
3. Speech Acts and Discourse. Austin argued that there
are three kinds of acts which occur with everything we
say. These are locutionary act, the illocutionary act
and perlocutionary act. The locutionary act refers to
the dictionary meaning of words, the illocutionary act
refers to the speakers intended meanings and the
perlocutionary act refers to the way discourse is
perceived by others.
4. The Co-operative Principle and discourse. Grice
based his co-operative principle on four sub-principles.
These are maxims of quality, quantity, relation and
manner. Quality means, people should only say what
they believe to be true and accurate without any
addition to the meaning from them. Quantity means that
the message being conveyed by the discourse should be
comprehensive and holistic without any loopholes
and confusions in it. Relation refers to the fact that our
discourse needs to be in harmony to the context and
should have relevance to the surroundings. If not so, the
entire message may not be communicated in its true
letter and spirit. Manner says that we should be clear in
what way to say it and what exactly to say so that
the listeners / readers understand the message the
best intended way.
5. Flouting the Co-operative Principle. The co-operative
principle helps the producers of discourse convey their
information effectively. This principle is followed to a
 great extent but the intentions behind the production
of discourse do matter. The speakers/writers follow the
cooperative principle to convey what they intend to
convey, rather than following the principle in its true
letter and spirit. For example, the principle of quality
wants the producers of discourse to say what they
want to be true. But actually what they say is what
they want their listeners / readers to believe. This
violation of the co-operative principle is best done
in the diplomatic circle of the world.
6. Cross - Cultural Pragmatics and Discourse. In the
global world of today the cross-cultural pragmatics is very
important. When people say something, it carries
different meanings in different culture. This is called
cross-cultural pragmatics. For example, once when I was
teaching my Saudi students two years back, I wanted
them to finish their assignment quickly. I snapped my
fingers to tell them to be quick. (as we normally do in our
country to tell someone to work quickly) Snapping my
fingers made my students feel offended because the act
of snapping fingers is done to call dogs in Saudi Arabia.
There are two key notions in the area of cross-cultural
pragmatics i-e pragmalinguistics (the study of more
linguistic end of pragmatics) and sociolinguistics
(sociopragmatics refers to specific local conditions of
language use).
7. Conversational Implicature and Discourse.
According to Thomas, an implicature is generated
intentionally by the speaker to make a listener do
something which he may fail to understand. For
example the sentence there is some chalk on the
floor intends the listener to pick up the chalks.
 However, a listener in this case may not be able to
understand that the speaker wants him to pick up the
chalks. Inference, on the other hand, is produced by the
hearer on the basis of certain evidence and may not in
face be the same as what speakers intends.
8. Politeness, Face and Discourse. Politeness and face
are two important factors for discourse analysis. Lakoff
(1973) introduced three maxims of politeness. These are
dont impose, give options and make your hearer
feel good. If our listeners are meant to understand the
intended meaning effectively and comprehensively the
we must maintain the three maxims to convey the
message.
9. Face and Politeness across Cultures. Face and
politeness varies from culture to culture. For example in
the Saudi culture it is not customary to look at
somebodys face while talking / listening. On the other
hand, if we talk/listen to someone in Pakistan without
looking at his face it is thought to be impolite. Also in
some cultures bedroom is private and cannot be entered
while in others there is no problem in strangers entry
into bedrooms.
10. Politeness and Gender. Politeness varies depending
on the context and culture like women are more polite
than men. Sometime polite words like Yar! (in
Pakistani/Urdu culture) to a strange lady will be an odd
one as compared to known friend etc. Therefore, it is
important to use polite words at right place.
11. Face-Threatening Acts. Some acts threaten a persons
face. They are called face-threatening acts. When you
interact with some person and in reaction, the individual
does not respond and showing you cold shoulder, in this
 context, your face is going to be threatened. For
example, in Pakistani culture, if someone says
Asalamolikum to another person and in response the
other person does not say Waalikunassalam, the first
person will be offended and annoyed. The act of the later
will be a face threatening act.

CHAPTER-5
DISCOURSE AND CONVERSATION
1. Central Idea of the Chapter Conversation analysis is
an important component of discourse analysis. It is
an approach of spoken source that looks at the way in
 which people manage their everyday conversational
interaction. Paltridge gives a transcribed extract to
clarify the particular transcription conventions that
are used as part of conversation analysis where
intonation, prolongation of
sounds, and stress matter. For example, underlining and
the use of capitals
implies loud talk and word stress.
2. Transcription Conventions. Specific transcriptional
conventions are used in conversation analysis. The rise
and fall of pitch / intonation, the length of sentences, and
the pauses indicated in the transcription all contribute to
the analysis of the transcriptions.
3. Sequence and Structure in Conversation. Aspects
of conversational interactions that have been examined
from this perspective include conversational openings,
closings, turn taking, sequence of related
utterances and preferences for particular combination of
utterances. Adjacency pairs are a fundamental unit of
conversational organization and a key way in which
meanings are communicated and interpreted in
conversation. These pairs put the conversation in the
sequence and treat the sentences spoken by each of the
speakers as consequential to each others
utterances. Adjacency pairs across cultures their stage
and convention is fundamental to the analysis to the
spoken discourse.
4. Preference Organization. The basic rule for
adjacency pairs is to allow and give time to the other
participant. Thus having gained sufficient time to take
turns and respond to the other participant of the
conversation, the speakers complete the entire body of
 the conversation rendering it all as a complete body of
discourse ready for analysis.
5.Feedback. Feedback means the ways in which
listeners show by saying mmm and yeah or
through body position and the use of eye contact. The
functions response items such as mmm, yeah and
OK are also influenced by the intonation, place and
timing of the utterances. So, the feedback on the
speakers performance is what encourages the speaker to
continue or to head towards the culmination of the
conversation. The feedback also speaks of the face
threatening act or politeness in conversation on
part of the listener.
6. Repair. As the term simply signifies that the
speaker corrects / repairs blemishes he commits in
the conversation. He does it either himself or with the
help of another person. The act of repair also
concentrates on what exactly the listener of the
conversation has understood of the discourse.
7. Gender and Conversation Analysis. Discourse
analysts have also investigated the construction of
gender reality by speakers in their
discourse/conversation. For example excessive use of
Child-care vocabulary discloses the speakers as being
a female and beyond that a mother exactly. The
researchers have examined the social construction of
social reality, and have examined the social construction
of gender from a conversation analysis perspective.
8. Conversation Analysis and Second Language
Conversation Introduction of Discourse analysis, as
an academic subject, is not traced back in centuries
rather in only a few decades. Initially the subject
 remained limited to the attention of the native
speakers later the attention shifted to the second
language speakers as well. The non-native talk will, in
future, contribute a lot in the development of teaching
methods and techniques. Though psychological analysis
is not the mandate of discourse analysis but attention,
somehow or the other, will be drawn to this this aspect to
promote the second language acquisition.
9. Criticism of Conversation Analysis The major
criticism on conversation analysis is that, when we
analyze data from the conversation analysis perspective,
we are working as spectators not participants in the
interaction. It is thus, not really possible for us to know
how the participants view the conversation unless we ask
them. This is, to my mind a misplaced criticism as the
entire conversational analysis is not only the transcript
analysis. Rather in the modern era the video recording
facility will revolutionize the conversational analysis
because the availability of real time footages will make it
possible to contextually analyze the decontextualized
conversations.

CHAPTER - 6
DISCOURSE GRAMMAR
1. Central Idea of the Chapter In Discourse Grammar,
Paltridge throws light on the idea that grammar
discussions are no longer limited to sentences but extend
 to include discourse as well. Expounded by Hughes and
McCarthy (1998) making
a strong connection among form, function, and context.
In the initial phase of the development of the new subject
of discourse analysis, it was thought to be the analysis of
language just beyond sentence. However, the passage of
time moved the discussions from sentence based
perspectives to grammar, a discourse based perspective.
This chapter highlights those aspects of grammar that
help the discourse analysis of a text.
2. Grammar from a Discourse Perspective Different
linguistic items such as it, this and that show different
interpretation from a discourse analysis point of view. For
example, the use of the word it would mean a
reference to a non-living thing already mentioned before
in a discourse. This grammatical term will be very
different and would mean something else compared to
the use of the word he later in the chapter.
a. Grammar and Discourse from a Contextual
Perspective Hilles ( 2005) describes the
process of examining grammar and
discourse from a contextual perspective.
The first stage in this process is to make a
decision as to what aspect of language to
investigate, in next stage, to look at as many
sources as possible from reference grammar
and the final stage is to test the hypotheses
that have been formed by the native speakers if
they would make the same choices that the
research suggests they would make.
b. Comparing Discourse and Sentence-Based
Grammars Huges and McCarthy (1998)
 make a helpful comparison between Discourse
and sentence-based grammars. A discourse-
based Grammar, makes a strong connection
between form, function and context and also
aims to place appropriateness.
c. Cataphoric Reference Cataphoric reference
is the reference to something that is mentioned
later in the discourse. It describes an item
forward. For example, in the sentence I said
this many times before and let me repeat it
again today the meaning of this and it is
not specified and it has to come later in the
chapter. This reference to something that has to
come yet, is called cataphoric reference.
d. Exophoric reference This type of reference
looks outside for the things it refers to. David
Crystals Dictionary of Linguistics and
Phonetics defines it as A term used by some
linguists to refer to the process of a
linguistic Unit referring directly to the
EXTRALINGUISTIC SITUATION
accompanying an utterance.
e. Homophoric Reference. Homophoric reference
is where the identity of the item can be
retrieved by reference to cultural knowledge,
in general, rather than the specific context of the
text.
f. Comparative and Bridging Reference
Comparative reference The identity of the
presumed item is retrieved not because, it
has already been mentioned (will be
mentioned) in the text.
3. Lexical Cohesion It refers to the relationship in meaning
between lexical items in a text and the particular content
words and the relationship between them.
a. Repetition Repetition refers to words that are
repeated in a text. This includes words which are
inflected for tense or number and words which are
derived.
b. Synonymy. Synonymy refers to words which are
similar in meaning such as date and go out.
c. Antonymy. Antonymy describes opposite or
contrastive meaning such as Shy and Forward.
d. Hyponymy and Meronymy. A word with a
particular meaning that is included in the meaning of
the more general word for example dog and cat
are the hyponym of animal. Meronymy is where
lexical items are in a whole to part relationship with
each other.
4. Collocation. Collocation is the association between
vocabulary items which have a tendency to co-occur,
such as combinations of adjectives and nouns as in
table and chair, hair dye real-estate agent, the
right direction etc.
5. Conjunction. Conjunction refers to words, such as and
however that joins phrases, clauses or sections of a text
in such a way that they express a logical semantic
relationship between them.
6. Substitution and Ellipsis Substitute form is
used for another language item, phrase or group. For
example Try reading this book. That ones not
very good. Here, ones is substitution for book. In
ellipsis some essential element is omitted from the text
and can be recovered by referring to a preceding element
in the text.
7. Theme and Rheme Theme is the starting point of a
clause; that is, what the clause is about. The rest of the
clause is the rheme. Genre is a term in widespread use to
indicate an approach to communication which
emphasizes social function and purpose.
8. Thematic Progression The notion of theme and
rheme are also employed in the examination of
thematic progression, or method of development of
texts.
a. Constant Theme One theme of thematic
progression is theme reiteration or constant theme.
b. Linear Theme Another common pattern of
thematic progression is when the subject matter in
the rheme of one clause is taken up in the theme of a
following clause.
c. Split Rheme Texts may, equally, include other
kinds of progression such as multiple-theme or split
rheme patterns. In multiple theme / split rheme
progression, a rheme may include a number of
different pieces of information, each of which may be
taken up as the theme in a number of subsequent
clauses.
9. Focusing on Cohesion in Student Texts The
work of Halliday and Hasan (1976) influenced scholars
and researchers by the early 1980s. The two terms were
distinguished then. Before their work, both the words
were used interchangeably. Cohesion is now understood
to be a textual quality, attained through the use of
grammatical and lexical elements that enable readers
to perceive semantic relationships within and between
sentences. Coherence refers to the overall
consistency of a discourse, its purpose, voice,
content, style, form, and so on--and is in part
determined by readers' perceptions of texts,
dependent not only on linguistic and contextual
information in the texts but also on readers' abilities to
draw upon other kinds of knowledge, such as cultural and
intertextual knowledge.

CHAPTER - 7
CORPUSES APPROACHES TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

1. Central Idea of the Chapter Discourse analysis is

basically a research activity i.e. a micro level work on the
text / spoken discourse as a single whole conveying
meanings collectively. In corpus analysis the data is
fed to computers and modern gadgetry to get
certain out puts based on the information given in
the discourse. Corpus studies can make important
contribution to our understanding of data /
characteristic of discourse. However, the completely
computer based analysis can make unnecessary
generalizations which can lead to unrealistic
outcomes and judgments.
2. What is Corpus Corpus is the collection of data
usually stored and analyzed electronically. They look at
the occurrence and re occurrence of particular
linguistic features to see how and where they occur in the
discourse.
3. Kinds of Corpora. There are following eight kinds
of corpora:-
a. General Corpora.
b. Specialized Corpora. .
c. The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken
English.
d. The British Academic Spoken English.
e. The British Academic Written English Corpus.
f. The TOEFL Spoken and Written Academic
Language Corpus
4. Design and Construction of Corpora. Data for
general research is always available in abundance.
However if answer to a specific questions is required
then we have to design our own corpora to suit our
requirements.
5. Issues to consider in constructing a Corpus.
While designing a Corpus many factors need to be
considered, like the size of corpus, form of
expression like written or spoken genre or in the
form of monologue, dialogic and multi-party etc.
a. Authenticity, representativeness and Validity
of the Corpus. In the construction of corpus
authenticity, representativeness and validity
are also important issues, that need due attention
of the researchers.
b. Kinds of Texts to Include in the Corpus.
According to (Hunston2002), the kind of Corpus
depends on the availability of texts as well as
the validity. He means to say that, for how much time
it will be available for the purpose of updating.
c. Size of the Texts in the Corpus. It depends
that, some corpora aim for an even sample size of
an individual texts.
d. Sampling and representativeness of the
Corpus. The important issue in this regard to define
what section of the society is being considered
as the population being researched on.
6. The Longman Spoken and Written English
Corpus. The LSWE (Longman Sspoken and
Written English) corpus represents four major discourse
types, conversation, fiction, news and academic
prose.
7. Discourse Characteristics of Conversational
English Following are the major characteristics as
noted by Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written
English:-
a. Non clausal units in conversational
discourse Conversational discourses make
wide use of non-clausal units i.e. utterances
which do not contain an explicit subject or verb.
b. Personal Pronouns & Ellipsis in
Conversation Wide usage of personal
pronouns and ellipses in conversational
discourse. It is because of shared context in
which conversation take place.
c. Situational Ellipsis in Conversation
Speakers at times intentionally skip
certain words as they take it for granted that
the listener understands the immediate context.
d. Non-clausal Units as Elliptic Replies in
Conversation In the shared social
 situation in which the conversation is
taking place both speakers know what is being
talked about.
e. Repetition in Conversation In order to give
added emphasis to a point the spoken
discourse has abundant repetitions in
conversation.
f. Lexical Bundles in Conversational
Discourse There is frequent use of lexical
bundles in conversational discourse such as in
addition to, in order to, it is going to
be, If you want to, etc.
8. Performance Phenomenon of Conversational
Discourse Following are the important points of
Performance Phenomenon of Conversational Discourse:-
a. Silent and Filled Pauses in Conversation
The individuals fear to lose their turn if they pause in
the end. To retain their turn the speakers tend
to pause in the middle giving the impression of
speaking the very next moment.
b. Utterance launchers and filled pauses In
conversational discourse people use utterance
launchers such as well as, all right,
okay, fine, lets etc. to take the turn and to
fill pauses.
c. Attention Signals In Conversation Speakers
often use other persons names as an attention
signal to make it clear to whom they are speaking
to.
d. Response Elicitors In Conversation A question
tag is an example of response elicitors in
conversation.
e. Non Clausal Items as Response Forms Uh,
Huh, Mum, Yeah, Okay, are the examples of non-
clausal items.
f. Extended Coordination Of Clauses In
conversational discourse one clausal unit is added
to another clausal unit with such items as, and,
but etc.
9. Constructional principle of conversational
discourse. There are key principles which underlie
the production of conversational discourse, which are
following. The principle of keep talking, the principle
of limited planning ahead and the principle of
qualification of what has been said.
a.Prefaces and Conversation. In conversation,
the main part of speakers message is often
preceded by a preface including fronting of
clausal units, noun phrase, discourse
markers, linking adverbs, utterances
launchers, interjection etc.
b. Tags in Conversation. Speakers add tags in
many ways to a grammatical unit in
conversational discourse by use of question
tag at the end of a sentence to reinforce
what has just been said.
10. Corpus Studies of the Social Nature of
Discourse. As Swales found spoken discourse to
be unpretentious in terms of vocabulary choice
while using the MICASE (Michigan Corpus of Academic
Spoken English) he also found that spoken discourse
avoided name dropping and the use of obscure
references. He concluded that from the language point
of view there are few barriers to cross - disciplinary oral
communication than there perhaps might be in written
academic communication.
11. Collocation and Corpus Studies Corpus
studies are also used to examine collocation in spoken
and written discourses for example Hyland and Tses
2004 study of dissertation acknowledgement of
collocation special thanks, Sincere thanks and
deep thanks. They found that through this corpus
how the writers expressed gratitude in their conversation.
12. Criticism of Corpus Studies Corpus study has
been severely criticized by linguists saying that it is
machine based orientation of Corpus Studies that leads to
atomized and misleading investigation of language
use. Another criticism is that corpus studies do not take
into account the contextual aspects of text. However,
these arguments have been negated by Tribble saying
that corpus studies enable contextual features such as
the social context of the text, communicative
purpose of the text, roles of the readers and
writers of the text shared culture etc.
 CHAPTER NO 8
CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Central Idea of Chapter The chapter Critical Discourse
Analysis explains that texts are no longer
constructed just by words but by combinations of
other modalities such as pictures, videos, and sound. The
author argues that the use of these modalities make the
reader more of a witness of the events. The chapter
gives background information on critical discourse
analysis. Paltridge outlines some steps for carrying out
critical discourse analysis and some of the limitations of
such analysis.

1. Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis Paltridge

reproduces certain principles for critical discourses
propounded by Fairclough and Wodak which are as
under:-
a. Social and political issues are constructed and
reflected in this course Critical discourse analyses
address social and political issues and
examines ways in which these are constructed and
reflected in the use of discourse.
 b. Power relation are negotiated and performed
through discourse This principle suggests that it
can be looked at through an analysis of who
controls conversational interaction, who allows
a person to speak and how they do this.
c. Discourse reflects and reproduces social
relationDiscourse not only reflects but also
produces social relation. Both are established and
maintained through the use of discourse.
d. Ideologies are produced and reflected in the
use of discourse Another principle of CDA is
that ideologies are produced and reflected in
the use of discourse. This includes ways of
representing and constructing society such as
relation of power, relation based on gender, class
ethnicity etc.
2. Doing Critical Discourse Analysis CDA includes
not only a description and interpretation of
discourse in context, but also offers an explanation
of why and how discoursed work (Rogers). The
analysis considers the framing of the text, fore grounding
and back grounding in the text. The analysis may also
consider who is doing what to whom i.e. agent - patient
relation in the discourse and who has the most authority
and power in the discourse.
3. Critical Discourse Analysis AND Genre. The
consideration of genre in achieving a particular
discourse goal is an important in approaching a
critical perspective as Flowerdew discusses the various
genre that were involved in constructing the view of Hong
Kong as a world class city. These included committee
meeting, policy speeches, commission report and
 inception report, public for a, exhibition,
consultation digest and videos.
4. Critical Discourse Analysis & Framing A further
way of doing CA is to examine the way in which the
content of the text is framed, Huckin looks at a
newspaper report on demonstration at nuclear test
site in US in this way. The Demo described in this
report, framed as a confrontation between the group of
protesters and law officials. The report does not discuss
the issues that motivated the protest.
5. Critical Discourse Analysis And Multi-Modality
Many readers of the text are constructed not just by the
words but by the combination of words with other
modalities such as pictures, films or video images and
sounds. The ways in which people reacted to the events
of 11 Sep. for example were very much affected by the
images they saw on TV.
6. Critical Discourse Analysis And Identity Gordon
discusses how a family in the US uses language to create
and socialize each other into a shared family political
identity.
7. Critical Discourse Analysis And World Wide Web
Critical Discourse Analysis can be widened with the
help of World Wide Web. However the web material is not
authentic and is often misleading as it happens many
times. Many a time the data given on the web is wrong
and sometimes its not even updated.
8. Criticism of Critical Discourse Analysis Critical
Discourse Analysis has been criticized vehemently
maintaining that it is very similar to earlier stylistic
analysis, the area of literary criticism. Some critics
believe that Critical Discourse Analysis does not always
 consider the role of reader in consumption and
interpretation of a text. Some of the critics want Critical
Discourse Analysis to be more demanding in tools of
analysis.

CHAPTER NO 9
DOING DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
1. Central Idea of Chapter This chapter considers the
issues that need attention before embarking upon
a discourse analysis project. The discussion revolves
around the question of how to bring quality in a research
project:-
1. Developing a Discourse Analysis Project. Many
issues need to be considered while planning and carrying
out a discourse analysis project. The most important is
research question. It is a key to any good research
project. Cameron 2001 has suggested that one
important characteristic of a good research project is
that it has a good idea. These criterion include a well-
focused idea about spoken and written discourse, an
understanding of how discourse analytic techniques
can be used to answer the research questions you are
asking and so on.
2. Choosing a Research Topic Cameron says good ideas
for research dont just spring up from the
 researchers imagination, they are suggested by
previous research.
3. Focusing a Research Topic Stevens and Asmar
suggest, wiser heads know that a good research project
is, marrow and deep.
4. Turning the Topic into a Research Question At
this stage of research it is tried to change the selected
topic into a research question. What she focuses that,
we should strike the balance between a value of the
question and your ability to develop a discourse analysis
project you are capable of carrying out i.e. the project you
have the back ground, expertise, resources and
access to data that are needed for the project.
5. Kinds of Discourse Analysis Projects. The author
underlines many kinds of discourse analysis projects
which are as under:
a. Replication of Previous discourse Studies.
b. Using Different Discourse Data but the same
Methodology.
c. Analyzing Existing Data From a Discourse
Analysis Perspective
d. Analyzing Discourse Data From A Different
Perspective
e. Considering the Validity of a Previous Claim
f. Focusing on Unanalyzed Genres
g.Mixed-Methods Discourse Studies
6. Two Sample Discourse Studies The two projects
that follow are both examples of studies which
combine approaches to research in the analysis of
structure:-
a. A Spoken Discourse Project Silence in the
Japanese students tutorial interaction in English:-
 (1) Summary of the Study Nakane combines the
technical of conversation analysis with
ethnographic in order to get multiple perspectives
on the question she was investigating.
(2) Aim of the Study The aim of her study was to
examine the communication problem faced by
the Japanese students during English medium
university classes. She discovered from her research
that we know very little about happening in the
main stream university class room.
(3) Methodology of Study Conversation analysis of
the student interactions in the class room was done
along with conducting individual interviews,
focus group discussions and administered
questionnaires.
(4) Results of the Study The study disclosed that
silence were one of the major problems for Japanese
students and for teachers as well. She reached the
conclusion that the degree of silence varied
among the students.
(5) Commentary on the Study These multiple
data sources provided for a detailed and fine
grained analysis of the research questions.
(6) Further Research She wants to say that her work
on Japanese silence needs to be further probed
into and more data should be accumulated
b. A Written Discourse Project The second study was
A contrastive analysis of letters to the editor
in Chinese and English:-
(1) Summary of the Study Wangs contrastive study
of the letters to the editor in English and Chinese is
an example of a written discourse project that
 drew on the frameworks of contrastive rhetoric
and systemic functional view of genre.
(2) Aim of the Study Wangs study had several
research questions like in what ways are Chinese and
English letters similar or different in terms of their
rhetorical structures to the editor.
(3) Methodology of Study Wang took ten letters to
the editor in Chinese and English published
newspapers. He looked at the schematic structure
of each of the two sets of data, the rhetoric types
represented between the clauses and clauses
complexes in two sets of texts.
(4) Results of the Study Wang found that Chinese
and English letters to the editor shared some
similarities at the level of schematic structures but
differ in cultural aspects and style of writing.
(5) Commentary on the Study . By employing
approaches to analysis from systematic functional
genre studies and contrastive rhetoric he was
able to carry out a detailed examination between
similarities and differences of letters to editor in
English and Chinese at different level of analysis.
(6) Further Research Wang says that there are
definitely limitation in his work on Chinese and
English data and so further data be collected to
improve the validity of the research.
7. Combining Discourse and other Research
Perspectives Paltridge wants to say that both the
Nekene and the Wang studies drew on a no of different
Discourse Analysis and other research perspective
to find their answers to their research questions and they
strengthened their studies by combining perspectives
 in the way that they have done. These techniques of
combining different perspectives and approaches to
discourse analysis are useful to solve the project under
investigation that might be provided with just one single
perspective.
8. Evaluating a Discourse Analysis Project Each of the
studies described earlier suggest ways in which
discourse analysis can provide insights into social
pedagogic and linguistic questions in this chapter. Tailor
considers three key issues i.e. reliability, validity and
replicability of the project that had been carried out.
Details are as under:-
a. Reliability It means the consistency of the result
obtained in the project. There are two of its kinds i.e.
internal reliability and external reliability.
b. Validity It refers to the extent to which a piece of
research actually investigates what it says it will
investigate and the truth or the accuracy of the
generalization being made by the researcher.
c. Replicability It refers to the quality of a
discourse project being repeated in research on
the similar lines as done earlier.
Conclusion

The material / book of Paltridge serves as a reference

for students who want to pursue their research / studies
in discourse analysis. Its useful both for the new
entrepreneurs and the research scholars. It explains
discourse analysis and different approaches to discourse,
society, pragmatics, genre, grammar and corpus studies.
An extensive glossary at the end and the guidance as to
further readings is a great help for the researchers. For
the advance level researchers the book proffers new
perspectives on approaches to discourse, along with an
entire chapter dedicated to critical discourse analysis.
Furthermore, the diversity of literature enables readers to
discover areas that were never interrogated upon before.