Relevance Discourse Analysis to Education Research

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RELEVANCE OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS TO LANGUAGE EDUCATION

RESEARCH

Introduction

The linguistic turn of the later twentieth century has led to a widespread and

growing interest in discourse, both in organization studies and in the social sciences

more generally. Since the late 1970s, organization scholars have begun to move

beyond a conception of language as a functional, instrumental conduit of information,

and drew attention to its symbolic and metaphorical aspects as constructive of

social and organizational reality (Dandridge, Mitroff and Joyce, 1980: Manning,

1979. Discourse analysis, in the broad sense of utilizing textual data in order to gain

insights to particular phenomena, has had a rich and varied heritage in the social

sciences, spanning the fields of sociology, anthropology, psychology, political science

and history (OConnor, 1995) (2006:17).

The word discourse refers to more than just talkit encompasses anymeaningful use of language as well as communicative gestures. By looking closely at

discourse, we can gain information regarding two of the primary functions of

language are to support the performance of social activities and social identities and to

support human affiliation within cultures, social groups, and institutions. In other

words, Discourse Analysis in education is inextricably linked to the enactment of

social activities (e.g., classroom lessons), the formation and maintenance of social

identities (e.g., students as capable learners), the interactions of social groups (e.g.,

classroom communities), and the establishment of social institutions (e.g., schools).

In the final decade of the 20th century, the quality of classroom discourse has

become a prominent focus in discussions of school reform. There are several reasons

for this increased attention. According to two economists of education (Murnane &

Levy, 1996), the new basic skills required for high-wage jobs include the ability to

communicate effectively, both orally and in writing and the ability to work in

groups with persons of various backgrounds (p. 32). Demographic and technologicalchanges in society have meant that these same skills are necessary for effective


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participation in and maintenance of a democratic and just society. As a result, schools

are now charged with creating not only individual human capital for a healthy

economy, but also social capital for healthy communities. At the same time, what

counts as knowledge has shifted away from inert information passively received from

books and teachers toward dynamic understanding that is collaboratively constructed

in discussion among students.

Classroom discourse analysis has been a major theme in much research

linguistic, applied linguistic and educational for some years now. Sinclair and

Coulthard (1975: 15) suggested that an interest in classroom language studies

dated from the 1940s. Since the 1960s and early 1970s on, a great deal of

research into many areas of discourse, including classroom discourse, has been

undertaken in the English-speaking world. This development paralleled the upsurge

of scholarly interest in linguistics and applied linguistics in the same period, while

the invention of the tape recorder, later augmented by the emergence of cheap video

recording facilities, rendered much more accessible than hitherto the whole

enterprise of recording talk and analysing it. Very various are the models of

classroom discourse that have emerged, some drawing on one or more of

several traditions of linguistics, others on ethnographic approaches, others onvarious psychological approaches.

Thus this paper is focusing to describe the significances of discourse analysis

in education and its relevancy with education research that mainly concern on

classroom discourse analysis.

Defining Discourse

Since its introduction to modern science the term 'discourse' has taken various,

sometimes very broad, meanings. Originally the word 'discourse' comes from Latin

'discursus' which denoted 'conversation, speech'. Thus understood, however, discourse

refers to too wide an area of human life, discourse from the vantage point of

linguistics and also applied linguistics.

There is no agreement among linguists as to the use of the term discourse in

that some use it in reference to texts, while others claim it denotes speech which is for

instance illustrated by the following definition: "Discourse: a continuous stretch of(especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit


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contributors to this field the Prague School of Linguists, whose focusing on

organization of information in communicative products indicated the connection of

grammar and discourse, along with text grammarians are worth mentioning

(McCarthy 1991:6).

A significant contribution to the evolution of discourse analysis has been made by

British and American scholars. In Britain the examination of discourse turned towards

the study of the social functions of language. Research conveyed at the University of

Birmingham fruited in creating a thorough account of communication in various

situations such as debates, interviews, doctor-patient relations, paying close attention

to the intonation of people participating in talks as well as manners particular to

circumstances. Analysis of the factors essential for succession of decently made

communication products on the grounds of structural-linguistic criteria was another

concern of British scholars. Americans, on the other hand, focused on examining

small communities of people and their discourse in genuine circumstances. Apart

from that, they concentrated on conversation analysis inspecting narratives in addition

to talks and the behavior of speakers as well as patterns repeating in given situations.

Division and specification of types of discourse along with social limitations of

politeness and thorough description of face saving acts in speech is also American

scholars' contribution (McCarthy 1991:6).

The world of politics and features of its peculiar communicative products are

also of concern to discourse analysts. Having carefully investigated that area of

human activity scholars depicted it as characterized by frequent occurrence of face

saving acts and euphemisms. One other sphere of life of particular interest to applied

linguists is the judicature and its language which is incomprehensible to most

common citizens, especially due to pages-long sentences, as well as peculiar

terminology. Moreover, educational institutions, classroom language and the language

that ought to be taught to enable learners to successfully comprehend both oral and

written texts, as well as participate in real life conversations and produce native-like

communicative products is the domain of discourse analysis. Last but not least,

influence of gender on language production and perception is also examined

(Renkema 2004, Trappes-Lomax 2004).


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The Significance of Discourse Analysis in Language Teaching and Learning

To attain a good command of a foreign language, learners should either be

exposed to it in genuine circumstances and with natural frequency, or painstakingly

study lexis and syntax assuming that students have some contact with natural input.

Classroom discourse seems to be the best way of systematizing the linguistic code

that learners are to acquire. The greatest opportunity to store, develop and use the

knowledge about the target language is arisen by exposure to authentic discourse in

the target language provided by the teacher (Dakowska 2001:86).

Language is not only the aim of education as it is in the case of teaching

English to Polish students, but also the means of schooling by the use of mother

tongue. Having realized that discourse analysts attempted to describe the role and

importance of language in both contexts simultaneously paying much attention to

possible improvement to be made in these fields.

It has also been settled that what is essential to be successful in language

learning is interaction, in both written and spoken form. In addition, students' failures

in communication which result in negotiation of meaning, requests for explanation or

reorganization of message contribute to language acquisition. One of the major

concerns of discourse analysts has been the manner in which students ought to be

involved in the learning process, how to control turn-taking, provide feedback as well

as how to teach different skills most effectively on the grounds of discourse analysis'

offerings (Trappes-Lomax 2004:153).

Application of discourse analysis to teaching grammar

There are a number of questions posed by discourse analysts with reference to

grammar and grammar teaching. In particular, they are interested in its significance

for producing comprehensible communicative products, realization of grammar items

in different languages, their frequency of occurrence in speech and writing which is to

enable teaching more natural usage of the target language, as well as learners' native

tongue (McCarthy 1991:47).

While it is possible to use a foreign language being unaware or vaguely aware

of its grammatical system, educated speakers cannot allow themselves to make even

honest mistakes, and the more sophisticated the linguistic output is to be the more

thorough knowledge of grammar gains importance. Moreover, it is essential not only
http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/linguistics/grammar.htmhttp://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/linguistics/grammar.htm


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for producing discourse, but also for their perception and comprehension, as many

texts take advantage of cohesive devices which contribute to the unity of texts, but

might disturb their understanding by a speaker who is not aware of their occurrence.

Anaphoric reference, which is frequent in many oral and written texts,

deserves attention due to problems that it may cause to learners at various levels. It is

especially important at an early stage of learning a foreign language when learners fail

to follow overall meaning turning much attention to decoding information in a given

clause or sentence. Discourse analysts have analyzed schematically occurring items of

texts and how learners from different backgrounds acquire them and later on produce.

Thus, it is said that Japanese students fail to distinguish the difference between he and

she, while Spanish pupils have problems with using his and your. Teachers, being

aware of possible difficulties in teaching some aspects of grammar, should pay

particular attention to them during the introduction of the new material to prevent

making mistakes and errors (McCarthy 1991:36).

The most prominent role in producing sophisticated discourse, and therefore

one that requires much attention on the part of teachers and learners is that of words

and phrases which signal internal relation of sections of discourse, namely

conjunctions. McCarthy (1991) claims that there are more than forty conjunctive

words and phrases, which might be difficult to teach. Moreover, when it comes to the

spoken form of language, where and, but, so, then are most frequent, they may take

more than one meaning, which is particularly true for and. Additionally, they not only

contribute to the cohesion of the text, but are also used when a participant of a

conversation takes his turn to speak to link his utterance to what has been said before

(McCarthy 1991:48).

The foregoing notions that words crucial for proper understanding of

discourse, apart from their lexical meaning, are also significant for producing natural

discourse in many situations support the belief that they should be pondered on by

both teachers and students. Furthermore, it is advisable to provide learners with

contexts which would exemplify how native users of language take advantage of

anaphoric references, ellipses, articles and other grammar related elements of

language which, if not crucial, are at least particularly useful for proficient

communication (McCarthy 1991:62).


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Application of discourse analysis to teaching vocabulary

What is probably most striking to learners of a foreign language is the quantity

of vocabulary used daily and the amount of time that they will have to spend

memorizing lexical items. Lexis may frequently cause major problems to students,

because unlike grammar it is an open-ended system to which new items are

continuously added. That is why it requires close attention and, frequently,

explanation on the part of the teacher, as well as patience on the part of the student.

Scholars have conducted in-depth research into techniques employed by

foreign language learners concerning vocabulary memorization to make it easier for

students to improve their management of lexis. The conclusion was drawn that it is

most profitable to teach new terminology paying close attention to context and co-text

that new vocabulary appears in which is especially helpful in teaching and learning

aspects such as formality and register. Discourse analysts describe co-text as the

phrases that surround a given word, whereas, context is understood as the place in

which the communicative product was formed (McCarthy 1991:64).

From studies conducted by discourse analysts emerged an important idea of

lexical chains present in all consistent texts. Such a chain is thought to be a series of

related words which, referring to the same thing, contribute to the unity of a

communicative product and make its perception relatively easy. Additionally, they

provide a semantic context which is useful for understanding, or inferring the

meaning of words, notions and sentences. Links of a chain are not usually limited to

one sentence, as they may connect pairs of words that are next to one another, as well

as stretch to several sentences or a whole text. The relation of words in a given

sequence might be that of reiteration or collocation, however, analyst are reluctant to

denote collocation as a fully reliable element of lexical cohesion as it refers only tothe likelihood of occurrence of some lexical items. Nevertheless, it is undeniably

helpful to know collocations as they might assist in understanding of communicative

products and producing native-like discourse (McCarthy 1991:65).

Since lexical chains are present in every type of discourse it is advisable to

familiarize learners with the way they function in, not merely because they are there,

but to improve students' perception and production of expressive discourse.

Reiteration is simply a repetition of a word later in the text, or the use of synonymy,

but what might require paying particularly close attention in classroom situation is


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hyponymy. While synonymy is relatively easy to master simply by learning new

vocabulary dividing new words into groups with similar meaning, or using thesauri,

hyponymy and superordination are more abstract and it appears that they require

tutelage. Hyponym is a particular case of a more general word, in other words a

hyponym belongs to a subcategory of a superordinate with narrower meaning, which

is best illustrated by an example:Brazil, with her two-crop economy, was even more

severely hit by the Depression than other Latin American states and the country was

on the verge of complete collapse (Salkie 1995:15). In this sentence the wordBrazil is

a hyponym of the word country - its superordinate. Thus, it should not be difficult to

observe the difference between synonymy and hyponymy: while Poland, Germany

and France are all hyponyms of the word country, they are not synonymous.

Discourse analysts imply that authors of communicative products deliberately vary

discursive devices of this type in order to bring the most important ideas to the fore,

which in case of English with its wide array of vocabulary is a very frequent

phenomenon (McCarthy 1991, Salkie 1995).

One other significant contribution made by discourse analysts for the use of

vocabulary is noticing the omnipresence and miscellaneous manners of expressing

modality. Contrary to popular belief that it is conveyed mainly by use of modal verbs

it has been proved that in natural discourse it is even more frequently communicated

by words and phrases which may not be included in the category of modal verbs, yet,

carry modal meaning. Lexical items of modality inform the participant of discourse

not only about the attitude of the author to the subject matter in question (phrases such

as I believe, think, assume), but they also give information about commitment,

assertion, tentativeness (McCarthy 1991:85).

Discourse analysts maintain that knowledge of vocabulary-connected

discourse devices supports language learning in diverse manners. Firstly, it ought to

bring students to organize new items of vocabulary into groups with common context

of use to make them realize how the meaning of a certain word might change with

circumstances of its user or co-text. Moreover, it should also improve learners'

abilities to choose the appropriate synonym, collocation or hyponym (McCarthy

1991:71).


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Application of discourse analysis to teaching text interpretation

Interpretation of a written text in discourse studies might be defined as the act

of grasping the meaning that the communicative product is to convey. It is important

to emphasize that clear understanding of writing is reliant on not only what the author

put in it, but also on what a reader brings to this process. McCarthy (1991) points out

that reading is an exacting action which involves recipient's knowledge of the world,

experience, ability to infer possible aims of discourse and evaluate the reception of the

text.

Careful research into schemata theory made it apparent that mere knowledge

of the world is not always sufficient for successful discourse processing.

Consequently, scholars dealing with text analysis redefined the concept of schemata

dividing it into two: content and formal schemata. Content, as it refers to shared

knowledge of the subject matter, and formal, because it denotes the knowledge of the

structure and organization of a text. In order to aid students to develop necessary

reading and comprehension skills attention has to be paid to aspects concerning the

whole system of a text, as well as crucial grammar structures and lexical items. What

is more, processing written discourse ought to occur on global and local scale at

simultaneously, however, it has been demonstrated that readers employ different

strategies of reading depending on what they focus on (McCarthy 1991:168).

Discourse Analysis and Second Language Learning

Language learners face the monumental task of acquiring not only new

vocabulary, syntactic patterns, and phonology, but also discourse competence,

sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence, and interactional competence. They

need opportunities to investigate the systematicity of language at all linguistic levels,

especially at the highest level (Riggenbach, 1999; Young and He, 1998). Without

knowledge of and experience with the discourse and sociocultural patterns of the

target language, second language learners are likely to rely on the strategies and

expectations acquired as part of their first language development, which may be

inappropriate for the second language setting and may lead to communication

difficulties and misunderstandings.


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One problem for second language learners is limited experience with a variety

of interactive practices in the target language. Therefore, one of the goals of second

language teaching is to expose learners to different discourse patterns in different

texts and interactions. One way that teachers can include the study of discourse in the

second language classroom is to allow the students themselves to study language, that

is, to make them discourse analysts (see Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000; McCarthy &

Carter, 1994; Riggenbach, 1999). By exploring natural language use in authentic

environments, learners gain a greater appreciation and understanding of the discourse

patterns associated with a given genre or speech event as well as the sociolinguistic

factors that contribute to linguistic variation across settings and contexts. For

example, students can study speech acts in a service encounter, turn-taking patterns in

a conversation between friends, opening and closings of answering machine

messages, or other aspects of speech events. Riggenbach (1999) suggests a wide

variety of activities that can easily be adapted to suit a range of second language

learning contexts.

Discourse Analysis in Language Education Research

Discourse analysis in education has been employed in many different ways

in Applied Linguistics. It has been employed to investigate classroom

interaction and to develop areas such as teacher training, testing and materials

design. It has helped to develop our understanding of how constructs such as

learning and competence are realised in interaction. This interaction is mainly

taken place between teacher- students and among students in the classroom. Therefore

discourse in the classroom has become the focus of discourse in education.

Classroom discourse analysis refers essentially to the analysis of texts in classroom

contexts, and especially to analysis of classroom talk. However, as Martin-Jones et al.

(2008: xiii), point out that in current literature, classroom discourse refers both to

talk-ininteraction in classrooms, and to the critical poststructural view of discourse

as ways of understanding and constituting the social world

Classrooms are complex places where teachers and students create and re-

create, adopt and adapt, and engage in a full range of human interactions. Teachers

and students are viewed as active agents. Although teachers and students must act

within the events, contexts, and settings in which they find themselves, and although


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they must react to the actions of others and the social institutions of which they are a

part, they nonetheless act on the worlds in which they live.

At the center of what happens in classrooms is language. The language used

by teachers and students, the language of texts and textbooks, the language of school

and school district policies, the language of parents and children as they interact with

each other and with educators, and myriad other uses of language. Language is both

the object of classroom lessons (e.g., learning to read, write, and use academic

discourse) as well as the means of learning (e.g., through classroom discussions and

lectures, reading, and writing). Thus, language not only is the object of study in

research on classroom language and literacy events but it is also the means through

which the research occurs. It is through language that researchers conduct interviews

and develop coding and other means of analyzing observations, videotapes, and other

data, and it is through language that researchers conceptualize, write up, and report

their research.

What people do in interaction with each other is complex, ambiguous, and

indeterminate, and it often involves issues of social identity, power relations, and

broad social and cultural processes. At the same time, every event provides

opportunities for people to create new meanings, new social relationships, and new

futures that eschew the reproductive tendencies of what is and what was. By focusing

attention on actual people acting and reacting to each other, creating and re-

creating the worlds in which they live.

Cazden (1988) Share the assumption that what goes on in classrooms is so

constituted by language (Cazden 1988), that analysis of language (and of other

semiotic systems) is central to understanding ways in which knowledge is constructed

in classrooms, ways in which learning occurs (or not), and ways in which

interpersonal relations are constructed and enacted in classrooms. As Christie (2002:

2) argues: unless we are willing to engage seriously with the discourse patterns

particular to the institution of schooling, then we fail genuinely to understand it. It is

in language after all that the business of schooling is primarily accomplished. A

further shared assumption, as Christie (2002: 3) notes, is that classroom work consists

of structured activity that is shaped by rules, routines and patterns of interactions

between teachers and students. Although such shared assumptions characterize the

work of those who engage in classroom discourse analysis, there are important


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differences in how these assumptions are realized. In addressing these differences, it

is useful to note, very briefly, some of the major historical developments in the

field.

Classroom discourse analysis has a relatively short history that can be traced

from around the 1960s (Christie 2002). Although there were a number of studies at

the time that promoted analysis of classrooms through the use of observation

schedules, only approaches that have focused, in various ways, on analysis of actual

classroom talk can properly be described as involving classroom discourse analysis.

There two main approaches that have been developed so far. They are linguistic

oriented analysis and critical analysis.

Linguistic Oriented of Classroom discourse.

Research within linguistic analysis of classroom discourse (turns,

sequences, and meanings ) has been shaped, especially in the American tradition, by

the theoretical perspectives of Conversation Analysis, ethnography, and

ethnomethodology. Such work has sought insights into classroom aims and

events through the detailed account of patterns of interaction within those

classrooms. The purposes of such work are emphasizing the socio-cultural nature of

teaching and learning processes, incorporate participants perspectives on their own

behaviour, and offering holistic analyses sensitive to levels of context in which

interactions and classrooms are situated.

There is a long and very rich tradition of ethnographic research into classroom

interaction, which has also focused on the nature and implications of classroom

discourse. Researchers within this tradition who draw on ethnomethodology have

typically undertaken closer and more detailed analyses of specific features of

classroom talk. They often contrast features of classroom discourse with those of

everyday conversations in order to highlight the distinctive nature of classroom talk

(e.g. Baker 1991). Thus, common features of classroom interaction, such as initiating

topics; turn taking; asking and responding to questions, are highlighted in order to

focus on the specific roles of teacher and students. A feature of such research is the

detailed account of recurring patterns or phenomena within the classroom. While

large quantities of data may be used in ethnomethodological studies to explore the


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nature of recurring patterns, the focus is typically on a detailed account of specific

discourse features, rather than on any attempt to provide a comprehensive overview.

More recent developments within the tradition of turns, sequences, and

meanings have included microethnography and critical ethnography . Such

developments interconnect with the critical analysis.

Analysis with Linguistic Orientation Research that takes a more linguistic

orientation to classroom discourse analysis can be traced back to Sinclair and

Coulthards (1975). As part of their more general goal of developing a systematic

analysis of discourse, Sinclair and Coulthard focused on language interaction

within classrooms. Drawing on Hallidays (1961) scale and category grammar, they

developed a system of analysis that included categories of lesson, transaction,

exchange, move and act. Their analysis thus included larger and smaller units of

language in ways that provided a systematic overview of an entire lesson, while

at the same time enabling the study of finer detail of specific utterances and

exchanges between participants.

Research incorporating a linguistic orientation to classroom discourse analysis

has largely been tied to developments in systemic functional linguistics (e.g. Halliday

1978, 1994). Such developments have continued to be influential within the British

tradition, and also in Australia. The development from scale and categorygrammar

to the more comprehensive systemic functional social semiotic theory of language has

provided access to a wide range of analytic resources. Importantly, for classroom

discourse analysts, these resources offer the possibility of dealing systematically with

large quantities of classroom discourse, and also of undertaking layers of analysis at

varying levels of detail.

An example that illustrates research within the linguistic tradition can be seen

in the work of Frances Christie (e.g. 1997, 2002). Perhaps the most influential

Australian researcher in the field of classroom discourse analysis, Christies

work is explicitly located in relation to systemic functional theory and it draws

on discourse analytic resources available from that theory. Key notions in Christies

work are those of curriculum macrogenre (a curriculum unit where educational goals

are realized typically through cycles of several related lessons) and curriculum

genres (specific teaching/learning activities within lessons with linguistically

identifiable beginning, middle and end stages). Thus a curriculum macrogenre


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consists of sequences of curriculum genres. In developing these notions, Christie

has drawn on genre theory within systemic functional linguistics (Christie and Martin

1997; Martin 1999).

While reflecting different traditions, the turns, sequences, and meanings and

linguistically oriented approaches to discourse analysis can both be seen as part of the

broad social turn that has been evident across disciplines such as sociology,

anthropology, history and linguistics in recent years. A further major impact on

classroom discourse analysis, and on discourse analysis more generally, has resulted

from the critical turn. As indicated, Martin-Jones et al. (2008: xiii) describe the

resulting critical poststructural view of discourse as ways of understanding and

constituting the social world.

Example: Conversation analysis (CA) in the second language classroom context

Conversation analysis (CA) the study of talk-in-interaction is a

theoretically and methodologically distinctive approach to understanding social

life. It is now an interdisciplinary field spanning, in particular, sociology,

psychology, linguistics and communication studies. It was first developed within

sociology in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s by Harvey Sacks andhis collaborators, Emanuel Schegloff and Gail Jefferson (e.g. Sacks et al. 1974).CA

offers technical specifications of six key structural features of talk-in interaction:

turn-taking, action formation, sequence organization, repair, word selection and the

overall structural organization of talk. We will sketch out each of these in

relation to a single brief data extract, and then focus in more detail on just one of

them: the turn-taking system.

Extract 1 comes from a phone conversation between a married couple (Edna and

Bud), on their wedding anniversary. Edna is already at the couples vacation home at

the beach and it is apparent from what she says earlier in the call that she had

expected Bud to join her there the previous day, in time for their anniversary. The call

begins with exchanges ofHappy Anniversary, later reiterated by Edna, who tells her

husband I miss you. As this extract opens, Edna is asking Bud about his t ravel plans

for the following day, and is clearly hoping he will be joining her soon. As it turns

out, her hopes are to be frustrated:


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Extract 1

01 Edn: You comin down ea:rly?

02 (.)

03 Bud: We:ll I got a lot of things to do before

04 I get cleared up tomorrow. >I dunno.

Relevance Discourse Analysis to Education Research

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