Beyond the Sentence - Introducing Discourse Analysis

196 Pages·2016·21.25 MB·English

by  Thornbury S.

Beyond the Sentence

TalecorelUlellae Rel eel lee TAIN

Scott Thornbury

Macmillan Books for Teachers
c/o cL —_
Macmillan Books for Teachers

Beyond The
Sentence

Introducing discourse analysis

Scott Thornbury

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Contents

About the author
About the series
Introduction,

Beyond the sentence
1 Unlecking text

2 What makes atesi?

3 Wastmakes a texcmake sorse?
4 Spoken texes

5 Tex incoatest

6 Classroom texts

7 Viaerary texrs and leaded texts
& Learner texts

Classroom activities
Phewweupiable task shests

Reading list and References
Index

186
190
About the author

‘My teaching end training experience has boon mainly in Dgypt and Spin, with
dmay native New Zealand, Now| divide my lime between
rations, and writing

Ihave an MA in TEFL trom the University of Reading, 2s well asthe
RSA/GOLES Diptoma, Thave written annumher sflsooke for ceackers on the
teaching of language systezs und skills, as wel as aesieully-tines! grammar for
students. Lam presen'ly writing a dicuonsary of HIT

Thanks.

‘to my informaats (Catriona Akana, Anns Tsevckidou. Denis Newsein}, my ext
sources (Rod llainen, Peter Coles, Sandra MacKay, the PTAS conference
speakers, and Tessa); also 19 zaders Matt Jones and Felicity O'Dal for thet
alseports, and io Ben Goldsscia for his Helpludfeedinack oa Chepter
\pecial shanks 20m ing) menrors, whose presentations, uricies, and.
souks have been a constant souice of inspizalion, purticlatly Ror Carter, Guy
Cook, Mickaol Hoey, Mike McCarthy; John Sineiaiz. ad Heary Widdowson
The usual caveats and waivers apply.) No dunks te HSBC for efusing
permission to use a key tt nd enormous thanks, finally to Llavic ley, J
Florent andl Adrian Underhill, whose joint guidance and ue lgggingreathesiasm
eprme on track, and to Alyson Maskell, whose editorship, once aguin, husbeen
-mplat;

Dedication
To Afurvay-forel she eras we hee shaves. Aroha,
About the series

Macmillan Books for Teachers

Weleome to the Macmillan Books for'sackcrs:
yom area trainee te

s. These books are fur youil
‘her, practising wacher or teucher trainer. They help you 10:

+ develop your skills and confidence
x ‘astyoudo and why you de it
+ infos your practice with theory.
+ imponge your practice
same the best each

wer you can be

The handhoois are wrinten fom a humanistic and studeat-venteed perspes
bey oller:
‘+ practical techniques and ideas for classroom
+ key insights into zelevant buckgrourd theory
-choiques and insigiats ia your work
arc teachers aud Gainers, We lake « learning as you ge” appraach in
sharing cur experience with you. We help you reflecr on way’ you can facilitate
‘earning. and Pring yorr persenal sticagths to your work, We oller you insights
from research into language and language lewning sad suggest ways of using
hese insiubis in your classroom. You ean alee go t2
“attpy/iwww.onestepenglish.com anc ask theaurhors taradviee,
We encourige you to experi
can understand she how an:
confidence in you: own tes
‘new silusiuns.

ctivities

ent und to develop variery and choice, so thar you
why of your werk. Webope you will develop
jog su in your abilly to respond ereati

Adrian Underhill
Titles in the series
Bey the Seusence Scott Thornbury
Childzen Learning English Jayne Moan
Disenaer Brylish Rod Bolitho & Briun Tomlinson,
Lear ins Teachings Jim Secvener
‘Sound Founclarions ‘Adrian Underhill
Teaching Practice Roger Gower, Diane Phillips & Steve Walters
Teaching Reauliny Skits Caristine Nuzall
Uncovering Grammar Seert Thornbury

260 Claservons Hetionties David Seymour & Maria Popova
Introduction to Beyond The Sentence

text, n. A continuous piece of spoken or writin language,
expecially ome with c-recoynizable beginning arid ending."

Language is realized, trst and foremost, as text, Notas iselated sound, or words,
crsentenees, buts whole taxts, And users of language have te cope with texts
‘They have to make sense of them ars theyrhave ts produce them, 'Ihis sas true
for sccond language uscrs as its lor fssl language nsers. As teachers of second
lungeanige users, therefore, our top priority is co Lely ous Keasners engage with
"Tals book sets out La shiny Huaw this eon bee done,
Welive ina world of ext. We are surrounded by text in our homes, in the street,
acwork and at school, I'you are like me, you wake up in the morning hscening te
radio txt, you glare idly at the cereal pacice: text 36 vou skin the morzing paper,
ridge is festooned with censinders und messy, sou go on-line and check
‘your e-mil, you reud the ads on the ous on the way’ To work andl work iself ig
‘erie deluge of texts: spoken and written, kandwrittsa and cleetronic, Forrnal
and informal. Apparently the average Americun is argered by 3000 messages por
‘uy. That includes phone calls, e-mail, scetings and conversations.? According 10
some estimates, ypieal workers end and receive some 200 messages aad
documents 4 day. On average we ate cxposed to angtung Lsom 6010 1 1600
advertising messages a day, depending on which source you consul: ad these
figures pre-dace the advent of text messaging. By 2003, in one day slone people
in Britain were sending $6 million text messages te each othery¢ figure thas had.
doubled injusta year. By the ead of that year they had vent 20 ballon messages,
Tp Lael, 0 accustomed une we to text that its hard ro imagine wre ite rust hae
bbeen lise in the pre-elecr-onic, et alone the pre-Gutenberg, cra

‘This steady exposite to language inthe form of texts is a boon, a eeurse, ts
language learners ~assurning, thal i, thal Pe texts rein the Inagusge that te
learner is learning. Tn the case of English. this is often so, even in plucex where
English is not zhe ast ragunge. You'd be rd put te fing onywvhere on earth that
‘heyons the reach of an English language pop soag, website, movie, or even
‘Tshirt. Forbener or worse, Rngtish-nguage texts ubiquitous, This, i tan,

is good news forthe teacher of Enalish. Or should be, But with so much Engkise
Tanase text availble, its no: always easy to know what to select for tesching,
nurposes, or how to use it. Moreover, language teaching hes wraditionally been,
more concerned with individual sentences aller Usan Lents as sich, Piven in this
supposedly communicarive era, alot of the langage presentation ane practice
material available in published coursebook is sentence-based. ‘Vere is good
reason for this sertiemess ier all, are key building blocks of language abd ive
relatively fixed and describabie g:aarvar. BuCanguage, ines natural state, isnot
isolated sentences: istext. As one lingnist pntit, Language always happens
textand nct as isolated words and sentences, Foot an uesttene, sncsl or
sducational perspectiveits the textwhich isthe sign‘ficcst unit of aguage:?
Going “beyond the sentence’ in order to exploce the servcture and the purposes of
whole tess alls wii Une orbat of whats called discourse anaiyis, Par singly,
discourse isthe way thar languege either spoken or written —is-uscd for
eae

110 Beyond The Scuteaos

comuuupicative effect in real-world situat
such language, and the anclysis of the features and uses of texts~or ret analysis —
ig un integral component of discourse analysis, One way of looking at te
distinction between discourse and fextis wo tink of discourse as Ue process, and he
text as the product. Taatis, speakers (ar writers) engage in a communicative
process that involves language ~ such 8 4 shopping exchange, er the expression,
ofbirchday greetings —andl the record of dhe language thal is used in this discourse
is called ite text

Discourse analysis is the study of

Recogaitien of the primacy of text has meant that texts have started to play a
more prominent role in teaching materials and have even penetrated into the
public examinations: Gre Cambridye First Cerlilicate in Knglish (KCH)
exantination, for exaraple, ismow almost entirely text-based, Nevertheless, many
lenciers arestilly 8 0 heww to explnic texts in rheir teaching. Often texts are
used simply as a velicle for te: cloetod item of scatonce grammar Or
thev are used to develop the skills und subskills of listening and reading, without
mich attention being given to the rext-specific feanares of their campasition. The
lexis Llemselves are often somewhat bland and arc typically inauthentic — thats.
they have heen especially written for teucking purposes. Literary texts are often
treated with suspicion by teachers, ne presenting too many problems of hath a
linguistic snl cultural xin

This book aims to areas these issues. Ry rhe en
idea of

+ what e texts and whar its characteristic fearares are

+ how to categorize and deseribe texts, og according to their genre, funetion,
organization and style

+ how to find, select and adapr texts

+ how to exploit texis for language teaching and skills Cevelopment purposes

+ how to unpack the biden messages of texts

+ howto use literary texts ih som and

+ how to evaluaieand use learners" texts,

‘Move generally, itis hoped thar you will come away convinced of the value of
text used language aching and be motivated to go “beyond the sentence’ and
explore this zich resource with your learners,

‘hiebook has been written with both novice and expericneed teachers in mind.
‘While some linguistic terminology is inevitable, this has been kept toa rsinimus
as have references to academic and theoretical literature, For those interested in.
folleing up some of the themes of the book, reading list of selected hooks and
articles car, be found az the back
Chapter 1

Unlocking texts

yLA Unlocking texts

Pat yours tho position of @ begin inner. Here isa text
‘comes from the tam of an Egyptian na: cl hausane years aga
Fi assunt ig you aun wether reas hletoglyphs nor speak Anclent Egyptian. But
study :ciosely. Can you make any sense sft? Can you at least spat some
Pallas or regulatities?

Discovery ac

Commentary mam

‘The age to make sease of text even el the text ult language that we neither
peu nor read is such that we are quite eapablc ef inventing meaaings en the
basis of te dimsicstof evidence. Ics possible, lor example, that yor took guess
thar the text ahaur hi nares of birds occur fequenly. This, in faci
‘was the strategy edogced by those scbulars wha si ullemptes te decipher
hieroglyphs: “They all looked fora symbolic meaning for enc’ hieroeinahic sign,
They expected a picture of three wavy lines te mean water and omiy waters 2
picture ofa head w mean a nead, thar of an owgls0 mean. an oor and so on, They
made no allowance for the fae: that such pictuzes may, it fact be photogs
jund signs), o, iaceed, letters ut anailphutel rather than pictographs, *Tetole
before this very literal and ‘bectom-up” approacit w devipherment was

evertielass some ofthe sprabuls in the rexr arepictographs, a3 we

shall ee, sn Phe srategy is nor enpeely unpeactaetive.

Onnthe other ancl, knowing that the text was Found ina wml, you may have
guessed hat i hud religions significa, chacitweas« sacred sex, or @ biography
of the deceased, for example, This ‘twp~owi’ suruiegy, using eantextual cues,
‘would ave put you om the mghrtrack. You may also neve noticed some repetition
of elements ~ the feur owls and theirassociated slant-like symbols for example,
(Or the four ses of thuee vertical hars, Paling iwtmarid-iwn toechor and using
your huckyraura knowledge of exc types and foncrary culture, yeu sight have
B these zeiteraloms indicute u rituulisie discourse syle, as befits 2
funerary text, such ns a prayer o¢ sncantatin.