Discourse and Genre: Using Language in Context

225 Pages·2010·4.174 MB·

by  Stephen Bax

DISCOURSE
AND GENRE
ANALYSING
LANGUAGE
IN CONTEXT
STEPHEN
BAX
Discourse and Genre
PERSPECTIVES ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Series Editors: Lesley Jeffries and Dan McIntyre
Published titles
Stephen Bax Discourse and Genre Analysing Language in Context
Siobhan Chapman Thinking About Language: Theories of English
Urszula Clark Studying Language: English in Action
Christiana Gregoriou English Literary Stylistics
Simon Horobin Studying The History Of Early English
Lesley Jeffries Discovering Language: The Structure of Modern English
Lesley Jeffries Critical Stylistics: The Power of English
Simon Horobin Studying the History of Early English
Forthcoming
Jonathan Culpeper The Pragmatics of the English Language
Rob Penhallurick Studying Dialect
Perspectives on the English Language Series
Series Standing Order
ISBN 978-0-333-96146-9 hardback
ISBN 978-0-333-96147-6 paperback
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Discourse and
Genre
Analysing Language
in Context
Stephen Bax
© Stephen Bax 2011, under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Limited 2019
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
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save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
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Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
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work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2011 by
RED GLOBE PRESS
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To my family, for their patience
Contents
Figure, Tables and Illustrations x
Series Editor’s Preface xii
Introduction 1
1 How do we Understand Texts? 4
1.1 A framework for understanding comprehension 8
1.2 The focus and structure of this book 13
1.3 Summary 18
2 Discourse and Discourse Analysis 20
2.1 Definitions of discourse 20
2.2 What is a text? 25
2.3 Intertextuality 27
2.4 T he relation between language and the world:
discourse and social constructionism 29
2.5 A working definition of discourse 34
2.6 Summary 34
3 Genre 36
3.1 Mental representations in text comprehension 36
3.2 Schemas 40
3.3 Genre expectations 44
3.4 Classifying and sorting genres 45
3.5 Genres: linguistic or social practices? 47
3.6 Discourse modes in the analysis of discourse 54
3.7 The relation of discourse modes to genre 56
3.8 Genre, style, register and jargon 58
3.9 A summary definition of genre, style and
discourse mode 60
3.10 Summary 62
vii
viii CONTENTS
4 Discourse Modes 63
4.1 Patterning in discourse modes 63
4.2 Narrating 65
4.3 Interacting 77
4.4 Describing 88
4.5 Reporting 90
4.6 Instructing 92
4.7 Summary 94
5 Analysing Discourse 95
5.1 Discourse analysis as a research method 96
5.2 Approaches to discourse 97
5.3 A broad heuristic for analysing discourse 98
6 Spoken Genres: Conversations and Classrooms 102
6.1 Conversation 103
6.2 Classroom discourse 112
6.3 Approaches to analysis 117
6.4 Conversation versus classroom discourse 120
6.5 Summary 120
7 Spoken Genres: Legal Discourse, Jokes, Sports
Commentary and Advertising 122
7.1 Courtroom discourse 122
7.2 Jokes 130
7.3 Discourse signals revisited 134
7.4 Sports commentary 135
7.5 Summary 137
8 Written Genres: News Reports, Personal Ads,
Texting and Online Gaming 139
8.1 News Reports 139
8.2 Lonely hearts ads 147
8.3 Discourse and new technology 151
8.4 Text messaging 151
8.5 Computer gaming 154
8.6 Texting compared with online gaming interaction 159
8.7 Summary 161
9 Political Oratory and Intertextuality 163
9.1 The role of intertextuality 163
9.2 Political speeches and oratory 164
9.3 Summary 180
CONTENTS ix
10 Doing Discourse Analysis 181
10.1 Question 1: Research question 182
10.2 Question 2: Research literature 183
10.3 Question 3: Data 184
10.4 Question 4: What – what is this text doing? 187
10.5 Question 5: How – how does this text do
what it does? 188
10.6 Question 6: Why – why does this text do
what it does? 194
10.7 Question 7: What else – how could it be done
differently? 197
10.8 Question 8: Presentation and writing up 197
10.9 Endnote 197
Bibliography 199
Index 208
Figure, Tables
and Illustrations
❚
Figure
1.1 Types of knowledge used in language comprehension 9
❚
Tables
3.1 The relation between text function and text features 50
3.2 Discourse modes 55
3.3 Aspects of genre and text 57
4.1 Elements of spoken narrative structure 75
4.2 Features of the narrating discourse mode 77
4.3 Types and examples of adjacency pairs 81
4.4 Features of the interacting discourse mode 87
4.5 Features of the describing discourse mode 90
4.6 Features of the reporting discourse mode 91
4.7 Features of the instructing discourse mode 94
5.1 Illustration of the heuristic in the analysis of a sample text 100
6.1 Nested hierarchy of categories 114
6.2 Analysis of the ‘Pyramid’ Teaching Exchange 116
7.1 Questioning strategies and power 125
10.1 Summary of selected approaches to discourse 190
x