CHAPTER V

Discourse Analysis & Language teaching

1. - Pragmatics; Types of pragmatic meaning; Speech

acts; Grice’ Maxims; Cross – cultural pragmatic
discourse

2. - Applications of Discourse analysis to language

teaching

3. - Approaches to language syllabus design

 1. Pragmatics
What is Pragmatics?

The Branch of linguistics dealing with language in use &

the contexts.

> Pragmatics is the study of the effect of context on

meaning:
* How people use language to express their social &
affective meaning & to perform speech acts;
* How people carry on conversations with others;
* How people express their cross – cultural meaning.
 Pragmatics includes Deixis, Taking of turns in
conversation, Text organization, Reference,
Entailment, Presupposition, Implicature,
Inferencing

Deixis: The use of a word or phrase whose

meaning depends on who is talking, who they are
talking to, where they are.

Ex. "me", "here", or "yesterday"

Pragmatics - The study of how context affects meaning;
how sentences are interpreted in certain situations /
context.

Ex. “The kids have eaten already and surprisingly, they

are hungry.”

The linguistic context helps to interpret the second

sentence depending on what the first sentence says because
it is common knowledge that humans are not usually hungry
after eating.
 TYPES OF PRAGMATIC MEANING

Social meaning, Affective meaning & the

Meaning of Speech acts

* Social meaning: Related to the situation in which an

utterance is used, concerned with the social circumstances
of the use of a linguistic expression.

Ex. Some dialectic words inform us about the regional

& social background of the speaker.

Interpret this conversation: - Hello, What’s your name?

+ Hi, Van De Beek.
 Affective meaning

* The emotive or affective component of the expression

is referred to as its affective meaning conveying
speaker’ emotion.

* Each individual will have a different emotional

meaning for a word.

> Thus, only the user of a word is aware of the

specific meaning of that word.
 Ex. Discuss more about the word winter.

* The word winter refers to a period of time when

the northern or southern hemispheres are farthest
from the sun.
* The emotional meaning of the word winter will
be different for each person who uses the word.

Ex. Someone who likes to ride a sleigh as a child

associates these personal memories with the word
winter.
 Reference

* Reference is the symbolic relationship that

a linguistic expression has with the concrete object
or abstraction it represents
* Reference is the relationship of
one linguistic expression to another, in which one
provides the information necessary to interpret the
other.
 Reference

Anaphoric/Backward & Cataphoric/Forward

- Jack is a doctor. He likes playing golf.

Jack <<< He: Anaphoric reference

- Hắn vừa đi vừa chửi. Chí Phèo xách một cái vỏ

chai đến nhà bá Kiến.
(He cursed as he walked. Chi Pheo went to Ba Kien’s
house with an empty bottle in his hand).
He >>>> Chi Pheo: Forward/cataphoric reference
 Presupposition(tiền giả định)

Something the speaker assumes to be the

case before to make a meaningful
utterance.

> Presupposition: The set of assumptions

that the speaker makes about the listener
knowledge & circumstances
 Examples
- Jane no longer writes fiction. > Presupposition:
Jane once wrote fiction.
- Her bag was stolen.> Pres.: she had a bag.
- Have you talked to Hoa? > Pres.: Hoa exists.
- Allan told a great joke today at lunch. Pres.:
Everybody have known who is Allan.

Types of presupposition
• Existential presupposition; Factive presupposition; Lexical
presupposition; Structural presupposition; Non – factive
presupposition
 IMPLICATURE

The aspect of meaning that a speaker conveys,

implies, or suggests without directly expressing.

Ex. Although the utterance “Can you pass the salt?” is

literally a request for information about one's ability to pass
salt, the understood implicature is a request for salt.

In saying “Some dogs are mammals.” the speaker conveys

by implicature that not all dogs are mammals.
 ENTAILMENT
The relationship between two statements when for one to
be true, the other must also be true. For an entailment to be
true, the then statement (denoted as B) must always be true
when the if statement (denoted as A) is true.

Ex. He drank a glass of water. (A) entails Somebody

drank something. (B)
 INFERENCING
* Inferencing refers to the process by which the
hearer/reader arrives at the intended meaning of the
speaker/writer.

* Inferences are generated from

i) specific premises or
ii) deductive inference.

Ex. a). If it’s sunny, it’s warm. b). It’s sunny.

> c). So, it’s warm.
 Bases for inferencing (Leech -1984)
1. The conventional conceptual meaning of the
utterance.
2. The assumption that the speaker is observing the
co-operative principles, & assuming the hearer to
assume that too.
3. Relevant background knowledge.
4. Informal reasoning.
 1. Conventional meanings of words without
which there is no possibility of understanding
the direct or non- implicated meaning

2.Background knowledge or experience are

necessary for understanding language.
 THE CO-OPERATIVE PRINCIPLE
Grice's motto (1967)
Maxims of Conversation (Paul Grice. England)
Grice's maxims for conversation are conventions/
general principles of speech: (participants should obey)
1. The maxim of quantity, in which one tries
to be as informative as possible, and to give
as much information as possible, & no more.
2. The maxim of quality, in which people
strive/try to be honest and do not provide
false information or is not supported by
evidence.
 3. The maxim of relevance in which a
person tries to be involved & says things
relevant to a discussion (appropriate for the
topic)

4. The maxim of manner: of how, when one

tries to speak as clearly, concisely & orderly
as possible about what one says, & where
ambiguity & ambiguity are avoided.
 Châm ngôn của Grice
Câu châm ngôn về số lượng , trong đó người ta cố gắng
trở nên nhiều thông tin nhất có thể, và cung cấp càng nhiều
thông tin càng tốt, và không hơn thế nữa.
Châm ngôn về chất lượng , trong đó người ta cố gắng
trung thực và không cung cấp thông tin sai lệch hoặc
không được hỗ trợ bởi bằng chứng.
Châm ngôn về mối quan hệ , trong đó một người cố gắng
trở nên có liên quan và nói những điều phù hợp với cuộc
thảo luận.
Châm ngôn về cách thức , khi người ta cố gắng nói rõ
ràng, ngắn gọn và trật tự nhất có thể về những gì người ta
nói, và nơi người ta tránh đ
 2. APPLICATIONS OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS TO LANGUAGE
TEACHING

* Discourse research has long been interested by many

linguists
- It has great potential for exploitation & application in
language & foreign language teaching because the object of the
study of discourse is the text, & foreign language learners when
studying Reading Comprehension & Writing are also related to
text processing.
Discourse studies: Analysis theory, Genre analysis,
Discourse analysis or Critical discourse analysis will help
students gain a better grasp of the subject.

Text genre & structure, thereby effectively improving the

practice of Reading & Writing skills in an academic
environment.
 - Genre analysis & discourse structure are two
concepts that have a certain relationship because the genre
is also the structure of each specific type of text.

- Raising awareness of the genre & structure of

discourse will help language learners:
+ improve their reading & writing abilities in that
language
+ be enable to practice various types of cognitive-
enhancing exercises of discourse
+ An effective measure that can guide students to
practice effective English Reading & Writing habits by
themselves.
 Applications of Genre Analysis

- Genres are "communicative sequences of

events that each have different communication
purposes".
-Genre analysis: the study of how the language
in a particular text is used in a particular situation.

> The main purpose of genre analysis: to determine

what textual features have been selected by the
creator of the text to represent his or her
communicative purposes.
 - The goal of genre-based language teaching: to
raise learners' awareness of the text's organizational
structure & genre-specific linguistic features.

- Genre awareness exercises can help students

develop flexible skills when applying genre
knowledge & thinking in diverse real-life
communication situations & allows students to write
texts more easily a real communicative text.
 The genre-based approach to teaching writing
helps learners:
- Understand & grasp the text structure of the
required genre,
- Identify the necessary strategies to
accomplish the goals of their communication
successful
> The benefits of teaching writing skills with
integrated genre awareness & genre analysis have
been confirmed by many researchers in the history
of research on foreign language teaching in
particular & language teaching in general.
 Applications of Discourse Structure Analysis

* Discourse structure is:

- A coherent way of organizing information in a
written text,
- A connection between that information to evoke
a message for readers, or the main content of the text
with the means of linking to make the text cohesive &
coherent.

* Written texts/discourses are often organized

according to a number of structures: compare-
contrast, cause-effect, problem-problem, define,
classify, describe, process. , telling stories….
 * For reading comprehension skills, "knowledge
of (structure) discourse" as a tool to increase the
reader's comprehensive comprehension,
and helps them:
+ Use their knowledge of discourse structure to
develop effective reading comprehension strategies
+ Read better, faster, & understand more
accurately.
 In a language & foreign language teaching
environment, specifically teaching reading
comprehension skills, if students are introduced to
specific text structure samples: knowledge of topic
sentences, linking means, signs of inference, etc.,
> The effect on increasing students' reading
comprehension is very obvious: creating mind maps,
ways of organizing ideas by models, charts,
summarizing documents, creating diagrams, semantic
mapping, conjecture, title-based question formation,
etc.
> These are effective techniques that teachers can use
to help improve students' reading comprehension for
academic texts in a university setting. .
 The benefit of increasing students'
awareness of discourse:

- Better understanding how a paragraph is

organized or its associated signs, so that they can
guess the general idea & the specific idea.

- Guessing meaning & self-directing when having

"noise" information, remembering & retaining
information longer.
 How to increasing students’ awareness of discourse
- Designing exercises: practicing paragraph writing skills
with major genres: description, narrative-narrative,
persuasive, etc. based on learners' practical communication
needs & also a member of society, festival.

- Designing criteria to evaluate the level of completion of

the set requirements & use vocabulary & grammatical
structures, organize paragraph ideas (genre)...
 Summary
- Effect of genre awareness and genre
analysis on improving students' Writing skills
- The effect of increasing awareness of
discourse structure on improving students'
reading comprehension skills: changes in
students' perception of concepts, changes in
skill practice habits reading, change in reading
comprehension strategies for doing well in
effective reading comprehension exercises.
 The significance of applying discourse research to
language teaching
- Students learning foreign languages ​in particular or
languages ​in general are exposed to text forms (written
discourse) very often.
> Foreign language teachers & learners see the
importance of raising awareness & fostering knowledge of
discourse, in order to promote self-study & improve
proficiency in practical English skills.
> Developing knowledge & skills in Discourse Analysis
makes students change their attitudes in a positive direction
towards reading & writing activities.
 Discourse knowledge enables learners to
have a comprehensive & in-depth view of the
text from the perspective of learners with high
thinking & cognitive abilities, so its applicability
to foreign language teaching at high school
level university is highly feasible.
3. SYLLABUS DESIGN FOR ENGLISH COURSES
Designing courses is unlike preparing one's
own teaching as it should be understood by
others who will use the design.
It is very urgent to equip the English teachers
with the basic competence of course design.
 * A syllabus is a more circumscribed document, usually
one which has been prepared for a particular group of
learners/a syllabus is more specific & more concrete than a
curriculum; the syllabus specifies the content of the lessons
used to lead the learners to achieve the goals.

* Content or what is taught is the single aspect of

syllabus design to be considered. It includes behavioral or
learning objectives for students, specifications of how the
content will be taught & how it will be evaluated.
 To design a syllabus is to decide what gets taught
& in what order.

> What is the base to design a syllabus?

+ The theory of language explicitly or implicitly

underlying the method in determining what syllabus
is adopted.

+ The importance of determining the syllabus

choice in learning.
 Example. A teacher may accept a structural theory of language,
but not accept that learners can acquire language materials according
to a strict grammatical sequence of presentation.

* The choice of a syllabus is a major decision in

language teaching, & it should be made as
consciously & with as much information as
possible.
 Six types of language teaching syllabus

1.A structural (or formal) syllabus. It is one in which

the content of language teaching is a collection of the forms &
grammatical structures, of the language being taught.
Examples of structure: nouns, verbs, adjectives,
statements, questions, complex sentences, subordinate
clauses, past tense…

2.A notional/functional syllabus. It is one in which the

content of language teaching is a collection of the functions
that are performed when language is used, or of the notions
that language is used to express.
Examples of functions: informing, agreeing, apologizing,
requesting, promising…. Examples of notions include size,
age, color, comparison, time...
 3. A situational syllabus. It is one in which the content of
language teaching is a collection of real or imaginary situations in
which language occurs or is used. The primary purpose of
situational language teaching syllabus is to teach the language that
occurs in the situations.
Examples of situations: seeing then dentist, complaining to the
landlord, buying a book at the bookstore, meeting a new student,
asking directions in a new town...
 4. A skill-based syllabus. It is one in which the content
of language teaching is a collection of specific abilities that
may play a part in using language.

Skills are things that people must be able to do to be

competent in a language, relatively independently of the
situation or setting in which the language use can occur.
The primary purpose of skill-based instruction:
+ To learn a specific language skill,
+ To develop more general competence in the
language, learning only incidentally any information that
may be available while applying the language skills.
 5. A task-based syllabus. In task-based instruction the content of the
teaching is a series of complex & purposeful tasks that the students
want or need to perform with the language they are learning.

The tasks are defined as activities with a purpose other than

language learning. Tasks integrate language (and other) skills in
specific settings of language use. Tasks that can be used for language
learning are, generally, tasks that the learners actually have to perform
in any case.

Examples: applying for a job, talking with a social worker, getting

housing information over the telephone, completing bureaucratic
forms, collecting information about preschools to decide which to send
a child to, preparing a paper for another course, reading a textbook for
another course...
 6. A content-based syllabus. In content-based
language teaching, the primary purpose of the instruction
is to teach some content or information using the
language that the students are also learning.
* Content-based language teaching is concerned with
information, while task-based language teaching is
concerned with communicative & cognitive processes.
An example of content-based language teaching is a science
class taught in the language that the students need or want
to learn, possibly with linguistic adjustments to make the
science more comprehensible.

Suggestion: In practice, these different types of syllabus rarely occur

independently of each other. Almost all actual language teaching
syllabi are combinations of two or more of the types of syllabus
described here.
 Revision of chapter V
1. What is Pragmatics and its types?
2. What are implications of Discourse
analysis: Implication of genre, of structure discourse
analysis to language teaching; Its significance.
3. Syllabus design for language
teaching/English course; What are the types of
syllabus design?
4. How to apply types of syllabus design in
English course designing?