The Practice of Critical Discourse Analysis - Essay Example

Part A Transcript of the first 4 minute of the discourse Speaker 1: We would like to talk about speakers, native speakers, problems and dilemma. [.]I would like to ask you as you are here especially you have some information about Arabic language and maybe you can’t speak Arabic language. [.] Have you faced this problem before that when you have some idea in your mind and the [.] you couldn’t find the real word or the correct word to go with the idea, what was your reaction? Speaker 2: I think […]with [umm] both the other second languages that I know, bit of, you try and find another word to say what you want to say and you try to think through the vocab that you have and grab words that try and give you some idea of what I want to say. I think, I have no problem so much with the vocab but the structure, so especially with Arabic because you have the feminine and the masculine, the plural and the singular, you have singular masculine plural, so that makes it very hard to every word has to be changed to match with that masculine and feminine. We don’t have that in English [laughs]. Speaker 1: With the grammar Speaker 2: With the grammar I find its more difficult. Speaker 1: But for me, Sometimes for me [.] you know, I have speak to the native speakers, sometimes I feel shy and sometimes you know, I feel like a child who is choosing just a words in order to convey his idea. Speaker 2: Yeah I think [.], I am like that as well. Speaker 3: [Yeah, I think that depends on the direction of the society. If you get more words and more vocabulary, we can use it better than… [---] for example, if you have four years here you can’t use and you won’t and you can’t get the accent from [.] the university or from the schools [.]. Therefore, I think when you continue to age, you can’t get their accent, you can’t get the idea. As my friend say about he is shy because he isn’t there exactly what [---] or he didn’t get the accent, the accent to understand what. Therefore, I think that is the main problem [?] with non-native speakers. Speaker 1: But I think [clears his throat] there is a problem with the native speakers themselves sometimes. You know, I have one of my friends, he is speaking English very well, but when he is trying to go somewhere he will ask me, can you go with me, I told him why, you can speak English, you can [---]. He said yes I can, but I cannot understand what they are saying sometimes. He told me that one day he met a lady and he couldn’t understand her and she said just that whaama, whaama and she repeated that word [.] more than one time and he said pardon and then he said can you [---] speak slowly, she said, what’s the matter? Speaker 2: What’s the word? Speaker 1: Yeah she said whaama, he said I couldn’t understand what she mean by whaama. Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember when we work as a [---] when I was in Iraq, there bring us a captain, I forgot his name, [?] when he took, when he took an n subject we can’t understand it, therefore, we bring another solider to to [?] translate for us, because we don’t understand [laughs]. Another solider we could understand but this captain we didn’t. Annotate discourse features and discuss the organisational and discourse features that the spoken text reveals Speaker 1: We would like to talk about speakers, native speakers, problems and dilemma. [.]I would like to ask you as you are here especially you have some information about Arabic language and maybe you can’t speak Arabic language. [.] Have you faced this problem before that when you have some idea in your mind and the [.] you couldn’t find the real word or the correct word to go with the idea, what was your reaction? Analysis: The Speaker 1 is able to demonstrate the discourse feature of cohesion in the first line. The speaker has given the reason for undertaking the discussion upfront and in a cohesive manner, which could be interpreted by the other participants easily. In this case, the discourse is about the problems and dilemma faced by speakers and native speakers while speaking a particular language. The speaker also introduces another speaker who is able to understand and have some information regarding Arabic language. This again shows the right use of informativeness feature of the discourse, wherein some new information has to be included in the discourse. Speaker 2: I think […]with [umm] both the other second languages that I know, bit of, you try and find another word to say what you want to say and you try to think through the vocab that you have and grab words that try and give you some idea of what I want to say. I think, I have no problem so much with the vocab but the structure, so especially with Arabic because you have the feminine and the masculine, the plural and the singular, you have singular masculine plural, so that makes it very hard to every word has to be changed to match with that masculine and feminine. We don’t have that in English [laughs]. Analysis: Here the speaker has demonstrated the feature of situationality very well. The speaker is able to answer the question asked by the speaker 1 appropriately. Therefore, the context of the discourse has been maintained by the speaker 2. Further, the speaker is able to provide references and examples to the context of the discourse. This shows the feature of intertextuality. For instance, in this case, the speaker is able to point out the problem areas in Arabic languages such as gender and numbers, and compare them with English language. The speaker 2 in this case, however, uses the technique of hesitation to gather his thought about the subject line and thereafter express his views. Right in the beginning, he takes a pause after saying I think to collate his opinion on the matter in a cohesive manner so that the listeners are able to understand his point of view clearly. Further, he also uses the technique of explicitness to explain his example about the use of gender in Arabic language. He also uses the words feminine and the masculine and the plural and the singular twice to emphasise on the importance of these words in his example. Although, these words were repeated and redundant, the speaker was able to make the listener understand the example very well and in a coherent manner. Speaker 1: With the grammar Speaker 2: With the grammar I find its more difficult. Speaker 1: But for me, Sometimes for me [.] you know, I have speak to the native speakers, sometimes I feel shy and sometimes you know, I feel like a child who is choosing just a words in order to convey his idea. Speaker 2: Yeah I think [.], I am like that as well. Analysis: In this portion, the speakers talk about their experiences while speaking with natives in their language. Both the speakers agreed that they feel shy and like a child while speaking to native language speakers as they have to choose the words carefully to convey their idea. This shows the feature of acceptability wherein the idea conveyed by a speaker is satisfactory and is acceptable by the audience. Further, the speakers also agree about a particular issue and explicitly mention the same in their agreement (Bloor & Bloor, 2007). In this portion, both the speakers are trying to present the issue from the other viewpoint as well. They are normalising the situation by admitting to their own shortcomings while speaking a non-native language. It has been often found that speakers tend to present a balanced viewpoint while expressing their opinion on a particular subject. Unless in a debate, where the speakers are meant to take certain sides, in most cases people try and present a balanced opinion on a certain matter. This is known as the technique of normalisation. For instance, in this case, both the speakers admit that it is not just the non-native languages that have problems, but even speakers of such languages might have some issues. The speakers admit that they feel like a child while speaking non-native languages because of their lack of confidence and grasp over the language. Further, there is no hesitation when the first speaker confirmed his own belief about the issue. This implies that the first speaker is in sync with what the second speaker said and confirmed to the second speaker’s belief that even non-native speakers are at fault when it comes to speaking a language that the person is not aware of. Speaker 3: [Yeah, I think that depends on the direction of the society. If you get more words and more vocabulary, we can use it better than… [---] for example, if you have four years here you can’t use and you won’t and you can’t get the accent from [.] the university or from the schools [.]. Therefore, I think when you continue to age, you can’t get their accent, you can’t get the idea. As my friend say about he is shy because he isn’t there exactly what [---] or he didn’t get the accent, the accent to understand what. Therefore, I think that is the main problem [?] with non-native speakers. Analysis: The speaker 3 is not able to provide a comprehensive view about the situation, especially in the first half of his speech, which is a little confusing and requires a lot of thinking to understand the content. For instance, the speaker did not explain what he meant by ‘depends on the direction of the society’. Further, his example about how one can’t get the accent right even after studying in university and school is not explained properly. Therefore, this speaker clearly showed the lack of coherence in his speech. Further, there is a lot of hesitation, repetition and omission in the speech. The speaker is clearly not confident about the subject matter as he hesitates a lot before speaking. This hesitation is different from the hesitation or pause taken by the second speaker in the earlier instance. There, the speaker was trying to collect his thought and present it in a proper manner. But in this case, the third speaker has little knowledge about the subject and keeps taking pauses to try to find out what to say next. Further, he is also not able to articulate his thoughts properly and there is a lack of coherence in his speech. He also omits a lot of words as he is not sure about them or is not able to find the right words to express his thoughts. Thus, the hesitation depicted in this instance is due to the unsure nature of the speaker, as he is not able to express his thoughts properly. While, in the earlier instance, the hesitation on the part of the second speaker was due to the fact that he was collating his thoughts and was trying to present it properly. However, in the second half of the speech, he is able to get the context of the discourse in the right manner. He is able to sum up the problem for non-native speakers i.e. accent. Thus he is able to get the situationality right. Although, being hesitant about his speech, the speaker is able to comprehend the situation or the context of the discussion well. He was able to understand what the others were saying but had problems expressing his own thoughts and opinions. Speaker 1: But I think [clears his throat] there is a problem with the native speakers themselves sometimes. You know, I have one of my friends, he is speaking English very well, but when he is trying to go somewhere he will ask me, can you go with me, I told him why, you can speak English, you can [---]. He said yes I can, but I cannot understand what they are saying sometimes. He told me that one day he met a lady and he couldn’t understand her and she said just that whaama, whaama and she repeated that word [.] more than one time and he said pardon and then he said can you [---] speak slowly, she said, what’s the matter? Analysis: This is an excellent example of interetextuality and informativeness. The speaker talks about a new idea, i.e. the problem presented by the native speakers and then explains it well by giving an instance. Here again the speaker uses the technique of normalisation by presenting another aspect of problems faced by non-native speakers. He talks about how native speakers also add to the woe of the non-native speakers. Often their accents are tough to understand by non-native speakers. The speaker is able to present another idea in a very efficient manner in the discussion. Further, he explicitly describes the situation by explaining about an event wherein the speaker’s friend had to deal with a native speaker. He also repeats a certain word to emphasise on the fact that the word is of prime importance in this example. As it turns out the word ‘whaama’ was the most important word in the example. Speaker 2: What’s the word? Speaker 1: Yeah she said whaama, he said I couldn’t understand what she mean by whaama. Analysis: This is a clear instance of turn-taking. The speaker 1 and 2 take turns to express their opinion on the issue or to carry forward the conversation. In a discourse, most participants wait for their turn to voice their opinion. As per Sacks et al, turn taking is governed by the rules set by the participants, who not only control the conversation but also provides a course to the conversation and steer it as per the topic. In this instance, the first speaker is able to explain a particular example about the problems faced while interacting with native speaker and let the second speaker confirm the example by stressing on the word ‘whamma’. Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember when we work as a [---] when I was in Iraq, there bring us a captain, I forgot his name, [?] when he took, when he took an n subject we can’t understand it, therefore, we bring another solider to to [?] translate for us, because we don’t understand [laughs]. Another solider we could understand but this captain we didn’t. Analysis: Again, there is a problem of coherence here. The speaker is not able to explain the context well. He tries to use intertextuality but is not able to explain it well, especially in the beginning. In this instance as well, the speaker hesitates a lot to express his opinion. The example that the speaker gives about his experience with a particular instructor was not clear. It was difficult to catch the name of the place he mentioned. Further, he repeated the information about the captain being less understandable than the soldier. He again laughs while giving out this information, which again shows his lack of confidence about the subject matter. This speaker was clearly not able to contribute to the discussion in a manner that the others could. There was a lot of hesitation in the speech, loads of pauses, omission of words, nervous laughs and incomprehensible words as well. Part B Prepare a detailed analysis of the organisational discourse structure; use of discourse ties; and implicature. Introduction This part of the paper would focus on various discourse features and would analyse the importance of conducting discourse analysis. Further, the paper would describe the various techniques of discourse analysis such as normalisation, explicitness, redundancy as well as lexical and syntactical characteristics of discourse. These characteristics are thereafter, applied to the text of the article “Top Climate Scientist Under Fire for 'Exaggerating' Global Warming” selected for this paper. As per the purpose of the written discourse, the genre of the written text is decided upon. For instance, written texts can be in the form of a poem, short story, novel or article. Further, the structure of the text is also analysed to find out whether the structure is as per the requirement of the text genre. Some of the structure or forms used in written text are informative, narrative and poetic. Every genre has different form and type of content. Discourse analysis primarily describes the structure and the form of text within a particular genre. The example used for this study for instance uses a news article published on the Fox News website on April 15, 2010. The structure of the article is informative and narrative as it provides an in-depth knowledge about the controversy surrounding the issue of climate change. The rhetorical structure used in this article talks about a problem and how the problem got aggravated due to the misjudgment on the part of some scientists. The article forms a series of episodes to build the problem and various preconditions were set to find out how the problem originated. In the other narrative structures this type of inter-dependence between various episodes are found only on a temporary basis. The non-fictional text has a different approach towards narrative style than the fictional text. The article used in this example is a Fox News bureau report and has been written for the general public to make them aware about the climate change fraud and controversy. It also focuses on the role of some famous scientists in originating the issue. The media’s prime role is to expose the truth to the public. Therefore, the relationship shared between the reader and the writer is of mutual trust. However, there are some instances in this otherwise straightforward news article that might cause problems for the non-native speakers. Long and convoluted sentences, difficult vocabulary and biasness of information are some of the issues that the non-native speaker might face while reading this article. Understanding discourse analysis Discourse analysis is a process through which language is viewed from being abstract to having meaning for each word and placing it in the context of political, social and historical conditions. The words, spoken or written, are never considered to be neutral, they always have a meaning and are placed in some or the other reference (Fiske, 1994). It has been seen that often the speaker is also not aware of his or her words being politicised. Various stakeholders such as editors, researchers, government and even the family members play crucial roles in putting the words into a certain context (Henry & Tator, 2002). Further, discourses help in expressing the opinion and view of the people either through written or spoken words. This expression of thoughts to get a particular thing done is known as genre (Paltridge, 2006). Discourse is a means to express one’s belief to others. It can be used to assert or to display one’s knowledge, to show resistance against certain belief or to criticise an action. It is used in our daily lives to develop knowledge, to regulate and to control. The power of discourse is immense and words spoken by powerful leaders can motivate people to undertake certain actions. Therefore, it is necessary to analyse discourses, which would help to understand, interpret and analyse the thought and idea behind a discourse (Luke, 1997). The study of discourse analysis therefore tries to establish the elements of biasness, dominance and power in the discourse and how these may influence the economic, social and political conditions (Van Dijk, 1988). Conducting discourse analysis As discourses are a powerful means to influence and motivate people to undertake certain actions, it is important to analyse discourses to find out the actual motivation behind a particular discourse. Experts such as Huckin (1997) suggest that discourses should not just be analysed word-by-word, but should be seen in its entire context. The central idea or the perspective of the discourse, the point of view of the speaker and the angle that the discourse reflects upon should be analysed in a proper manner. The entire discourse should be interpreted in a comprehensive way by employing various techniques such as: Normalisation: Often to present the point-of-view of both the sides or to create a neutral effect in an overtly biased text, this technique is used. Through normalisation, certain words are omitted that reflect the power of the text or create overtly biased opinion about the subject (Luke, 1997). For instance, in the article analysed for this paper, the writer described the Britain's climatologists as scatterbrained and sloppy, but later on normalised the accusation by calling them innocent of intentionally skewing climate data. Explicitness: Some writers have the tendency to express their views in a very explicit manner. They keep on elaborating and extending their speech by using various conjunctions. The major motivation behind doing this is to emphasise on the importance of the subject. However, this often leads to confusion and lack of interest in the readers and listeners (Van Dijk, 1988). Further, the essence of the text/speech is often lost if long and convoluted sentences are used to describe the idea. For instance, in the below given sentence, the writer has tried to put in too many thoughts in a single sentence, which might end of confusing a reader, especially a non-native speaker. Geology professor Mann's 1998 climate study, which showed a sharp increase in the world's temperatures in the past century, was seen by many as proof that climate change was rapidly occurring and that humans played a significant role in the change. Redundancy: Writers often use the technique of redundancy through which the central theme of the text is emphasised upon. The reader usually are not aware of this technique as the writer weaves in the words very carefully by using synonyms or phrases that has similar meaning. It is often being related to lexical cohesion and techniques such as substitution, ellipsis, reference and conjunction (Huckin, 1997). Substitution: Often words or phrases are replaced with one word to avoid repeating the same words and phrases again in the paragraph. Some of the common words used in place of phrases are do and so. Ellipsis: Just like substitution, ellipsis also replaces words or phrases, but with a gap. In the article analysed no substitution or ellipsis were found. Reference: Words, especially a pronoun or article that does not have meaning of its own but is used to refer to a particular context in the text. For instance, in the text analysed the following lines has the word ‘Had’ that does not have a meaning in itself but refers to the context of climatologists exaggerated climate change data. "The particular technique they used exaggerated the size of the blade at the end of the hockey stick. Had they used an appropriate technique the size of the blade of the hockey stick would have been smaller," he said. Conjunction: This is one of the common usages in most texts that signifies adding information or the temporality of the situation. For instance in the article analysed the conjunction ‘but’ was used to provide the other view point about the controversy. Text: But one of the top scientists selected for the panel slammed the methodologies used by Penn State climatologist Michael Mann to devise his infamous "Hockey Stick." Lexical cohesion: This signifies any noun, verb or adjective used as a link between two words to carry forward the meaning in the text. For instance, in this article, the first occurrence of the word absolved was later substituted with the phrase innocent of intentionally skewing climate data. Discuss the problematic nature of the text Written texts are divergent from each other not only in its functionality and genre but also in the form and structure. Therefore, no two texts can be interpreted in the similar manner. The knowledge and experience of the reader also plays an important role in analysing and interpretation of the text. As written texts do not have the advantage of showcasing the writer’s emotions through sound and body language, the usage of appropriate language and words are important to convey these emotions. If the writer is not able to express them in appropriate words, the reader might not be able to comprehend the intended meaning. However, even in cases of writers putting forth his views through proper words and sentences, lack of knowledge or biasness towards an issue might result in misinterpretation of the context. Written discourse helps in understanding the overall meaning of the text in a comprehensive manner. Further, the reader is also able to interpret the written material according to his own understanding about the language. Therefore, as the written discourse does not have the advantage of the showing the writer’s body language, tone or emotions about a particular thought, the writer has to rely on appropriate usage of words to covey these feelings. For instance, in the article analysed, the context clearly states about the foolhardiness of the scientists who used a particular methodology that blew the results out of proportion. But the author was careful not to put too much blame on the scientists and called them scatterbrained and sloppy, but ultimately innocent of intentionally skewing climate data. However, this instance can be interpreted in two ways; the person who is biased towards the issue of climate change would think that this article although talked about the wrong usage of the methodology, has still not denied about the climate change data. On the other hand, people who think climate change is hogwash would interpret that the entire furor about climate change is a hoax. It is solely dependent on the biasness and experience of the reader to interpret the text. Every written discourse contains some patterns within the text to convey a comprehensive meaning. This provides cohesiveness to the text. For instance, in the article analysed a text pattern focused on criticising the scientists. This can be found in the usage of words such as slammed and blasted. Further, usage of long and convoluted sentences might also pose a problem for the non-native speakers who might end up interpreting the sentence out of context. For instance, in the article analysed, the following sentence can be misinterpreted easily: Geology professor Mann's 1998 climate study, which showed a sharp increase in the world's temperatures in the past century, was seen by many as proof that climate change was rapidly occurring and that humans played a significant role in the change. There are too many thoughts in the sentence and the reader might not be able to comprehend these thoughts clearly and might mis-construct the meaning of the sentence. Conclusion Strengths of recording transcription Recording transcription helps in analysing the information gathered during the interaction and draw out inferences and insights from it. As the opinions expressed by the participants are presented verbatim, the information is considered accurate and credible. In the above analysed transcription as well it became easy to analyse the transcription and find out the central theme of the recording effortlessly. Further, in discourse analysis, is it important to analyse even the pauses taken by the participants and a written transcription definitely helps in analysing these aspects. Weaknesses of recording transcription A written transcript is often unsystematic and does not follow a coherent form; this is due to the fact that rephrasing is not allowed in transcripts. Further, some participants might not be good orators and fail to express their opinions in a coherent manner. Also, such transcripts may be full of grammatical errors due to the conversational manner of the recording. In this case as well, it was seen that one of the speakers was not able to express his viewpoint properly and used grammatically incorrect sentences. Further, there was a lack of coherence in most of the speakers’ speech. Article with annotations Top Climate Scientist Under Fire for 'Exaggerating' Global Warming FOXNews.com Britain's top statistician absolved U.K. scientists following the climate-data scandal -- and blasted U.S. researcher Michael Mann for exaggerating the size of global warming. An inquiry by a panel of scientists into the behavior and methodologies of researchers at Britain's East Anglia University found Britain's climatologists scatterbrained and sloppy, but ultimately innocent of intentionally skewing climate data. But one of the top scientists selected for the panel slammed the methodologies used by Penn State climatologist Michael Mann to devise his infamous "Hockey Stick." Geology professor Mann's 1998 climate study, which showed a sharp increase in the world's temperatures in the past century, was seen by many as proof that climate change was rapidly occurring and that humans played a significant role in the change. And despite ongoing criticism, the study formed the backbone of global warming theories. Professor David Hand, president of the Royal Statistical Society, told the Telegraph that Mann's research would have shown less dramatic results if more reliable techniques had been used to analyze the data. "The particular technique they used exaggerated the size of the blade at the end of the hockey stick. Had they used an appropriate technique the size of the blade of the hockey stick would have been smaller," he said. "The change in temperature is not as great over the 20th century compared to the past as suggested by the Mann paper." Reference: Bloor, Meriel & Thomas Bloor (2007). The Practice of Critical Discourse Analysis: An Introduction. London: Hodder Arnold. Fiske, J. (1994). Media matters: Everyday culture and political change. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Henry, F., & Tator, C. (2002). Discourses of domination. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Huckin, T. N. (1997). Critical discourse analysis. In T. Miller (Ed.), Functional approaches to written text. Accessed April 19, 2009. http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/pubs/BR/functionalsec3_6.htm Luke, A (1997). Theory and practice in critical science discourse. In L. Saha (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the sociology of education. http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/courses/ed253a/Luke/SAHA6.html Paltridge, Brian (2006). Discourse analysis: An Introduction. New York: Continuum, 244. Sacks, Harvey, Schegloff, Emanuel A. & Jefferson, Gail (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50, 696-735. van Dijk, T. A. (1988). News as discourse. Hillside, NJ: Erlbaum Read More