语篇分析.docx

1、语篇分析Adapted from McCarthy, M. (1991)Discourse analysis for language teacher CUP Cohesion and coherenceCohesion is only a guide to coherence, and coherence is something created by the reader in the act of reading the text. Coherence is the felling that a text hangs together, this it makes sense, and

2、is not just a jumble of sentences (see Neubauer 1983: 7). The sentences Clare loves potatoes, she was born in Ireland. are cohesive (Clare/she), but are only coherent if one already shares the stereotype ethnic association between being Irish and loving potatoes, or is prepared to assume a cause-eff

3、ect relationship between the two sentences. So cohesion is only part of coherence in reading and writing, and indeed in spoken language too, for the same processes operate there. Looking backward: anaphoric referenceWhat can be (and often is not) directly taught about a system such as that of Englis

4、h is the different ways of referring to the discourse itself by use of items such as it, this and that, which do not seem to translate in a one-to-one way to other languages, even where these are closely cognate (cf. German, French, Spanish). Surprisingly, conventional grammars do not give satisfact

5、ory descriptions of such usage (it, this and that) (e.g. see Quirk et al. 1985:868). discourse analysts have touched upon the area (see Thavenius 1983:167-9), and the insights of different analysts have a certain amount in common.It is simply to make the point that many unanswered good grammatical q

6、uestions can be resolved at the discourse level, and that much good discourse analysis recognizes the links between discourse organization and grammatical choice. As such, discourse-level investigations are often invaluable reading for teachers looking for answers to grammatical problems.Looking out

7、ward: exophoric referenceExophoric references will often be to a world shared by sender and receiver of the linguistic message, regardless of cultural background, but equally often, references will be culture-bound and outside the experiences of the language learner (e.g. British references the City

8、, the Chancellor and so on). In these cases the learner will need to consult some source of encyclopedic information or ask an informant. This aspect of language learning is a gradual familiarization with the cultural context of L2. Language teachers and materials writers will need to monitor the de

9、gree of cultural exophoric references it text chosen for teaching to ensure the referential burden is not too great.Looking forward: cataphoric referenceThe most characteristic function of cataphoric reference: to engage and hold the readers attention with a read on and find our message.p42 Cataphor

10、ic reference is the reverse of anaphoric reference and is relatively straightforward, gut language learners may lack awareness of confidence to put it into use in constructing texts, and my need to have the feature explicitly taught or exercised. There is, too, the danger of its overuse or its use i

11、n unnatural contexts. As always, it is a question of training the learner to observe features of langue above sentence level where these might not necessarily be automatically transferred form L1, especially since, in English, reference of involves the definite article and demonstratives, which do n

12、ot translate easily into many other languages.p42Ellipsis and substitutionEllipsis as a notin is probably a universal feature of language but the grammatical options which realize it in discourse may vary markedly. P43Ellipisis not only creates difficulties in learning what structural omissions are

13、permissible, but also does not seem to be readily used even by proficient learners in situation where native naturally resort to it (see Scarcella and Brunak 1981).ConjunctionDifferences in performance data of these kinds are often the reason why even quite advanced-learner output can seem unnatural

14、. One of the major contributions of discourse analysis has been to emphasis the analysis of real data, and the significance in communicative terms of small words such as common everyday markers. In previous linguistic approaches these were too often dismissed as unimportant features of performance w

15、hich distracted form the business o describing underlying competence.p50Theme and rhemeGrammar teaching may have to reorient some of its structural descriptions, while others already dealt with in sentence-level exercises may be adequately covered in traditional teaching and simply adjusted to disco

16、urse-oriented approaches. P51Theme and rheme Patterns of sequencing of theme and rheme are tendencies rather than absolutes. Very few texts (except perhaps highly ritualized ones such religious litanies) repeat the same thematising patterns endlessly. We have suggested that low-level learners might

17、be trapped in unnatural patterns owing to limited grammatical resources or lack of confidence on a new L2, but most advanced learners are likely to have a good feel for creating topic frameworks and orienting their audience. The grammatical structures that are underplayed in grammar books (e.g. left

18、 displacements, object-fronting) may be produced unconsciously by learners, but awareness and monitoring on the part of teachers is necessary to ensure that natural production using the wide resources of th grammar is indeed taking place. P 58Lexical cohesionIt is important to make learners aware th

19、at synonyms are not just ways of understanding new words when they crop up in class, nor are they some abstract notion for the organization of lexicons and thesauri, but they are there to be used, just as any other linguistic device, in the creation of natural discourse. P67Lexis in talkWe find that

20、 interesting observations can be make concerning how speakers reiterate their own and take up one anothers vocabulary selections in one form or another from turn to turn and develop and expand topics in doing so. we shall refer to this phenomenon as relexicalisation. The intimate bond between topic

21、development and the modification and reworking of lexical items already used makes the conversation develop coherently, seeming to move form sub-topic to sub-topic as a seamless whole, in this the scope of the topics is worked out between the participants, with neither side necessarily dominating, t

22、his accords with the ethnomethodological approach to discourse analysis, which sees conversation as a joint activity that has to be worked at. Topics unfold interactively, rather than existing as static entities; Wardaugh (1985: 139-40) refers to topic as a consensual outcome. This is quite clearly

23、so here. Speakers can throw topics into the ring, but whether they are taken up or die depends on the other speaker(s); if one speaker insister on pursuing his/her topics, ignoring the wishes of others, this is precisely when we recognize deviance into monologue or complain later to our friends that

24、 X was hogging the conversation. Utterances by one speaker are an invitation to response by another (see Goffman 1976); the initiating utterance puts an obligation on the responding speaker to make his/her turn both relevant to previous turn and a positive contribution to the forward moving of the d

25、iscourse (see Vuchinich 1977). Relexicalisation of some elements of the previous turn provides just such a contribution to relevance and provides other important I am with you signals to the initiator.pp69-70ExchangesParticularly noticeable in the Sinclair-Coulthard data was the pattern of the three

26、-part exchange in traditional classrooms, where the teacher make the initiation and the follow-up move, while pupils were restricted to responding moves. In a good many language classes this is still the pattern, especially in situations where large classes of perhaps 40to 50 pupils is the norm. whe

27、re this happens it is likely that pupils will have the chance to practise only a very impoverished range of utterance functions. in such language classrooms, learners rarely get the opportunity to take other than the responding role, and evening cases where students are encourage to initiate the fol

28、low-up move is often still in the hands of the teacher, and learners get little or no practice in this particular discourse function. P123Turn-takingThe traditional classroom, as observed by Sinclair and Coulthard, has very ordered turn-taking under the control of the teacher, and pupils rarely spea

29、k out of turn. More recent trends in classroom organization, such as pair and group work, attempt to break this rigid turn-taking pattern; but do not always succeed in recreating more natural patterns. Often the problem lies, as before, in activity design. We are all familiar with role plays where i

30、ndividuals are so intent on formulating their contributions and making them at the right moment as determined by the activity rubric, that they pay little attention to the contributions of others, and the natural patterns of back-channel, utterance completion, etc. simply do not occur. The looser th

31、e restrictions on what and when people may speak, the more natural turn-taking emerges. P.128Study of writing as a cultural activityConnor, U. (1996) Contrastive Rhetoric Cambridge University Press p21-22In a discussion of the development of literacy in L1 and L2, Carson (1992) examines how Chinese

32、and Japanese speakers learn to read and write in L1 and how that leaning affects their expectations and strategies in learning to read and write in L2. Carson is concerned about the influences of social context, particularly the educational system, and she emphasizes cognitive considerations such as

33、 problems pertaining to orthography in learning to read and write in L1 and later L2. She begins by describing how Japanese children learn o read and write in a society that values “the importance of education (and of literacy), the need to work hard to succeed, the inherent values of the group, and the prima