1st Test Flashcards
What is an utterance?
A unit of speech communication which boundaries are determined by a change of speaking subjects which starts and ends with lg produced by one person at one point in interaction. eg written lg, an utterance could be a whole piece of writing, such as an email. Oral lg: lg produced by a speaker at any point in the interaction (aha!) or a presentation
4 differences between written and spoken lg
- Speaking tends to be more involved and writing more detached. Interlocutors are more involved interpersonally, whereas writers are more detached from their interlocutors.
- Oral lg is more implicit whereas written is more explicit because it works at real time and speakers make adjustments and clarifications, and it progresses considering the ongoing feedback from the interlocutors. No such possibility in written. Text will be read in a lapsed time, therefore itrequires a higher level of detail so as to be understood.
- Spoken lg in real time whereas written in a lapsed time. Difference between when the text is produced and received.
- Spoken tends to be fragmented (less elaborate). Written is more elaborate in its organisation and a variety of linguistic choice. This has to be analysed in the light of specific examples.
Medium and mode
Modes of communication (more or less speakerly or writerly) and medium of communication (spoken or written). Mode: the linguistic choices that you would associate with descriptions of written or spoken lg. The lexical, grammatical and d. features typically associated with each of them in linguistic description as used in a specific text. Medium: the channell through which lg is conveyed whether it be oral or written. The means through which lg is produced. eg. academic presentation (written mode and spoken medium). It is writerly in mode and speakerly in medium
Text and discourse
Text is studied by text linguistics whereas d is studied by da. They are often used interchangeably to refer to a stretch of lg beyond the sentence.
Text is the product of lg use (an actual object)
D is the process of mg creation and interaction.
Both notions are studied by linguistics.
What is a text? It is an actual instance of lg both spoken or written. It is the manifestation of lg in the world drawing on our mental ideas of genre for particular functional and communicative purposes.
It has texture in that it functions as a unity with respect to its environment. From a da perspective we answer questions such as What is the context of situation? What is the socio.historical position of the people mentioned in the text, what ideologies do they reveal.
D: it is lg in context studied in authentic environments of lg use. It is a stretch of either spoken or written lg of any length. These stretches of lg that constitute d are analysed in terms of the connectors they hold with other texts but also with reference to their socio-political and historical connections.
DA studies
Da studies authentic texts in context.
A text of any size written or spoken
Texts are studied in terms of the contexts in which they are found.
Texts are studied in terms of the intertextual relations with other texts.
Texts are analysed with reference to the ideologies and viewpoints which underpin them.
Texts are analysed with reference to their socio-political implications and consequences.
DA studies authentic lg in context and thus contributes to the understanding of human activity through lg.
The structure of a definition in academic lg
Dereex
Define: X is defined ad
Reformulate: that is to say
Exemplify: for example
Concept
The most basic mental entity. Abstract object that corresponds to a mental representation that we use to guide our action. We draw on characteristcs which we think are key. They operate with prototypes (clear examples of a concept that contain all the features that we would associate with the concept).
Concepts are fuzzy since they operate with prototypes (eg. that fit all features)
This class is similar in many ways to a prototype of a class but differs in its medium. eg. among others
Whenever we encounter a text we categorize it as being close to our mental idea of prototype or not.
Flexibility: we draw on prototypes to interpret texts.
Mental model
A combination of concepts forming larger conceptual structures. A number of interconnected concepts. They can be physical or abstract entities. eg. The mental model of school which includes interrelated concepts such as ss, teachers, head teachers, books, etc.
Teacher roles: more abstract. School rules, teacher training.
We are very efficient using them because we negotiate and often we understand or produce text with them
Schemas/schemata
Clusters of mental concepts which we draw on to interpret the world around us and also to interpret lg. In brief, well integrated chunks of k about the world, events, people and actions.
Concepts or mental structures that we develop through experience which allow us to interpret the world and also share interpretations with others.
-Difference between mental models and schemas:
Schema: the relation between concepts is more general.
Mental model: the relation between concepts is more complex
School: schema teacher-ss
Mental model implies more complex understanding. eg. how teachers and ss behave within school
Frame/script
There are two types of schema: both are 2 types of info stored in our brains.
▶ Frame: non-sequential sets of concepts that are related among them (NOT SHARED)
▶ Scripts: a conventional sequence of activities, a socioculturally defined mental protocol for negotiating or understanding a situation. (SHARED)
We share an understanding of how the sequence will unfold.
“what’s a school?” T/ss/classrooms in a gral way. Frame
Some will think of ss first, or T first. This is a frame
“What’s a school day like?” T/SS/parents gathering for assembling. rows, hymn. Sequence of events. Shared. This is a script. They differ slightly.
Scripts are shared by people, but both frames and scripts are necessary for comprehension.
Synthesis
Field’s 3 types of schema:
a) world k: the content schema o a text. Previous k including encyclopaedic as well as world k. Frame’s scripts are part of this type of k.
b) K built from the text so far (meaning creation)
c) Previous exp. with the type of text (text schema): structure and form. Important for notion of genre.
🔸Mental schemas: in particular frames. They will set up expectations based on our previous k about the world, actions, people and events that we have dealt with.
🔸Scripts will help us predict what’s going to happen next. All of these help us use lg.
Field: can be divided in 3 types.
? The mg representations that develop as you listen. The focus is placed on mode of listening and reading.
❗Frames: k of the world you bring to your understanding of the documentary.
❗Scripts: What do you expect next as you watch.
Genre
Genre schema: the ways in which we draw on and make use of the prior k of all aspects of genres including their typical contexts, forms, functions, lexis and grammar which we bring to bear as we interpret written and spoken texts. Whenever we encounter genre, we bring genre schemas to the situation to understand and process the genre in question.
1. Genre: a genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent D community and therefore constitute a rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the D and influences and constraints choices of content and style (Swales 1990). This is developed from a D perspective, as he’s referring to a class of communicative events. He emphasises the communicative purpose as one of the key components.
Rationale: the reasons, the pples that guide the choice in the use of a com genre. Purpose guides the choices of content and style, and these purposes are recognized by the members of the com who share the com events to convey their purposes.
2. Another definition: A staged-goal oriented, purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of a culure. Ex: staged activities such as making a dental appointment, buying vegetables, telling a story, writing an essay, applying for a job. (Martin, 2011). He emphasises social nature of genres involved in social life in cultural activities. This definition also brings to the foreground the fact that genre are staged, i.e. they constitute well-organized texts with stages that are recognized and shared with members of the community. He highlights the fact that there’s a clear goal in the activity carried out by means of lg use. He explicitly refers to human activities in which specific genres are used to carry out these activities.
3. Genres are diverse ways of acting, of producing social life in the semiotic modes. (Fairclough). He associates genres with life in a similar way as Bahktin talked about the production of utterances. How social lives affect genres. When a change takes place in social life, so there is a change in genre. Genres will change in time as life and social activities change. This capacity to evolve and change (characteristic of genres) as human activity does.
4. Paltridge: From a text-linguistic perspective. It’s a kind of text. Academic lectures and casual conversation are examples of spoken genres. Newspaper reports and academic essays are examples of written genres. Written vs spoken genres.
Bax: synthesis. Genres are guided by their purposes, in other words, by the functions which they are intended to fulfill. The purposes expressed in genres are defined by the community which uses them, not by the individuals, shared rules must be learned and used for genres to operate.
The key function of the genre governs the other features of the genre, its structure, content, lexis, grammar and so on.
Key defining feature of genres:
a. akin to mental structures (such as concepts, schema, how people resort to background k to understand.
b. ideal (genres) vs real (texts)
c. may include lg or not (buying sth without saying a word)
d. shared by members of a particular community
e. have names though not always
f. functions guide features (structure, layout, style, lexis, grammar)
g. identifiable by their structure, social and contextual factors
h. flexible, change, evolve, die out
Structure of descriptive presentation in academic lg
Intro
Body
Conclusion
Discourse modes
They are modes of operating with the lg, at a superordinate level above genre and texts.
They are pre-genres. They do not have a specific social functioning themselves. They are building blocks which we can draw on in many differents genres and then use them in actual texts in flexible ways for a range of purposes.
They are modes of thought and discourse that represent clear ways of interpreting the world and of “drawing mg from interaction with the world”.
They can enter in flexible ways into various genres making it possible for a genre to draw on one or more modes.
To narrate and to describe are different ways of operating with lg. However, when telling an anecdote we will recur to both modes at different times of the genre.
They are abstract ways of expressing relationships among the world❗ . eg. narrative will express relationship among the world which are different from a descriptive mode.
They can be characterised and distinguished in terms of their relationships to the world and also in terms of their linguistic features. They relate to time and place in different ways to create mgs within specific genres.
Narrating mode
🔸Presents a sequence of events and states that has the same participants and/or causal and other consequential relations.
🔸Time sequence guides the sequence of events
🔸Contains a structure that follows a typical script: abstract, orientation, complicating action, evaluation, resolution and coda. Some may not always be present and some are key and always have to be present. (labov)
-Abstract: summarises central action
-Orientation: setting and characters
-Complicating event: what happened?
-Resolution: what happened in the end?
-Evaluation: purpose of the narrative
-Coda: connection with the present.
Interacting mode
🔸Dialogic, 2-way nature in which each participant in the interaction offers a contribution.
🔸Charactierizes conversation, naturally associated with everyday conversation.
🔸Adjacency pairs: the building blocks of interacting mode. (who starts). Related utterances that constitute pair parts in interaction. Given the first, the second one is expected. There is a condition of relevance that holds in the conversation.
🔸Turn taking: (how long the floor is retained) The fundamental unit of description in conversation analysis. The lenght of time a speaker holds the floor: lenght in turn-taking. Constantly negotiated by speakers as they interact.
The turn can be anything from an audible sound.
Through a single word, sentence or a whole narrative.
Interview to a health professional: the floor is given to the professional which she holds for longers whiles. The interviewer initiates the adjacency pair.
Describing mode
🔸Focus on specific particular objects, people and mental states.
🔸Time is static or suspended (no change or advancements)
🔸Frequent use of intensive verbs such as be, become, seem, appear.
🔸Have, verbs in the present simple or past to describe current situations or other verbal forms such as the present progressive to describe ongoing situations and activities.
🔸Descriptive adjectives and adverbs of frequency to describe actions.
🔸Focus on people, things, rather than events.
