Discourse Terminology

Question 1

Adjuncts

Answer 1

• Non-essential elements of clauses (usually adverbials) that can be omitted (eg “I’ll see you in the morning”

Question 2

Disjuncts

Answer 2

• A type of sentence adverb that comments on the content or manner of what is being said or written.

Question 3

Narrative structures

Answer 3

• How events, actions and processes are sequenced when recounting a
  story.

Question 4

Anaphoric references

Answer 4

• Making reference back to something previously identified in a text (often using pronouns to refer to an already established reference point eg “The woman stood
  by the door. She made detailed notes of what she could see”)

Question 5

Cataphoric References

Answer 5

• Making reference forwards to something as yet unidentified in a text.
  E.g “It was warm. It was living. It was a rabbit.”

Question 6

Exophoric reference:

Answer 6

• Making reference to things beyond the language of a text itself (as opposed to endophoric, which is within the language of the text), perhaps within a speaker’s
  immediate physical context eg “Look at that”.

Question 7

Interdiscursivity (or intertextuality):

Answer 7

• The use of discourses from one field as part of
  another (eg the use of science discourses in the selling of beauty products, or the use of
  commercial discourses in education)