discourse analysis tools

1. MA TESOL
E609 Approaches to
Discourse analysis
Lecture 2
Dr Helene Fatima Idris
University of Khartoum
Department of English

2. Language-in-action is always and everywhere
an active building process
We build and re-build our world not just through language, but through
language used in tandem with actions, interactions, non-linguistic
symbol systems, objects, tools, technologies, and distinctive ways of
thinking, valuing, feeling and believing.
Language-in-action is always and everywhere an active building
process.

3. The ’seven building tasks’ of language
Whenever we speak or write, we always and simultaneously construct or build seven
things or seven areas of ’reality’, i.e. seven building tasks of language. In turn, a discourse
analyst can ask seven different questions about any piece of language-in-use. They are:
1. Significance (What certain things have meaning and value?)
2. Activities (What (activity) is going on here?)
3. Identities (What identity/identities are being enacted for others to recognise?)
4. Relationships (What sort of relationship does the writer/speaker have, wants to have
or tries to have with others?)
5. Politics (What perspectives of social goods (values and belief systems in a soiety) is this
language communicating?)
6. Connections (How does this language connect or disconnect things? Make things
relevant or irrelevant to each other?)
7. Sign systems and knowledge (What specific sign systems (languages, varieties, images,
videos, etc.) and certin forms of knowing and believing (research, science, ordinary
people’s experience, oral vs. written communication) are used (and preferred)?

4. An example of discourse analysis:
Gee, J.P. An Introduction to Discourse analysis:
Theory and Method): p. 14-19.
We will now turn to your reading assignment used to
uncover the seven building tasks of language at work.
One device that helps us think about what something
means is to ask in what other ways it could have been
said or written. Once we see what alternatives existed,
we can ask why the person said or wrote it as they did
and not in some aternative ways.

5. Background to the project
• A project by a history university professor (Sarah Miller) with middle-
school teachers to engage their students in local oral history. The children
were supposed to interview realtives and neighbours about the history of
their neighbourhood and city. The oral history should eventually inform an
exhibition in the city’s history museum.
• The univeristy (Woodson) was a small elite private university in the city
(New Derby), which was a working-class industrial city.
• The middle-school teachers were of working class origins.
• There were hisoric tensions between the university and the city, and
specifically tensions over status and committment to the city between
people who taught at university and people who taught in the public
schools.

6. The first meeting of the project:
Background
• Participants: 4 teachers from the two middle schools in the project,
the university professor (Sarah Miller), her 2 research assistants, a
representative of the funding agency), and some other people.
• Setting: Meeting held in one of the middle schools.
• Chair-person: The representative of the funding agency.
• Speaker: One of the teachers (Karen Jones) has been told by the chair to
give some background to this first official meeting of the project.
• The university professor had contacted Karen’s school curriculum
coordinator (Susan Washington) to help on this project.
• The ’Summer Institute’ Karen refers to was a workshop about research
collaboration between unversity teachers and local school teachers. The
funders had hoped that the university professor and the teachers she was
going to work with would attend that workshop.

7. The text to analyse:
Karen Jones at the meeting
1. Last year, Susan Washington, who is our curriculum coordinator here had
a telephone call from Sarah at Woodson.
2. And called me and said:
3. ’We have a person from Woodson who’s in the History Department.
4. And she’s interested in doing some research into black history in New
Derby.
5. And she would like to get involved with the school.
6. And here’s her number.
7. Give her a call.’
8. And I DID call her.
9. And we BOTH expected to be around for the Summer Institute at
Woodson.
10. I did participate in it.
11. But SARAH wasn’t abe to do THAT.

8. Significance
• Sarah wasn’t at the Summer Institute. Hos did Karen make that significant?
Karen uses langauge to create a clear contrast between herself and Sarah,
and Sarah’s failure to attend the Summer Institute takes on significance in
terms of this contrast.
Karen portrays herself as a responsible person and someone who did what
she was told by saying And I DID call her (instead of just saying I called her.)
Karen says And we BOTH expected to be around for the Summer Institute,
implying, maybe, that Sarah had ’been around’ but not bothered to come. She
then stresses that she herself did participate (I did participate in it) insead of
just saying I participated in it. Then Karen concludes But SARAH wasn’t able to
do THAT, using but, SARAH an THAT to further contrast between herself and
Sarah. Karen emphasises that Sarah wasn’t able to do THAT (instead of saying
But Sarah didn’t come or Sarah couldn’t come). All this means that Karen
finds Sarah’s absence from the Summer Institute significant.

9. Activities
What is Karen using language to do here? What social activity is she
trying to enact?
Karn tries to contrast her responsible behaviour and commitment to a
proect she didn’t ask to be on with Sarah’s less responsible behaviour
and commitment to her own project. Karen’s social activity here is
positioning herself in certain ways in front of the group and for the
project to come and positioning Sarah in other ways. Note the pattern:
And I DID…. We BOTH expected…. I DID participate… But SARAH wasn’t
able to do THAT (a main clause).
She could have formulated her language quite differently, had she
wanted to. E.g. I was able to come, but Sarah couldn’t make it (a
subordinate clause) would have softened the contrast a bit. .

10. Identity
What identity is Karen trying to take on or enact?
Ww have already seen that Karen takes on the identity of a responsible
do-er.
In addition, she contextualises this identity in the dialogue with the
curriculum coordinator who said: We have a person from Woodson…..
sounding as they have a problem on their hands. She turns to Karen as
the responsible part to handle this matter: Give her a call.
The dialogue implies that Karen is the teacher with the most expertise
and responsibility to deal with a university professor who wants to do
research ’on black history in New Derby’ and ’get involved with the
school’.

11. Relationship
What relatonship is Karen trying to enact in regard to Sarah?
Karen is enacting a distanced, but not particularly deferential
(=respectful), relatonship with Sarah.
In addition to Karen showing herself as a ’responsible do-er’, she uses
Sarah’s first name.
She also uses the phrases ’a person from Woodson who’s in the History
Depament’ rather than, for example, ’a Woodson history professor’,
thereby avoiding the prestigious title….

12. Politics
What sorts of implications for the distribution of social goods does
Karen’s language have?
1. Karen’s and Sarah’s reputation as responsible, trustworthy people.
2. Their reputation as ’do-ers’ (Karen) or failing to do things (Sarah).
3. At a later meeting, teachers make clear that the pupils are ’our
children’ and that the professor should have contacted the
teachers directly regarding the project, and not go through the
curriculum coordinator and ’ordering’ the teachers into the project
(which the teachers see as a breach of protocol). This view (feeling)
can be heard in Karen’s language.

13. Connections
How does Karen connect things or make them relevant to each other?
How does Karen disconnect things and make them irrelevant to each
other?
1. Karen makes her presence and Sarah’s absence at the Summer
Institute connect and relevant to each other: I DID …. We BOTH
expected…. I DID….. But SARAH wasn’t able to do THAT.
2. This contrast is relevant to Sarah’s initial call to the curriculum
coordinator to set the project in motion (without Karen’s initiative)
and Sarah’s failure to show up at the Summer Institute (that was
meant to facilitate the project and ensure Karen’s involvement).

14. Sign systems and knowledge
How is Karen privileging or disprivileging different sign systems (languages, styles of
languages, non-verbal sign systems) or specific ways of or claims to know and
believe?
This is the beginning of a long struggle enacted in and through language as to
whether teacher knowledge and university profssor knowledge in regard to
history, teaching history, classrooms, children, and the community is to be
privileged – and when, where and why.
1. This process already starts with the contrast of using the coordinator’s first and
last names (Susan Washington), but only the first name of the university profssor
(Sarah).
2. The vague description of the professor (not giving her authority of title/rank)
and the project (not explaining it in more detail): a person from Woodson and
interested in doing some research on black history in New Derby.

15. All building tasks are linked to each other
It is clear that all building tasks are integrally linked to each other and
often mutually supported by the same words and phrases.
Some hypotheses have been generated from this small piece of data,
based on mutual considerations of context and language-in-use.
In turn, these hypotheses would guide us though additional data from
the same group of people in subsequent meetings and we gain more
and more evidence for our hypotheses.
If we see our hypotheses further confirmed in other sorts of data –
perhaps in other encounters among university professor and teachers
in this and other cities – then our confidence will rise yet more. Until
dicconfirming evidence appears, we will accept our hypothses.

16. What was the benefit
of this discourse analysis?
This particular project was failing, at various points, and discourse
analysts could understand why and how. That allowed them to help
make things work a bit better.
Could they make it ’perfect’? Of course not. Som of the problems and
issues (largely to do with status, power and institutional conflicts) are
entrenched problems in the real world and would require substantial
social and institutional changes to remove.

17. Today’s seminar
1. Your analysis of Minutes mean money for
Sudanese student….
2. My analysis of the above web page.
3. Conclusions

18. Minutes mean money for Sudanese student
1. Significance: Help poor people and contribute to development.
2. Activity: Commercial to attract attention to the company. Show also
that Ericsson contributes to development (not only makes a profit).
3. Identities: A modern socially aware and responsible company (by
contributing to economic development among poor people). A
company aware of the image of Sudan abroad (= civil war, conflicts,
refugees) and Sudan as not ’politically correct’ to make business with.
That’s why the text mentions especially South Sudan and Darfur and
the positive influence of telecom there.

19. Minutes mean money for Sudanese student
4. Relationships: Marketing by creating a general positive image about
the company among the readers and potential customers.
5. Politics (social goods):
• Help poor people (start business and/ or support health, education
and family reunification in South Sudan and Darfur).
• Contribute to economic development.
• Help people stay in touch with each other.

20. Minutes mean money for Sudanese student
6. Connections:
• Connection with science, and academics (Columbia University).
• Connections with poor people in the reality (Hiba, the student).
• Increases credibility (= make people believe the text).
7. Sign system and knowledge:
• Standard English (not slang/colloquial) – international, neutral.
• Sudanese Arabic (in the video) – authentic.
• Prestigious knowledge in this text:
1) academic knowledge (Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University - report)
and
2) experience from the reality: Hiba - innovative business by her
mobile and South Sudan/Darfur/refugee camps – telecom supports
health, education and family reunification.

21. Conclusions of assignment 1 and seminar

22. Coursework information:
1. Assignment topic
Write an essay of 3000 ± 10% word limit on the following topic:
Applications of Discourse analysis (as teaching mehods and course
materials) in TESOL in Sudan
Choose from these approaches:
• Speech act theory
• Interactional sociolinguistics
• The ethnography of communication
• Pragmatics
• Classroom discourse
• English for academic purposes
• Conversation analysis
• Critical discourse analysis

23. 2. Marking criteria
Good work should generally show evidence of the following qualities:
• A good understanding of the main point(s) of the assignment question.
• Good coverage of the main aspects of the topic without unnecessary digression.
• High level of consistency, coherence and integration in argumentation.
• Well stated introduction and conclusion.
• Proper use of numbered headings and subheadings throughout the text.
• Ability to write in a concise, precise and well structured way.
• Proper and consistent in-text citation throughout.
• Proper and consistent listing of sources in the bibliography (at least 5 references).
• Follow the APA Manual.

24. 3. Other formal requirements
• You MUST type your assignment on a Microsoft Word
document with 12 Font Size, Times New Roman Font, 1.5
Line Spacing and 2.5 left-right Page Margins.
• You MUST include a word count on the title page of your
assignment.

25. 4. Assignment submission guidelines
You MUST submit two copies of your assignment.
A soft copy must be sent via email to
helenefatimaidris@gmail.com and a hard copy must be
handed in to the module instructor during classes or at
any other alternative place the instructor may
designate.

26. 5. Submission deadline and
penalties for late submission
• You MUST submit your assignment before or on Wednesday, 12th
October, 2016) If you submit later than the specified date, you will be
subject to mark reduction penalty of ONE mark reduction of every
single day of delay.
• Please be aware that no extensions are granted so make sure you
submit your assignment on the specified date.
• If you need more information on the assignment please feel free to
pop into my office at the Department of Linguistics during the office
hours. Alternatively, you can email me at:
helenefatimaidris@gmail.com

27. Tools of inquiry
I would like to continue to give you some tools to work with during
discourse analysis with the ’seven building tasks of language’. They are:
1. ’Social languages’
2. ’Discourses’
3. Intertextuality
4. ’Conversations’

28. ’Social languages’
Everybody uses different sets of language to enact
different identities in different setting, and these are
“social languages”. The every-day language, colloquial
language is one social language, a technical, academic
language is another social language.
Investigating how different social languages are used
and mixed is one tool of discourse analysis.

29. ’Discourses’
People build identities and activities not only through
language, but also together with ‘other stuff’.
Example: Belonging to a street-gang. It does not only
requires you to speak in the ‘right’ way, but to act and
dress in the ‘right’ way as well. You have to share
common beliefs, values, opinions, etc. and do the
right activities, have the right symbols (such as
tattoos), the right tools (such as weapons) and the
right objects (e.g. street corners).

30. Example of ’discocurse’

31. Intertextuality
When we speak we often refer to other
‘texts’, i.e. what others have said or written.
One spoken or written text alludes to, quotes
or, in any way, relates to another one.

32. ’Conversations’
Sometimes when we talk or write we allude to
themes, motifs, and debates that have been in
focus of much talk and writing in our social group
or in our society as a whole. These themes, motifs
and debates play a role in how language is
interpreted.

33. Assignment 2
(for next week’s seminar/group work)
1. Read Gee, J.P. Introduction to Discourse Analysis, p. 20-
28.
2. Discuss (critically) what being ’real’ means in this
context.
3. Analyse I know I’m Sudanese if……. using the seven
building tasks of langauge and the four tools of inquiry
above.
4. Discuss (in the group) what being a ’real Sudanese’
means.
5. Present your findings at the next seminar.