An Overview on Discourse Structure.doc

1、An Overview on Discourse StructureIt is known that humans language activity is conventional and creative， for conventional， it refers to the structure and rules that participants have to follow. Discourse analysts tend to use the tem convention more than structuralists do. As conventions are words a

2、nd structures which are often created in the ways and interpreted in similar ways and in traditional approach it is called grammar. However， the term conventions embrace something more extensively than grammar and discourse analysis takes the both. On the other hand， discourse analysis has the gramm

3、ar of their own， which tries to describe the models of the knowledge that enables us to produce and interpret different forms of discourse and the ways how interlocutors jointly create structure. Perhaps all the above should be reconsidered as the linguistic competence that linguists have explored f

4、or years. Competence has been studied in the light of structural approach that focuses on the single-sentence model while discourse grammar work at the longer texts. Discourse is structured according to the purposes， of course， also on the basis of internal syntactic relations. In order to interpret

5、 a certain discourse， the audience or readers apply different kinds of structure， in other words the structure interpreted by receivers are different in published novel and webpage. The way interlocutors structure a discourse is also based on their expectations for certain kinds of discourse. For ex

6、ample， lecture sounds boring and odd if the speaker just sits there and read from the text aloud as our expectation about such kind of structure is violated. Then， what do we mean by saying that discourse is structured？ Firstly， words which have been taken for granted for a long time， undoubtedly， i

7、t is form of meaningful combination of letters. But the examples like “trick or treat” and “ god be with you” cause me to realize that some words together have become unitary in meaning and the break-down is effortless. Different approaches have ideas for the way of chunking the oral discourse， the

8、approach which takes a cognitive perspective claims that it has something to do with the consciousness of the specific facts. Obviously， this perspective emphasizes the content rather than the form which focus on the rhythm of a speech. Although this viewpoint has been proved to be true， in some lan

9、guages it constraints to the ritual speech， I think. The traditional definition of sentence is the expression of a complete thought. I wonder its meaning of it. What is the criterion for complete？ The sentence should be made up on the basis of observing the grammatical rules， then meaningful to some

10、 extent. Every meaningful sentence together builds the whole passage. However， this definition is still too general and should be analyzed in the context. In discourse analysis the definition of sentence is less important and appropriate than that of the unit， as discourse analysis goes above the se

11、ntence level which fore grounds certain facts about talks. One type of basic unit is adjacency pair. In traditional classroom conversations between a teacher and a student， a teachers initiation is usually followed by a students response， then a feedback by the teacher， as in this example： T： How to

12、 say “to think somebody or oneself very important and worth treating”？ S： Take somebody or oneself seriously. T： Well done！ But it is widely occurred that in the input of new information， the student fails to give correct response， as in this example： T： How to say “to think somebody or oneself very

13、 important and worth treating”？ S： I dont know. T： Take somebody or oneself seriously. However， this kind of adjacency pair has little effect on the students comprehension of the knowledge. Rather than give the student the answer， the teacher should encourage or give him or her some hints to lead out the answer. Thus， there is a lot to explore especially as regards to the implications of discourse analysis to the pedagogy.