The Handbook of Discourse Analysis

Deborah Tannen, Heidi E. Hamilton, Deborah Schiffrin

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9780631205968, 9780470670743
• eBook ISBN: 9781118584187
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The second edition of the highly successful Handbook of Discourse Analysis has been expanded and thoroughly updated to reflect the very latest research to have developed since the original publication, including new theoretical paradigms and discourse-analytic models, in an authoritative two-volume set.

• Twenty new chapters highlight emerging trends and the latest areas of research
• Contributions reflect the range, depth, and richness of current research in the field
• Chapters are written by internationally-recognized leaders in their respective fields, constituting a Who's Who of Discourse Analysis
• A vital resource for scholars and students in discourse studies as well as for researchers in related fields who seek authoritative overviews of discourse analytic issues, theories, and methods

I Linguistic Analysis of Discourse

1 Discourse and Grammar

MARIANNE MITHUN

0 Introduction

Language has traditionally been understood as a hierarchical system of systems: phonology, morphology, syntax, etc. A tenet of much of linguistic theory, particularly the American Structuralist and Generative approaches that arose during the twentieth century, was that intellectual rigor depended on a strict separation of these levels as autonomous, self-contained domains. For practical reasons, work began at the smaller, more concrete levels. Phonology was the study of the patterning of sounds; morphology how morphemes are combined to form words; syntax how words are combined to form sentences. Within mainstream theory in America, the focus had not yet moved to discourse, presumably the study of how sentences are combined to form texts, that is, structure beyond the sentence.

But running alongside this mainstream trajectory throughout most of the century was an interest in discourse in other circles. Members of the European Structuralist Prague School, founded in 1929, articulated their influential theory of Functional Sentence Perspective (Firbas 1966, 1992). Other scholars in North America integrated discourse into their work on language structure early on, among them Pike (1945, 1964a, 1964b, 1967, 1983), Bolinger (1964, 1968, 1972, 1982, 1989), Grimes (1971, 1975, 1978, 1982a, 1982b), Longacre (1977, 1978, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 2003), Longacre and Shin (2012), and Halliday (1967–8, 1973, 1975, 2002; also active in Britain and Australia). References cited here represent only a small sample of the work of these productive scholars. All looked at language as an integrated communicative phenomenon.

As described by Tannen (Schiffrin, Tannen, and Hamilton 2001: 2–3), the last quarter of the twentieth century saw a blossoming of the status of the field of discourse analysis. Symposia devoted to discourse analysis began to spring up, first at Georgetown University and then elsewhere, as did journals such as Discourse & Society, Discourse Studies, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Journal of Pragmatics, Journal of Sociolinguistics, Multilingua, Narrative Inquiry, Pragmatics, Research on Language and Social Interaction, and Text. In certain quarters, work on grammar began to include consideration of the discourse context and the cognitive factors behind discourse structure. Among the important figures leading this were Chafe (1976, 1980, 1987, 1994) and Givón (1979, 1983, 1990; Givón and Gernsbacher 1994). (Both of these authors have continued to produce pioneering work.) All discourse analysis work shares a focus on extended bodies of speech in its communicative context. It is generally strongly empirically based. But it is not a monolithic endeavor characterized by a single set of questions, a single focus of inquiry, a single methodology, or a single theory. The variety of interests and approaches that characterize the field is richly exemplified in this volume.

For those interested in language structure, it is now generally recognized that discourse is more than an autonomous level beyond the sentence. Grammar provides speakers with tools for packaging information. And how information is packaged depends on the larger discourse context, the flow of thought through time, the communicative and social goals of the speaker, the presumed knowledge state of the audience, and more. Many of the grammatical choices speakers make at all levels – morphology, simple clause structure, and complex sentence structure – can be detected and understood only with respect to the discourse situation. At the same time, a full understanding of the discourse structures of a language depends on the recognition of the grammatical devices that signal them. Discourse structure is indicated by markers at all levels. It is more than the simple manipulation of sentences.

The relationship between discourse and grammar goes deeper. Recurring patterns of expression play a major role in the development of grammatical structures through time. What speakers choose to say the most often in the course of their daily interactions can become crystallized in grammar. In some cultures, for example, acceptable patterns of speech include specification of the source of information. With use, an expression such as ‘they say’ can become routinized, processed as a single unit. Over time, the expression may lose its internal compositionality and erode phonologically, until it is just a particle, a clitic, or an affix. It may even become obligatory. As Ariel puts it, “discourse depends on grammar, which in turn depends on discourse” (2009: 5).

A central aspect of the study of grammar is discovering what features all languages share and the ways they can differ. But, as long as our vision stops at the sentence, we will miss too much. The study of speech in its full discourse contexts can reveal cross-linguistic differences at all levels that may not be obvious when grammatical analyses focus on one level of structure at a time, each in isolation from the others. This chapter illustrates the kinds of intimate relations that hold between discourse and grammar in a language that is typologically quite different from more familiar major world languages. This is Mohawk, an Iroquoian language of northeastern North America, spoken primarily in Quebec, Ontario, and New York State. Much of the essence of the language could go unnoticed without examination of spontaneous, interactive speech in its discourse context.

1 The Basic Sentence

Pedagogical grammars are often rich in sentences constructed in isolation. Those in (1) all occurred in materials designed for teaching Mohawk. (Spelling has been regularized.¹)

(1)	Textbook sentences
a.	Ì:'i	wa'kkontsherárho'	kahentará:ken	kí:ken	anitskwà:ra'.
	I	I painted	light green	this	chair
	‘I painted this chair light green.’
b.	Ne	rón:kwe	ró:ien'	ne	atókwa'.
	the	man	he has	the	spoon
	‘The man has the spoon.’
c.	Thí:ken	iakón:kwe	ienòn:we's	kí:ken	rokstèn:ha	raowennókwas.
	that	woman	she likes	this	old man	his radio
	‘That woman likes this old man's radio.’
d.	Óhonte'	ken	nikahiatonhserò:ten'	ró:ien'	thí:ken	rón:kwe?
	green	Q	it is such kind of book	he has	that	man
	‘Does that man have a green book?’

All of the words here are morphologically correct. It is unlikely that any of these sentences was ever uttered s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Introduction to the First Edition
• I Linguistic Analysis of Discourse
• II Approaches and Methodologies
• III The Individual, Society, and Culture
• IV Discourse in Real-World Contexts
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• EULA