Discourse analysis

Denau - 2022

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Discourse analysis
Dear students!
This year you are going to study “Discourse Analysis” (DA). You probably have noticed while having the first year Modules, words in dictionaries sometimes have different meaning from what they have in a context , and you already discussed how to predict their meanings from the context, how to learn them through the context. Now you clearly know if you want to learn new words you need to understand their usage and activate your background knowledge in which context it might suit or activate schemata which means “mental representations of how things happen, specifically where language is involved”. The term “Discourse” can be completely new, unknown to your mind, however it is all about language, and you will find that it has been already familiar to you just from the first day you learn the language. DA is closely connected with Grammar, Vocabulary, Phonology, Pragmatics i.e during lessons we will focus on language issues e.g tenses, sentences (simple, complex) etc., If you look at figure 1 “what does it mean to know a word?” you will be able to find so many linguistic issues related to the word. Our aim in this book is to come to an understanding what is discourse, why learners and teachers need DA DA deals with language awareness, through it you may develop language competence. Language awareness is considered one of the important area in learning the language, it helps learner to understand how the real language works and how “real people use real language”. The phrase “how language works” stands for different ideas e.g did you ever come across with the questions “ Why English people speak Language differently?” “Why the language which we use in the classroom is different from what we hear in movies or from native speakers” “Does it mean that in order to learn English we have to go abroad or have real Native speaker as a teacher?” Why when we read newspaper English Language is not clear for us and sometimes students may utter “I don’t get anything from reading it” If you have such concerns DA will help you to be informed about genres and their specific features. If you want to produce a good piece of writing in English e.g composition you must be familiar with English writing style. It is obviously different that we have in our native language. The language which we have in our texbooks is different from one we have in newspapers and magazines. Undoubtedly It is a question of authenticity. Let’s take the first as an artificial and second usage natural. According to McCarthy, the author of the book Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers artificial can be useful for teaching purpose, to simplify complex language. Thus textbooks contain semi- authentic or adapted version of real English, to help learners to understand it. Good learner of English knows how the natives use their language in order to achieve communicative competence. At the University you are not just learning the language, you will be Teacher of English or specialist in ELT. To be prepared for your students different questions about English language you need to develop ideas about how the language works e.g why English people say I have breakfast but not I eat breakfast. To be a good language teacher we have to be familiar with forms and functions as well. As you already familiar with the term “form” from courses of Linguistics it means the form in which language appear (sounds, words, written symbols etc. Why do we have different forms in order to communicate effectively. We say “bola” and “bolacha” the first show the neutral (oddiy) way of addressing but the second one shows the diminutives (erkalash). Thus to become good user of the language we need to lean the links between form and function, i.e how to use the proper word in appropriate context. “how can I help you ” English people say, we understand it as a somebody’s willingness to help, because we know the key word “help” however in real English it is natural way of exchanges and in Uzbek “tinchlikmi” “nima ishiz bor?” might be the exact translation of that utterance.
Is learning a foreign language difficult? Yes and No. Yes because we are not clearly aware about its discourse ( language in use) and NO because it is not memorizing of great amount of new words and Grammar rules, which most of the learners proceed while their studies, it is simply we have to observe (real language), compare ( with our L1) and practice ( use the language for communication).