First I should take a moment and define discourse. The Merriam~Webster Dictionary defines discourse as "conversation", or "the formal and orderly and usually extended expression of thought on a subject" (pp.209-10). Michael McCarthy aids us in clarification of this term by defining discourse analysis. He considers discourse analysis to be "the study of the relationship between language and the contexts in which it is used." (p.5). Culling what we can from these two definitions we find words/phrases like 'context', 'extended expression', and 'relationship'. What we have, then, is the general idea that discourse language above the sentence level, which is rooted in context. The two most obvious delineations of discourse would have to be speech and writing. Indeed, scholars have long made a distinction between how discourse works in oral and written forms. For those who subscribe to the above idea, the grammar of written discourse differs from the grammar of spoken discourse.
Unlike many past theories about how grammar works in English, Douglas Biber maintain that there is not necessarily a difference in grammatical forms present in speech and writing. Depending on the communicative function and context of the speaker/writer, spoken and written discourse could look very different or quite similar. He is not, in fact, alone in this view. The well-known linguist Deborah Tannen has come across such similarities as Biber found, noting that "…many features that have been associated exclusively with literacy are rhetorical strategies found in spoken discourse." (p.37) As I described briefly earlier, Biber has applied statistical analysis to several kinds of texts--personal letters, history textbooks, transcripts form government hearings, transcripts of casual conversations, newspaper articles, physics textbooks--in an effort to see if there is a difference in how English grammar works depending on the text type (including oral and written varieties of text).
He found that certain grammatical features occurred together into different discourse categories. He termed the four most apparent categories 'involved', 'informational' ' and 'narrative', and 'non-narrative'. (If one is interested in learning about what grammar clusters appear in these other discourse categories, see Biber [1988], especially pp. 104-106.) As was said briefly earlier, Biber considers involved discourse to be "verbal, interactional, affective, fragmented, reduced in form, and generalized in content." (Biber, p.105) In simpler language, involved discourse includes grammatical forms which show interpersonal interaction, expression of personal feelings, is low in informational density, and is usually produced under real time constraints. (p.108)
Biber's list of grammatical features found in involved discourse include the following, in order of significance:
tag questions (e.g. "This is fun, isn't it?"; Biber excluded these from the study because they could not be identified by automatic analysis. They can be found in many involved texts.)
yes/no questions (Biber also excluded these from the study because they could not be identified by automatic analysis; However, they, too, can be found in many involved texts)
(See the glossary for definitions of the terms listed here.)
As we can see "private verbs and present tense forms are among the features with largest (statistical) weights… indicating a verbal, as opposed to a nominal style. (Biber, p.105) Such verbs, as well as modal forms, are used to express personal feelings and attitudes, while use of personal pronouns also brings discourse to the personal level. Grammatical features like 'that' deletion, contractions, the pro-verb 'do', and pronominalization in general constitute reduced surface form. According to Biber, such reductions in surface form result in more generalized, uncertain content. Hedges/possibility modals, Biber holds, indicate that the speaker/writer is uncertain about or is not being precise about the content. Features such as analytic negation, the main verb 'be', and non-phrasal coordination lead to fragmented presentation on information and thus lower informational density. In contrast, he says that, discourse particles help maintain coherence in such fragmented text. Finally, subordination, sentence relatives, 'wh'' clauses reflect, according to Biber, the effect of real time constraints on the verbal/written expression of information. However, he has also found these to convey affect. (Biber, pp. 105-7)
Biber certainly has given us a lot to think about. The question is, is he right or not? We can test his theory simply by looking at the texts below. The first is written passage found on the world wide web. The second is a transcription of an oral conversation.
IMALL wants you to see the deals of the day with the minimum fuss possible. To aid you in seeing these great bargains everyday with out having to visit the IMALL, we have set up a mailing list strictly for the deals of the day. Once a day, we will mail the deals of the day to people subscribed to that list.
If you'd like to be on the deals of the day mailing list and you use Netscape, MDIE, or another browser that supports mail to form actions, you can press one of the following buttons to subscribe or unsubscribe from the deals of the day mailing list. Please ensure that you mail preferences are set correctly or this will not work.
[Button #1, subscribe] Press this button to subscribe to the mailing list.
[Button #2, unsubscribe] Press this button to unsubscribe to the mailing list.
Source: Getting the 'Deals of the Day' via Electronic Mail. [on-line]. Available: http://www.imall.com/dotd/dotd.shtml
Let's take a few sentences from the above example and examine their grammatical structures. If we look for personal pronouns, we find…
If you'd like to be on the deals of the day mailing list and you use Netscape, MDIE, or
another browser that supports mail to form actions, you can press one of the following
buttons to subscribe or unsubscribe from the deals of the day mailing list.
Or, we could choose to look for conditional subordination…
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another browser that supports mail to form actions, you can press one of the following
buttons to subscribe or unsubscribe from the deals of the day mailing list.
Or, we could look for modal words…
If you'd like to be on the deals of the day mailing list and you use Netscape, MDIE, or
another browser that supports mail to form actions, you can press one of the following
buttons to subscribe or unsubscribe from the deals of the day mailing list.
Interviewer: Do you think you will be able to follow the directions of your supervisor?
Applicant: Of course. If I need to have something repeated or if I don't understand, I'll say so. That would be OK, wouldn't it?
Interviewer: Sure. I understand that you have experience as a carpenter.
Applicant: That's correct. I have four years experience, My boss in Nicaragua was very pleased with my work. If you give me a chance, you will be pleased, too.
Interviewer: When you were working in Nicaragua, did you use the metric system in measuring?
Source: Burt, B., Harris-Bosselmann, T., Mikacevich, M.A., Schoen, V.M., "The Adult ESL Learner's Handbook", unpublished manuscript.
The same type of analysis is possible with oral conversation. Let's try looking for conditional subordination …
I: Do you think you will be able to follow the directions of your supervisor?
A: Of course. If I need to have something repeated or if I don't understand, I'll say so. That would be OK, wouldn't it?
I: Sure. I understand that you have experience as a carpenter.
A: That's correct. I have four years experience, My boss in Nicaragua was very pleased with my work. If you give me a chance, you will be pleased, too.
I: When you were working in Nicaragua, did you use the metric system in
measuring?
The same type of analysis is possible with oral conversation. Let's try looking for personal pronouns…
I: Do you think you will be able to follow the directions of your supervisor?
A: Of course. If I need to have something repeated or if I don't understand, I'll say so. That would be OK, wouldn't it?
I: Sure. I understand that you have experience as a carpenter.
A: That's correct. I have four years experience, My boss in Nicaragua was very pleased with my work. If you give me a chance, you will be pleased, too.
I: When you were working in Nicaragua, did you use the metric system in
measuring?
As we can see, the features Biber found show up in these texts as well. What this means is that we, as teachers, can apply his theory in the classroom using almost any text.
Part I Information About the Students and the Program for Which This Module Is Planned |
Part II What will this module provide to the teacher? |
Part IV How is the grammar of involved discourse to be organized in this program? |
Activities Table of Contents | Glossary | Appendix: Authentic Materials | References
Table of Contents for Issue 1 | Front Cover of the Journal of English Grammar on the Web