Professional Documents
Culture Documents
TEACHERS
BY MICHAEL MCCARTHY
CPAHTER 1
WHAT IS DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
BY shamimnazish@hotmail.com
1. The opening paragraphs of the book have been dedicated
to the historical evolution of the subject of Discourse
analysis. Discourse analysis is concerned with the study
of the relationship between language and the contexts in
which it is used. It grew out of work in different disciplines
in the 1960s and early 1970s. Discourse analysts study
language in use: written texts of all kinds, and spoken
data. Zellig Harris published a paper with the title
'Discourse analysis' (Harris 1952). In the 1960s, Dell
Hymes provided a sociological perspective (e.g. Hymes
1964). In his historical overview, McCarthy tells how
discourse analysis developed as an academic subject
over the past half a century. He gives details as to how
the American, British and other writers contributed to the
development of this field of academics.
2. McCarthy suggests that form and function have to be
separated to understand what is happening in discourse.
When we say that a particular bit of speech or writing is a
request or an instruction or an exemplification we are
and
text
analysis
be
coherently
interpreted
and
seems
to
be
structures,
that
discourse
analysis
adds
CPAHTER 2
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS & GRAMMAR
1. Grammar has traditionally been referred to, in teaching,
as individual items and their relation with each other
depending of the form of other related/surrounding items.
But McCarthy argues that structuring the individual
utterance, clause and sentence, structuring the larger
units of discourse and creating textual coherence are
ultimately inseparable. Discourse analysts can tell us
about contextualized uses of structures and grammatical
items, and considering whether grammar teaching needs
to broaden or shift its orientations to cover significant
areas at present under-represented in grammar teaching.
Discourse analysis gives a different approach to the
grammar. It brings in the situational and contextual uses
of grammar.
2. Spoken and
grammatical
three
broad
types
co-reference,
ellipsis
display
grammatical
cohesions
between
between
tense-aspect
choices
and
analysts
are
between
able
to
discourse
observe
types
regular
and
the
discourse analysis on
and
standpoint,
and
the
focusing
or
CPAHTER 3
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND VOCABULARY
1. McCarthy is of the view that discourse discusses the
entire text as a whole. Doing this does not mean that we
ignore the individual items of vocabulary. Importance of
vocabulary in language teaching remains very important
for the new learners of a language. It still is the largest
single element in tackling a new language for the learner
and it would be irresponsible to suggest that it will take
care-of itself in some ideal world where language
teaching and learning are discourse-driven.
2. The vocabulary used by the speakers offers openings for
possible
development,
which
may
or
may
not
be
may
be
limitation
to
this
natural
kind
of
of
modality
in
spoken
and
written
CPAHTER 4
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND PHONOLOGY
1.Under the heading of phonology, what has traditionally
been thought of as 'pronunciation', but McCarthy devotes
most of attention to intonation. This is partly because the
most exciting developments in the analysis of discourse
have been in intonation studies rather than at the
segmental level. According to McCarthy intonation also
contributes to the making of the meaning in language /
conversation. Rather in the spoken discourse, intonation
is one of the most important aspects that the analysts
need to pay attention to, in order to find out what the
discourse suggests.
2. Traditional pronunciation teaching has found its strength
in the ability of linguists to segment the sounds of
language into discrete items called phonemes which,
when
used
in
the
construction
of
words,
produce
Thats
what
exactly
is
being
discussed
by
prominence
choices
operate
across
speaker
turns.
CPAHTER 5
SPOKEN LANGUAGE
1. McCarthy discusses in detail as to how grammar,
vocabulary
and
intonation
help
conduct
discourse
to
state
the
requirements,
in
normal
transactional
and
interactional
talk.
piece
of
conversation
among
people
include
Among
other
discourse
types
CPAHTER 6
WRITTEN LANGUAGE
1.Having discussed the spoken language, McCarthy comes
down to the written part of language. The educational
environments demand the students to write subjective
papers, assays and other detailed compositions like
narrative, descriptive or argumentative, and it is here
that teachers find the greatest challenges in devising
interesting and authentic activities. Therefore, his chapter
considers how learners can be assisted in such writing
skills by the insights discourse analysis has provided into
text types and the relationships between texts and their
contexts.
2.Both spoken and written discourses are dependent on
their immediate contexts to a greater or lesser degree.
The idea that writing is in some way 'freestanding',
whereas speech is more closely tied to its context, has
come under attack as an oversimplification by discourse
analysts (e.g. Tannen 1982). The transcript of a piece of
natural
conversation
may
well
contain
references
with
the
background
and
immediate
these
patterns
are
transferred
and
cause
interference,
however,
does
effect
the