Page 161 - Encyclopedia of Nursing Research

128 n DiSCoURSE AnALYSiS

1985). Although the study of rhetoric was dif- speech competence with respect to discur-
ferentiated from the study of grammar in lin- sive rules, text grammar, discourse compre-
D guistics throughout the centuries, it was not hension, or discourse organization.
until the middle of the twentieth century that Sociolinguistics as a branch of sociology
a more formal approach to discourse analysis is a study of language use within the func-
gained its appeal in linguistics. hence, “prag- tional paradigm of sociology, which views
matics” in linguistics emphasizing discourse social life in relation to larger social struc-
analysis has been separately developed, in tures such as gender, status, social class, role,
contrast to the study of language proper that and ethnicity. Sociolinguists are concerned
focuses on formal grammatical, syntactical, with ways in which people use different lin-
and morphological structures. Following guistic forms according to macrostructural
this modern revisit in linguistics, many other and contextual differences.
disciplines have begun to take discourse as Anthropological approaches in the lin-
the proper subject of their scientific study. guistic perspective are ethnopoetics and eth-
Although there are cross-disciplinary dis- nography of communication. Ethnopoetics is
cussions of the methodology and application the study of oral discourse as speech art in
of various approaches of discourse analysis, the tradition of literary analysis and is con-
there is no unified, integrated approach to cerned with the structures of verbal aesthet-
discourse analysis. The literature across the ics. The focus is on the poetic patterning of
disciplines suggests that there are at least discourse within different cultures. on the
three general perspectives within discourse other hand, ethnography of communication,
analysis: (a) the linguistic perspective, (b) the advanced by hymes (1964), is concerned with
conversation perspective, and (c) the ideol- general language use as practiced in spe-
ogy/critical perspective. cific sociocultural context. Ethnography of
The linguistic perspective takes dis- communication, done either from the cross-
course as text produced by language use in cultural, comparative orientation or from the
either speech or writing. Thus, discourse text single-culture orientation, is based on the
for this perspective can be from interpersonal assumption that discourse should be stud-
conversations, written texts, or speech expo- ied, positing it within the dynamics and pat-
sitions such as testimonies. This perspective terns of discourse events in a given cultural
encompasses the formal pragmatics in lin- context. in all these branches of the linguistic
guistics, sociolinguistics in sociology, and perspective, the emphasis is on the linguistic
ethnography of communication and ethno- forms as used in social life.
poetics in anthropology. hence, within this The conversation perspective takes dis-
perspective, there are several different meth- course as conversational texts; it has been
odological approaches to discourse analysis. developed from the ethnomethodological
Even within each orientation, there are varia- tradition of Garfinkel (1967) in sociology. in
tions in the ways discourse texts are ana- this tradition, Sacks (1992) and others pio-
lyzed, depending on the frame within which neered conversation analysis as a form of
various contextual features are brought into discourse analysis. Conversation analysis
the analytic schema. views discourse as a stream of sequentially
The formal pragmatics that had its begin- organized discursive components that are
ning with Z. S. harris (1952) has been recast designed jointly by participants of conver-
by the speech act theory in the philosophical sation applying a set of social and conversa-
tradition of J. L. Austin (1975) and J. R. Searle tional rules. Conversation analysis studies
(1979) and by the poetics of the literary study. rules that participants in conversation use
Discourse analysis from the formal prag- to carry on and accomplish interaction, such
matics orientation addresses such aspects as as topic organization, turn taking, and use