Discourse Analysis Assignment 20h4o

Discourse Analysis Project Topic: Discourse analysis of a conversation. This assignment requires you to complete four basic tasks: 1. Record or find a conversation or discussion between at least two people. 2. Transcribe a two-minute section of the conversation as a sample for analysis. 3. Develop an analysis of the conversation as communicative event, using the of Hymes's SPEAKING model. 4. Revise your paper and submit a typed report with at least three pages of analysis and one single-spaced page of transcription along with your research recording. Subject: The discourse you record may be a conversation among friends, between a teacher and a student, or between you and a relative. You should inform the participants of your intentions. The recording may also be a an interview on television or the radio that you record to use as a research sample. Any conversation has all kinds of interesting aspects, but possibly selecting an especially interesting exchange or event would help you work more productively on this assignment. Goals: In your writing you should focus on the forms, functions, rules, and strategies of discourse in a communication setting. It will also give you practice in lingustic academic writing. Deadline: Thursday, 17 December. Here are a number of speech events that might work as subjects for this assignment: a discussiontype class, a television interview, the give and take of political debaters, the arguing on a television talk show or discussion, conversation in a dorm room, a radio preacher's performance, a career interview at the Peer Career Center, a "bull session" in a "watering hole," "troubles talk" among friends (Thomas & Tchudi 74). One goal is to make a tape of the event so you can use it as a sample for analysis. Another goal is to transcribe one section of the tape in a straightforward manner. Discourse analysts use all kinds of conventions to signal intonation changes and other characteristics of speech, but for the purpose of this assignment, we'll make a plain transcription without eye dialect attempts to show pronunciation and the more complicated typography of high level discourse analysis. These special characteristics are, however, good points to discuss in your analysis of the speech event. The Hymes SPEAKING model can help you uncover important aspects of the discourse as a speech event, but your paper should not stricly follow these categories in your developing an effective written organization. Use Hymes's categories to get a start writing down ideas and evidence, but then revise this material into an organized paper with an introduction, a series of developed and connected paragraphs, and a conclusion. Consider what speakers are doing to one another in the discourse. Consider what preconditions and presuppositions they make in the event.

This assignment is due Thursday, 17 December. Please send the paper and the recording via e-mail and hand in the printed version in class.

Dell Hymes's SPEAKING Model Background Sociolinguist Dell Hymes developed the following model to promote the analysis of discourse as a series of speech events and speech acts within a cultural context. It uses the first letters of for speech components; the categories are so productive and powerful in analysis that you can use this model to analyze many different kinds of discourse. Mr. McGowan patricularly enjoys applying this model to storytelling. The SPEAKING Model Setting and Scene "Setting refers to the time and place of a speech act and, in general, to the physical circumstances" (Hymes 55).The living room in the grandparents' home might be a setting for a family story. Scene is the "psychological setting" or "cultural definition" of a scene, including characteristics such as range of formality and sense of play or seriousness (Hymes 55-56). The family story may be told at a reunion celebrating the grandparents' anniversary. At times, the family would be festive and playful; at other times, serious and commemorative. Participants Speaker and audience. Linguists will make distinctions within these categories; for example, the audience can be distinguished as addressees and other hearers (Hymes 54 & 56). At the family reunion, an aunt might tell a story to the young female relatives, but males, although not addressed, might also hear the narrative. Ends Purposes, goals, and outcomes (Hymes 56-57). The aunt may tell a story about the grandmother to entertain the audience, teach the young women, and honor the grandmother. Act Sequence Form and order of the event. The aunt's story might begin as a response to a toast to the grandmother. The story's plot and development would have a sequence structured by the aunt. Possibly there would be a collaborative interruption during the telling. Finally, the group might applaud the tale and move onto another subject or activity. Key Cues that establish the "tone, manner, or spirit" of the speech act (Hymes 57). The aunt might imitate the grandmother's voice and gestures in a playful way, or she might address the group in a serious voice emphasing the sincerity and respect of the praise the story expresses. Instrumentalities Forms and styles of speech (Hymes 58-60). The aunt might speak in a casual with many dialect features or might use a more formal and careful grammatical "standard" forms. Norms Social rules governing the event and the participants' actions and reaction. In a playful story by the aunt, the norms might allow many audience interruptions and collaboration, or

possibly those interruptions might be limited to participation by older females. A serious, formal story by the aunt might call for attention to her and no interruptions as norms. Genre The kind of speech act or event; for our course, the kind of story. The aunt might tell a character anecdote about the grandmother for entertainment, but an exemplum as moral instruction. Different disciplines develop for kinds of speech acts, and speech communities sometimes have their own for types. These can be applied to many kinds of discourse. Sometimes in a written discussion you might emphasize only two or three of the letters of the mnemonic. It provides a structure for you to perceive components. Work Cited Hymes, Dell. Foundations of Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 1974.