Approaches to Discourse

This article is part 7 of the collection of articles on discursive cultural psychology. Go to the collection table of contents to read other articles. -- Previous -- Next --

So far we have used mainly as our unit of analysis, action and its corresponding speech act; and tried to find out what constitutes them. In this section we shall move on to a unit of analysis that is ‘larger’ than a single action or speech act. Before getting into discussing this larger unit, we shall first outline the levels of analysis units that may be involved.

Levels of Analysis Unit and Their Meaning Constitution

In part 4 we have seen that, following Leontiev (1981), actions may be analyzed in terms of levels. Action is one unit of analysis in a certain level. Activity is one unit ‘larger’ than actions that become the context for them, and may constitute their meaning. Operations are units ‘smaller’ than action. They embody action in concrete forms. Interestingly, in the area of linguistic studies, one may find corresponding levels. Thus, as Polkinghorne (1988) has noted, the smallest unit is single sounds that can be combined to make up a word. Words then can be combined, in accord with certain grammatical rules, to make up a sentence. Sentences also can be combined, again in accord with certain rules, to make up a discourse or conversation (Stubbs, 1983). 

The meaning of one unit in certain levels is constituted by its place in the context that is one unit in higher level. Action, in the form of speech as conceptualized by Austin (1975) and Searle (1969; 1979), corresponds to an individual sentence. If one compares levels of analysis in both extra-linguistic and linguistic action, one may have a table as follows:

Table 2.2 Levels of Analysis Unit

Levels	Extra-linguistic Action	Linguistic Action
Lower	Muscle movements	Uttering sounds
¯ ­	Operation	Uttering sounds that count as word in certain contexts
¯ ­	Action	Speech acts that count as intending something in certain contexts
Higher	Activity/ Action Sequence	Discourse/ Speech Act Sequence

Unlike their counter part in social or psychological studies, linguists are traditionally occupied with questions concerning what constitutes the meaning of words and sentences; and more recently also of discourse. How is it, for example, that certain combinations of sounds are conceived as meaningful words? Certainly they are not just any combinations of sounds. How is it that certain combinations of words are conceived as meaningful sentences? 

Every language has grammatical rules that govern how words are to be combined. This grammatical rule however is not sufficient to constitute sentential meaning since one can combine words in accord with grammatical rules to form a sentence and still does not make any sense. The sentence ”A cat is climbing up a tree” and ”A tree is climbing up a cat” are made of identical meaningful words and combined in accord with English grammatical rule, but even a child can tell which sentence makes and does not make any sense. 

Moving up to a higher discourse level, the question is: how is it that combinations of sentences are conceived of as meaningful discourse? Sentence sequence (1) ”The owner died” and ”The company went bankrupt” may be more meaningful for ‘modern’ cultures than, for example, sequence (2) ”The owner died” and ”A star was falling.” which may still be considered meaningful in certain ‘traditional’ cultures. The sequence (1) may be as meaningful as sequence (3) ”The company went bankrupt” and ”The owner died.” Although both have two identical sentences but they have different meanings because of their different sequencing. 

This question also holds for conversational discourse that involves two or more interlocutors: how is it that two or more utterances from different interlocutors are conceived as meaningful conversation; how do the interlocutors coordinate their actions to perform meaningful conversation and to achieve their goal.

Definition of and Approaches to Discourse

As one can see above, in terms of levels of analysis, discourse is one unit higher than individual action or speech act. Thus, discourse may be defined as a meaningful sequence of actions/ utterances, undertaken in accord with some common rules (Winch, 1958; Searle, 1969), to achieve some individual or common goals (see Searle et al, 1992; van Dijk, 1997), in certain activity contexts in a particular time and place in history, which characterize its rules and goals (Leontiev, A.N., 1981; Wertsch, 1985). The rules and goals of discourse in activities at universities, for example, would likely be different from activities at profit organizations. Similarly, discourse in problem solving activities would be different from leisure conversations among neighbors. 

As a unit of analysis however, discourse may cover a very broad range. Two adjacent actions or speech acts, so far as they are meaningful, may already be considered as a discourse. Texts, such as novels, news paper reports, or research report, may also be considered units of discourse since they consist of meaningful sequences of sentences. Work-group discussions that have certain goals common for their members, may also be units of discourse since meaningful sequences of speech acts performed by different members comprise an activity. Thus intuitively, one may speak of various levels of discourse, ranging from two adjacent speech acts to a whole single activity.

There are three complementary points of view from which discourse may be analyzed (van Dijk, 1980; 1997). Firstly, from a linguistic point of view, discourse is conceived mainly as text (van Dijk, 1972; 1977; Petöfi, 1979). Just as linguists try to find the grammatical structure of well-formed and meaningful sentences, in recent times, they begin to study text grammar. In brief, linguists’ efforts are aimed at describing the structure of coherent texts to differentiate meaningful sentence sequences from random ones. 

Secondly, from social psychology’s and microsociology’s point of view, discourse is conceived as action, and interaction, or joint activity (Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson, 1974; Schegloff, 1968; 1972; Clark, 1994; Clark & Brennan, 1991). The effort is to describe the structure and process of social cooperative activity among two or more interlocutors. 

Thirdly, from cognitive psychology’s point of view, discourse is treated mainly in terms of cognitive representations and processes. The aim is to describe strategic processes, involved in the production or understanding discourses. (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983; Graesser, Gernsbacher & Goldman, 1997; Condor & Antaki, 1997).

Since our discussions concern more about pragmatic meaning and their constitution in social contexts, we shall in part 8 focus ourselves more on discourse as social cooperative activity.