TYPES OF DISCOURSE

Introduction to Discourse Analysis

TYPES OF DISCOURSE 

■ Most everyday interactions, whether written or spoken, take place in familiar situations. The interlocutors rely heavily on social convention and contextual information.

 

 

■ This type of discourse is considered context-embedded and is probably most relevant to the orate/spoken and some orate/written types of discourse.


■ Most instances of written discourse and some examples of spoken discourse are removed from the immediate physical context and handle their topic(s) at a more abstract and conceptual level.


■ This type of discourse is context-reduced, and users of such discourse need to rely more heavily on their knowledge of the language code and genre types because the context is partly unfamiliar, less immediate, and less accessible.


■ Often planned discourse is context-reduced while unplanned discourse is context-embedded.


■ Except for spoken versus written discourse, most of these different discourse types represent continua rather than hard and fast dichotomies.


■ A proficient language user develops the knowledge and the skill to manipulate the different types and purposes of discourse according to his/her needs.