Review of Discourse Analysis and Language Teaching

宋曉慧

【Abstract】This paper mainly introduces the definition and development of discourse analysis and its related research. Besides， its application in language teaching area， especially in English reading and writing， is also synthesized by some related research.

【Key words】discourse analysis reading writing

I Introduction

Discourse Analysis is a relatively new area of study in Applied Linguistics， in which thecommunicative competence is simultaneously exercised. In a quite pragmatic way， DA mainly deals with the present language use. Language teaching via the communicative approach rely heavily on discourse analysis. In fact， DA should provide the main frame of reference for decision-making in language teaching and learning. This essay mainly discusses some related research of discourse analysis and its application in language teaching.

II Discourse Analysis and Reading

Discourse analysis first appeared in the article DiscourseAnalysis written by thestructural linguist Z.S. Harris. Halliday and Hasan （2003） points out “discourse is a semantic unit， by a small complex clause phrase， phrase or vocabulary-grammatical units to achieve” And H. G. Widdowson thinks， “discourse is the use of combined sentences.”

Discourse linguists Beaugrand and Dressler （1981） claimed that discourse reading is not only a communicative activity， but also a complex psychological activity. Reading comprehension is the result of the cooperation of language itself and other knowledge in humans mind. High efficient reading comprehension depends on two knowledge processing systems： one is the perceptional input based on language input； the other is non-perceptional input based on readers original knowledge.

Discourse analysis and reading is so closely related that many researchers in China also intend to find the ideal application of discourse analysis in reading teaching. Hu Zhuanglin holds the view that in reading teaching， teachers should guide students analyze types or forms of the texts and different communicative purposes and text structures of different types of texts. The analysis of texts can be either bottom-up processing （micro） or top-down processing （macro）.

Since texts exist in different forms， a pedagogy based on forms was quite popular in America and Australia. Qin Xiubai （2000） applies forms and DA together in teaching. Its purposes are： first， guide students master different communicative purposes and text structures of different types of texts； second， make students realize that texts are not just language construction， but social construction； third， guide students understand the graphical structure of texts and the construction of them so that students can understand and write certain form of text.endprint

III Discourse Analysis and Writing

In writing class， teachers always put emphasis on the importance of clear themes， fluency and coherence of an article， which involves many theories in discourse analysis.

Previous writing teaching stress figures of speech and grammar， ignoring the analysis of forms of texts. American researcher Abadianos research is about the cohesion devices they use in their expositions. He found that： （1） the most frequently used cohesion devices in their exposition are lexical cohesion. （2） the difference of their cohesion devices depend on their academic performance.

Besides cohesion， coherence theory can also direct writing teaching. Wei Guoxin （1999） thinks that from writers， writing is a psychological process in which authors， as communicators， provide the most related language information to readers to show their writing intention. From readers， as the targets of communication， they conduct logical reasoning according to the highest related degree of language information provided by the authors and understand their intentions. Therefore， “the most related information” can express authors writing intention and “information of the highest related degree ” can help readers infer authors writing intention correctly.

Of course， cohesion devices only are not enough to ensure the fluency and coherence of the texts and improve students writing ability. Zhao Pu （1998） and Li Zhixue （2000） point out that other methods should also be used to ensure the coherence of texts. For example， topic coherence involves the transfer of new and old information in the texts， while sentence coherence， such as parallel structures， can enhance the rhythm， balance and expression among sentences or even paragraphs.

【References】

[1]Carrel， Patriea L， et al. Schema Theory and ESL Reading Pedagogy [J]. TESOL Quartley， 1983（17.4）： 73-553.

[2]Goodman. K. S. Reading： A Psycholinguistic Guessing Game [J]. Journal of the Reading Specialist， 1967 （4）： 126-35.

[3]Halliday M. A. K. and Hasan R. Cohesion in English [M]. Beijing： Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press， 2003.

[4]Harris. Zellig S. Discourse Analysis [J]. Journal of Language， 1952 （28）： 1-30.endprint