Sarah Trevino

Discourse Analysis
3/22/2014
Discourse and Language Education and Instructor Commentary
This week we read part of chapter 5, Chapter 7 and instructor commentary
on the readings from the chapter. At first reading I felt
Eliminate subjective language like the material was so dense and frustrating
because chapter 5 related a lot to writers and how they work and what works for
them. Until it occurred to me that writers and interpreters have much of the same
concerns:; accurate and comprehensible language. So after I got past the difference
between writers and interpreters I could better focus on and understand what Hatch
was saying. Astute observation!
Hatch chapter 5 starts out talking about the 5 different genres of rhetoric:;
narrative, descriptive, comparison, cause and effect and problem solving. Hatch
then goes on to explain how each genre uses language differently to demonstrate
that genre. For example in narrative they who is they? talk a lot about
storytelling and how they use time and place orientation to describe a situation and
character identification to explain whos in the story.narrative needs to be defined
here

and citation is needed here This reminded me of in the Elementary

Storytelling video we watched for class when the man is showing us an example of
storytelling and he sets up the characters where its occurring and roughly when.
Generally in ASL, you see a lot of narrative genre because when youre having a
conversation, ASL is so contextual that you have no choice but to set these things
up. what is the research you are using to make this claim about ASL? It needs to be
cited here So in ASL these things occur often because without them your

conversation wouldnt make any sense. Much English conversation wouldnt make
sense either Another genre discussed was argument/persuasion. This is pretty
straight forward as to what it is,?? Define it here and refer to the text for citation
but you see this very clearly in the Early Intervention video. The woman in the
video is trying to explain to us the flaw in the way in which medical professionals
present a childs deafness to their parents. She then tries to persuade us to think
about ways in which you can use more positive, open-ended thinking when
presenting that type of information as opposed to a one size-fits all, Debbiedowner approach. The child is deaf, but that does not stop them from succeeding
in life. This is an effective example to choose! However, it needs to include the
exact, specific language, and you need to justify why it is an example of this genre.
It also needs a time code
In Chapter 7 Hatch goes on to explain the dichotomy that exists between
formal and informal language and how the choice of words we use to describe
those types of language can have an effect on understanding of it.citation is needed
here Examples of this would be Oral v. written Unplanned v. Planned and
contextualized v. decontextualized.what are these? They need to be defined
However, no matter what you call them, they all mean the same thing, which is that
the language we use when we speak is different from the language we use when we
write. In Dr. Winstons commentary she mentions how Hatchs findings discourse
mode and how its something that occurs with second language users and
interpreters using ASL, before I even read Dr. Winstons commentary I was thinking
the same thing. When we speak in English it is so much different than what we
would write if we were typing it out. What are specific examples? If we practice ASL
with only frozen text then yes itll be easier to focus your ideas and get a clear

message out. However, not all interpretations, or usage of ASL will be done in a
formal frozen form and so we would need to learn how to use it in a more
everyday usage as well. But we dont want to do too much of either one because
then we would not be able to do the other as well.can you clarify what you mean
here, and add the research you are using to justify this statement?

This came up

a lot in doing annotations because I would listen to what I was saying, or the way I
was talking and it was incredibly informal and bothered me a bit actually. I wanted
to annotate but what? I shouldve said, or what sounded more proper
Eliminate judgmental language instead of what was actually being said. Dr.
Winston talks about, in her commentary, how interpreters complain when people
read from books but this actually surprised me after my own frustrations with my
annotation.citation needed I would think that interpreters would want a more
formal language, but then it hit me why they wouldnt like that. English in its
formal form is not as simple to explain as it is written out. Written out English has
rules to how words are set up and how they should flow and ASL has those rules
too, but they go in a different order so the interpreter then has to do even more
thinking to get the message out correctly, while deciphering it from a formal form.
Can you clarify how this is related to the readings?
Sarah,
You have begun to incorporate the expectations of an academic essay with a
logical and organized presentation of your ideas!
The essay needs to demonstrate in much more depth that you have read all
required materials and specifically applied them to your learning-this requires
definitions of terms, and citations and references, as has been discussed in previous

work. It also requires specific and exact examples from the videos, as we have
practiced before in class.