DISCOURSE ANALYSIS FOR LANGUAGE

TEACHERS
BY MICHAEL MCCARTHY
CPAHTER 1
WHAT IS DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
BY shamimnazish@hotmail.com
1. The opening paragraphs of the book have been dedicated
to the historical evolution of the subject of Discourse
analysis. Discourse analysis is concerned with the study
of the relationship between language and the contexts in
which it is used. It grew out of work in different disciplines
in the 1960s and early 1970s. Discourse analysts study
language in use: written texts of all kinds, and spoken
data. Zellig Harris published a paper with the title
'Discourse analysis' (Harris 1952). In the 1960s, Dell
Hymes provided a sociological perspective (e.g. Hymes
1964). In his historical overview, McCarthy tells how
discourse analysis developed as an academic subject
over the past half a century. He gives details as to how
the American, British and other writers contributed to the
development of this field of academics.
2. McCarthy suggests that form and function have to be
separated to understand what is happening in discourse.
When we say that a particular bit of speech or writing is a
request or an instruction or an exemplification we are

concentrating on what that piece of language is doing, or

how the listener is supposed to react. For this reason,
such entities are often also called speech acts. Each of
the stretches of language that are carrying the force of
requesting, instructing, and so on is seen as performing a
particular act. We are all familiar with course books that
say things like: 'Here are some questions which can help
people to remember experiences which they had almost
forgotten: When people speak or write, they do not just
utter a string of linguistic forms, without beginning,
middle or end. Discourse analysis is thus fundamentally
concerned with the relationship between language and
the contexts of its use.
3. McCarthy discusses procedural

and

text

analysis

approaches and main problem with making a neat

analysis of extract is that it is clearly the 'middle' of
something. The dialogue is structured in the sense that it
can

be

coherently

interpreted

and

seems

to

be

progressing somewhere, but we are in the middle of a

structure rather than witnessing the complete unfolding
of the whole. It is in this respect, the interest in whole
discourse

structures,

that

discourse

analysis

adds

something extra to the traditional concern with functional

speech acts.

4. In addition to all our verbal encounters we daily consume

hundreds of written and printed words: newspaper
articles, letters, stories, recipes, instructions, notices,
billboards, leaflets pushed through the door, and so on.
We usually expect them to be coherent, meaningful
communications in which the words and sentences are
linked to one another in a fashion that corresponds to
conventional formulae, just as we do with speech;
therefore discourse analysts are equally interested in the
organization of written interaction.
5. With written texts, some of the problems associated with
spoken transcripts are absent. McCarthy says that there
is no need to contend with people. The writer has usually
had time to think about what to say and how to say it,
and the sentences are usually well. But the overall
questions remain the same: what norms or rules do
people adhere to when creating written texts? Are texts
structured according to recurring principles i.e. is there a
hierarchy of units comparable to acts, moves and
exchanges, and are there conventional ways of opening
and closing texts? As with spoken discourse, if we do find
such regularities, and if they can be shown as elements
that have different realizations in different languages, or
that they may present problems for learners in other

ways, then the insights of written discourse analysis

might be applicable to language teaching.

CPAHTER 2
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS & GRAMMAR
1. Grammar has traditionally been referred to, in teaching,
as individual items and their relation with each other
depending of the form of other related/surrounding items.
But McCarthy argues that structuring the individual
utterance, clause and sentence, structuring the larger
units of discourse and creating textual coherence are
ultimately inseparable. Discourse analysts can tell us
about contextualized uses of structures and grammatical
items, and considering whether grammar teaching needs
to broaden or shift its orientations to cover significant
areas at present under-represented in grammar teaching.
Discourse analysis gives a different approach to the
grammar. It brings in the situational and contextual uses
of grammar.
2. Spoken and

written discourses display

grammatical

cohesions between individual clauses and utterances.

These grammatical links are classified by McCarthy
under

three

broad

types

co-reference,

ellipsis

subordination and conjunction. Spoken and written

discourses

display

grammatical

cohesions

between

individual clauses and utterances.

3. What we decide to bring to the front of the clause (by
whatever means) is a signal of what is to be understood
as the framework within which what we want to say is to
be understood. The rest of the clause can then be seen as
transmitting 'what we want to say within this framework'.
Items brought to front-place in this way we shall call the
themes (or topics) of their clauses.
4. A great deal of attention has recently been paid to the
relationship

between

tense-aspect

choices

and

overall discourse constraints. By examining natural data,

discourse
correlations

analysts

are

between

able

to

discourse

observe
types

regular

and

the

predominance of certain tense and aspect choices in the

clause. Equally, the emphasis

discourse analysis on

interactive features of discourse such as speaker / writer

perspective

and

standpoint,

and

the

focusing

or

foregrounding of certain elements of the message, has

led to reinterpretations of conventional statements about
tense and aspect rules.
5. This chapter has taken a selection of grammatical
concepts and has attempted to show how discourse
analysis has contributed to our understanding of the

relationship between local choices within the clause and

sentence and the organization of the discourse as a
whole. The traditional approach to grammar seems to
have taken new turns with McCarthy. He believes that
language teachers need not to take grammar as the
individual items, their relationship with other surrounding
items, their interdependency and rules governing them.
Rather grammar has to be taken as a binding force of the
entire discourse as a single whole. It works as an
adhesive for the entire body of discourse with a
beginning, middle and an end.

CPAHTER 3
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND VOCABULARY
1. McCarthy is of the view that discourse discusses the
entire text as a whole. Doing this does not mean that we
ignore the individual items of vocabulary. Importance of
vocabulary in language teaching remains very important
for the new learners of a language. It still is the largest
single element in tackling a new language for the learner
and it would be irresponsible to suggest that it will take
care-of itself in some ideal world where language
teaching and learning are discourse-driven.
2. The vocabulary used by the speakers offers openings for
possible

development,

which

may

or

may

not

be

exploited. The 'conversation' class where topics are preset

may

be

limitation

to

this

natural

kind

of

development; a safer course of action might be to see

pre-set topics merely as 'starters' and not to worry if the
discourse develops its own momentum and goes off in
unpredictable directions.
3. Encouraging recognition of the communicative value of
these lexical relations can start at quite an early stage in
language learning, as soon as the necessary vocabulary
is encountered. Simple cue and response drills for pair-

work can train the learner in immediately associating

synonyms and antonyms, or a superordinate with its
hyponyms, and vice versa.
4. A somewhat different type of lexical relation in discourse
is when a writer or speaker rearranges the conventional
and well-established lexical relations and asks us to
adjust our usual conceptualizations of how words relate to
one another for the particular purposes of the text in
question. McCarthy borrows a term instantial relations
from J. Ellis (1966) to describe Discourse-specific lexical
relations. They are found frequently in spoken and written
texts, and are probably a universal feature in all
languages.
5. A distinction is often made between grammar words and
lexical words in language. This distinction also appears
sometimes as function words versus content words. The
distinction is a useful one: it enables analysts to separate
those words which belong to closed systems in the
language and which carry grammatical meaning, from
those that belong to open systems and which belong to
the major word classes of noun, verb, adjective and
adverb.
6. The discourse-organizing words have been illustrated in
their role of representing segments of text, parceling up
phrases and whole sentences. In section 3.5 notes words

that often have a broader textual function too, and that is

to signal to the reader what larger textual patterns are
being realised. This phenomenon is further discussed. We
observe an illustration of a problem-solution pattern.
Discourse organizers often contribute to our awareness
that a problem solution pattern is being realized.
7.McCarthy says that there is specific vocabulary that
always surrounds a specific text. Certain words mean
something in a normal language use but the same words
used in a different context mean completely differently.
McCarthy is generally right in saying so but Jargon study
only helps is finding out type of text written. What help
further it provides to the discourse analysts is not
described. Discourse analysis only attempts to analyse
the meaning as a whole and finding the type or field of
text is not very helpful in this regard as the context is
generally always clear to the discourse analysts. One
contribution that the study of vocabulary in naturally
occurring discourses has made is to point up the allpervasiveness
language.

of

modality

in

spoken

and

written

CPAHTER 4
DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND PHONOLOGY
1.Under the heading of phonology, what has traditionally
been thought of as 'pronunciation', but McCarthy devotes
most of attention to intonation. This is partly because the
most exciting developments in the analysis of discourse
have been in intonation studies rather than at the
segmental level. According to McCarthy intonation also
contributes to the making of the meaning in language /
conversation. Rather in the spoken discourse, intonation
is one of the most important aspects that the analysts
need to pay attention to, in order to find out what the
discourse suggests.
2. Traditional pronunciation teaching has found its strength
in the ability of linguists to segment the sounds of
language into discrete items called phonemes which,
when

used

in

the

construction

of

words,

produce

meaningful contrasts with other words. The confusion

faced by the foreign speakers of a language because of
the phenomenon of assimilations, and of elisions is also
covered under the phonology. In the contextual analysis
of a language these two factors are also very important
as the making of meaning is also affected by them.

3. Apart from pronunciation/intonation is the importance of

word stress and prominence. Making of meaning is also
affected by where we put the prominence and the stress
in a word. The contextual use of English in Pakistan is
affected because of the inability of our speakers to put
the word stress and prominence at the right place in
words.

Thats

what

exactly

is

being

discussed

by

McCarthy indirectly. When we use the words in context we

often fail either to understand or to communicate
because we do not follow the normal native-speakerpatterns of prominence and word stress.
4. In addition to the word stress and

prominence

intonational units also contribute to the formation of

contextual meanings. It is the speaker who decides how
the information is to be distributed in tone groups and
where the tonic is placed, and the decisions rest on an
assessment of what needs to be highlighted for the
listener. While saying a sentence some parts are spoken
with different intonational stress to give prominence to
the entire part instead of only a word part. Mccarthy later
highlights, with the help of numerous examples, how this
intricate complex of word stress/intonation and the
intonation units work in the making of meanings.

5.McCarthy gives his final observation concerning how

pitch-level

choices

operate

across

speaker

turns.

Matching or harmony in pitch between speakers is a

phenomenon that McCarthy discusses and he compares
his view point with that of Brown, Currie & Kenworthy
(1980: 23-4) and Brazil. He believes that pitch level is
important and pays role in turn taking among speakers.
Lowering of the pitch around the end of an argument may
cause the loss of turn to a speaker. If one wants to retain
the turn for further participation in a spoken discourse
then the speaker has to keep his pitch to a level where he
can continue speaking and others dont expect him to
finish the turn.

CPAHTER 5
SPOKEN LANGUAGE
1. McCarthy discusses in detail as to how grammar,
vocabulary

and

intonation

help

conduct

discourse

analysis and what the implication of them in language

teaching are. In this chapter he tries to have a closer look
at various manifestations of spoken discourse with a view
to potential applications in language teaching.
2. Pairs of utterances, as he calls them, famously known as
adjacency pairs, in talk are often mutually dependent; a
most obvious example is that a question predicts an
answer, and that an answer presupposes a question. It is
possible

to

state

the

requirements,

in

normal

conversational sequence, for many types of utterances, in

terms of what is expected as a response and what certain
responses presuppose. Adjacency pairing occurs in the
initiation and response and in the responding and followup move.
3.People take turns when they are selected or nominated
by the current speaker, or if no one is selected, they may
speak of their own accord. If neither of these conditions
applies, the person who is currently speaking may
continue While the current speaker is talking, listeners
are attentive to the syntactic completeness or otherwise

of the speaker's contribution, and to clues in the pitch

level that may indicate that a turn is coming to a close.
There are specific linguistic devices for getting the turn
when one is unable to enter the normal flow of turntaking or when the setting demands that specific
conventions be followed. These vary greatly in level of
formality and appropriacy to different situations.
4.A distinction is often made by discourse analysts
between

transactional

and

interactional

talk.

Transactional talk is for getting business done in the

world, i.e. in order to produce some change in the
situation that pertains. It could be to tell somebody
something they need to know, to affect the purchase of
something, to get someone to do something, or many
other world-changing things. Interactional talk, on the
other hand, has as its primary functions the lubrication of
the social wheels, establishing roles and relationships
with another person prior to transactional talk, confirming
and consolidating relationships, expressing solidarity, and
so on.
5. In addition to transactional and interactional talk, almost
any

piece

of

conversation

among

people

include

occasions where people engage in the telling of stories,

anecdotes, jokes and other kinds of narratives. In all

cultures it is thought to be a good talent to be able to tell

a story or crack a good joke. As with other types of
language events, discourse analysts have sought to
describe what all narratives have in common.
6. Active and attentive listeners are constantly predicting
what the message will be, based on the evidence of their
world knowledge and the type of discourse they are
engaged in. Listening activities can test and encourage
the development of predictive skills, just as good reading
activities often do.

Among

other

discourse

types

McCarthy lists different events when speakers interact for

a shorter duration like giving someone direction to reach
a specific place or find a place.
7. In the end of the chapter McCarthy mentions the role of
grammatical accuracy in unprepared speech. In contrast
with the written discourse where clause and sentence
structure are clearly defined, the spoken discourse,
however, presents a different picture, and frequently
contains forms that would be considered ungrammatical
in writing. Such 'mistakes' usually go quite unnoticed in
natural talk, and it is only when we look at transcripts
that we realise that they are common. In fact, what
McCarthy wanted to say must have been that these are
actually no mistakes rather a feature of spoken discourse

where adherence to correct grammatical rules is not

thought to be important.

CPAHTER 6
WRITTEN LANGUAGE
1.Having discussed the spoken language, McCarthy comes
down to the written part of language. The educational
environments demand the students to write subjective
papers, assays and other detailed compositions like
narrative, descriptive or argumentative, and it is here
that teachers find the greatest challenges in devising
interesting and authentic activities. Therefore, his chapter
considers how learners can be assisted in such writing
skills by the insights discourse analysis has provided into
text types and the relationships between texts and their
contexts.
2.Both spoken and written discourses are dependent on
their immediate contexts to a greater or lesser degree.
The idea that writing is in some way 'freestanding',
whereas speech is more closely tied to its context, has
come under attack as an oversimplification by discourse
analysts (e.g. Tannen 1982). The transcript of a piece of
natural

conversation

may

well

contain

references

impossible to decode without particular knowledge or

without visual information.
3.Sentences and clauses form the smaller patterns of
writing while the larger texts form a holistic discourse.
Learners with overall poor competence are often trapped
in the difficulties of local encoding in spoken discourse.
So too can we observe such difficulties affecting learners'
written work. For the understanding and creation of a well
understood text, writers of a discourse need to be well
conversant

with

the

background

and

immediate

surroundings of the context. Otherwise, they may write at

the cost of comprehension of their readers.
4. The area of cross-cultural rhetoric studies has produced a
vast literature of its own, and a somewhat confusing one.
On the one hand, linguists claim to have evidence of
textual patterns in other languages not found in English
writing; on the other hand, there is disagreement over
whether

these

patterns

are

transferred

and

cause

interference when the learner writes in English. Cross

cultural

interference,

however,

does

effect

the

performance of a speaker or a writer.

Conclusion
5.This book on discourse analysis has been written with a
very different/unique perspective. It not only discusses
discourse analysis as an academic subject but also

rethinks as to how it can be useful in the language

teaching perspective. Teachers will make up their own
minds as to whether their methods and techniques need
reconsidering in the light of what discourse analysts say,
but, as with all new trends in linguistic theory and
description, it is important that discourse analysis be
subjected not only to the scrutiny of applied linguists but
also to the testing grounds of practical materials and
classroom activities. One drawback with this book is that
it gives little in theory and tells a lot in the form of
activities. Though its the practical way of doing things
but thats true in the Westren context. In our South Asian
context it has to tell more and do less while its the other
way round.

ERIC Identifier: ED456672

Publication Date: 2001-09-00
Author: Demo, Douglas A.
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics Washington DC.

Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. ERIC

Digest.

Discourse analysis is the examination of language use by members of a speech

community. It involves looking at both language form and language function and includes
the study of both spoken interaction and written texts. It identifies linguistic features tha
characterize different genres as well as social and cultural factors that aid in our
interpretation and understanding of different texts and types of talk. A discourse analysis
of written texts might include a study of topic development and cohesion across the
sentences, while an analysis of spoken language might focus on these aspects plus turntaking practices, opening and closing sequences of social encounters, or narrative
structure.

The study of discourse has developed in a variety of disciplines-sociolinguistics,

anthropology, sociology, and social psychology. Thus discourse analysis takes different
theoretical perspectives and analytic approaches: speech act theory, interactional
sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, pragmatics, conversation analysis, and
variation analysis (Schiffrin, 1994). Although each approach emphasizes different aspect
of language use, they all view language as social interaction.

This digest focuses on the application of discourse analysis to second language teaching
and learning. It provides examples of how teachers can improve their teaching practices
by investigating actual language use both in and out of the classroom, and how students
can learn language through exposure to different types of discourse. Detailed
introductions to discourse analysis, with special attention to the needs and experiences o
language teachers, can be found in Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000), Hatch (1992),
McCarthy (1992), McCarthy and Carter (1994), and Riggenbach (1999).

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHING

Even with the most communicative approaches, the second language classroom is limited
in its ability to develop learners' communicative competence in the target language. This
is due to the restricted number of contact hours with the language; minimal opportunitie
for interacting with native speakers; and limited exposure to the variety of functions,
genres, speech events, and discourse types that occur outside the classroom. Given the
limited time available for students to practice the target language, teachers should
maximize opportunities for student participation. Classroom research is one way for
teachers to monitor both the quantity and quality of students' output. By following a four
part process of Record-View-Transcribe-Analyze, second language teachers can use
discourse analytic techniques to investigate the interaction patterns in their classrooms

and to see how these patterns promote or hinder opportunities for learners to practice th
target language. This process allows language teachers to study their own teaching
behavior--specifically, the frequency, distribution, and types of questions they use and
their effect on students' responses.

"Step One": Videotape a complete lesson. Be sure to capture all of your questions and the
students' responses. (Opportunities to speak the target language are often created by
teachers' questions.)

"Step Two": Watch the videotape. As you watch it, think about the types of questions you
asked. Look for recurring patterns in your questioning style and the impact it has on the
students' responses.

"Step Three": Transcribe the lesson. A transcript will make it easier to identify the types
of questions in the data and to focus on specific questions and student responses. "Step
Four": Analyze the videotape and transcript. Why did you ask each question? What type o
question was it--open (e.g., "What points do you think the author was making in the
chapter you read yesterday?") or closed (e.g., "Did you like the chapter?")? Was the
question effective in terms of your goals for teaching and learning? What effect did your
questions have on the students' opportunities to practice the target language? How did
the students respond to different types of questions? Were you satisfied with their
responses? Which questions elicited the most discussion from the students? Did the
students ask any questions? Focusing on actual classroom interaction, teachers can
investigate how one aspect of their teaching style affects students' opportunities for
speaking the target language. They can then make changes that will allow students more
practice with a wider variety of discourse types.

Teachers can also use this process of Record-View-Transcribe-Analyze to study

communication patterns in different classroom activities, such as student-to-student
interactions during a paired role-play task and during a small-group cooperative learning
activity. Communicative activities are expected to promote interaction and to provide
opportunities for students to engage in talk. Teachers are likely to discover that students
produce different speech patterns in response to different tasks. For example, a map
activity is likely to elicit a series of questions and answers among participants, whereas a
picture narration task requires a monologue developed around a narrative format. Given
that teachers use communicative tasks to evaluate learners' proficiency, a better
understanding of the influence of specific activities on learner discourse will likely lead
teachers to use a greater variety of tasks in order to gain a more comprehensive picture
of students' abilities. By recording, transcribing, and analyzing students' discourse,
teachers can gain insight into the effect of specific tasks on students' language productio
and, over time, on their language development.

A discourse analysis of classroom interactions can also shed light on cross-cultural

linguistic patterns that may be leading to communication difficulties. For example, some
speakers may engage in overlap, speaking while someone else is taking a turn-at-talk. Fo
some linguistic groups, this discourse behavior can be interpreted as a signal of
engagement and involvement; however, other speakers may view it as an interruption an

imposition on their speaking rights. Teachers can use the Record-View-Transcribe-Analyz

technique to study cross-cultural interactions in their classrooms, helping students
identify different communication strategies and their potential for miscommunication.

Although some variables of language learning are beyond the control of second language
teachers, discourse analysis can be a useful analytic tool for making informed changes in
instructional practices. Mainstream teachers, especially those with second language
learners, can also use this technique to study classroom interactions in order to focus on
the learning opportunities available to students with limited English proficiency. In fact,
discourse analysis can be an integral part of a program of professional development for a
teachers that includes classroom-based research, with the overall aim of improving
teaching (Johnson, 1995).

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNING

Language learners face the monumental task of acquiring not only new vocabulary,
syntactic patterns, and phonology, but also discourse competence, sociolinguistic
competence, strategic competence, and interactional competence. They need
opportunities to investigate the systematicity of language at all linguistic levels, especial
at the highest level (Riggenbach, 1999; Young and He, 1998). Without knowledge of and
experience with the discourse and sociocultural patterns of the target language, second
language learners are likely to rely on the strategies and expectations acquired as part o
their first language development, which may be inappropriate for the second language
setting and may lead to communication difficulties and misunderstandings.

One problem for second language learners is limited experience with a variety of
interactive practices in the target language. Therefore, one of the goals of second
language teaching is to expose learners to different discourse patterns in different texts
and interactions. One way that teachers can include the study of discourse in the second
language classroom is to allow the students themselves to study language, that is, to
make them discourse analysts (see Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000; McCarthy & Carter,
1994; Riggenbach, 1999). By exploring natural language use in authentic environments,
learners gain a greater appreciation and understanding of the discourse patterns
associated with a given genre or speech event as well as the sociolinguistic factors that
contribute to linguistic variation across settings and contexts. For example, students can
study speech acts in a service encounter, turn-taking patterns in a conversation between
friends, opening and closings of answering machine messages, or other aspects of speec
events. Riggenbach (1999) suggests a wide variety of activities that can easily be adapte
to suit a range of second language learning contexts.

One discourse feature that is easy to study is listener response behavior, also known as
backchannels. Backchannels are the brief verbal responses that a listener uses while
another individual is talking, such as mm-hmm, ok, yeah, and oh wow. Listener response
can also be non-verbal, for instance head nods. Research has identified variation among
languages in the use of backchannels, which makes it an interesting feature to study.
Variation has been found not only in the frequency of backchannels, but also in the type o

backchannels, their placement in the ongoing talk, and their interpretation by the
participants (Clancy, Thompson, Suzuki, & Tao, 1996). Students can participate in the
Record-View-Transcribe-Analyze technique to study the linguistic form and function of
backchannels in conversation.

"Step One": Ask to video- or audiotape a pair of native speakers engaging in conversation
perhaps over coffee or lunch.
"Step Two": Play the tape for students. Have them identify patterns in the recorded
linguistic behavior. In this case, pay attention to the backchanneling behavior of the
participants. Is the same backchannel token used repeatedly, or is there variation?

"Step Three": Transcribe the conversation so that students can count the number and
types of backchannel tokens and examine their placement within the discourse. "Step 4":
Have students analyze specific discourse features individually, in pairs or in small groups
These are some questions to consider: How often do the participants use a backchannel
token? How does backchanneling contribute to the participants' understanding of and
involvement in the conversation? How can differences in backchannel frequency be
explained? How does backchanneling work in the students' native language?

Students can collect and analyze data themselves. Once collected, this set of authentic
language data can be repeatedly examined for other conversational features, then later
compared to discourse features found in other speech events. This discourse approach to
language learning removes language from the confines of textbooks and makes it
tangible, so that students can explore language as interaction rather than as grammatica
units. Teachers can also use these activities to raise students' awareness of language
variation, dialect differences, and cultural diversity.

CONCLUSION

In sum, teachers can use discourse analysis not only as a research method for
investigating their own teaching practices but also as a tool for studying interactions
among language learners. Learners can benefit from using discourse analysis to explore
what language is and how it is used to achieve communicative goals in different contexts
Thus discourse analysis can help to create a second language learning environment that
more accurately reflects how language is used and encourages learners toward their goa
of proficiency in another language.
REFERENCES
Celce-Murcia, M,. & Olshtain, E. (2000). "Discourse and context in language teaching."
New York: Cambridge University Press.

Clancy, P., Thompson, S., Suzuki, R., & Tao, H. (1996). The conversational use of reactive
tokens in English, Japanese, and Mandarin. "Journal of Pragmatics, 26," 355-387.

Hatch, E. (1992). "Discourse and language education." New York: Cambridge University
Press.

Johnson, K. (1995). "Understanding communication in second language classrooms." New

York: Cambridge University Press.
McCarthy, M. (1992). "Discourse analysis for language teachers." New York: Cambridge
University Press.
McCarthy, M., & Carter, R. (1994). "Language as discourse: Perspectives for language
teachers." New York: Longman.
Riggenbach, H. (1999). "Discourse analysis in the language classroom: Volume 1. The
spoken language." Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Schiffrin, D. (1994). "Approaches to discourse." Oxford: Blackwell.

Young, R., & He, A. (1998). "Talking and testing: Discourse approaches to the assessmen
of oral proficiency." Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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