Disourse and

Pragmatics
LIN 207
Senders & Receivers
Discourse Type and Function

Lets Think!
You find a note in a
bottle in the waves:
It is written in a language
you know!
What would be the first
thing you would notice
about the message?

You are listening

to the radio.
It announces the
death of
someone.
Is the receiver
and the sender
known?

Humans always form some hypothesis about

the sender or receiver.
We need to know who discourse is for often
in detail.

1. Focusing on Senders and

receivers
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
o

Social relationships Top o

Shared knowledge Down
Discourse type
Discourse structure
Discourse function
Conversational
mechanisms
Cohesion
Grammar and lexis
o
Sounds or letters

Bottom
up

Students should
always know as
much as
necessary about
the identity of
the receiver or
sender of
discourse.
If they do not,
encourage
students to find
out

Focusing on Senders and

oreceivers
It is not necessary to know very

much about the individual

identity of the sender or
receiver, but only certain general
facts about his or her social
relation to us.
In analysis of speech acts
meaning of a simple piece of
discourse like The window is
open can change
fundamentally with the
relationship of sender and
receiver.
List different receivers and
senders for The window is
open. What does this mean for

Focusing on Senders and

o When asking
receivers
students to
produce
discourse, do
the materials
you use take
the effect of
different
receivers into
account?
o Compare the
attention paid
to the
supposed
receiver in the
following
writing
instructions

Focusing on Senders and

receivers
o We need to know the
political opinions, or
temperament, or personal
involvement of the person
whom we are writing a
report of the
demonstration.
o

a friend with whom we

correspond might be nine
or ninety, someone we
saw last week, or
someone we have not
seen for decades.

Office, status & role

o

sociologists distinguish three factors in social

relationships
1. Office:
a relatively permanent
position within the social
structure to which someone is
appointed or qualified. (e.g.
electrician, nurse, pilot)
2. Status: a general term for
social importance influenced by
facts like age, wealth, education
(and office) and varying relative
to other individuals.
3. Role: a temporary interactional
stance, involving the
performance of certain types of
perlocutionary and illocutionary
acts often dependent upon
having certain status and office.

Office, status & role

o
o
o
o

o
o

Saying that someone is a doctor may refer

to office, status and role together.
Knowledge of these three parameters affect
our interpretation of what is said, and should
be clear to students.
The meaning of Let me look into your eyes
is clearly affected by the office and role of
the sender.
When new write to a bank manager asking
for an overdraft, we will probably take all
three into account if we wish to succeed, but
we need not know any other personal
details.
In conversation with friends, we need
knowledge of their individual lives as well as
of their social identity.
Thus there is an interaction between the
degree and the kind of information we need,

2. Shared Knowledge
o

Apart from needing to know

varying amounts about office,
status, role, and personal
detail of people we are
communicating with, we also
need o form hypotheses about
the degree of knowledge we
share with them and the
degree to which the schemata
they are operating correspond
with our own.
Discourse which
underestimates the degrees of
existing knowledge become
boring
Discourse which

Shared Knowledge
o

The following extract forms a language teaching textbook

is supposed to be a conversation between two British
children.
o Delete any
information
which you
think the
two children
would have
in common.
o Is this
passage
interesting?
What
pedagogic
function
does it
have?

3. Discourse Type
o Tell somebody that:
a) its just a joke

b) Its supposed to
be a poem

a) Lets have the meeting

first and a chat later.

o
o

How will people process

the discourse in a and b
How will people process
and produce the discourse
in c

3. Discourse Type
o

Languages abound with names for discourse types and

in English there are a good number of quite ordinary
words:

There is no need to introduce any technical terms for

discourse types, no should teachers hesitate to name
them to students for fear of burdening them with jargon.
They are a metalangauge, but one which exists in
everyday language and is useful for both native and
foreign language learners.

3. Discourse Type
o

o
o

Take the discourse type

recipe, conversation, warrant,
cheque, speech, manifesto,
prescription, sermon, toast,
biography, will and lecture
Define each.
What is the connection
between discourse type
and the office, status and
role of the sender and
receiver?
Name some example of
discourse type where
there is no definite
receiver or sender.

4. Discourse Function

What discourse types might realize these functions?

4. Discourse Function
o

o
o
o
o

With functions as with senders

and receivers there is no one to
one connection to discourse
type.
The function of a menu is to
inform:
But if left on a mantelpiece at
home: the function is to impress
or decorate.
To warn is a function of
language: but a warning may
be realized in:
A letter (I shall refer the matter to my
lawyer)
A Label (Keep out of reach of children)
A song (Youre gonna lose that girl)