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36. Dialogic texts: structure and characteristics - Coggle Diagram
36. Dialogic texts: structure and characteristics
Text and context
Text
: any passage, spoken or written, whatever length, which forms a unified whole. Made of meanings. Coded in words and structures. Should be given context.
Malinowski's two dimensions of context: context of situation, context of culture
Important aspects about dialogues
Communication is unpredictable
Comm always fulfils a purpose
Takes place in a specific setting
Language is imperfect. Competence vs performance. To avoid failure: techniques, negotiation of meaning
Structure of discourse: characteristics the text needs to be called a dialogue, etc.
What is a dialogical text?
Oral language exchanges, two or more speakers, at exchanging info. Exchanges by different speakers, conversation progresses. Here: written form.
Written dialogues differ from oral ones. Lose paralinguistic aspects. To compensate: supra linguistic features like dashes, inverted commas, italics or bold.
Dialogical texts can include other texts.
Some concepts about dialogical texts
Spontaneous and non-spontaneous.
Spontaneous: unplanned, distended, friends, family. Less influenced by communicative constraints, at ease
Non-spontaneous: prepared, You can't plan everything, make inferences and prepare possible answers. Formal, fixed topic. Debates, job interviews, meetings. Communicative constraints.
Roles important. Grandfather: relaxed, but respectful. Grammar depends on role, context, purpose, formality.
Politeness: only rule that regulates distended dialogues. Norms are taken, shared by all.
Transactional dialogues: exchange of goods and services.
Interpersonal: concerned with socializing.
Literary dialogues: different from transcription. Stage directions, punctuation marks, reporting verbs.
Formal: based on their perceptions of conventions which are regulating their relationship (role, place, purpose)
Informal: conventions don't obstruct feeling of ease
No fixed frontiers. Different degrees of formality.
Gestures: lead to mistakes, interlocutors don't pay much attention to grammar or correct lang. Meaningful mistakes: comm strategies
Study of dialogical texts
: study of speech acts
Lexis and idioms
Reiteration: two cohesive items refer to the same entity or event. Repetition, synonymy, superordinates, general word
Collocation: partnership between words, semantic relationship Informal
Intonation
: dialog as product excludes the importance of dialog as process. Place of accent (meaning). Rhythmic nature of EN greater in informal dialogues (high pitch, rises), formal: serious, low pitch.
Syntax
: same factors as grammar. Appropriate in one, not in another. Speakers emphasise
Speech acts are regulated by norms which depend on the channel
Universal constraints (Goffmann)
Channel open/close signals: comm is about to begin or end. Channel. Non-verbal or verbal.
Back-channel signals: message is being followed. Linguistic or paralinguistic.
Turnover signals: smooth change of turns. Overlapping, orderly way.
Acoustically adequate and interpretable messages: comm system and factors work properly. Adequate tone
Bracket signals: speaker is going to change the topic. Linguistic or paralinguistic.
Pre-empt signals: interrupt an ongoing message, verbal or non-verbal
Cooperative pple (Grice): communication is more than the exchange of info
Sociolinguistic competence (Canale & Swain): understanding of social context; utterances appropriate in a context. Status, formality, roles, purposes, conventions.
Grammar
: correctness depends on the role, place, purpose. Informal: deviations, deictic (point). Ellipsis, paralinguistic signs
Structure of dialogical texts
No fixed structures. Important features
Turn-taking
: participants organise themselves. Smoothly, little overlap, brief silences. Nominated.
Back-channel: not taking the turn or making it clear we are listening. Vocalizations. Speakers predict.
Speech acts:
performative dimension of speech. Language also has pragmatic function, utterances perform actions. Directives, commission, representative, declarative, expressive.
Sequencing
: ordering of contributions. Vary (setting, status, relationship). Accepted by speakers. Speakers decide on formality, form, tone.
Implicature: between the lines. One can say sth and. mean sth else (irony)
Maxims: speakers obligations when talking. Implicature: deliberately flouting maxims: quantity, quality, manner, relevance
Five phases: opening, orientation, object, conclusion, closing
Written form: all lost, author manipulates. Direct model, reported model.