Chapter One Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis

Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis 1
CHAPTER ONE
BASIC CONCEPTS IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Adetutu Aragbuwa
Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti
[Aragbuwa, A (2021) Basic Concepts In Discourse Analysis. In Ayoola, K. A.,
Aragbuwa A. & Oyebode O. O. Current Approaches to Discourse Analysis: A
Manual for University Students. (pp 1-4). Obafemi Awolowo University Press.]
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1. Introduction
2. Definition of Discourse
2.1 Discourse versus Text
2.2 Types of Discourse
2.3 Why Do We Analyse Discourse?
3. Discourse Analysis as a Discipline
4. Domains of Discourse Analysis
5. Some Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis
5.1 Context
5.2 Discourse Participants
5.3 Cohesion and Coherence
5.4 Inferences and Implicatures
5.5 Presuppositions
6. Summary and Concluding Remarks
7. Exercises
7.1 Model Analysis
7.2 Exercises
References
Chapter Objectives
The specific objectives of this chapter are to:
(a) present and define basic theoretical notions and concepts
underlying discourse analysis as an interdisciplinary academic
discipline; and
2 Current Approaches to Discourse Analysis
(b) furnish students with the basic skills needed for the analysis of
empirical data that cut across different genres of discourse.
1. Introduction
This chapter presents a prefatory foretaste of the rudiments of
discourse analysis (henceforth, DA) by discussing its fundamental
principles as an interdisciplinary field. As language users, which we
all are, our focus is not often on the structural components of
language but on their functions and how they are used in different
discourse contexts. Therefore, as we attempt to comprehend our
individual experiences, others’ experiences and the world at large in
our everyday lives, we are (sub)consciously engaged in the intricate
process of analysing discourse. The chapter thus seeks to inform
scholars across disciplines that we are all engaged in the enterprise of
analysing discourse; and also expose students, especially those in the
humanities, to the basic skills they need to acquire to become
competent discourse analysts.
DA is a multidisciplinary field of practice that cuts across diverse
language-related disciplines. Its applications extend beyond
linguistic representation to the description of actual language usage
in cognitive, situational and cultural contexts (Drid, 2010; van Dijk,
1985; Yule, 1996). By implication, the analysis of any given piece of
discourse must encompass both linguistic and contextual
descriptions. The relative novelty of DA thus lies in its encapsulation
of formal and functional parameters of traditional and modern
grammatical models, respectively. This has undoubtedly engendered
its expansiveness and multifariousness in academia, with scholars
unceasingly exploring its breath, depth and applications across
disciplines.
However, most of the publications on DA are not student-
centred. It has, therefore, become necessary to further expand its
literature in order to enhance students’ understanding of its
theoretical perspectives and cross-disciplinary applications. In view
of this, some conceptual notions underlying DA are presented in this
chapter with a view to laying the groundwork for subsequent
chapters.
2. Definition of Discourse
In an effort to reconstitute the knowledge of language, the ultimate
status accorded the sentence level in the traditional grammatical
description is gradually being rescinded for a broader model that
focuses on stretches of utterances that transcend the sentential rank.
As a result, discourse now occupies the apex of linguistic description
in the last decades as it binds language with its contextual usage
(Chafe, 1994; Drid, 2010). The term “discourse” can be etymologically
traced to the Latin word “discursus” which denotatively means a
“conversation” or a “speech” (Drid, 2010, p. 20). Discourse can
therefore be defined as a unit of expression in verbal or written
mode. Cameron (2001) asserts that discourse can be better defined as
“language in use: language used to do something and mean
something, language produced and interpreted in a real-world
context” (p. 13). This definition summarises the fact that a single
word or a phrase (lower units in the hierarchy of language
description) such as “LADIES” or “LADIES ONLY” usually
inscribed on the doors of public toilets is also a form of discourse;
and even a single letter such as “P” used in Britain to signal a
parking space also depicts discourse (Widdowson, 1995 as cited in
Cameron, 2001, p. 12). To Cameron therefore, discourse is not just
language above and beyond the sentence, it is language in use.
This reinforces the intrinsic notion that discourse is language and
language is discourse. Drid (2010) also buttresses this view by
saying that “discourse conveys a number of significations for a
variety of purposes, but in all cases it relates to language, and it
describes it in some way” (p. 20). Thus, any form of expression
conveyed through linguistic or extra-linguistic means can generally
be classified as discourse. Although at times, discourse is restricted
to utterances or verbal exchanges between two or more interlocutors
(see Schriffrin, 1994), however, its wider structure covers intra-
linguistic and extra-linguistic domains. Therefore, all contextualised
lower levels of language description such as single letters, words,

phrases, clauses, and sentences; all wider textual units like
conversations and speeches; government documents and media
productions (e.g. news broadcasts, news reports, interviews, feature
articles, opinion columns, editorials, periodicals, advertisements,
etc.); literary works (e.g. novels, poems, plays and short stories); all
manners of paralanguage (e.g. body positions, gestures, facial
expressions, dress codes, voice quality, etc.); semiotic modes; and
Internet posts or exchanges with all their linguistic peculiarities, and
more, fall within the purview of discourse (see Harris, 1952; Suciu,
2019; Tincheva, 2015; van Dijk, 1985). All these form the language
materials or data for DA.
As explicated above, discourse is contextualised language and it
forms the bedrock of how human beings make sense of their world,
define their individualities and engage in meaningful relationship
with others. These and more distinguish discourse from text, its
parasynonym.
2.1 Discourse versus Text

Differentiating between the two terms – discourse and text – has
always been a herculean task in DA. While scholars like De
Beaugrande and Dressler (1981) and Halliday (1985) dominantly use
text in their studies, others like Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) and
Schiffrin (2006) use discourse exclusively. Preferences of this nature
have engendered curiosity among scholars on the divergence
between text and discourse in linguistic studies. Scholars (e.g.
Longacre, 1983; Stubbs, 1983) postulate that preferences for the use of
either of the two terms are regional in that some American scholars
are favourably disposed to using discourse to refer to their language
data while some European scholars choose text. Also, Mammadov
(2018) avers that “in the past decades, discourse was predominantly
used by English-speaking linguistic tradition and text by ‘German-
speaking and other continental linguistic traditions’ to capture
language units above the sentence level” (p. x). Scholars who share
the above viewpoint hold the belief that text linguistics and
discourse analysis have the same structural and analytical leanings
(Longacre, 1983; Tincheva, 2015).
However, many other scholars uphold the text/discourse
dichotomy. In Sanders and Spooren’s (2012) study on discourse and
text structure, the term discourse is used to refer generally and
exclusively to both spoken and written language while text is
restricted to phenomena associated with written language. They see
discourse as an omnibus term that refers to all the units of syntactic
analysis and how they relate to meaning in context. Discourse, to
them, is therefore formal, functional and cognitive (Sanders &
Spooren, 2012). By implication, text is a fragmental embedded piece
of discourse while discourse is an expanded stretch of text. This view
is also upheld by Enkvist (1989, p. 372 as cited in Mammadov, 2018,
p. 3) that discourse is basically realised through the integration of
text and context; that is, “discourse means text + context, where
context contains a situational component”. Discourse is thus an
omnibus box that houses text and all the other lower levels in the
hierarchy of grammatical units and connects them to their situational
contexts. It transcends the linguistic lines to more varied non-
linguistic domains (Alba-Juez, 2009). That is why van Dijk (1985)
broadly sees discourse as “a form of social interaction” (p. 3), and not
just another routinely used unit of language description. Hence,
discourse comprehension goes far beyond the syntactic system of
grammatical structures: it entails cognitive (intention), social and
cultural contexts.
Consequently, text should not be equated with discourse; it
should rather be seen as a part of the principal unit of discourse. The
broad or expanded intrinsic nature of discourse makes its scope far
more complex than text. This is reflected in Schriffrin’s (2006)
submission that the expanse of discourse
… stretches beyond language and its immediate context of

use to include what Gee (1999: 17) has called “Discourse”
(with a capital D): “socially accepted associations among

ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting and
interacting, in the ‘right’ places and at the ‘right’ times with
the ‘right’ objects.” This conception of Discourse reaches way
above the sentence and even further beyond the contexts of
speech act, speech event, and speech situations. It makes
explicit that our communicative competence – our knowledge
of how to use language in everyday life – is an integral part of
our culture (p. 199).
2.2 Types of Discourse

Basically, discourse can be spoken or written; and both types have
notable distinctive functional processes (Schiffrin, 2006). Spoken
discourse is usually achieved through the processes of
 verbalisation (expressing ideas/thoughts/feelings using linguistic

with extra-linguistic means);
 exchange (organising and managing sequences of conversation
between two or more interlocutors via the conversational
techniques of turn-taking, insertion sequence, overlapping,
sentence-fillers, repair mechanism, etc.);
 participation (organising and maintaining relational roles
between the speaker(s) and the listener(s)); and
 negotiation of meaning (role-playing agreement and/or
disagreement among interlocutors).
These embedded processes of speech make its properties

spontaneous, fragmental, error-prone, repairable, and mostly
unsystematic in structure, while making it expressive, role-
alternating, participatory, and negotiatory in function.
Significantly, all the aforementioned speech processes do not feature
in written discourse. Writing entails the following processes:
 the textual process (representing ideas/thoughts/
information/feelings using graphic conventions);
 the regulatory process (organising textual practices in conformity

with the rules of correctness and appropriateness of speech
events/situations);
 the integrative process (arranging different ideas into a unified
whole);
 the systematic process (organising textual units in a planned and
logical manner);
 the participatory process (organising texts by anticipating the
relational roles between the writer and the targeted reader or
audience although this appears slightly different from that of
speech);
 the review process (reassessing texts in order to make corrections
where necessary), and
 the referential process (shaping and maintaining texts for future
references).
Likewise, the above processes of writing make its characteristic

properties textual, pre-planned, regulatory, organised, painstaking,
rule-governed, and mostly integrative and systematic in structure
and function. It can be deduced therefore that most times, language
users do not write exactly the way and manner in which they speak
(Schiffrin, 2006).
However, discourse can be produced using both speech and
writing modes simultaneously. Speech delivery also known as public
speaking, for instance, involves a planned and laborious procedure
of preparing short notes or a manuscript to be delivered orally word-
for-word or extemporaneously to a target audience (Nikitina, 2011).
By implication, written and spoken discourse types are commonly
integrated in the working frameworks of such speech events. Also,
classroom discourses, interviews, news reporting, etc. are all speech
situations that usually warrant written and spoken discursive
integration.
In addition, discourse types have been denotatively delineated
thematically. Hence, discourses can now be classified into sub-
categories such as political discourse, media discourse, gender

discourse, educational/academic discourse, ethnic discourse, cultural
discourse, religious discourse, internet discourse, etc. (Carter, 1993).
These sub-categories of discourse are what Tincheva, (2015) refers to
as “types of communicative spheres and practices” (p. 24) that are
situationally contextualised based on their thematic focus or
perspective. These sub-categories of discourse are usually informed
by discourse themes. This is better illustrated in the excerpt below:
Example 1:
Four years ago, we promised Nigerians real change – in
what we do and how we do it …We have worked hard to
fulfil our promises – and while the road may have been
difficult, over the last three and a half years, we have laid the
foundations for a strong and prosperous country for the
majority of our people…
Judging by the prior depth of decay, deterioration and
disrepair that Nigeria had sunken into, we are certain that
these past few years have put us in good stead to trudge on
the Next Level of building an even stronger nation for our
people … (https://www.pulse.ng/news/politics/read-full-text-of-
president-buharis-speech-as-apc-kicks-off-next-level-cam)
The above excerpt will be categorised as a political discourse in that

its thematic focus is on the Nigerian politics. A close reading of the
excerpt reveals that the two italicised campaign phrasal slogans
(Change and Next Level) foreground the agenda of continuity of the
ruling political party in Nigeria, the All Progressives Congress
(APC). The APC is depicted in the excerpt through the repetitive use
of the inclusive we (a linguistic marker/signifier), the two italicised
campaign phrasal slogans (Change and Next Level) as well as the
situational context of the discourse (2019 Presidential Campaign).
Consequently, the excerpt thematically spotlights the Change and
Next Level mantras of the APC in the 2019 Presidential election
campaign process in Nigeria.

A piece of discourse can spotlight just a single theme as seen in
example 1. However, discourse can also be a portmanteau of two or
more themes resulting in what is known as interdiscursivity.
Discourse is interdiscursive when aspects of two or more discourse
types are interwoven in a socially situated text or talk. For instance, if
aspects of political and economic discourses are conflated in a piece
of discourse, a discourse analyst will have to analyse the discourse
interdiscursively by looking out for all the features of the two
discourse types to arrive at a meaningful interpretation. A blend of
two themes in discourse is illustrated in excerpt 2:
Example 2:
… Augustina moved back to her father’s house and
started attending primary school … Six years later, the same
village experts said it was foolish for her father to consider
sending a female child to secondary school. It was a waste of
time; women did not need to know too much ‘book’.
Reverend Sister Xavier was outraged and came all the way to
talk it out with Augustina’s father…
‘I hear you’re not allowing Ozoemena to attend secondary
school…’
‘I want her to learn how to cook and take care of a home,’
Augustina’s father replied. ‘She has gone to primary school.
She can read and write. That is enough.’
The white woman smiled and shook her head.
‘I’m sorry to disagree with you, but I don’t think it’s
enough…’
‘All over the world,’ she continued, women are achieving
great things. Some are doctors who treat all types of diseases,
others have big positions with the government. You might be
surprised to hear this, but in some countries, the person who
rules over them is a woman.’
(Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, 2009, I Do Not Come to you by

Chance, pp. 6 & 7).
A careful reading of example 2 spotlights two underlying discourse

types: gender discourse and educational discourse. The linguistic
context of the above excerpt interlocks two underlying themes,
which are: bias against Western education for female children in the
traditional Nigerian society; and the overall gender disparity
pervading the Nigerian socio-cultural clime as opposed to the
Western world. The situational context of the discourse is portrayed
via the bold effort of Reverend Sister Xavier, a white woman, to
canvass for Western education for Ozoemena (an African girl-child).
Her canvass shows the contrast between the Western and the African
cultural values. The contrast foregrounds the pervasiveness of
gender discrimination in Africa and also pushes for girl-child
education.
Multiple discourse types such as religious/financial/
educational/economic discourses; political/ethnic/religious/gender
discourses, etc., can also be merged into a single discourse piece. This
thematic interlocking thus portrays the multifaceted nature of
discourse.
2.3 Why Do We Analyse Discourse?

The above question is tantamount to asking: ‘Why do we need to
interpret or make sense of what we see, hear and read in our daily
interactions and activities?’ Every time we try to figure out and
interpret meaningfully what we see, hear and read, we are involved
in the analysis of discourse. The meaningful cohabitation of human
beings depends much heavily on their abilities to apprehend one
another’s linguistic and para-linguistic codes intelligibly. Linguists
mostly focus on language-based rules which are categorised in
“phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic components”
as well as their regularities in interpreting utterances (Bamisaye,
2007, p. 1). However, an ungrammatical utterance may be intelligible

while a grammatical one may be unintelligible as illustrated in
examples 3 and 4, respectively:
Example 3: She is not have phone.
Example 4: Ojo called me last night. He ran towards Kemi.

She has travelled to Lagos.
Although example 3 is anomalous, it is however intelligible. Our
worldview (contextual knowledge) enables us to make sense of the
writer’s pragmatic intention. Cognitively, we can seamlessly
reconstruct the utterance to mean ‘She does not have a phone’; that
is, the subject of the sentence represented by ‘she’ does not possess a
mobile phone. However, in spite of the grammatical fidelity of
example 4, it is unintelligible. The recipient(s) of the message will
face some interpretation difficulty because the connectedness of the
three sentences is weak; hence, to arrive at an interpretation that
aligns with any real worldview or experience becomes burdensome.
This indicates that in interpreting discourse, language users
apply not only grammatical rules, but they also intrinsically use
“discourse rules” (Drid, 2010, p. 22). By extension, the success of
human interactions, conversations or endeavours largely depends on
the discourse analytical power or skill of the participants involved.
Herein lies the main thrust of DA which marks its great significance
in scholarly inquiry. The need to understand how language users
make sense of what others say as well as things meant but unsaid
then becomes germane. Everybody is involved in this enterprise of
analysing discourse inasmuch as we are (sub)consciously translating
intelligibly the ubiquitous (in)coherent terms, sounds, codes, signs,
experiences and mysteries surrounding us.
Interpreting discourse is, therefore, the bedrock of a society and
the live wire behind the interpretation and transmission of cultures,
knowledge, beliefs, values, information, ideas, etc. Analysing
discourse takes language description back to its root, “the context of
human interactions” (Alba-Juez, 2009, p. 12). Schiffrin (2006)

captures this concisely by asserting that discourse enables people to:
(a) represent the world
(b) convey communicative intentions
(c) organise thoughts into communicative actions
(d) arrange information so it is accessible to others
(e) engage in actions and interactions with one another
(f) convey their identities and relationships (p. 169).
As long as human beings survive on language in their cohabitation,

then apprehending its use in every context can never be
underestimated. The recognition of discourse as the highest unit in
the hierarchical structural components of language has absolutely
necessitated the need for its analysis.
3. Discourse Analysis as a Discipline

DA, otherwise known as “discourse studies”, refers to all approaches
to discourse construction and deconstruction; discourse production
and interpretation (Renkema, 2009, p. 2). It covers all modes of
analysing “language in use”, situationally contextualised language
production and interpretation (Cameron, 2001, p. 13). van Dijk (1985,
p. 10) asserts that it “involves all the levels and methods of analysis
of language, cognition, interaction, society, and culture” while
Schriffrin (2006, p. 170) sees it as the “branch of linguistics that
focuses on language use above and beyond the sentence.” Mithun
(2015, p. 12) also postulates that all studies on DA focus on
“extended bodies of speech in its communicative context.” Likewise,
Brinton (2015, pp. 222-223) sees it as a broad field that is “concerned
with the level above that of the individual sentence: with
intersentential connections and with global rather than local links.”
Wooffitt (2005) avers that the analysis of discourse focuses on the
language of discourse participants and the discourse contexts and
functions surrounding such uses of language. From all the
aforementioned definitions of DA, it can be asserted that the
discipline focuses on discourse comprehension by trying to

understand contextually situated language use. DA is, thus, an
attempt to portray language as a social entity through the
investigation of speakers’ linguistic performances.
Two basic approaches to language description are germane in
making sense of what DA is. These are the formal approach and the
functional approach (Cameron, 2001; Drid, 2010). For decades,
linguists’ attention was much more on the formal representation of
language units such as morpheme, word, group, clause and
sentence, with the sentence positioned at the apex of the ladder. This
age-old formal tradition has circumvented the import of the broader
contextual aspect of language description (van Dijk, 2009). DA
therefore serves as the nexus between the formal and the functional
approaches in linguistic analysis. How is this done?
By exploring language units greater than the sentence, “discourse
analysts go ‘above’ the sentence” (Schriffrin, 2006, p. 170). This
represents the notion that discourse is now the highest rank in the
basic hierarchy of grammatical units; a notion that still retains the
“formal or structural trend” in traditional linguistic description
(Drid, 2010, p. 21). For clarity purpose, the units are ordered in
ascending order from the lowest to the highest (with morpheme as
the lowest rank and discourse the highest) in the outline below:
 Discourse
 Sentence
 Clause
 Phrase/Group
 Word
 Morpheme
Furthermore, by describing the situational contexts of the world in

which language is used, “discourse analysts go ‘beyond’ the
sentence” to embracing its functional conceptual framework
(Schriffrin, 2006, p. 170). Therefore, a fuller definition of discourse
analysis will capture, “all forms of analysing language in use”
(Cameron, 2001, p. 13). Broadly, DA covers any attempt to make

sense of language in context.
This explains the whole essence of DA as a scholarly inquiry into
“real forms of language use” (van Dijk, 1985, p. 1). Some discourse
analysts see language as a tool and therefore focus on the
components of the tool, while others, rather than focusing on the
components of the tool, are interested in how the tools are used to
perform specific intended functions. Cameron (2001) summarises
this by saying that “some analysts are basically interested in
describing the complex properties of ‘socially situated language-use’
while others analyse discourse data as a means to understanding
other aspects of the lives of the users” (p. 7). Hence, analysing
discourse can be done as an end in itself or as a means to some end.
Most discourse analysts, however, are much more concerned
with the function of utterances in actual speech events than their
grammaticality or correctness, bearing in mind that a speaker’s
linguistic competence may not be the actual representation of his/her
communicative performance. Hence, we can conclude by saying that
DA is keenly interested in language users’ communicative
performance which arises from their “tacit cultural knowledge about
how to use language in different speech situations, how to interact
with different people engaged together in different speech events,
and how to use language to perform different acts” (Schriffrin, 2006,
p. 173).
Discourse analysts therefore focus on the linguistic and extra-
linguistic acts, performances or behaviours of language users in their
everyday lives. They seek to extract discourse meaning by analysing
actual samples of stretches of utterances in social contexts regardless
of the grammaticality or otherwise of such samples. This also sums
up our earlier postulation that everybody is consciously or
subconsciously engaged in the analysis of discourse in our everyday
interactions. The ubiquity of discourse thus makes its analysis a
multidisciplinary task that draws insights from diverse disciplines
and different linguistic models.
4. Domains of Discourse Analysis

DA is affiliated with diverse disciplines in which language study in
relation to its contextual properties is relevant. The difficulty in
extricating language use from most disciplines underpins the
interdisciplinarity of DA (Drid, 2010). The linguistic, cognitive and
discourse processes of DA are drawn from theoretical paradigms
that are rooted in fields such as linguistics, philosophy, sociology,
sociolinguistics, ethnography of communication, anthropology,
psychoanalysis, stylistics, foreign and second language teaching,
translation studies, artificial intelligence, cultural studies, media
studies, etc. The heterogeneity of DA is thus informed by its blend of
theoretical approaches from all these disciplines based on the
perspective from which language is constructed (Drid, 2010; Suciu,
2019). Hence, DA can be defined as a hybrid-discipline that
synthesises approaches from other language-related disciplines
(Mammadov, 2018).
Based on the areas of interest of discourse-based scholars (e.g.
Schriffrin, 1994, 2006; van Dijk, 1985), DA encapsulates diverse
approaches, which could be labelled as its sub-fields. Although it is
practically impossible in this book to cover all the broad range of
approaches to DA, conscientious attempts will still be made to
discuss some basic aspects. In view of this, a preliminary outline of
some of its sub-fields and their proponents are presented below:
i) Speech Act Theory: This approach is akin to pragmatics, and it

focuses on the acts language users perform through words by
examining language in context (see Mey, 2001; Searle, 1969).
ii) Interactional Sociolinguistics: This seeks “replicable”
qualitative methods to understand man’s seamless ability to
interpret language use in real life daily communicative
practices (see Gumperz, 2015, p. 309).
iii) Content Analysis: This is a quantitative approach to studying
contents of communication with respect to intentions,
meanings and contexts; and it is usually applied to large

corpora (Prasad, 2008).
iv) Conversation Analysis: This focuses on the orderly or
sequential organisation of conversations between two or more
interlocutors. It analyses interactional phenomena such as turn-
taking, overlapping, interruptions, insertion sequence, sentence
fillers, error and repair mechanisms, etc. (see Grice, 1975; Sacks,
Schegloff & Jefferson, 1974).
v) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA): Studies the way dominance
and inequality are (re)produced, legitimised and resisted via
text and talk (see Fairclough, 1995; van Dijk, 2015).
vi) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA): This is an
approach that criticises discursive strategies in texts and talks
with a view to understanding “the complex and subtle ways in
which taken-for-granted social assumptions and hegemonic
power relations are discursively produced, perpetuated,
negotiated and challenged” (Lazar, 2005, pp. 1-2).
vii) Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA): This studies the
meaning potentials and informational values of multimodal
texts and/or semiotic modes (see Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006;
Machin, 2004; van Leeuwen, 2005).
viii) Computer-mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA): Adopts or
adapts approaches in DA to deconstructing the use of language
in the electronic environment (see Herring, 2001; Herring &
Androutsopoulos, 2015).
ix) Literary Discourse Analysis: This is an approach that deploys
discourse analytic approaches in analysing literature or literary
texts (see Maingueneau, 2010).
x) Historical Discourse Analysis: This is a diachronic approach in
DA that explores a specific period in the historical development
of a language (see Brinton, 2015; Enkvist & Warvik, 1987)
xi) Stylistics: Studies occurrences of variations in language use
within specific contexts of communication (see Eckert &
Rickford, 2001).
It must be noted however that in spite of the peculiarities of all

these approaches to analysing discourse, they still share some
common grounds as outlined below:
a) they are all interested in analysing language above and beyond

the sentence level;
b) their analytical focus spotlights naturally occurring language
use;
c) they also focus on cognitive, social and cultural contexts of
communicative events;
d) their theoretical procedures are scientific in nature; and
therefore structural, functional and systematic.
5. Some Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis

It is pertinent at this juncture to examine some basic concepts which
are crucial to our understanding of DA. These concepts are context,
discourse participants, coherence, cohesion, inferences, implicatures
and presuppositions. Each of these concepts is examined in turns
below.
5.1 Context
The fundamental notion in DA is context. Discourse analysts study
language based on the contexts in which it is situated. According to
van Dijk (1998), context is “the structured set of all properties of a
social situation that are possibly relevant for the production,
structures, interpretation and functions of text and talk” (p. 11). It
encapsulates all the linguistic and extra-linguistic bits of information
needed to adequately understand any communicative event or
action. Context could be linguistic or situational. Linguistic context,
otherwise known as ‘co-text’, refers to the linguistic environment of a
stretch of utterance and the logical connectedness of all its individual
linguistic units (Drid, 2010, p. 22). It is linguistic because it refers to
all the lexical items in a given piece of discourse and their
connectedness as a unified whole. Linguistic context takes into
account the intrinsic or immediate, word by word structure of a

sequence of sentences in determining its meaning. A discourse
analyst must therefore rely on the linguistic elements (lexical items)
in a piece of discourse and how they hang together textually for
interpretation.
Suffice it to say that linguistic context is inadequate for discourse
interpretation; discourse analysts also rely on a broader socio-
cultural context of language use, known as situational context. The
situational context entails the worldview subsumed in the discourse
which most times determines the linguistic choices of the language
users. Situational context consists of the wider extrinsic
circumstances surrounding actual use of language; such
circumstances comprise the topic of the discourse, time of the
discourse event, the setting, the discourse participants and the
relations between them, the cultures, beliefs and social systems of
communities, and socially shared ideologies of groups, etc. All these
contextualisation cues can further aid discourse interpretation asides
the verbal ones. Hence, the task of a discourse analyst is to “unveil
the patterning of the situational context and to state its relationship
to the patterning of discourse itself” (Drid, 2010, p. 23). An
illustration may be necessary at this juncture to explain the above
points:
Example 5: That lady is a pig. I cannot eat with her.

The linguistic contextual cues of the above discourse will not suffice
for a robust interpretation. A successful interpretation of the
discourse will relate the linguistic elements with the underlying
worldview of the discourse. For instance, in the Nigerian socio-
cultural context, pigs are categorised as dirty animals. Hence, the
attempt to depict the lady as a pig is metaphorical; it shows she is
dirty. Any interpretation attempts that decontextualise the discourse
by failing to situate it in its appropriate context will not arrive at the
speaker’s intended meaning.
Scholars like Sperber and Wilson (1995) and van Dijk (1998) have
also added cognition to the conceptual framework of context by

coming up with the notion of cognitive context, which focuses on the
socio-cognitive structure of discourse. Cognition refers to the mental
processes of production and interpretation of thoughts, knowledge,
beliefs, attitudes and ideologies shared by members of a group.
Hence, cognitive context is “a set of contextual assumptions that are
stored in the brain of human beings” (Shen, 2012, p. 2666). The
cognitive structure of discourse usually reflects the knowledge and
belief base of the discourse producer and it is also shaped to
influence or manipulate the discourse recipients. In view of this,
cognitive context is fundamental in DA because it explores how
mental processes affect discourse production and interpretation and
group ideology formation (Chiluwa, 2012).
In sum, DA investigates the formal (linguistic context) and
functional properties (situational context) of stretches of utterances
as well as their cognitive structures (cognitive context).
5.2 Discourse Participants

Discourse participants are persons or nonpersons, visible or
invisible, that are directly or indirectly involved in any
communicative event. They include the speaker(s), writer(s) or
signifier(s) as well as the listener(s), addressee(s) or reader(s). In
speech, the speaker and the listener or a target audience, immediate
or remote, constitute the discourse participants, while in writing, the
writer and the reader(s) form the discourse participants. Speakers
and writers form the discourse producers who could be an
individual, a group or an institution, while listeners and readers
form the discourse consumers who could be a single entity, more
than one, or a group.
There are both linguistic and non-linguistic cues to identifying
participants in discourse which discourse analysts usually look for in
their task. Some pieces of discourse expressly state the names of the
discourse producer(s) and consumer(s) via the use of proper nouns,
noun phrases or person deixis that refer to people or objects as seen
in most literary texts, news reports, dialogic texts, etc. However, in

some other discourses, relevant contextual cues such as the nature of
the communicative events, the discourse type as well as its social
setting usually intersect with linguistic units (mostly names, titles,
inclusive or exclusive person deixis like she, it, we, I, her, him, us,
them, their, etc.) to broadly determine discourse participants (Wise,
1971).
Discourse participants are simply the persons, people, group or
objects involved in discourse as well as the readers or listeners; and
the relationship between discourse participants determine the nature
of the discourse. Therefore, adequate knowledge on the role,
identity, status, background, inter-relation, affiliation, shared
knowledge, belief, value etc. of discourse participants usually aid
discourse construction and interpretation. For instance, in a teaching
session (a classroom discourse), the discourse participants will be the
teacher and the student(s), who are expected to act with formality.
Also, an interview session where the interviewer and the interviewee
make up the discourse participants, will as well be formal. On the
other hand, a conversation among a group of jolly friends (the
discourse participants) will expectedly be informal. Hence,
discourse participants are integral in discourse interpretation.
5.3 Cohesion and Coherence

Discourse is a collection of sentences that dovetail into one another to
form a semantically coherent piece. Therefore, the terms cohesion
and coherence can be applied in discourse analysis to the logical and
sequential arrangement of structural components in the discourse to
form a unified whole. Cohesion in discourse, therefore, refers to the
interrelatedness between linguistic items to make expressions logical
and meaningful. Specifically, cohesion in discourse refers to an
awareness of the part played by the following devices in discourse
analysis and discourse interpretation:
 Lexical cohesive devices: These border on the four lexical word
classes, namely: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. This term
captures the appropriate use of transitional words (however,

furthermore, firstly, etc.), repetitive, synonymous and antonymous
words, and general compliance to conventions relating to gender
compliance, human/animate/inanimate choice of nouns/verbs,
and more in discourse.
 Grammatical cohesive devices: These are concerned with the use
and functions of significant grammatical features in discourse.
Such prominent grammatical features include grammatical uses
of pronouns, articles and conjunctions, tense and aspect choices,
mood and modality, etc.
The underlined items in the extract below contain instances of
lexical and grammatical cohesive devices:
Example 6:
Shade got home so late last night feeling very tired, so she
went straight to bed without having her supper. On getting
up at about 2:00 a.m., she felt the pang of hunger so terribly
that she rushed to the kitchen to get some food. Right there
on top of the fridge was her food flask, ‘thank you so much
mum’, she quietly muttered to herself. She quickly grabbed it
and hurriedly consumed the warm rice and stew her mother
had kept for her before leaving for her night-shift. After
eating, she took her drugs as prescribed by her mother.
Lexical Cohesion can be identified or analysed by examining the

interrelatedness of lexical words, viz.: nouns, verbs, adverbs and
adjectives in the extract. Consequently, lexical relations such as
repetition, collocation, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and more
are usually significant for meaning in discourse. For lexical cohesion
to take place in discourse, lexico-semantic features like gender,
human, animate, inanimate, countable, uncountable, etc. must of
necessity affect other lexical choices in the discourse. Repetitive and
deviant usages, for instance, often signal special meaning in
discourse.
In Example 6 above, nouns such as hunger, supper, food, kitchen,

food flask, rice and stew all belong to the same lexical set, while the
noun, drug, and the verb, prescribed, belong to another. Likewise,
the adverbs late, home, night, and bed, all point to circumstances in
the home setting; tired, rushed, muttered, grabbed, consumed,
eating, and took are all human-animate verbs pointing to actions by
Shade. The choice of mum by Shade, instead of its synonym mother,
shows the level of affection between Shade and her mother.
Grammatical cohesion features in the discourse through the

deployment of pronouns that are used to refer to the same persons
and things. For instance, she, her and herself maintain reference to
Shade, it refers to Shade’s food flask, while her is used to refer to
Shade’s mother. These repetitive references portray lexical
connectives achieved via anaphora. Anaphora are words or
expressions used to refer (back) to words or phrases earlier
mentioned in a sequence of sentences for the purpose of repetition,
emphasis or clarity.
Other general connective indicators could be observed in the
example as each sentence logically dovetails into the next thereby
sharing a common sense of meaning coupled with unifying verb
tenses in the past tense. There is a sequential organisation of the
actions/events in the example as relations are established between
one action and what follows or precedes it. For instance, Shade’s
tiredness presupposes her retirement to bed without having supper,
which also suggests the compelling need for her to wake up early in
search of food in the kitchen; and her compelling desire for food also
presupposes her hasty consumption of the food. A careful reading of
the discourse fragment shows that all the actions in the sentences are
logically connected; hence, it can be concluded that this piece of
discourse is cohesive.
Coherence: It must be noted that a piece of discourse could be

cohesive without being coherent. While cohesion is the inter-
sentential relations and connections in discourse, coherence captures

the worldview in which a piece of discourse is located (Drid, 2010).
Language users produce and interpret utterances based on the
totality of their experiences and beliefs about realities. Therefore,
coherence depicts those world realities that people can relate with
and infer from in their task of interpreting real-life daily uses of
language. Such world realities are culture-specific and they
determine how things are perceived by people in different cultures.
For instance, in spite of the grammatical correctness and
cohesiveness of the sentence in example 7, it might be
incomprehensible to a European who is unfamiliar with the Yoruba
food culture.
Example 7: Tolu, kindly pass the bowl of pounded yam to me.

This is because pounded yam dish is not native to Europeans. In view
of this, coherence is contextual because it is determined by the social
factors controlling the discourse construction. Thus, how well
connected the linguistic elements in discourse are (cohesion) and
how logical its contextual cues (coherence) are largely aid discourse
interpretation. This shows that cohesion and coherence are not
synonymous despite their seeming affinity. This is further illustrated
with example 8 below:
Example 8:
Shade got home late last night. She is driving a white car. It
was sold last month. Last month was her birthday. And her
birthday will be marked.
Although the above example has appropriate cohesive devices

exemplified by the pronouns she, her and it referring to Shade and
white car, respectively, and the use of the conjunction and that
introduces the last sentence, the connectedness fails to depict the
overall sense of meaning in the discourse. It can, therefore, be
deduced that though the sentence is cohesive, it lacks coherence.
Examples 6, 7 and 8, above, illustrate that discourse is marked by the

unification of all its separate linguistic parts with specific elements of
worldview, and this unification is largely achieved by cohesion and
coherence.
Cohesion ties together meaningfully all the distinct parts (co-
texts) of discourse; however, coherence is more expansive in that it is
extra-linguistic in structure and contextual in function.
Readers/listeners do not just interpret discourse based on its
linguistic environment, they also do so based on their personal
experiences and worldviews (see Halliday & Hasan, 1976). This
enables them to interpret discourses even when the speaker’s
intended meaning is left implicit (unexpressed or hidden). In
example 6, for instance, a reader’s worldview could draw out the
following inferences from the narrative:
a) Shade’ mother is likely to be a nurse, doctor or pharmacist;
b) Her mother is a caring person; and
c) Shade probably has a health issue.
Although all the above inferences are not expressly stated in the
example, they can be deduced from the contextual clues surrounding
the linguistic environment of the discourse.
Functionally, cohesion is linguistic while coherence is contextual.
Therefore, discourse is not just linguistic, it is also contextual, and so
is its interpretation. To buttress this further, consider the following
example:
Example 9:
Sola: Will you follow me to the cinema house tomorrow?
Kemi: I am going to the market.
Sola: Oh! Ok.
Example 9 above lacks outright cohesion as all the separate parts of

the conversation are fragmented and thus disjointed; however, there
is no interpretation impediment as each participant conveniently
makes sense of the utterance of the other. Kemi’s response, which

should have been expressed in a simple yes or no polar structure,
comes out indirectly. Thus, by saying she is going to the market, she
implies a negative response to Sola’s request; a response well
understood (inferred) by Sola. This shows that discourse analysts are
expected to use their knowledge of cohesion and coherence to make
sense of language use and arrive at logical and systematic discourse
analysis. By implication, language users do not just depend on
linguistic information in their day-to-day conversational interactions,
they rely much more on discourse-contextual clues, either implicitly
or expressly conveyed.
5.4 Inferences and Implicatures

In discourse construction, speakers/writers (discourse producers) do
not always state explicitly what they mean thereby leaving some
information implicit or simply unexpressed. The onus therefore lies
on the discourse consumers to generate meaning unexpressed but
implied in the discourse. The act or process of drawing implied
meaning from discourse with the sole aim of arriving at the
speaker’s/writer’s intended meaning is known as inference.
According to Norvig (1987), an inference is “any assertion which the
reader (or listener) comes to believe to be true as a result of reading
(or listening to) the text, but which was not previously believed by
the reader (or listener), and was not stated explicitly in the text” (p.
561). Haugh (2012) sees it as “the cognitive processes by which
participants figure out meaning beyond what is said” (p. 1).
Discourse analysts are always going the extra mile to understand
language data by drawing from their personal knowledge base in
combination with their linguistic knowledge to arrive at an accurate
and a fuller interpretation. This is why the task of analysing
discourse is not superficial, but deep and complex because making
inferences enables analysts to engage in a thorough understanding of
discourse. Inference making is thus a basic skill needed in analysing
discourse (Zweirs, 2005). As an illustration, consider example 10:
Example 10:
Many lives have been lost to the pandemic and the infection
rate is still not abating. However, many countries are easing
the restrictions in order to reopen their economy.
A reader of this discourse should be able to draw the following

inferences:
a) there is a pandemic outbreak affecting a large number of
countries;
b) the pandemic is infectious and the infection is still spreading;
c) restrictive measures have been imposed to prevent the spread
of the infection;
d) the adverse effect of the restrictions on the economy of the
affected countries is therefore necessitating the need to ease the
measures.
The inferences drawn above have some properties: 1) they are not
directly expressed in the discourse; 2) they are extracted based on
general knowledge of current global events; and as a result, 3) they
are contextually-situated and relevant. According to Clark (1977, p.
244), these drawn inferences fall under “authorised inferences”
which he distinguished from “unauthorised inferences.”
Authorised inferences refer to implied meanings which the
speaker/writer would want the listener/reader to draw from a
discourse; such meanings are integral parts of the actual intention of
the discourse producer. As an example, consider the sentence in
example 11:
Example 11: That lady is my fiancée.

In the sentence above, the noun phrase, That lady, is being used to
refer to a specific individual and the speaker wants the hearer to
infer who the person is. This type of inference is permitted and can
be classified as an authorised inference. Hence, to draw an accurate
authorised inference in this example, the decoder has to rely on: 1)

the explicit linguistic context of the sentence; 2) its situational
context, that is the circumstances surrounding the production of the
utterance such as the body movement of the speaker or the distance
between the speaker and the referent; and 3) tacit shared knowledge
among the discourse participants about the usage of such referential
noun phrases in discourse. By drawing on all these linguistic and
social factors, the discourse interpreter will be able to decide the
actual lady being referred to in the utterance.
However, if inferences such as:
(1) the lady is unattractive;

(2) but she looks smart and intelligent;
(3) she appears older than her finance;
(4) I don’t think they are compatible.
are further drawn from the sentence, they will fall under
unauthorised inferences because they are inferences the speaker does
not necessarily intend to convey. They arise from the discourse
interpreter’s personal view, knowledge or judgement about what is
being talked about. According to Clark (1977, p. 244), “many
inferences we draw in conversations are unauthorised” because
discourse consumers are always trying to make sense of what they
hear and see in their daily interactions with or without the discourse
producers’ authorisation. This is also why DA is “problem solving”
(Clark, 1977, p. 244); for instance, the inferences drawn from example
11 could likely determine the marriage compatibility of the couple.
An implicature, on the other hand, is a fundamental theoretical
notion in pragmatics traceable to Grice’s (1975) cooperative principle
and conversational maxims. It is “a proposition that is implied by the
utterance of a sentence in a context even though that proposition is
not a part of nor an entailment of what was actually said” (Gazdar,
1979, p. 38). Inferences and implicatures are often used
synonymously because they both capture implied meanings in
discourse; however, both are conceptually distinct. An implicature is

“a form of speaker-intended meaning” in an utterance while an
inference is the mental process by which a hearer draws out meaning
beyond what is explicitly stated in an utterance (Haugh, 2012, p. 3).
This shows that speakers or writers implicate while hearers or
readers infer (Horn, 2004). Implicature is therefore speaker- or
writer-based while inference is hearer- or reader-based and both
hinge on implied meaning in discourse. To illustrate the differences
between the two, consider the following example:
Example 12:
John: The girl wants to see her mother now.
Rice: She has travelled out of the country.
John: I see.
In the above conversation, Rice’s response implies that the girl

cannot see her mother at that moment, which is an implicature
drawn by John through the process of inference. Rice (the speaker)
makes the implicature while John (the hearer) draws the authorised
inference; and both (implicature and inference) have the implied
meaning that the girl cannot see her mother at that moment. Thus,
“while implicatures may be ascertained through inference by
hearers, they are ultimately determined by the speaker’s intentions”
(Haugh, 2012, p. 2).
5.5 Presuppositions
Presuppositions are meaning constructs that provide insights into
the connection between language and context. Presuppositions refer
to “the pieces of information that the speaker assumes (or acts as if
she assumes) in order for her utterance to be meaningful in the
current context” (Potts, 2014, p. 3). They are pieces of information
often taken-for-granted in discourse, and thus left implicit by
speakers/writers thereby leaving hearers/readers to draw them out
through the process of inference. This points to the fact that just like
implicature, presupposition too is speaker-/writer-based left to be

drawn out of discourse by hearers/readers through the process of
inference. To illustrate this, consider the sentence in example 13:
Example 13: After work, Taylor drove home.
This example does not expressly state that Taylor has a job nor a car,
but the sentence presupposes this information, which has been
taken-for-granted and thus unstated by the speaker. To illustrate
further, consider examples 14 and 15:
Example 14:
The lady was delivered of a bouncing baby girl yesterday.
Example 15: The lady had a stillbirth yesterday.
The assertions in examples 14 and 15 share some similar

presuppositions:
(a) a specific lady exists;
(b) the said lady has an intimate partner;
(c) she had sex and got pregnant; and
(d) she carried the pregnancy to full term.
However, while example 14 presupposes a positive outcome (the

birth of a newborn), example 15 has a negative outcome (the delivery
of a dead infant). This shows that an utterance and its negative other
usually share similar presuppositions.
According to Ja’far (2008, p. 8), negation can be used in
determining presuppositions in sentences through the pragmatic
property of “constancy under negation”. This shows that sentences
with opposite meanings will share similar underlying
presuppositions as illustrated in examples 14 and 15. To illustrate
further, consider examples 16 and 17:
Example 16: John’s car is new.

Example 17: John’s car is not new.
These two sentences share the underlying presuppositions that

someone named John exists and he has a car; these presuppositions
remain true (constant) in the two positive and negative assertions,
respectively. Thus, whether the car is old or new, what remain valid
and undebatable are the facts that an individual named John exists
and he has a car; these presuppositions are constant in spite of the
introduction of the negation.
However, another pragmatic property of presupposition known
as “defeasibility” could cancel (in certain contexts) the underlying
presupposition(s) in a pair of positive and negative sentences
through the addition of a word, phrase, clause or a sentence that
provides more contextually-situated information (Levinson, 1997, p.
186 as cited in Ja’far, 2008, p. 9). For instance, if example 17 is
expanded thus:
Example 18:
John’s car is not new because that one you are looking at belongs
to his mother. John cannot afford a car.
The italicised clauses in example 18 provide additional information

to the sentence in example 17; the additional information has thus
cancelled or defeated the previous underlying presupposition (John
has a car) that the sentences in examples 16 and 17 rest on. That
assumption is untrue and therefore no longer valid.
Presuppositions also apply to interrogative, imperative and
exclamatory sentences. For instance, the imperative Get out of my
house now! presupposes that the speaker has a house and an
unwelcomed visitor is in the house at that moment. Also the
question Will she eat again? presupposes that there is a particular
female who had eaten something before. Likewise, the exclamation It
is beautiful! presupposes that there is something and not someone
that is being admired by the speaker.
Potts (2014) delineates between semantic and pragmatic
presuppositions. Semantic presuppositions, attributed to Frege
(1892), operate at the lexical level as parts of “the encoded meanings

of specific words and constructions” (Potts, 2014, p. 4). The pronoun
she in the utterance:
Example 19: She is my friend.
Presupposes that the referent is a female. The presupposition arises
out of the gender semantics of the lexical item she. Therefore, she is
known as a “presupposition trigger” (Potts, 2014, p. 4) or simply a
presupposition linguistic marker.
On the other hand, pragmatic presuppositions are contextual
because they “cannot easily be traced to specific words or phrases,
but rather seem to arise from more general properties of the context
and the expectations of the discourse participants” (Potts, 2014, p. 3).
Therefore, presuppositions b-d drawn in examples 14 and 15 arise
from the general knowledge about the acts of conceiving, and not
necessarily from the meanings of the words in the sentences. In view
of these explanations, both semantic and pragmatic presuppositions
are intertwined because they reflect the interplay between meanings
of individual words in sentences and context.
6. Summary and Concluding Remarks

In this chapter, situationally contextualised language use has been
discussed as the main thrust of DA in which structuralism and
functionalism are integrated. Also, the heterogeneity of DA as a field
that integrates diverse language-focused disciplines has been
expatiated on coupled with some fundamental concepts underlying
the study of DA. This portrays the peculiarity of DA and its
continued relevance in solving language-based problems and
phenomena in our psychological, political, religious, medical, social,
cultural and even interactional systems. It shows that DA is not just
about language, it is also about human existence and the
construction of social realities. With this, DA has attained an
indispensable field of research, not just in linguistics, but in the
humanities and the social sciences.
This chapter, being an introductory one, has hopefully paved the
way for further and more elaborate discussions on the different

approaches in discourse studies as well as their applications in
understanding language uses in communicative and social
interactions.
7. Exercises
7.1 Model Analysis
Question 1: Let us return to Nigeria’s President Buhari’s 2019
campaign speech for a brief sample analysis. Read the excerpt
below and answer the questions after it:
Four years ago, we promised Nigerians real change – in

what we do and how we do it …We have worked hard to
fulfil our promises – and while the road may have been
difficult, over the last three and a half years, we have laid the
foundations for a strong and prosperous country for the
majority of our people…
Judging by the prior depth of decay, deterioration and
disrepair that Nigeria had sunken into, we are certain that
these past few years have put us in good stead to trudge on
the Next Level of building an even stronger nation for our
people…
Nigeria, more than ever before, needs a stable and people-
focused government to move the agenda for our country
forward. Join us on this journey to the Next Level of a
prosperous, strong and stable Nigeria. Nigerians, we are all
going higher!
(https://www.pulse.ng/news/politics/read-full-text-of-president-
buharis-speech-as-apc-kicks-off-next-level-cam)
(a) Identify the discourse type and explain its purpose.

(b) Identify and discuss the participant(s) in the discourse.
(c) Elicit from the excerpt significant lexical and grammatical

features that demonstrate cohesion and explain how they
contribute to your assessment of the discourse.
Answer Guide to Question 1

(i) Discourse Type
The excerpt is an example of political discourse, or more specifically,
political campaign discourse. It is an address by an incumbent
president to the electorate. The President uses the speech to (a)
acclaim the strength of his administration; (b) appreciate Nigerians
for their confidence and patience; (c) affirm the need for the
continuity of the ruling party; and (d) solicit a reelection of his party
for a second term.
(ii) Discourse Participants

By using the inclusive first person plural pronoun we repetitively in
the excerpt, the President demonstrates that he is speaking on behalf
of a group, presumably his party. Therefore, the discourse producer
is a group represented by the President. Also, the collective noun,
Nigerians, in the excerpt shows that the Nigerian electorate, whose
votes are being canvassed for, make up the discourse consumer.
Hence, both the discourse producer and consumer are not
individuals, but groups of individuals.
(iiia) Lexical Cohesive Features

(a) Repetition
Cohesive links in the excerpt take the form of lexical connections
present in the repetitive use of pronouns which make anaphoric
reference to similar people. For instance, the repetitive use of the
inclusive first person plural pronoun we demonstrates that President
Buhari is speaking on behalf of an institution. Hence, the discourse
producer is presumably not an individual, but a group or an
institution and the discourse consumers too, a group of citizens.
Also, the use of we gives the speech a sense of collectiveness, and

thus creates a bond between the discourse participants. Furthermore,
the repetitive use of the nominal expressions our people and our
country represents a politeness strategy deployed to strengthen
further the collective tone of the speech and create a sense of
cordiality between the discourse participants.
(b) Synonyms and Antonyms

Lexical features in the excerpt are also present in the use of
synonyms as highlighted below:
(a) decay, deterioration and disrepair;

(b) strong, prosperous and stable.
The synonyms in (a) have negative connotations while the ones in (b)
have positive connotations. Thus, the two sets are antonymous
because they have diametrically opposed meanings. Their
oppositeness implicitly sets in contrast the negative state of the
country before he (Buhari) assumed office and its present positive
state after his assumption of office, pointing to negative “Other-
presentation” and positive “Self-presentation”, which is the hallmark
of political campaign discourse.
(c) Metaphors
Words such as foundation and journey are observable metaphors in
the excerpt. Foundation depicts the undeveloped state of Nigeria and
the efforts of the ruling party to start building a prosperous and
stable Nigeria for the people’s benefit. Journey symbolises that the
building process will be long and difficult, and thus portrays a subtle
attempt at soliciting understanding and patience from the electorate.
(iiib) Grammatical Cohesive Features

(a) Imperative:
The imperative in the last paragraph of the speech Join us on this

journey… is not just a direct attempt to solicit the electorate’s
support or votes, it is also an implicit attempt to demonstrate to
Nigerians that the ‘Next Level’ agenda is a partnership between the
government and the electorate.
(b) Marked Theme:
President Buhari uses the marked theme Four years ago… in the
opening sentence to emphasise the time his government made their
promise to Nigerians and to show that they have not reneged in
fulfilling the promise. The marked theme thus projects Buhari’s
administration positively as time conscious.
(c) Gerund Phrase:

The President uses the gerund phrase Judging by the prior depth of
decay, deterioration and disrepair… to portray the prior
degenerative state of the country and the efforts of his administration
to improve and prosper the Nigerian state. The portrayal also
presents President Buhari’s administration positively.
Question 2: Situate the following excerpt in its appropriate

context(s).
There were palpable fears among staff members of the
Mushin General Hospital, Lagos State, after about eight
health officials at the hospital tested positive for Coronavirus.
Saturday PUNCH learnt the patients comprise three doctors
and five nurses, causing panic among the workers.
An official of the hospital, who spoke to our
correspondent on condition of anonymity, disclosed that a
health worker had fallen sick about two weeks ago. The
source said the worker was being treated for malaria when a
nurse suspected that they were handling a coronavirus case.
It was gathered that some personnel of the Nigeria Centre
for Disease Control took the samples of the sick worker and
the two officials (the nurse and a doctor) who attended to her.
The results of the patient and the doctor were reportedly

positive while that of the nurse was negative.
The source said, “It started with a staff member who fell
sick two weeks ago and was being treated for Malaria at the
hospital. It was one of the nurses who attended the COVID-
19 training that suspected the worker had contracted the
virus. The NCDC was invited and tests were carried out on
her, the nurse and a doctor. I later learnt that the patient and
the doctor tested positive…” (https://punchng.com/three-
doctors-five-nurses-in-lagos-hospital-test-covid-19-
positive/)
Answer Guide to Question 2

Linguistic Contextual Analysis
Lexical Analysis
 Lexical items such as coronavirus, tests, tested, positive,
negative, sick doctor, nurses and hospital deployed
repetitively in the excerpt all point to the global COVID-
19 pandemic outbreak.
 The proper nouns Mushin General Hospital, Lagos State
and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control portray Nigeria as
the immediate or local context of the report.
 The synonyms fears and panic point to the apprehension
induced by the pandemic among the medical staff.
 The antonyms positive and negative portray the possible
results of COVID-19 test.
 The lexical items doctors and nurses are hyponyms of the
hypernym hospital.
 The use of the adverb reportedly is a hedging strategy
(often used in journalese) to attribute the report to an
anonymous source.
Grammatical Analysis
 The quote enclosed in quotation marks in the last

paragraph It started with a staff member who fell sick…
is a direct speech used to validate the news report.
 The conjunction while is used in the second sentence in
paragraph three to set a contrast between the positive
COVID-19 test results of the patient and the doctor and
the negative result of the nurse.
 The use of reporting clauses such as Saturday PUNCH
learnt, The source said and It was gathered that are also
hedging strategies deployed in attributing the news
report to anonymous sources. The strategy of hedging
serves the dual purpose of (a) lending credibility to news
reports and (b) protecting the witnesses from persecution
or prosecution.
Situational Contextual Analysis of Excerpt 2

 The significant lexical items in the excerpt point generally
to the coronavirus pandemic outbreak; and specifically to
the high risk exposure of the Nigerian medical staff to the
virus.
 The linguistic context of the excerpt also presupposes that
the Nigerian medical staff are inadequately equipped to
combat the pandemic, and, therefore, live in fear.
Question 3. Draw out the semantic and pragmatic presuppositions

in the excerpt below:
Jane must sing again for us. While we all get set for the
performance, let her go and dress up.
Answer Guide to Question 3.

Semantic and Pragmatic Presuppositions in Excerpt 3
Semantic Presuppositions
 The proper noun Jane is a presupposition trigger that

points to a specific person while the third personal
pronoun her is also a trigger that assumes the feminine
gender of that individual.
 The word again is an adverbial trigger that presupposes
that Jane had sung before.
 The lexical presupposition trigger must presupposes that
Jane is under compulsion to sing.
 The plural pronouns us and we assume that Jane is
performing for a group of people and not just an
individual.
Pragmatic Presuppositions
 Jane has the gift of singing.
 She had sung before.
 She is obliged to sing again and she is not in a position to refuse.
 The speaker is either superior to Jane or he or she is aware that
Jane is committed to singing because she had previously
promised to sing, had received or hopes to receive gratification
for singing.
 The speaker either enjoys Jane’s performance or has other
positive reasons for demanding to listen to Jane’s performance
again.
Note that several pages can be expended on the analyses of the short
excerpt. The above illustrates the process of discourse analysis.
7.2 Exercises
Question 4: Answer the following questions in not more than one
page for each one:
(i) What is discourse and why do we need to analyse it?

(ii) Differentiate between discourse and text.
(iii) Discuss the relationship between cohesion and coherence.
(iv) Using appropriate illustrations, explain the pragmatic property

of presupposition known as ‘defeasibility’.
Question 5: Discuss your understanding of what discourse analysis

is all about in a single page.
Question 6: Collect six brief excerpts (three each) of written texts

and spoken interactions. Use the data to discuss the similarities
and differences between spoken and written discourse.
Question 7: Read the excerpt below carefully and answer the

questions after it:
Then she placed her pile of books on my very same table and
sat down beside me. The exact thing happened again the next
day. And the next, and the next and the next. Soon we arrived
at affectionate looks and spontaneous giggles, and all the
other little actions that precede the grand knotting of two
hearts.
(Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, 2009, I Do Not Come to you by
Chance, p. 29)
i) Identify the discourse participants in this excerpt.

ii) Why do you think the speaker repeated the word next in the
excerpt?
iii) Identify and discuss the cohesive devices in the excerpt.
iv) Explain inference and implicature using relevant examples
from the excerpt.
v) Using examples from the excerpt, differentiate between
authorised and unauthorised presuppositions.
Question 8:
(i) Analyse the inferential meanings deducible from the pieces of
discourse below:
(ii) Indicate the linguistic and contextual cues that warrant such
inferences.
(a) Kemi: I was in courtship with him for two

years. I quit when I got hint of
his true character.
Bimpe: Are you saying I shouldn’t marry him?
Kemi: Why should I say that?
(b) Segun: I am the best footballer in my team.

Akin: Isn’t that obvious with the penalty kick you
lost last night?
(c) “I saw her dash across the road, fear written

all over her. I was about approaching her
when l saw him at the balcony with a big
stick. Oh! They are at it again!”
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Chapter One Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis

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Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis 1

lower levels of language description such as single letters, words,

2.1 Discourse versus Text

… stretches beyond language and its immediate context of

(with a capital D): “socially accepted associations among

2.2 Types of Discourse

 verbalisation (expressing ideas/thoughts/feelings using linguistic

These embedded processes of speech make its properties

 the regulatory process (organising textual practices in conformity

Likewise, the above processes of writing make its characteristic

categories such as political discourse, media discourse, gender

The above excerpt will be categorised as a political discourse in that

campaign process in Nigeria.

(Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, 2009, I Do Not Come to you by

A careful reading of example 2 spotlights two underlying discourse

2.3 Why Do We Analyse Discourse?

2007, p. 1). However, an ungrammatical utterance may be intelligible

Example 3: She is not have phone.

Example 4: Ojo called me last night. He ran towards Kemi.

human interactions” (Alba-Juez, 2009, p. 12). Schiffrin (2006)

As long as human beings survive on language in their cohabitation,

3. Discourse Analysis as a Discipline

discipline focuses on discourse comprehension by trying to

Furthermore, by describing the situational contexts of the world in

(Cameron, 2001, p. 13). Broadly, DA covers any attempt to make

4. Domains of Discourse Analysis

i) Speech Act Theory: This approach is akin to pragmatics, and it

meanings and contexts; and it is usually applied to large

It must be noted however that in spite of the peculiarities of all

a) they are all interested in analysing language above and beyond

5. Some Basic Concepts in Discourse Analysis

account the intrinsic or immediate, word by word structure of a

Example 5: That lady is a pig. I cannot eat with her.

also added cognition to the conceptual framework of context by

5.2 Discourse Participants

in most literary texts, news reports, dialogic texts, etc. However, in

5.3 Cohesion and Coherence

captures the appropriate use of transitional words (however,

Lexical Cohesion can be identified or analysed by examining the

In Example 6 above, nouns such as hunger, supper, food, kitchen,

Grammatical cohesion features in the discourse through the

Coherence: It must be noted that a piece of discourse could be

sentential relations and connections in discourse, coherence captures

Example 7: Tolu, kindly pass the bowl of pounded yam to me.

Although the above example has appropriate cohesive devices

Examples 6, 7 and 8, above, illustrate that discourse is marked by the

Example 9 above lacks outright cohesion as all the separate parts of

makes sense of the utterance of the other. Kemi’s response, which

5.4 Inferences and Implicatures

A reader of this discourse should be able to draw the following

Example 11: That lady is my fiancée.

authorised inference in this example, the decoder has to rely on: 1)

(1) the lady is unattractive;

discourse; however, both are conceptually distinct. An implicature is

In the above conversation, Rice’s response implies that the girl

implicature, presupposition too is speaker-/writer-based left to be

The assertions in examples 14 and 15 share some similar

However, while example 14 presupposes a positive outcome (the