Understanding Discourse as a Verbal Structure
Classified in Teaching & Education
Written on in 
English with a size of 3.99 KB
Discourse as a Verbal Structure
Modes of Discourse:
Talk or spoken discourse comprises everyday conversations and other types of dialogues, such as parliamentary debates, board meetings, etc.
Text or written discourse defines the large set of discourse types, comprising, for example, news reports in newspapers, textbacks, advertising, etc.
Typology of Discourse: They define sets or classes of discourse types. We may use discourse modes to define genres—conversations, poems, reports, etc.
Order and Form:
The formal structure of sentences in discourse is not independent of the rest of discourse for the context.
Meaning:
Is the abstract sense of discourse, which is called semantic representation. Meaning is something assigned to a discourse by language users, and that process is known as "understanding," "comprehension," or "interpretation." In this case, meaning is associated with the mind of users.
Discourse semantics studies the structures and relations between propositions, which are the meaning of a whole clause or sentence. Propositions are influenced by previous propositions in text or talk (discourse relativity principle).
In discourse, there exists the semantic notion of coherence. We may study the coherence relations for sentences that immediately follow each other (the micro level of analysis) but also for the meaning of discourse as a whole (the macro level of analysis).
At the micro level, we find that propositions must refer to events or situations that are related; here we have the notion of reference.
At the macro level, we find topics or themes. They represent the global meaning of discourse or the overall coherence.
Style: Is usually a context-bound variation of the expression level of discourse. We may speak about the same topic or events (referents) and do so with different local meanings (details).
Rhetoric: It focuses on special structures (figures of persuasion) at all discourse levels that attract attention.
Schemata: Also called superstructures. In an abstract sense, we may analyze a discourse in terms of a number of typical formal categories and their specific order and function.