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Discourse Analysis Of English Foreign Sentences

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It is a difficult task to define the term discourse analysis because it means different things and aspects to different researchers and linguists. For Van Dijk (1997), it is related to three different dimensions which are: language, communication and interaction. i.e., DA is a form of language in use. It is used in communication and interaction with people. To researchers like Leech (1983) and Schiffrin (1994) DA is the study of the language beyond the sentence. In other words, DA is above the sentence. According to McCarthy (1991), DA is the study of the relationship between language and the context in which it is used. That is to say, DA is related to social life which means that it is guided by both social and cultural life. The question …show more content…

Some of them defined DA as language in use. Others defined it as the study of language beyond the sentence. In this study, which main concern is the investigation of the problems that English foreign learners encounter while using coherent and cohesive devices. For the purpose of this study, the following definition will be adopted: DA is the study of how formal devices used to connect sentences together. This definition will help us track the misuse or the overuse of the coherent and the cohesive devices.
Text Vs Discourse When dealing with DA, you came across these two main terms whish are: text and discourse. It is not easy to identify the similarities and differences between these two terms. Some researchers use these terms interchangeably, while others make a clear cut between them. Moreover, definitions have been found in different studies for both terms whish are almost identical. E.g. "a text is unit of language in use" (Halliday & Hasan, 1976, p.1) and " the analysis of discourse is, necessarily, the analysis of language in use" (Brow & Yule, 1983, p.4). When both of the terms text and discourse are mentioned in the same study, a clear distinction would be made between them. Some researchers identify the difference through the mode. Text is usually made up of sentences, whereas discourse is usually made up of utterances (Coulthard,

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