Discourse (Spoken & Written) - Formal + Strategies

Existing features

As the text is already rehearsed, the features present in the text are specifically employed for a particular purpose

If it is an unplanned text

Speakers rely on their own expertise to make it appear like a rehearsed text, not a spontaneous text.

Openings

Mostly scripted/rehearsed

Introduces people/topic

Can be of a convention - e.g. Welcome to Country, or welcoming TV viewers

Can reinforce identity and setting

Closings

Generally accepted - has a stable convention form and meaning - is not reconstructed and is not used with creativity

e.g. Thank you - is socially understood and formulaic, and also attends to face needs and politeness

Formulaic

The word/phrase has a socially understood meaning, as opposed to a meaning based off of its face-value

Non-fluency features

Are not typical (as they are rehearsed), but if are employed, are done so with a specific purpose

Errors can still be made if a person forgot to recall, etc.

Pauses - used for deliberate emphasis

Repetition - Deliberate emphasis

Filled pauses - used to capture attention - e.g. “Well.. the judge has accepted our proposal”

Adjacency Pairs

Preferred Vs Dispreffered Adjacency Pairs

• Preferred: The response the first speaker expects or anticipates

  • Example: Question → direct answer, greeting → greeting back

• Dispreferred: A response that violates expectation, creating tension, delay, or awkwardness

  • Example: Question → silence, irrelevant answer, or disagreement

Backchanneling/minimal responses

Attends to the positive face needs of the person talking

May need more firm back-channeling and responses, as minimal response (uh, yeah) may be dismissive or too casual in certain contexts

Larger social distance - need to be firm with the backchannelling to indicate that they are paying attention

Discourse Particles

They can organize a conversation, introduce a new speaker, a topic shift, manage a topic, interrupt, back-channel, hedge, direct speech, facilitate turn taking.

These are words, not utter sounds. Do not mix with pause fillers.

Overlapping

Very rare - as it is rehearsed - speakers already know their roles

• Cooperative [RARE in formal] - these can indicate eagerness and can be a form of back-channeling, as they tend to support and add extra to what a speaker is saying. Can strongly reveal a collaborative conversation.

• Non-cooperative (interruptions) [MORE COMMON]- this might reflect a difference in power hierarchical; relationships between speakers as one wants to control the conversation.

Discourse Strategies (Formal) - Overview

Turn-taking

Is much more smooth and organised - why:

Expectation of compliance with norms

• Formal contexts (meetings, interviews, seminars, Q&As) have a stronger social hierarchy or roles.

• Participants are expected to follow conversational conventions to avoid interrupting, overstepping, or creating confusion.

2. Larger social distance

• When participants are less familiar, uncontrolled or overlapping speech may be seen as rude or unprofessional.

• Smooth turn-taking helps maintain politeness and social order.

3. Importance of clarity

• Formal texts often transmit important information.

• Structured turn-taking ensures that each speaker is heard clearly, reducing miscommunication.

Topic Management

Is more pre-planned and topics are moved from or towards in a careful and pre-determined manner

Hosts/more powerful people - control the topic

Have an agenda - and shifts are used to follow this

Repair Sequences

Indicating Collaboration + engagement

May be done by someone of a higher power - reinforcing defined roles for speakers

Code Switching (not specific to formality)

• Can be used to signal cultural identity, progressive values and attain social harmony amongst an audience – by appealing to broader cultural backgrounds.

• When a speaker switches between two or more languages within a text, such as using borrowings.

• Can reflect cultural identity or bolster a sense of group identity and solidarity, threaded by a shared ethno-linguistic background.

Cohesion + Coherence

Must be more, as the participants are not familiar with one another + there is less assumed knowledge

There is less opportunity to clarify in formal texts - must be clear initially itself

clarity reinforces inclusivity - as by not relying on assumed knowledge they encompass more people

Information Flow

Helps clarity and structuring of information to be more cohesive and understandable - more people can easily understand

1. Anaphoric - helps avoid repetition in formal texts.

2. Cataphoric - can build suspense, especially effective in literary formal texts.

Deictic-Less common as there are less assumptions in formal texts.

Repetition

In speeches to deliberately create a lasting impression on the audience - to reinforce persuasive or rhetorical intent (mostly)

Ellipsis

How To Analyse

 Your role is NOT to just say that ellipsis for example creates cohesion. HOW does it do this? - by filtering out unnecessary words and making the flow of a text more understandable. Then, to really ‘flex’ your knowledge, suggest to examiners WHY the author has made the text cohesive? Does it aid their persuasive function, for example?

Substitution

Replacement of a lexical phrase

Relies on reader’s ability to infer the text - creating intra-connections

reduces lexical overload

helps avoid repetition

Conjunctions

Shoiws relationships between the texts - dependent (subordinating) or equal (coordinating)

Adverbials

Help signpost + structure ideas logically + help establish the sequential order of the text

Conjunctions and adverbials can do the following:

• Provide additional information

• Contrast ideas

• Provide links between ideas

• Sequence ideas

• Signpost ideas

Collocation

Two words that go together

Creates predictability

Common in formal texts - especially in prestigious fields

• Drive growth

• Financial performance

• Foster innovation

• Build trust

Inference (Coherence)

Not common

Formal texts want to be more inclusive and wider - not based ion assumed knowledge, unless really known

Want to avoid potential exclusion

Logical Ordering

Is typically well ordered and logical

To make the text flow better and to help the reader to understand the overall meaning better - establishing coherence

Logical Ordering Guide To Explanation

Formatting

Can help with overall clarity + understandability as well as navigability

Text type may dictate how text is formatted

Conventions, Consistency (Same as informal)

Refer to informality

Consitency

Is not always individual words - just a repetition of a language feature

Linking Consistency & Coherence To Context