Pragmatics
(PRAG) is the study of the use of language in actual situations and contexts
and what they are. according to experts, the definition of pragmatics refers
more to the use of language orally, so that one of the characteristics
possessed is that speech acts are not contained in spoken language.
In
addition, there is an opinion that says pragmatics has a lot in common with
discourse analysis (DA), among others, both see language as a communication
tool in both oral and written (Cutting, 2008). Brown and Yule (1983) state that
PRAG is an approach to learning language (discourse) which involves analyzing
its elements such as grammar, vocabulary, and their meaning by looking at the
context.
In
other words, analyzing language especially oral language must pay more
attention to the context that transports participants, location, time, and the
topic of discussion, not just formal linguistic elements.
Atkinson,
Kilby, and Roca (1988; 217) define PRAG as something related to the difference
between what the speaker means and the words and what they mean. PRAG relates
to the use of language functions not only with the form or pattern of grammar
and vocabulary but especially in the context of its actual and natural usage.
Grundy (2008) defines PRAG as the study of the language used in the
communication-context and principles associated with their use.
Cutting
(2008: 2) looking at PRAG is the same as DA as the study of the meaning of
words in context, the parts of its meaning, and the socio-psychological factors
that influence communication, besides that the understanding factor about time
and place when the words are spoken or written. Cutting (2008) in his book
Pragmatics and Discourse: A Resource-Book for Students emphasizes that PRAG and
DA are very similar or almost exactly the same about the concept so that both
language learning approaches are equally focused on the meaning of words in
interaction and how that interaction convey a broader meaning than the words
used by the speakers.
For
DA, many experts also have defined it in their own way according to their
understanding and views based on the results of learning and research that has
been done. Discourse is an expression that can be shorter or longer than a
sentence which has certain meaning based on context. For example, McCarthy
(1991: 5) defines DA as the study of and discussing the relationship between
language and the context of its use, whereas according to van Leeuwen (2008),
DA is not a science of language theory but about language in practice - all
discourses recontextualize social practices, and that all knowledge is,
therefore, ultimately grounded in practice.
Halliday
and Hasan (1976) stated that discourse or text is a unity of language spoken or
printed either long or short. Text or discourse is a unity of meanings
(semantics) not only grammatical unity which includes the elements below
(morphemes, phrases, and clauses) (Lubis, 1988). According to Crystal (1980),
discourse is a term in linguistics which means a continuous expression that is longer
than a sentence. Discourse is a set of utterances that express oral events that
people recognize such as conversation, jokes, humor, and interviews.
In
other words, DA is the study of the language that is being used which includes
all forms of printed text and oral language data from chatter to the form of
conversations that are strictly official and full of protocols. Furthermore,
Fairlough (1989) looked at DA in three dimensions of work; (a) analysis of
language texts (oral and printed), (b) practical analysis of discourse (the
process of production, distribution, and use of discourse), (c) analysis of
discourse events (sociocultural analysis).
Second,
DA is fundamentally related to the relationship between language and the
context of its use. Cook (2001) then makes several statements about what is
meant by DA. First, similar to what experts said earlier that the DA is the
language used to communicate sustainability. Second, DA is fundamentally
related to the relationship between language and the context of its use. Third,
DA is a discourse-forming device that studies how to make language meaningful
(coherent) and continuous (cohesive) - which studies the relationship between
language forms and their functions.
Van
Dijk (2009) in his book Society and Discourse, presents his new theory of
context which explains how texts and speech (discourse) are adapted to the
social environment. And explained that the relationship between discourse (text
and speech) and the social environment is an indirect relationship, subjective
and dynamic interpreted and understood by speakers involved. Stead and Bakker
(2010) stated that the DA is an important tool for (of course) language users
to understand and interpret the meaning of words and expressions are culturally
and socially to the job, and to describe how special regulations and collective
agreements in defining the message of work in certain context. According to
O'Grady et al (2010), discourse is a series of utterances that occur during a
conversation, a lecture, a story or other speech acts.
THE
SCOPE OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Discourse
analysis is not only concerned with the description and analysis of spoken
interaction. In addition to all verbal encounters who consume hundreds of
written and printed words; newspaper articles, letters, stories, recipes,
instructions, notices, comics, billboards, leaflets, pushed through the door,
and so on, usually expected to be coherent, meaningful communications in which
the words and sentences are linked to one another in a fashion that corresponds
to conventional formulae; therefore, discourse analysis (DA) is equally
interested in the organization of written interaction.
SPOKEN
DISCOURSE: MODELS OF ANALYSIS
One
approach that affects the study of spoken discourse is developed at the
University of Birmingham, where an initial investigation relating to the
structure of the discourse in the classroom (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975). The
Birmingham model is certainly not the only valid approach to analyzing
discourse, but it is a relatively simple and strong model that has a
relationship with the study of speech acts. Sinclair and Coulthard found in the
language of traditional native-speakers school classroom a rigid pattern, where
teachers and students spoke according to very fixed perceptions of their roles
and where conversation could be seen to fit in a highly structured sequence.
Framing move is what Sinclair and Coulthard call the function of these
utterances.
Sinclair
and Coulthard call this unit as an exchange. This particular exchange consists
of questions, an answer, and a comment, and so it is a three-part exchange.
Each of the parts is given the name move by Sinclair and Coulthard. Each of
these exchanges consists of three moves, but it is only in the first move seems
to be (1) functioning as a question, (2) giving information, and (3)
commanding. The second moves seem to have the function respectively, of (1) an
answer, (2) an acknowledgment and (3) a non-verbal response. The third moves
are in all three exchanges functioning as feedback on the second moves: (1) to
be polite and say thanks, (2) to confirm the information and (3) to say thanks
again.
CONVERSATIONS
OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
So
far, the traditional classroom, where roles are rigidly defined and the
patterns of initiation, response and follow-up in exchanges are relatively easy
to perceive where transactions are heavily marked. The classroom was a
convenient place to start, as they discovered, but it is not the ‘real' world
of conversation. It is a place where teachers ask questions which are already
known the answers, where the students have very limited rights as speakers, and
where evaluation by the teacher of what students say is a vital mechanism in
the discourse structure. A conversation outside the classroom settings vary,
but a conversation that seems, at first sight, to be free and unstructured can
be shown to have structure.