Discourse as a language activity process

DISCOURSE AS A LANGUAGE ACTIVITY PROCESS

Imanbaeva A.M

№51 gymnasium. Aktobe, Kazakhstan

Annotation. This article describes a discourse as a process of language activities. The article deals with the theoretical and practical aspects of discourse.

It should be noted that interpretations of the concept of “discourse” are different. Discourse as a term is actively used in scientific use of such disciplines as linguistics and sociology. Discourse is considered as an actual spoken text, this concept refers to speech, actual speech action. The researchers oppose speech to language, describing discourse, and the translation of French discours into Russian as a speech, type of speech, text, type of text. The dictionary treats discourse as a coherent text in combination with extralinguistic, sociocultural, psychological and other factors.

Scientists rightly believe that discourse implies the speaker (writer) and in this connection indicates the role of discourse as a kind of code used by the speaker to implement a universal language code.

Here I would like to give the definition of discourse given by the researcher Y. Rudnev, which he gave, developing successively several directions. “Thus, on the basis of a selective analysis of various understandings of discourse (primarily linguistics), we can give the following preliminary definition of discourse:

Discourse is a dimension of a text taken as a chain / complex of utterances (ie, as a process and result of a speech (communicative) act), which involves within itself syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations between the formal elements forming the system and reveals the subject’s pragmatic ideological attitudes that limit the potential inexhaustibility of text values ​​”[1,17].

"Discourse can...be used to refer to particular contexts of language use, and in this sense, it becomes similar to concepts like genre or text type. For example, we can conceptualize political discourse (the sort of language used in political contexts) or media discourse (language used in the media).

In addition, some writers have conceived of discourse as related to particular topics, such as an environmental discourse or colonial discourse...Such labels sometimes suggest a particular attitude towards a topic (e.g. people engaging in environmental discourse would generally be expected to be concerned with protecting the environment rather than wasting resources). Related to this, Foucault...defines discourse more ideologically as 'practices which systematically form the objects of which they speak." [2,35].

Researchers view discourse from different perspectives.

1. From the standpoint of pragmalinguistics, discourse is an interactive activity of the participants of communication, establishing and maintaining contact, emotional and informational exchange, influencing each other, interweaving instantly changing communicative strategies and their verbal and non-verbal incarnations in the practice of communication, identifying communicative moves in their unity explicit and implicit content.

2. From the positions of psycholinguistics, discourse is interesting as the deployment of switching from the internal code to external verbalization in the processes of speech generation and its interpretation taking into account the socio-psychological types of linguistic personalities, role installations and prescriptions. Psycholinguists are also interested in the types of speech errors and violations of communicative competence.

3. Linguistic and stylistic analysis of discourse is focused on identifying communication registers, distinguishing oral and written speech in their genre varieties, defining functional parameters of communication based on its units (characteristic of functional styles).

4. The structural-linguistic description of the discourse implies its segmentation and aims to highlight the actual textual features of communication - the content and formal coherence of the discourse, ways to switch topics, modal limiters (hedges), large and small text blocks.

5. From the position of sociolinguistics, researcher V.I. Karasik, identifies two main types of discourse: personal (person-centered) and institutional. For the formation of discursive competence among students, it is obviously important to consider the discus from the point of view of sociolinguistics (sociolinguistic subcompetence)

Institutional discourse is viewed by scientists as communication within a given framework of status-role relationships, which involves two signs: goals and participants in communication. The main participants of the institutional discourse are representatives of the institute (agents) and people referring to them (clients).

When modeling institutional discourse, a number of features are distinguished, which include participants, conditions, organization, methods and material of communication, i.e. people in their status-role and situational-communicative roles, communication and communication environment, motives, goals, strategies, channel, mode, tone, style and genre of communication, and finally, a significant body of communication (texts and / or non-verbal signs) [3,12]. Institutional communication is called communication in peculiar masks.

It is noted that it is the stencil of communication that fundamentally distinguishes institutional discourse from personal discourse and the feature of institutional discourse lies in the type of discourse, i.e. in the type of social institution (political discourse - power, pedagogical - education, medical - health, etc.), is associated with certain functions of people, behavioral stereotypes, as well as texts produced in this social institution.

Thus, the range of consideration of the concept of "discourse" is quite wide and allows us to consider many theoretical and practical issues of textology from the point of view of the "reversal" of the text and immersion in the situation of communication.

Most clearly stand out three main classes of use of the term "discourse", correlated with various national traditions and contributions of specific authors.

The first class includes the actual linguistic use of this term, historically the first of which was its use in the title of the article Discourse analysis of the American linguist Z. Harris, published in 1952. In full, this term was in demand in linguistics after about two decades. Actually, the linguistic uses of the term “discourse” themselves are very diverse, but on the whole, attempts to clarify and develop traditional notions of speech, text, and dialogue are seen behind them.

The transition from the concept of speech to the concept of discourse is associated with the desire to introduce into the classical opposition of language and speech, belonging to F. de Saussure, some third member - something paradoxically and “more verbal” than the speech itself, and at the same time - more using traditional linguistic methods, more formal and thus “more linguistic”. On the one hand, discourse is thought of as a speech inscribed in a communicative situation and, therefore, as a category with a more distinct social content in comparison with the individual's speech activity; According to the aphoristic expression of N. D. Arutyunova, “discourse is speech immersed in life”.

 On the other hand, the actual practice of modern (from the mid-1970s) discursive analysis is associated with the study of patterns of information movement in a communicative situation, carried out primarily through the exchange of replicas; thus, a certain structure of dialogue interaction is actually described, which continues a completely structuralist (although usually not called such) line, the beginning of which was laid by Harris. At the same time, however, the dynamic nature of discourse is emphasized, which is done to distinguish between the notion of discourse and the traditional view of the text as a static structure.

The first class of understanding of the term “discourse” is presented mainly in the English-language scientific tradition, to which a number of scholars from continental Europe belong; However, outside of this tradition, the Belgian scholar E. Byouissant has long spoken about discourse as the “third member” of the Kossyurov opposition, and the French linguist E. Benveniste has consistently used the term “discourse” (discours) instead of “speech” (parole).

The second class of use of the term “discourse”, which in recent years has gone beyond science and has become popular in journalism, goes back to the French structuralists and poststructuralists, and above all to M. Foucault, although A.Greimas, F also played an important part in justifying these uses. Derrida, J. Kristeva; Later, this understanding was partly modified by M. Pesho et al. Behind these uses there is a desire to clarify the traditional notions of style (in the broadest possible meaning that they mean, saying “style is a person”) and individual language (cf. traditional expressions of Dostoevsky’s style, the language of Pushkin or the language of Bolshevism with such more modern-sounding expressions as the modern Russian political discourse or the discourse of Ronald Reagan). Thus, the term “discourse” (as well as a derivative and often replacing it with the term “discursive practices”, also used by Foucault) describes the way of speaking and necessarily has a definition - WHAT or WHAT is the discourse, because researchers are not interested in discourse in general, but its specific types, given by a wide range of parameters: purely linguistic features (to the extent that they can be clearly identified), stylistic specificity (largely determined by quantitative trends in lzovanii language means), as well as the specifics of subjects, belief systems, ways of reasoning, etc. (one could say that the discourse in this understanding is a stylistic specificity plus the ideology behind it). Moreover, it is assumed that the way of speaking largely predetermines and creates the subject sphere of the discourse itself, as well as the corresponding social institutions. This kind of understanding, of course, is also highly sociological. In essence, the definition of ANY or WHAT discourse can be regarded as an indication of the communicative identity of the subject of social action, and this subject can be concrete, group or even abstract: using, for example, the expression discourse of violence, they mean not so much violence, as much as the abstract social agent "violence" manifests itself in communicative forms - which is fully consistent with traditional expressions such as language of violence.

Finally, there is a third use of the term “discourse”, associated primarily with the name of the German philosopher and sociologist J. Habermas. It can be considered specific with respect to the previous understanding, but it has significant specificity. In this third understanding, “discourse” is a special ideal type of communication, carried out in the greatest possible distance from social reality, traditions, authority, communicative routine, etc. and aimed at a critical discussion and justification of the views and actions of the participants of communication. From the point of view of the second understanding, this can be called the “discourse of rationality”, the very word “discourse” here clearly refers to the fundamental text of scientific rationalism - Discourse on the method of R. Descartes (in the original - “Discours de la méthode” translate and as 'method discourse') [4]. All three of these macro-understandings (as well as their varieties) interacted and interact with each other; in particular, the formation of the French school of discourse analysis of the 1970s was significantly influenced by the publication in 1969 of the French translation of the above-mentioned work of Z. Harris 1952. This circumstance further complicates the general picture of the use of the term “discourse” in the humanities. In addition, it should be borne in mind that this term can be used not only as generic, but also in relation to specific patterns of language interaction, for example: The duration of a given discourse is 2 minutes.

The content of the discursive processes is idio-ethnic in form and universal in essence and meaning (the understanding of the universal / idio-ethnic ratio is a development of the ideas of SD Katsnelson) [5]. There are probably universal and idio-ethnic features in the structuring of discourse. The presence of a universal base and idio-ethnic types provides a basis for comparing discursive processes in various linguistic cultures.

Thus, in all cultures, the sphere of political discourse is developing, which is the scene of the manifestation of universal strategies of aggression and reconciliation in discursive practices related to the separation, approval and manifestation of power. Typical genres of this discursive sphere will have idio-ethnic features both in terms of their typical set for this linguistic culture, and in terms of their linguistic (and non-verbal) implementation. For example, American political discourse includes such a traditional genre as the President’s Saturday ’address (in fact, a type of political prayer that aims to unite the nation, confirm the authority and national symbols). At the same time, the genre of the President’s New Year’s address is highlighted, in which the conceptual content in terms of functions and means of their execution is comparable to the above-mentioned American one.

In the study of discourse, including in a comparative aspect, the relevant allocation of structural units of different levels of analysis, as well as the social spheres of application of discursive practices.

Continuity / discreteness subjectivity / intersubjective discourse.

The origins of the study of speech, discourse, dialogue and text, the distinction between static and dynamic aspects and an increase in attention to dynamic, to real language processes lie in the writings of V. von Humboldt (ενέργεια), F.de Saussure (parole, discours), L. Wittgenstein ( language game), L.V. Scherby (language / speech / speech activity), E. Benvenista (double meaning: semiotic in language and semantic in speech). The orientation to cognitive and social processes has also become essential for the study of discourse. Comparing discursive practices, we find differences in the very social environment inherent in each culture. At the same time, it is the social environment that is the initial basis for the comparison of discourses and texts.

The theory of discourse is believed to have its origin in the concept of E. Benveniste, who delimits the narrative plan (récit) and the plan of the language assigned to the speaking person (discours). Discourse is a way to update the language in speech. A similar distinction was also observed in L.Sherby: language as a system and as an ability, speech activity and language material, texts (cf. also competence and performance by N.Homsky). Signs of procedural and intersubjective discourse are reflected in the definition of speech activity, and signs of the text as a form or method of speech realization of discourse, as a statically existing speech product - in the definition of speech material. A communicative (discursive) event is a process, it is continual, but it can be discretized, segmented, divided into units. Discourse articulation is its constituting property (cf. “articulate speech”).

Procedurality and articulation, as well as subjectivity and intersubjectivity are the constituent signs of discourse. Thus, the discourse is the process and the result of the activity of the subject and the interaction of the subjects, language (communication, discursive) personalities.

The speech act in the theory of speech acts, practiced by the followers of Austin-Searle, does not indicate the possibility of one or another of its interpretations to the hearers. To overcome this shortcoming of the theory of speech acts, in the analysis of discourse, the notions of a communicative (speech) course or a discursive act are used. A communicative course can be implemented both in a single speech act and in a sequence of speech acts, under the auspices of a single communicative focus (goal): REQUEST + ARGUMENTATION + EMOTION. We ourselves are not local, everything is stung, give for bread!

A communicative tactical move is determined by its role in the deployment of discourse, in the continuation of speech interaction, in a discursive strategy. A replica may formally coincide with a discursive act (move), but it may include several moves: Both, and the other, and preferably more, and tell me what time it is! The tactical organization of discourse, its connection with the general strategy of speech interaction is determined by the social status, psychological characteristics of communicants, the chronotope of the situation and the state of communicators. A communicative (discursive) strategy unites a chain of communicative tactical moves (sometimes deviations) aimed at achieving the global goal of verbal interaction.

The implementation of discursive acts and strategies also reveals the idio-ethnic features of discursive practices and, therefore, falls within the competence of comparative discourse studies.

Rеfеrеncеs:

1. Ilish B.А. History of English. М., 1998.

2. Bakеr, Paul, and Sibоnilе Еllеcе. Kеy Tеrms in Discоursе Analysis. 1st еd., Blооmsbury Acadеmic, 2015.

3. Beihman G.А. New in English grammar.М., 1999.

4.https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/studying-discourse-as-a-mechanism-of-language-actualization-in-teaching-philosophy-of-language

5. http://termframe.ff.uni-lj.si/files/2018/09/language_and_mind2003.pdf

6.Ormahanova Е.N. Televisional дискурс: system-functional aspect (on material of the entertaining-publicism program "Talent-show". Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, 2018.