Discourse Comprehension and Production

 Discourse Comprehension

In fact, when we are communicating, we face not only a sentence but also even more than one sentence. People carefully design each sentence in their utterance to fit into the discourse they are taking in part. In their communication, people usually take part in stories, conversations, descriptions, explanations and other ’natural’ talk. Again, the listeners’ task is to comprehend the meaning conveyed through speakers’ utterance (in this case discourse).

Senses of Discourse

Discourse can be defined as the use of language which is a long and serious treatment or discussion of a subject in speaking or writing. Discourse can also means an integration of sentences as a language constructor.

Discourse is a complete integration of language. Therefore, in grammatical hierarchy, discourse is the highest grammatical integration. As a complete integration of language, discourse contains of intact concept, idea, thought and feeling which is understandable by the reader (in written discourse) and the listener (in spoken discourse).

Discourse is formed from several sentences that fulfill some grammatical rules and the other discourse rules. Discourse must consist of cohesion and coherence. Cohesion means there is a harmony among elements of the discourse. Coherence means the whole content of the discourse fits together well and truly.

Tools of Discourse

To be able to comprehend the discourse, there are some tools which can be used. The tools consist of two kinds of tools. Those are based on grammatical tool and based on semantic tool.

Based on grammatical tool, we can see there are several kinds of it such as in the following numbers.

• Conjunctions (and, after, before, although, because, etc.): By the use of conjunctions, the relationship between one sentence and the other will be more explicit and will be clearer rather than without conjunctions.
•  Pronouns (I, they, her, its, us, etc.): By using pronouns as anaphoric reference, so that the same part of sentence needn’t to be repeated but it can be changed by the pronouns.
• Elliptical construction (the omission of the same part of sentence that exists in another sentence): By using elliptical construction, the discourse seems to be more effective.

And then, the several kinds of semantic tool are as follows.

•    Using contrast relationship among sentences
•  Using general-specific and specific-general relationship
•  Using equivalent relationship
• Using cause-effect relationship
•   Using purpose relationship

Discourse Production

As stated above, the discourse usually involved in people communication are conversations, descriptions, explanations and other ’natural’ talk. Each of them has harder structure than sentence. Each of them requires careful planning-problem solving-on the part of speakers.

Basically, such those situations divide into two categories; dialogue (when two people or more talking together) and monologue (when a person talking alone). Speakers ought to face the distinct problem when they face those two categories. When taking part in dialogue, speakers’ talk has to cooperate with the other’s talk. Different from the former, speakers have to plan the whole discourse without intervention of others when they are taking part in monologue.

We can take an example of dialogue that is conversation. Actually, the planning of conversation is not as simple as it seems. We usually just see that conversation is just begun with greeting, then talk each other and ended by parting. However, the speakers of the conversation participants must have their own goal. And they should solve the problem to coordinate their speech so that they could achieve their goals.

Basically, the conversation has natural setting. This can be used to solve the participants’ goals. The natural setting consists of opening conversation, turn taking and closing conversation. In opening conversation, participants should open a conversation to begin. One person gets another’s signal and attention, and the other show willingness to talk. In turn taking, each participant cooperate each other to get a chance for talking and conveying their idea. And in the closing conversation, the participants should make an agreement when they have to close conversation. They shouldn’t bother with an elaborate closing.

For example of monologue is a description. Description is one type of discourse in which the speaker describes something. Usually, we get a description from a story which is included in written discourse. The writers often face some problem when they try to describe something. The first problem is level which shows at what level the writers should describe something. Then, content provides us which part of the level of something the writers should include and omit. The third is order that tells us what order the writers should put the content in. Finally, the relation gives us how the writers should relate the parts to each other.

We can now conclude that discourse has structure which is complex and harder than sentence. There are two kinds of discourse structure, those are hierarchical and local. In all structured discourse, speakers have at least some problems to solve. At the very least they have to select the sentence they will say, and that brings us to the next topic.

Compiled by : Tiara Purnamasari