Monday, 21 January, 13

Discourse Features

Monday, 21 January, 13

Discourse Features By: Johanna, Li Ying and Crane

Monday, 21 January, 13

VIDEO TIME!!!

Monday, 21 January, 13

VIDEO TIME!!!

Video URL: http://youtu.be/lwEJmpuwzJo

1) Back-channel- Reason: When the host announced the dish that they were going to make, they reacted as 'Huh?' and 'I haven't cooked this before!!!'

2) Ellipsis- Reason: When the judges talked to the contestants when they were cooking, they talked as fast as possible, using ellipsis to avoid wasting too much time

3) Discourse Markers- Reason: Isabella said "I'm really scared for this competition however I'm still excited for the end result.

Monday, 21 January, 13

Discourse features and their uses

Monday, 21 January, 13

Discourse features and their usesEllipsis- It is used by the speaker and it is actually omits part of a full sentence and it makes it shorter, but still has the same meaning. It is extremely helpful in getting people to understand what you want to tell them fast and when you are hurrying off to somewhere

Back Channel - It is used by the listener to show that he or she is actually listening to the speaker and is giving his/her full attention. This tells the speaker that the listener is listening properly and contributing to the conversation whenever possible.

Discourse Markers- It helps to mark the boundaries in the sentence, this is useful in recounting an incident as the listener need not listen to a very long story and can just have the summary of it.

Monday, 21 January, 13

What we had learnt after that lesson

Monday, 21 January, 13

What we had learnt after that lessonWe learnt discourse features such as Ellipsis, Back-channel, Binomials and trinomials, discourse markers, hedging and more. These are the types of communication in life. We use it everyday without even noticing. That lesson about discourse features, made the awareness rise and it made it clear what I was using and how to use them properly, at the right time. Before the lesson, I did not know much about discourse features but halfway through the lesson, I suddenly realized that we actually used them almost everyday in our lives. After the lesson, I knew that discourse markers is a rapidly expanding body of research deals with a functionally related class of connective expressions commonly referred to as discourse markers. The items typically treated in this research include non-truth-conditional uses of forms such as English well, so, and now. After the lesson, I learnt more about the discourse markers and expanded my knowledge. With this knowledge,  it helped me in conversations when I am rushing to go somewhere and have to shorten my sentence, I can use the ellipsis and when someone is talking, I can use the back-channel to signify that I am paying attention. 

Also, discourse features can also help to indicate time order, to repeat, to indicate sequence, to provide an example, to indicate how something happened at the time and to conclude or summarize etc. To indicate time order meaning in the past, before, earlier, previously, formerly, yesterday, recently, not long ago, at present, presently, currently, now, by now, until, today, immediately and even more.

Monday, 21 January, 13

Why do you think the speaker is using the particular discourse features?

Monday, 21 January, 13

Why do you think the speaker is using the particular discourse features?

Back-channel- It is to ensure that the other party knows that he/she is listening to what he/she said.

Ellipsis- The speaker needs to say fast in order to save some time.

Discourse Markers- It makes the sentence better than just saying, for example, “I’m really scared for this competition. I’m still excited for the end result.” Without the word ‘however’ in the middle of the sentence to connect the two sentences, it does not sound really right.

Monday, 21 January, 13

Thank you for your kind attention!

Done by: Johanna, Li Ying and Crane

Monday, 21 January, 13