DISCOURSE AND CULTURE
Aang Fatihul
Islam)*
- Introduction
In the context of communication we
use language to get effectiveness in getting our aim. Language is conventional
speech community, so it is related with the some aspect like politics,
religion, culture, mass media etc. In linguistics cover there are interesting
branch namely pragmatic and discourse. Pragmatics and discourse are well
connected like wife and husband, so when we talk about pragmatics we also must
talk about discourse. As we know that pragmatics is the concept and discourse
is the application of it. Pragmatics and discourse are also analogized like
soul and body, because pragmatics is talking about the concept to find out the
speaker meaning, contextual meaning, and also invisible meaning of discourse in
form of text or communication. Pragmatics is determined brain and environment.
Discourse is the output of pragmatics, because it is the manifestation of human
conducts.
Jacob L. Mey (1998:263) states that
pragmatics is properness of a particular expression in a particular context of
use. The problem is that those contexts of use liable to be rather different
from culture to culture, and consequently from language to language. It is mean
that pragmatics here always have relation with culture and also language in the
next. For the example across culture pragmatics in Japanese and English in the
context of communication. When they express ‘sumimasen’ in Japan and ‘I am
sorry’ in English. In Japanese culture ‘sumimasen’ is used to express use thanks,
but in English culture it is used widely express use an apology and it is also often implies
that one somehow feels guilty, it is called by intercultural pragmatics.
Gillian Brown and George Yule (1988:
26) also states that any analytic approach in linguistics which involves
contextual considerations properly belongs to that area of language study
called pragmatics. Pragmatics has definition as the relations of signs to
interpreters, the connection become quite clear. In discourse analysis domain
as in pragmatics are concerned with what people using language are doing and
accounting for the linguistics features in the discourse as the means employed
in what they are doing.
George Yule (2002: 83) states that the
accent of discourse actually related with the language and also its relation
with the social interactions. It is language use and functional of language
are: Interpersonal function (taking part interaction), textual function (creating
well-formed and appropriate text), and ideational function (representing though
and experience in a coherent way). And
here the using of discourse analysis is investigating the form and function of
what is said and written (written text has no immediate interactive feedback,
therefore more explicit structural mechanism are necessary for the organization
text).
After know the general descriptions
and problems above, in this paper we will focus to discuss deeply about discourse
and culture and also their variant.
- Discussion
Before we discuss about discourse and culture deeply, it
is will be better if we inspect the scheme that was designed by Abbas A. Badib
(2008) in order to get easy understanding. Badib was designed the good scheme
in his lecturer to give easy understanding in discourse and culture relation.
The scheme can see under:
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(Badib, 2008)
Coherence is the familiar and
expected relationships in experience which use to connect the meanings of
utterances, even when those connections are not explicitly made (Yule, 2002:
84).
Generally, what language users have
most in mind is an assumption of coherence, that what said or written will make
sense in term of their normal experience of thing. That normal experience will
be locally interpreted by each individual and hence will be tied to the
familiar and the expected. In the neighborhood where I live, the notice (1a.)
means that someone is selling plants, but the notice (1b.) does not mean that
someone is selling garages.
(1)
a. Plant sale
b. Garage sale
Although these notices have an
identical structure, they are interpreted differently. Indeed, the
interpretation of (1b.), that someone is selling household items from their
garage, is one that requires some familiarity with suburban life.
This accent on familiarity and
knowledge as the basis of coherence is necessary because of evidence that we
tend to make instant interpretations of familiar material and tend not to see
possible alternatives. For example, the question presented in (2) is easily
answered by many people.
(2)
How many animals of each type
did Moses take on the ark?
If you immediately thought of ‘two’
then you accessed some common cultural knowledge, perhaps even without noticing
that the name used (‘Moses’) was inappropriate. We actually create a coherent
interpretation for a text that potentially does not have it.
We also unlikely to stop and puzzle
over ‘a male and a female (what)’ as we read about the accident reported in
(3).
(3)
A motor vehicle accident was
reported in front of Kennedy Theatre involving a male and a female.
We automatically ‘fill in’ details
(for example, a male person driving one of the motor vehicles) to create
coherence. We also construct familiar scenarios in order to make sense of what
might first appear to be odd events, as in the newspaper headline in (4).
(4)
Man Robs Hotel with Sandwich.
If you created an interpretation for
(4) that had the sandwich (perhaps in a bag) being used as if it was gun, then
you activated the kind of background knowledge expected by the writer (as
confirmed by the rest of the newspaper article). You may, of course, have
created a quite different kind of interpretation (for example, the man was
eating the sandwich while robbing the hotel). Whatever it was, it was
inevitably based on what you had in mind and not only on what was in the ‘text’
in (4).
1.
Background of Knowledge
Background of knowledge based on our
experience and related with our ability to come automatically at
interpretations of the unwritten and the unsaid based on pre-existing knowledge
structures. These structures function like agreeable samples from previous
experience that use to interpret new experiences (Yule, 2002:85).
In background of knowledge, we will discuss
three things; they are schemata, frame and script. The most general term for a
pattern of this type is a schema (plural, schemata). A schema is a pre-existing
knowledge structure in memory. If there is a fixed, static pattern to the
schema, it is sometimes called a frame. A frame shared by everyone within a social
group would be something like a prototypical version.
We can see the example of it within a
frame of apartment, in our mind will assume components such as kitchen,
bathroom, and bedroom. The assumed elements of a frame are generally not stated,
as in the advertisement in (5).
(5) Apartment for rent. $ 300.
A normal local interpretation of the small
fragment of discourse in (5) will be based on not only an ‘apartment’ frame as
the reason of inference (if Y is an apartment, then Y has kitchen, a bathroom,
and bedroom), but also an ‘apartment for rent’ announcement frame. Only the
reason of such frame can the advertiser expect the reader to fill in ‘per
month’ and not ‘per year’ after ‘$ 300’ here. If a reader of the discourse in
(5) expects wish that it would be ‘per week’ for example then the reader
clearly has a different frame (based on the different experience of the cost of
apartment rental!).
The pragmatic point matter will
nevertheless be the same. Actually the reader uses a pre-existing knowledge
structure to create an interpretation of what is not stated in the text.
When more dynamic types of schemata
are considered, they are more often described as scripts. A script is a
pre-existing knowledge structure that covers event sequences. We use script to
build interpretations of account of what happened. For example, we have scripts
for what normally happens in all kinds of events, such as going to a doctor’s
office, a movie theatre, a restaurant, or a grocery store as in [6].
[6] I stopped to get some groceries
but there weren’t any baskets left so by the time I arrived at the check-out
counter I must have looked like a juggler having a bad day.
The example above part of the
speaker’s normal script for ‘getting groceries’ in fact involves having a
basket and going to the check-out counter. Everything else that occurred in
this event sequence is assumed to be shared background knowledge, for the
example she went through a door to get inside the store and she walked around
picking up items from selves.
2.
Culture Schemata
As we know that everyone has had
experience of surprise when some assumed component of an event is unexpectedly
missing. It is almost inevitable that our background of knowledge structure,
our schemata for making sense of the world, will be culturally established. We
develop our cultural schemata in the context of our basic experiences.
Yule (2002:87) states that cultural
schemata are pre-existing knowledge structures based on experience in a
particular culture. For some distinct difference, we can readily modify the
detail of a cultural schema. For many other subtle differences, we often don’t
know that there may be a misinterpretation based on different schemata.
For example below:
Situation: Australian factory
supervisor assumes that workers know that Easter is close and that therefore
everyone will have a holiday question to Vietnam worker.
You have five days off. What are you doing
to do?
(Vietnamese
worker may think he is being laid off. Meanwhile, something good in one
person’s schema can should like something bad in another’s)
3.
Cross-Cultural Pragmatics
The study of different in chances
based on cultural schemata is part of a wide area of investigation generally
known as cross-cultural pragmatics. Yule (2002: 87) states that cross-cultural
pragmatics is the study of different expectations among different communities
regarding how meaning is constructed. To look at the ways in which meaning is
constructed by speakers from different cultures will actually require a
complete reassessment of virtually everything we have think over so far in this
survey. The concepts and terminology may provide a basic analytic framework,
but the realization of those concepts may differ substantially from the English
language example presented here.
In the cross-cultural pragmatic
scope, we will discuss three points, they are: contrastive pragmatics,
interlanguage pragmatics, and pragmatic accent. Contrastive pragmatic is the
study of culturally different ways of speaking (using language). For the
example: Examples:
Speech acts
- In English offers can be made in
the form of questions (‘would you like another beer?’), this is not used in
Polish (instead: direct suggestion)
- Anglo-American apologies for an
offence include acknowledgement of fault, Japanese ones do not (preferring to
offer a remedy)
- Anglo-American apologies for
refusing an invitation have precise explanation, Japanese ones remain vague
Politeness
- Javanese: achieve harmony and
peaceful relations by concealing feelings, wants and thoughts.
- Anglo-American: ‘white lies’ so as
not to offend someone
- Polish/German: honesty valued as a
sign of friendship, no well-meaning lies
- Japanese speakers avoid
confrontation (never say ‘you’re wrong’, ‘that’s not true’)
Interlanguage pragmatics is the study
of how non-native speakers communicate in a second language. Such study
increasingly expose that we all speak with what might be called Pragmatics
accent, that is aspects of talk that indicate what is assumed to be
communicated without being said. We can see the example below:
When I make the complementing with my
second language:
Excuse me, would you mind choosing the other chair that more comfort
with you
(I’m an Indonesian, in my assume I want this man move on
that chair because I have been sitting before and this is (my pragmatic s accent)
In simpler, the explanation above simplified on schema
under:
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- Conclusions
After we know the explanation of discourse and culture
above, we can take the conclusion that pragmatics and discourse are well connected
like wife and husband, pragmatics is the soul (concept to concept to find out
the speaker meaning, contextual meaning, and also invisible meaning of
discourse in form of text or communication) and discourse is the body (text and
communication). In discourse and culture there are fourth domain, they are:
discourse analysis, coherence, background of knowledge (schemata, frame, and
script), culture schemata, and cross-culture pragmatics (contrastive
pragmatics, interlanguage pragmatics, and pragmatic accent).
REFERENCES
Brown, Gillian & Yule, George. 1983. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge University Press: New York
L. Mey, Jacob. 1998. Second Edition Pragmatics an Introduction. Blackwell Published: USA
Yule, George. 2002. Pragmatics. Oxford University Press: New York
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