Introduction

Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis, sometimes called discourse-pragmatics or text-linguistics, is a wide-ranging approach to the study of communication. Its diverse application makes it difficult to define, but at its foundation, it is concerned with spoken or written text above the clause level. New Testament scholar George Guthrie defines discourse analysis this way: it is “a process of investigation by which one examines the form and function of all the parts and levels of a written discourse, with the aim of better understanding both the parts and the whole of that discourse.”^[1]

Macrosyntax

This layer is called ‘macrosyntax’ because we have chosen to limit our analysis here to syntactic features: that is, coordination and subordination, which are themselves determined grammatically by conjunctions, asyndesis, and discourse markers, as well as information flow, insofar as it is determined by syntax (word order).

The purpose of the layer is to determine the syntactic features present that contribute to the discourse structure of the text. The poetic layer will consider non-syntactic features. Macrosyntax is the ‘bottom-up’ approach to discourse analysis, and the poetic layer will represent a ‘top-down’ approach. Final analysis is completed at their meeting point.

Overview

If, as Cognitive Grammar would have it, language use is a symbolic unit consisting of two poles — the phonological pole (what is heard) and the semantic pole (the final resultant meaning) — then we need to apply grammatical analysis not only to the word or clause level, but also to discourse as a whole. The attention given grammatical relations at the Grammar level is here applied to syntax at the clause level and beyond. This consists of observations of formal features, the morphosyntax, and the packaging of information flow as informed by coordination/subordination, vocatives, and clausal word order.

Information flow includes the discernment of presupposed information versus new/unexpected information and how the discourse structure offers an intentional point of view in order to guide the reader’s attention as they process the text as a whole. The clausal hypotaxis, vocatives, and word order shed light on the previous work done on the story behind the Psalm: that is, the understood common ground between the author and model reader, as well as and the participant analysis.

Required Reading

Eep Talstra, “Text Linguistics”
Marco Di Giulio, “Discourse Markers”
Lénart de Regt, “Shifts in Participant Reference” (pp. 5-34)
Elizabeth Robar, The Verb and the Paragraph in Biblical Hebrew: A Cognitive-Linguistic Approach. Leiden: Brill, 2015. 1-30.

Instructional and Sample Videos

Note: the verbal morphology diagram has now been merged with verbal semantics.

Steps

Note: When the macrostructure visualisation is complete, compare it to the psalm’s grammatical diagram, looking for the floating “discourse particles” that were identified on the grammatical diagram. The discourse particles identified on the grammatical diagram should be fully consistent with those identified in the macrostructure. If not, then a revision(s) is needed on one or both visualisations.

Whereas morphosyntax examines word forms and relationships within clauses and sentences, macrosyntax examines the word order and relationships across larger units of text, that is, above the clause level. Macrosyntax is foundational to the Discourse layer, because it asks questions that can only be answered at the level of the larger discourse, e.g. Why is this constituent fronted? What does this particle signal within the logic flow of this text?

1. Macrosyntax table: columns

Make the table with the following columns:

Verse number
Hebrew
Coordination & subordination
1. Coordinating conjunctions joining paragraphs
2. Dynamic translation reflecting coordination and subordination (2-3 columns)
3. Subordinating conjunctions
4. Coordinating conjunctions joining adjacent lines
5. Asyndetic subordination
Discourse markers
1. Vocatives
2. (any others that appear in your psalm)
Word Order
1. Word order
2. Topic
3. Focus
4. Theticity
Comments

↑ As clarified by Langacker, “under the rubric phonological structure, I include not only sounds but also gestures and orthographic representations” (2008: 15), i.e. means of expression and conceptualisation (ibid. 457).

[1] As clarified by Langacker, “under the rubric phonological structure, I include not only sounds but also gestures and orthographic representations” (2008: 15), i.e. means of expression and conceptualisation (ibid. 457).

[1]

Method:Macrosyntax