The History of Discourse Studies

[Christian Kjaer Nelson]

I found Teun's response very useful and interesting. However, I think part
of it might be a bit misleading:

> Despite the obvious differences between the various directions of
research,
> there was also unity: common to virtually all these approaches was the
> fundamental idea that sentences, propositions, interpretations, speech
acts,
> turns, moves, etc. come in *sequences*, and that the forms, meanings,
> interpretations or social interaction functions of these 'units' are
mutually
> dependent on each other.

Certainly, the schools, scholars, etc. who might be gathered under
Levinson's label "discourse analysis" acknowledged that turns, moves, etc.
come in sequences. But whether that made any difference to their methods or
analysis is another thing, as is the question of their conceptualization of
the notion of sequence. Many of those who acknowledged the existence of
sequencing nevertheless suggested that the sequencing was quite haphazard
and not terribly informative for the study of individual utterances/speech
acts. Searle and most of those influenced by his speech act theory suggest
as much (see _(On) Searle on Conversation_). Others argued that there was a
very precise organization to interactions--a precision created by the
*scripting* (i.e., predetermination of the sequencing) of interactions. But
this notion of sequencing drains the concept of any importance for analyzing
interactions--it leads one to focus on identifying the script rather than
the meaning of specific acts and the significance of specific organizational
places within a sequence, a point which conversation analysts stress.
Further, to the extent that these researchers attempted to identify or
describe scripts by examining the meanings of the script-constituent
utterances, they anchored the search for those meanings in an examination of
the properties of the utterances (mostly their grammar) that were
discoverable when the utterances were consider in isolation from others. It
is this derivation of meaning/function from a consideration of isolated
utterances which Levinson identifies as the distinctive feature of
"discourse analysis" and it is this approach which conversation analysis
rejected. While some have joined conversation analysts in locating the
function/significance/meaning of interactional acts through an examination
of interaction-*unique* sequential properties, I would argue that the number
of those who have is still quite small. Indeed, some have argued that even
conversation analysts have lost sight of their distinctive contribution, and
have at least implicitly incorporated a script approach. I do think there
are elements of such an approach in CA research, but don't think it is
accurate to say that this is entirely, or even predominantly, the case.

Christian Nelson