4.3　Discourse Analysis

In the pragmatic approach to studying language, “speaker and writers are viewed as using language not only in its interpersonal function (i.e.taking part in social interaction), but also in its textual function (i.e.creating well-formed and appropriate text),and also in its ideational function (i.e.representing thought and experience in a coherent way).Investigating this area of the form and function of what is said and written is called discourse analysis”(Yule, 1996, p.83).As I found a language form or usage appear frequently enough to arouse my attention or to stand out as an unusual employment in some excerpts of the recordings 〔e.g.the usage of the inclusive first person plural pronoun “we”(咱们)instead of the ordinary first person plural pronoun “we”(我们)〕，I would study both the connotative and denotative meanings of the particular form or usage in the particular context, trying to clarify its function and to interpret the speaker’s intention or purpose 〔The inclusive “we”(咱们) is adopted to create in-group bonding, so as to build mutual trust to facilitate persuasion〕.Then, using the connection between the form and the function of the linguistic “tactic”, I try to identify similar usage in other excerpts either in the same case or in other cases.As the examples accumulated, a pattern about the language form could be generalized.Once a “tactic”is defined, a new search of the case transcripts for the language patterns belonging to the same category is performed.(https://www.daowen.com)