The term discourse type is preferred to other labels which might be encountered in linguistics, such as text-type or genre since, for some, text-type implies work on written texts, whereas much of CADS has been carried out on spoken discourse, and genre is a term which is accompanied by huge baggage in literature, and some of the discourse types we may wish to examine might not meet everyone’s criteria of what constitutes a “genre”. For instance, Parliamentary debates on the Iraq war, White House press briefings, or the speeches of Silvio Berlusconi, all objects of recent Corpus Assisted Discourse Studies (CADS) scrutiny, may not be classifiable as separate genres.
Famous quotes containing the words discourse and/or types:
“If you’re anxious for to shine in the high esthetic line as a man
of culture rare,
You must get up all the germs of the transcendental terms, and plant
them everywhere.
You must lie upon the daisies and discourse in novel phrases of your
complicated state of mind,
The meaning doesn’t matter if it’s only idle chatter of a
transcendental kind.”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“Our children evaluate themselves based on the opinions we have of them. When we use harsh words, biting comments, and a sarcastic tone of voice, we plant the seeds of self-doubt in their developing minds.... Children who receive a steady diet of these types of messages end up feeling powerless, inadequate, and unimportant. They start to believe that they are bad, and that they can never do enough.”
—Stephanie Martson (20th century)