Discourse Analysis: Utterance, Mediation, and Genre Components
The Three Gates of Communication and Discourse Analysis
Gate 1: Utterance, Message, and Reception Dynamics
The utterance is the time when the sender is encoding a message and transmitting it. Utterance and reception become inseparable; they cannot exist without each other.
Discourse (or Speech) is the result of a particular utterance; it is determined, unique, and unrepeatable. However, the utterance may remain even if the issuer is no longer present.
The message is understood as “what was transmitted.” Discourse, however, retains traces of the specific and unique utterance that produced it.
Reception is the time when the receiver is decoding or interpreting a discourse. Reception indicates the possibility of a response. The response is never the same; there will be as many responses as receptions have occurred. Beyond sharing context and receiving the same information, each person has a different interpretation of what happened.
Gate 2: Actors, Mediation, and Types of Reception
Utterance (enunciation) and reception are completed in a single communicative act.
Types of Reception:
- Direct: Occurs when a message arrives unaltered from the sender to the receiver. No external channel disturbs the processes of utterance and reception.
- Indirect (Mediated): Occurs when the message has not arrived intact at the instance of reception. A human channel is involved in the final configuration, modifying the discourse. This mediator, who received the message initially, transmits their own view of what happened.
Mediation and Timing
Mediation means intervening between the utterance and the immediate transmission/reception. An indirect reception is always mediated.
Indirect or mediated reception can be:
- Immediate: When the utterance and reception coincide in time.
- Deferred: When time has passed between the utterance and reception. The message may or may not have been altered.
When the sender and receiver fail to connect directly, mediation (or media coverage) occurs.
Gate 3: Components and Format of Discourse Genres
Human communication relies on codes through which discourses must be encoded. Every social practice is shaped by previous utterances and discourses.
We define a discourse genre as a relatively stable form linked to a social practice. It is relatively stable because, while never identical, discourses within a genre share a rigid structure within which they develop.
These three components constrain and delimit the discourse when we start to communicate or act:
- Topic (Referent): Each genre allows a bounded number of issues that may develop within its discursive scheme.
- Style: The same subject can be approached from different perspectives. Style is the most personal element of a discourse genre, allowing greater freedom (e.g., informal, formal, distant tone).
- Structure: The outline or model to which all must adapt to make the same genre intertextual across social practices.
A single social practice may contain the structure of various genres. We also discuss genre transposition, which occurs when the subject matter and style of one genre adopt the structure of another.