Talk:Psycholinguistics/Discourse

Good start! Your content seems pretty good, so I have focused my suggestions mostly on some mechanical aspects that could be improved. First of all, more description is needed in some places. More detailed description of what a speech act is would be helpful. Also, you mention the “network view” without explaining what it is. Check that all terms are explained and described, and assume your reader has no expertise on this topic.

There are some stylistic problems I noticed: several sentences end in the middle, e.g. “We have just discussed how our ability to make inferences comes from our own general knowledge and from.” Closer grammar editing is needed. “Inferences facilitates this by filling in gaps a of missing information and by connection individual events with others in the text,” is one of several quite awkward sentences. It’s vaguely clear what you mean, but difficult to read. Please also edit for spelling: you use “delayed” for “decayed” at one point, as well as a few other small spelling errors. It is difficult at times to differentiate your example sentences from your own writing—enclosing examples in quotation marks or putting them in italics would make your chapter read more smoothly. I inserted some quotation marks in one of the earlier paragraphs to show you what I mean. N.B. “Neil” and “Louis” are not phonologically similar, but “Armstrong” and “Armstrong” are—rephrase this sentence to make it clear you mean their full names, not just their first names!

References also need adjusting. You cite the textbook several times—I think Dr. Newman advised us not to do that but instead to find the sources Jay himself cites and use them. Several facts have been taken from the textbook and not attributed to their authors. For example, the discussion of slowed reading times with anaphors: Jay credits Garrod & Sanford, 1990 and they are not in your list of references or mentioned in the paragraph. Much of your chapter needs to be cited. If most of what you’re writing is well-known enough to be considered common knowledge and not cited, you should look for more detailed sources and include more specific information from influential sources.

The structure is often confusing and I think this is the most pressing problem in the chapter. Most importantly, you need to provide an introduction explaining what discourse is—assume your reader has never heard the word before and has no prior knowledge of anything you will talk about. You can outline the subtopics you will discuss in the intro paragraph, and possibly discuss any differing opinions or points of view on the topic (although you could also do this in a separate section, depending how much you want to discuss), for example the product vs. process debate. You also need a conclusion, where you can summarize the important points. You have a section on macrostructure, but not one on microstructure. You should probably mention this distinction right off the bat (in the intro) rather than revealing half way through that everything in the previous sections was about microstructure.

You need to work on your transitions. Do not simply give the introductory sentence to the next section at the end of the previous section! Bring the previous section to the point where you have said all you can say without introducing the next topic, then begin the next section. You may have to change the order of your sections to make it flow more logically. Several places you had whole paragraphs in the wrong section (like the end of the anaphora section, which is about cohesion and coherence)

The vast majority of the chapter is on writing and reading and conversation is barely mentioned. You should increase the section on social communication—this is the perfect place to expand and give examples of what you talked about in the earlier sections. Perhaps include a section on cultural influences on discourse (or other external factors, like gender, etc.) Politeness is also a fascinating topic.

I’m sorry if this seems like a lot of criticism: your chapter is off to a good start! I hope my advice can help tighten up your writing so the content is clearer and easier to understand. Egreer 18:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)