The distinction between discourse and text in the beginning was considered to be a distinction between writing and speaking. Thus it used to be often 'Written text' and 'spoken discourse'. In fact, both discourse and text can be used to include all language units with a definable communicative function, whether spoken or written. Thus some scholars talk about 'spoken and written discourses' and some others about 'spoken texts'. Several researchers have attempted making distinction between these two terms. We shall look at some of them below:
Van Dijk (1977) maintained that text is an abstract theoretical constant while discourse is a concrete realization of it. But what Halliday (1978) considers is quite opposite. For him, the actualization of the abstract is text. Widdowson (1979) talks of the distinction in terms of functions. The 'sentences in combination' constitute text and 'sentence in use' discourse. According to Beaugrade (1980), 'the naturally occurring manifestation of language is text' while a 'set of mutually relevant texts' constitutes discourse. Beaugrade focuses on the conversational aspect of discourse. Brown and Yule (1983) define text as a technical term which refers to the verbal record of a communicative act and discourse as a dynamic process of creating data (i.e. text).
All these confuse us, don't they? Let us not go into details about others' views. However, we need to have our own definitions for our purposes here. We shall consider a text as a linguistic entity and discourse as a process by way of which the meaning is realized. For instance, consider a sign board with the utterance 'No parking' on the left side of the road. It is a piece of discourse since it communicates to users of the road the intended meaning. But if the same board is in a painter's shop, it is like any other sign board in the shop. The utterance here is only a text (a linguistic entity). |
