The Grammar of Discourse

by Robert E. Longacre

In that The Anatomy of Speech Notions (1976) was the precursor to The Grammar of Discourse (1983), this revision embodies a third "edition" of some of the material that is found here. The original intent of the 1976 volume was to construct a hierarchical arrangement of notional categories, which find surface realization in the grammatical constructions of the various languages of the world. The idea was to marshal the categories that every analyst-regardless of theoretical bent-had to take account of as cognitive entities. The volume began with a couple of chapters on what was then popularly known as "case grammar," then expanded upward and downward to include other notional categories on other levels. Chapters on dis­ course, monologue, and dialogue were buried in the center of the volume. In the 1983 volume, the chapters on monologue and dialogue discourse were moved to the fore of the book and the chapters on case grammar were made less prominent; the volume was then renamed The Grammar of Discourse. The current revision features more clearly than its predecessors the intersection of discourse and pragmatic concerns with grammatical structures on various levels. It retains and expands much of the former material but includes new material reflecting current advances in such topics as salience clines for discourse, rhetorical relations, paragraph structures, transitivity, ergativity, agency hierarchy, and word­ order typologies.

Genres: Linguistics

379 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1995

Reviews

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert E. Longacre seems to be one of the pioneers in applying discourse analysis to scripture, and this seemed to be a primary text on this type of analysis. I was disappointed that the book was not primarily about scriptural analysis. That’s ok, though, since I found that much of the book is quite applicable to analyzing scripture. For example, there is a bizarre cult-like movement called Israel Only (IO) that thinks the salvation discourse applies only to ancient Israelites. A favorite scripture of theirs is Matthew 15.24: “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel” which they rip out of context to make their point. But Longacre aptly notes, "A discourse of any size and complexity is never a simple linear sequence of sentences. Sentences cluster and clump into units of various size." Since Matthew 15.24 is part of a dialogue, the chapter on dialogue came in very handy in analyzing this pericope.

A disadvantage I had in reading this book is that it assumes more than a passing knowledge of linguistics. So when I hit the chapter on dialogue I found that I needed to look up some of the technical language, such as surface structure and notional structure, and to reread some earlier chapters. A couple of the later chapters I just skimmed through because the material was technical and for the most part irrelevant to my purposes. I’m not sure this book is worth the effort for someone like me that simply wants to dive a little deeper into discourse analysis as it applies to biblical exegesis, but I sure did appreciate the chapter on dialogue.

[Lu Tsun · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Longacre's method succeeds, we can teach computers to speak in human languages. Too technical.