Microsoft Word Lesson plans Year doc

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Lesson Plans Year 2

Discourse Analysis Reference
Handout 1, Activity 1
Reference is an act by which a speaker (or writer) uses language to enable a listener (or reader) to identify something. The idea of reference is that of having to look for the full meaning somewhere else. We can look for the information elsewhere in the text (anaphoric or cataphoric reference) or outside the text (exophoric reference).
Anaphoric reference
This is the most common cohesive device in texts which means the backward reference to something that has been mentioned before. Anaphoric reference can be expressed by use of a pronoun, the definite article or substituion:

• 
  My sister's on the phone. She says she needs the drill that she lent us.
  
• 
  When I looked out of the window yesterday I saw a man and a woman standing by the gate. The man was wearing a hooded jacket and the woman was carrying a baseball bat.
  
• 
  There was so much delicious food on display, but I'm on a diet so I had to stick to the salad.
  

Cataphoric reference
Another common cohesive device is forward reference or cataphora. Here are two examples of cataphoric reference:

• 
  Perhaps I shouldn't tell you this, but when I was young I had hair down to my waist!
  
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  Please send your reply to the following address.
  

Exophoric reference
References to the "shared world” outside discourse are called exophoric references. Outward, or exophoric reference often directs us to the immediate context, as when someone says 'leave it on the table please' about a parcel you have for them. Sometimes, the referent is not in the immediate context but is assumed by the speaker/writer to be part of a shared world, either in terms of knowledge or experience. The same sort of exophoric reference is seen in phrases such as the Pope, the army etc.


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