Discourse structure and point of view
Task B - Viewpoint relations in reported speech
Now consider the following sentence (assuming the two-person coffee bar
chat we assumed in Task A):
When I met Sharon yesterday she
told me that her sister was ill.
How many levels of discourse this time? Who are
the addressers and addressees? Compare your account with ours
Our answer
The prototypical 'doubled' discourse structure of drama
The one-level discoursal structure is typical of most poems, but the
two-level discourse structure is more typical of drama. Playwrights write
plays for audiences and readers, but they do not communicate directly
with their addressees, as poets typically do. Instead, they communicate
meanings indirectly to their audience by having their characters communicate
with one another on stage. So the following diagram represents the discourse
structure involved when one character says something to another character
in a play:
Addresser 1
(Playwright) |
 |
Message |
|
Addressee 1
(Audience/Reader) |
Addresser 2
(Character A) |
|
Message |
|
Addressee 2
(Character B) |
Note that in a play which has just two characters, there are at least
FOUR points of view to consider, the viewpoint of each of the two characters,
that of the playwright and that of the reader.
|
