Discourse structure and point of view
Our answer for task B
When I met Sharon yesterday she told me that her
sister was ill.
There are two levels of discourse here. Student A talks to student B,
and in doing so, he reports what Sharon said to him on a previous occasion.
Hence one discourse situation is reported, or embedded, inside another.
We could represent the 'discourse architecture' of this conversation as
follows:
|
Addresser 1
(Student A)
|
 |
Message
|
|
Addressee 1 (current discourse)
(Student B)
|
|
Addresser 2
(Sharron)
|
|
Message
|
|
Addressee 2 (previous discourse)
(Student A)
|
As we will see next, this 'doubled' discourse structure
is typical of drama as well as of reported speech in conversation.
|
