Speech is used in linguistics for various analyses, including grammar, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and discourse analysis. Corpus linguistics uses natural language for research, and speech can be used to analyze proficiency levels, personality, and emotional health. Discourse is studied in relation to power structures and meaning, with feminist theorists analyzing gender relations. Michel Foucault’s theories on pragmatics have influenced discourse analysis.
Speech is generally any form of verbal communication, whether spoken or written. The role of discourse in linguistics is to provide a body of text for various types of analyses. These may include research in grammar, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and discourse analysis.
Corpus linguistics is the area where speech is most commonly used in linguistics. The word corpus means “body,” so a linguistic corpus is a body of text or speech that occurs in the real world. While much linguistic research can be done on texts created for the purpose of linguistic research, like most research related to computer-generated language, corpus linguistics is based solely on natural language. Discourses of various kinds can provide a language for this type of research, which may seek to analyze, for example, proficiency levels among language learners.
Researchers could use speech in linguistic research related to sociology and psychology. For example, sociolinguistic research indicates that on average, women use more pronouns than men. Pronoun usage can also be used as a predictor of a person’s personality and emotional health. Emotionally healthy people, for example, tend to use plural pronouns like “we” or “they” much more often than they do singular pronouns like “I” or “me.” These conclusions were reached by studying speech samples.
French philosopher Michel Foucault used the term “discourse” to refer to the communication relationship in real-world power structures. Foucault was more of a social theorist than a linguist; however, his theories about pragmatics, or how language conveys meaning, have had a significant influence on how many academics view discourse. As Foucault uses the term, the role of discourse in linguistics is to establish the meaning of statements in the real world. He argued that speech locks people into certain ways of thinking and acting.
Following in Foucault’s footsteps, various other disciplines have examined discourse in linguistics and other areas. Feminist theorists, for example, can analyze the relationship between gender relations and how people talk about gender. This type of analysis generally does not use the highly structured scientific research methods used in traditional linguistics, but may use the conclusions of linguistic research in their analyzes of other texts, including literature.
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