Discourse Analysis of Three Absurd Plays

There have been numerous attempts by discourse analysts and sociolinguists to develop an adequate model of discourse analysis. Their purpose was often to find a systematic way for studying how language is used in certain contexts. Those models have strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, further developments are always needed to be able to analyze complicated discourses, particularly if the data used for analysis is a genre of discourse that features unconventional characteristics of human language. This book attempts to develop an integrated model of Discourse Analysis (DA) that provides adequate tools for the analysis of dialogues from the Theater of the Absurd (TA). The book also aims to prove that in order to understand the apparently absurd and pointless language used by absurdist playwrights, it is necessary to incorporate more than one model into an integrated system of discourse. That is because the interpretation of an utterance depends on both the linguistic and non-linguistic contexts in which it occurs. The study adapts the model proposed by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975) and the model proposed by Edmondson (1981).