Discourse has several defnitions. In the study of language, discourse often refers to the speech patterns and usage of language, dialects, and acceptable statements, within a community.In its simplest form, a discourse is defined as the continous stretch of language to express a complete thought or an idea.
Discourse types may include: Exemplification, Naration, Description, cause and effect analysis, compare and contrast, among others.
NARRATION
Narration is retelling an incident or event. For instance; stories or commentary of a football match etc.Narration comes in two forms; Fiction and Non-fiction. Fiction deals with imaginary things e.g. fairy tales, a legend, fables, novel etc.Non fiction on the other hand deals with reporting what has happened or observable things proved in the real world. e.g. biography, journals, reviews, reports etc.
DESCRIPTION
Description aims at presenting a vivid picture or impressions of a person, object, place or even an event, etc.The purpose of description is to re-create or visually present a person, place, event, or action so that the reader may picture that which is being described.Description comes in three forms; by order of impression (how you notice them, importance (its significance), and spatial (according to location). Strong observation skills, precise informative choice, effective organization of details are factors that contribute a good descriptive piece.
EXEMPLIFICATION
Exemplification is another type of discourse that involves backing ones ideas in a piece of writing with examples or illustrating them in the form of examples.
Examples could be through personal experiences, a case study, research etc. It has a clear topic sentence and includes the writer’s opinion.
COMPARISON AND CONTRAST
In this type of discourse, details are made to show similarities and difference that exist between two or more subjects.
These subjects are always present in this case to be compared or contrasted (which is the topic). The opinion is the object of comparison or contrast.
CAUSE AND EFFECT ANALYSIS
In the cause and effect, details are given to explain why something happens (cause) or what its consequences are (effect).
Ideas are presented with facts from research about the phenomenon in question.
Like many discourse types, it has a clear topic and the writer’s opinion.
Refrence: wisegeek.com
