Pragmatic vs. Discourse needs of ESL students

[Linguisticat]

I'm a grad student with an MA in Linguistics and one class to go before an MA in TESOL and I still can't precisely define the difference between pragmatics and discourse. The way I see it, pragmatics is the study of the "nitty-gritty" of devices used in communication - oral or written - and discourse is the analysis of the whole exchange. I'm trying to put together a lesson plan for intermediate ESL college students, and I have to separate their pragmatic needs from their discourse needs. So far I'm OK with the pragmatic needs - lexis, syntax, prosody as they affect how students recognize TRP - turn relevance points - places where it is appropriate to change speakers. But what are their "discource needs"??? Linguisticat

[iainmac]

Silence - deciding not to intervene, or non-verbal communication like frowns and crossed legs, would fit into discourse as far as I understand it. So would wider context, for example what prompted interaction and its "background" in terms of the realtionships of the speakers.

[ICAL_Pete]

You may be interested in this ICALwiki overview of Discourse Analysis