A Discourse Analysis of Say versus Tell in Spoken American English

Abstract

This study explores semantic and functional differences between say and tell in authentic spoken discourse using contextual analysis (Celce- Murcia,1980). Through frequency distribution and qualitative analysis, the paper demonstrates that the difference between the two is not only in the syntactic constraint as most reference grammars emphasize, but also in their semantic and distributional distinctions, which is closely related to the interactive functions of each verb and the speaker's communicative goals. For ESL/EFL teaching, this paper will suggest that grammar be presented at the discourse level, illustrating how the use of a form contributes to the speaker's communicative goals.