Book Title : Discourse Analysis: 2nd Edition
Author :
Brian Paltridge
Year
of Publication :
2012
Publisher :
Bloomsbury
Pages :
282
Description
of the Book :
This
book consists of ten chapters. The first chapter talks about what discourse
analysis is. Then, the second chapter is about discourse and society. Next, the
third chapter explains discourse and pragmatics. Following that, the next
chapter talks about discourse and genre. The fifth chapter covers discourse and
conversation. The sixth chapter presents about discourse grammar. Moreover, the
next chapter covers corpus approaches to discourse analysis. The eighth chapter
is about multimodal discourse analysis. Then, the next chapter is about
critical discourse analysis. For the final chapter, it talks about doing
discourse analysis.
In
addition, the author provides exercises
and sample texts for readers to analyse in each of the chapters and
provides suggested answers to these exercises in the appendix at the back of
the book. Moreover, this second edition of the book comes to a
further addition which is a companion website where the author has placed extended
reading and reference lists for each of the chapters, as well as set of
PowerPoint slides
that people who are using this book for teaching a course on discourse analysis
might find
useful.
Summary of the Book :
The first chapter provides an overview of discourse
analysis. Discourse
analysts are interested in how people organize what they say in the sense of
what they typically say first, and what they say next and so on in a
conversation or in a piece of writing. This is something that
varies across cultures and is by no means the same across languages.
Different cultures often have different ways of doing things through language. Moreover,
Hymes (1964) was explored through the notion of the ethnography of communication. In particular, he
considered aspects of speech events such as who is speaking to whom, about
what, for what purpose, where and when, and how these impact on how we
say and do things
in culture-specific settings. Moreover, this chapter also talks about different
views of discourse analysis. It covers discourse as the social construction of reality, discourse and socially
situated identities, discourse and performance, also discourse and
intertextuality.
The
second chapter presents the important
aspects of the social and cultural settings of spoken and
written discourse. It starts with a discussion of the notion of discourse communities. Then, it
discusses the various ways people express their social identity through discourse.
Moreover, the
issue of ideology and discourse is also discussed
in this
chapter. Next, this chapter has looked at discourse analysis from a number of
social and other perspectives. It has introduced several notions that are
important for discussions of language from a discourse
perspective. It has also aimed to show how some of these notions have changed
since they were
first introduced (language and gender & language and identity)
and how these
notions are currently viewed in discussions of the use of spoken and written
discourse.
The third chapter presents an overview of research in pragmatics area that is relevance to people interested in
looking at language from a discourse perspective. It discusses the relationship between language and context, a key issue in the area of
pragmatics. It also looks at ways in which people typically perform speech acts (e.g. apologizing or
requesting) in spoken and written discourse. The chapter discusses the reasons
we choose to perform a speech act in a particular way, for example, reasons of politeness. The ways in which people
perform speech acts across cultures is also discussed, as well as what happens
when people do not follow culture-specific expectations for performing
particular speech acts.
The forth chapter is about discourse and genre. It talks about
conversation analysis that provides a way of carrying out fine-grained analyses
of spoken discourse which can help not just describe the social word, but
understand how, through the use of language, it is constructed. Others,
however, suggest combining conversation analysis with more ethnographic
descriptions in a kind of ‘multi-method/ multi- level’ analysis which combines
the strengths of the insights that can be provided by conversation analysis
with data that can be gathered using procedures such as interviews, questionnaires
and participant observations (Wodak, 1996).
Next, the fifth chapter covers about discourse and conversation.
Conversation analysis looks at ordinary everyday spoken discourse and aims to understand,
from a fine-grained analysis of the conversation, how people manage their
interactions. It also looks at how social relations are developed through the use of spoken discourse. This
chapter discusses the principles underlying conversation analysis. It then outlines
procedures in transcribing and coding data. This chapter gives examples of the kinds of
conversational strategies speakers use as well as providing examples of these in a number of
different kinds of conversational interactions.
The sixth chapter presents discourse grammar. This chapter has
discussed grammar from a discourse perspective. It has shown how individual
linguistic features work together in whole texts. This includes how
interpersonal factors result in the use of certain grammatical choices as well
as ways in which the use of particular items provide texture to texts. The
repetition and collocation of lexical items has been discussed, as has patterns
of progression in texts. The ways in which attitude is expressed through grammar
has been given particular attention, as have grammatical differences between
spoken and written discourse. The chapter has argued that there is no simple,
one-dimensional difference between spoken and written discourse but, rather,
these differences are most usefully seen as being on a scale, or continuum.
The next chapter covers corpus approaches to discourse analysis.
This chapter has provided an overview of multimodal discourse analysis, an
approach which considers how texts that employ more than one mode of
presentation, such as words and graphics, make meaning. It has provided the
theoretical background to multimodal discourse analysis as well as given
examples of analyses that have been carried out from this perspective. It has
also discussed relations between genre, speech acts and multimodality. A genre
and multimodality framework has then been presented as a proposal for examining
layers of meaning in multimodal texts. A number or suggestions have been made
for steps involved in carrying out multimodal discourse analysis. Limitations
of multimodal discourse analysis have also been discussed.
The eighth chapter presents multimodal discourse analysis. This
chapter has provided an overview of multimodal discourse analysis, an approach which
considers how texts that employ more than one mode of presentation, such as
words and graphics, make meaning. It has provided the theoretical background to
multimodal discourse analysis as well as given examples of analyses that have
been carried out from this perspective. It has also discussed relations between
genre, speech acts and multimodality. A genre and multimodality framework has
then been presented as a proposal for examining layers of meaning in multimodal
texts. A number or suggestions have been made for steps involved in carrying
out multimodal discourse analysis. Limitations of multimodal discourse analysis
have also been discussed.
The following chapter covers critical discourse analysis. Critical
discourse analysis starts with the assumption that language use is always
social and that discourse both ‘reflects and constructs the social world’
(Rogers, 2011). This chapter has discussed key issues and principles in
critical discourse analysis. It has given examples of studies that have been
carried out from this perspective, all of which have aimed to uncover
out-of-sight norms and values which underlie texts which are key to understanding
the roles that texts play in particular social, cultural and political
contexts. Suggestions have then been made for ways of doing critical discourse
analysis. Criticisms of critical discourse analysis have also been discussed
and ways of responding to these criticisms have been suggested.
The last chapter is about doing discourse analysis. This chapter
discusses issues that need to be considered when planning and carrying out a
discourse analysis project. The chapter concludes with a discussion of issues
to consider in evaluating the quality of a discourse analysis project. This
final chapter of the book has made suggestions for planning and carrying out a
discourse analysis project. A number of sample studies have been discussed, as
have issues to consider in evaluating the quality of a discourse analysis
project. A number of websites and journals are suggested at the end of the
chapter where you will find further examples of discourse analysis projects and
advice on submitting discourse-oriented articles to academic journals in the
area.
Critical Evaluation :
In
my opinion, this book provides all the important points in discourse analysis.
It is different from the other books because it provides exercises, discussion
questions, directions for further reading, and useful websites to help readers
having a better comprehension about discourse analysis. Moreover, the author has
arranged this book perfectly, he has separated the points in each chapter neatly.
Therefore, it helps readers keep on the line while reading this book. For me,
this book can be a prominent textbook to help learners learn about discourse
analysis.
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