Discourse analysis
Categories: Linguistics stubs | Communication stubs | Sociolinguistics
Discourse analysis is a number of approaches to analysing language use above the sentence or clause level. The language in question can be written or spoken texts or systems of texts. The term discourse analysis first entered general use as the title of a paper published by Zellig Harris in 1952. Harris' method was more of an expansion of grammatical analysis than what is now commonly thought of as discourse analysis, and this portion of his work is now largely neglected, other than the title itself.
Discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and social psychology, each of which is subject to its own assumptions and methodologies. A systems devised to analyze a text is called a text grammar. The following are some of the specific theoretical perspectives and analytical approaches used in linguistic discourse analysis:
- Interactional sociolinguistics
- Ethnography of communication
- Pragmatics, particularly speech act theory
- Conversation analysis, which is based on the theories of Harvey Sacks
- Variation analysis
- Discursive psychology, particularly as developed by Jonathan Potter and his student Derek Edwards.
- Critical discourse analysis, which combines discourse analysis with critical theory (particularly that of the Frankfurt School, Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, as well as literary, semiotic and psychoanalytic influences from Julia Kristeva, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Lacan), to create a politically engaged form of linguistic discourse analysis.
Although each approach emphasizes different aspects of language use, they all view language as social interaction, and are concerned with the social contexts in which discourse is embedded.
References
- Jaworski, A. and Coupland, N. (eds) (1999) The Discourse Reader Routledge: London.