1. Approaches to Discourse Analysis

2. What’s it all about?
Leaning to use the analysis of language to solve real-life problems at work, at school and at home.
Theory and Practical Application

3. The ‘D’ Word

4. Discourse
Discourse is: ‘language above the sentence level or above the clause.’
Stubbs 1998
The study of discourse is the study of any aspect of language use.
Fasold 1990
The analysis of discourse is the analysis of language in use…it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms independent of the purposes or functions that they serve in human affairs.
Brown and Yule 1983

5. Discourse
‘Discourse’ is for me more than just language in use: It is language use, whether speech or writing, seen as a type of social practice.
Fairclough 1992
Discourse constitutes the social…Discourse is shaped by relations of power, and invested with ideologies.

6. Big D and Little d Discourse (non-count) vs. ‘Discourses’
Saying, Doing, Thinking, Behaving, Believing, Valuing, Interacting combinations that show who we are (Gee)
The ‘Discourse of medicine’
The ‘Discourse of romance’

7. Discourse is… How language reflects reality
How language creates reality
How language shapes our identities and interactions
How language is used as to tool to control people

8. What is the meaning of this sentence?

9. Meaning depends on…
How
Where
When
To whom
Why

10. The ‘P’ Word

11. Pragmatics From the Greek pragma meaning ‘deed’
How we ‘do things with words’
The study of meaning in different contexts of use
How language is used to do things in real world situations
Speech act theory
Conversational logic

12. Discourse Analysis Critical Discourse Analysis Conversation Pragmatics
Genre
Ethnography Of
Speaking
Multimodal
Mediated
Discourse
Analysis

13. Discourse analysis

14. An Example

15. Questions Who are these people?
What is going on here? What are these people doing?
What kinds of tools/language are they using to do it?
Are they being successful/doing it well?
Who has more power in the conversation? How can you tell?
What do the two people want? What strategies are they using to get what they want?
Who wins?

16. Questions Who are these people?
What is going on here? What are these people doing?
What kinds of tools/language are they using to do it?
Are they being successful/doing it well?
Who has more power in the conversation? How can you tell?
What do the two people want? What strategies are they using to get what they want?
Who wins?

17. The Ethnography of Communication
Communication as a matter of cultural competence
Focus on things like setting, participants, mood, and other kinds of behavioral rules
What are some of the rules for ‘complaining to your superior’?

18. Genre Analysis
Communication as using the generic conventions of a discourse community
Focus on the structure of the interaction
Do ‘moves’ occur in a predictable way?

19. Pragmatics Communication as doing things with words
Sentence meaning vs. speaker meaning

20. Politeness Theory
Communication as a way of encoding social relationships
Focus on ‘Face threatening acts’ and ‘Face saving strategies’

21. Conversation Analysis
Communication as joint activity
Attention to the sequential organization of talk, turn-taking and topic management

22. Interactional Sociolinguistics
Communication as a way of signaling social activities and social identities
Attention to strategies speakers use to signal activity and identity
Competing ‘frames’

23. Critical Discourse Analysis
Communication as a way of exercising and resisting power
Focus on existing power relations and how they are reinforced
Examines underlying assumptions
Asks, ‘who really won?’

24. Multimodal Discourse Analysis
Communication as a matter of combining multiple modes
Focus not just on words but on gestures, facial expressions, posture, proxemics, gaze, object handling, spatial layout, time and timing

25. Mediated Discourse Analysis
Communication as a tool for taking action
Focus on actions and the cultural tools that make them possible

26. Conclusion Communication is not just a matter of words
Communication is a matter of action
Communication is a matter of relationships and power
Communication creates and re-creates our social worlds