1. Broader and Narrower scope of discourse analysis
Submitted by
M.A. Student
RANA SAMEER ABDULRAHMAN

2. What is discourse analysis?
According to Baker and Ellece (2011:32), there are plentiful conceptualizations of discourse analysis:
Brown and Yule (1983) refer to it as ‘how humans use language to communicate’.
Stubbs (1983) refers to it as ‘attempts to study the organization of language above the sentence or above the clause; and therefore to study large linguistic units such as conversational exchanges or written texts’. He later notes that it also refers to ‘the study of naturally occurring language’.
Burr (1995) claims that the term is an ‘umbrella which covers a wide variety of actual research practices with quite different aims and theoretical backgrounds. All take language as their focus of interest’.
Burr (1995) implies that CONVERSATION ANALYSIS and INTERACTIONAL SOCIOLINGUISTICS involve forms of discourse analysis

3. So, the question is difficult to answer succinctly because the term ‘discourse analysis’ refers to a range of approaches in several disciplines and theoretical traditions.
One starting point is that discourse analysis usually refers to a research approach in which language material, such as talk or written texts, and sometimes other material altogether, is examined as evidence of phenomena beyond the individual person. For example, imagine looking at some old letters, written several decades or centuries ago. Each letter will be interesting for what it conveys about the writer’s situation, opinions and feelings. However, it can also provide more general evidence of society at that earlier time.
So, each letter, however private its original purpose, is potentially of interest as evidence of social phenomena, in a way that the writer could not have anticipated. This is the level of interpretation employed by a discourse analyst. (Taylor, 2013)

4. Different views of discourse analysis
(Paltridge,2012:6) says that through its relatively short history the term discourse analysis has shifted from highlighting one aspect of language usage to another, as well as being used in different ways by different researchers.
Cameron and Kulick ( 2003) say that the ‘textually oriented discourse analysis’ and approaches to discourse analysis that have more of a social theoretical orientation are compatible with each other. They argue that the instances of language in use that are studied under a textually oriented view of discourse are still socially situated and need to be interpreted in terms of their social meanings and functions.
For example,

5. David Crystal’s ( 2008 ) analysis of Barack Obama’s victory speech when he won the US presidential election is an example of textually oriented discourse analysis.
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. (CNNPolitics.com 2008 )
In his speech, Obama uses :
Parallelism.
Who clauses.
The rhetorical ‘rule of three’.

6. Higgins’ (2008) analysis of Obama’s speech is an example of more socially oriented discourse analysis, especially when Obama uses lists of pairs in his speech to rhetorical effect, as in:
It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled.(ibid)
Higgins says that Obama’s speech back to the oratory of the ancient Greeks and Romans due to rhetorical techniques.
We can see, then, that discourse analysis is a view of language at the level of text. Discourse analysis is also a view of language in use; that is, how people achieve certain communicative goals through the use of language.

7. Discourse as the social construction of reality
According to Paltridge (2012:7), the view of discourse as the social construction of reality see texts as communicative units which are embedded in social and cultural practices. The texts we write and speak both shape and are shaped by these practices. So,

8. Smart’s discussion of climate change provides an example of the use of a term, climate change , and accompanying arguments to create different realities for different people.
He demonstrates how both advocates and sceptics of climate change draw on their own particular take on the work of the same person, Dr James Hansen, an outspoken climate change researcher to argue both for (the advocates) and against (the sceptics) climate change.

9. Climate change
Smart shows how advocates draw on Hansen’s credentials as a leading climatologist with NASA and the standing of the journal in which he has published, Science , to support his argument for the irreversibility of climate change.
The sceptics, however, make connections between Hansen’s arguments, fiction and horror movies to argue against his point of view. So, we have two opposing discourses on the same person’s work to make cases both for and against the same phenomenon.

10. Discourse and socially situated identities
Gee ( 2011 ) argues, the ways we make visible and recognizable who we are and what we are doing always involves more than just language. It involves acting, interacting and thinking in certain ways. It also involves valuing and talking (or reading and writing) in appropriate ways with appropriate ‘props’, at appropriate times and in appropriate places.

11. References
BAKER,P. ,& ELLECE,S. (2011). KEY TERMS IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS. Continuum International Publishing Group.
Paltridge, B.(2012).Discourse Analysis: An Introduction(2nd ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing.
TAYLOR, S.(2013).WHAT IS DISCOURSE ANALYSIS?. Bloomsbury Publishing.