Discourse analysis anyone?
Greetings to you all! Now that the summer is here most of us, I suspect, are either:
a) buried under the pile of reading for a dissertation/abstract/research
b) teaching / working crazy hours during the summer to make ends meet for the fall
c) procrastinating by doing anything (i.e. online shopping, lurking on Facebook, blogging here) other than researching
d) all of the above
If this sounds familiar you’re not alone! I’m finding it difficult to concentrate as well as make sense of what I’m reading up on with regards to discourse analysis. SO, I’m wondering if anyone out there would like to participate in a weekly reading group looking at various aspects of this area?
This is open to anyone interested in discourse analysis and/or who are looking into using aspects of it in their research. This would be an opportunity for interested individuals to get together to discuss and make sense of what discourse analysis involves and allow room to reflect on how it relates to one’s own research.
Even if you’re not on-site we’d like to try to include you in our discussions, either via Skype (should time zones and wi-fi permit) as well as posting online here. Details to follow.
Should you be interested please get in contact with myself. Or better yet, reply to this post with possible suggestions for reading(s), such as:
Chapters 2 and 3 (pp. 10 – 34) from Gee, J. (1999) Introduction to Discourse Analysis. London: Routeledge.
Wetherell, M. (2001). Themes in Discourse Research: The Case of Diana. In M. Wetherell, S. Taylor and S. Yates. eds. Discourse Theory and Practice. London: Open University Press.
Finally once the dust has settled from the onslaught of summer work/research/travel the launch of the Manchester Discourse Reading Group has commenced! The group aims to bring together those interested in discourse to discuss and exchange ideas related to this vast and complex field.
We’ll be meeting face-to-face onsite on a fortnightly basis but that doesn’t mean that the conversations end there. There is an online community set up so that those who can’t make it to the meetings can get involved. The website is by invitation only so should you be interested please click on the link below:
http://manchesterdiscoursereadinggroup.ning.com/?xgi=3QX4cytAYA2AgM
The members to this community are made up of onsite PhD students, staff and researchers from outside the university in addition to distance students, all of which will make for some interesting discussions!
Below is a tentative reading list that the group may take on. Please feel free to suggest any additional readings of interest.
Looking forward to it!
Suggested Reading
Overviews and summaries
Fairclough, N. (1992). Chapter 1: Approaches to discourse analysis. In Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 12 – 36.
Rogers, R. (2004). Chapter 11: Setting the agenda for critical discourse analysis in education. In Rogers, R. (Ed.). An introduction to critical discourse analysis in education. London: Routledge, pp. 237 – 254.
Wetherell, M. (2001). Themes in Discourse Research: The case of Diana. In M. Wetherell, S.Taylor and S.Yates (Eds.) Discourse Theory and Practice. London: OUP, pp. 14 – 28.
Language and Society
Gumperz, J. and Cook-Gumperz, J. (1982). Chapter 1: Introduction – language and the communication of social identity. In Gumperz, J. (Ed.), Language and Social Identity. Cambridge: CUP, pp. 1 – 21.
Holland, D., Skinner, D., Lachicotte Jr., W., Cain, C. (1998). Chapter 2: A practice of theory of self and identity. In Identity and Agency in Cultural Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 19 – 48.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. (Prologue, pp. 3-41).
Methodological Approaches
Bruner, J. (1986). Chapter 2: Two modes of thought. In Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gee. J. (1999). Chapter 2: Building Tasks. In Introduction to Discourse Analysis – Theory and Method. London: Routledge, pp. 10 – 19.
Hoey, M. (1994). Signalling in discourse: a functional analysis of a common discourse pattern in written and spoken. In Couthard, M., Advances in written text analysis. London: Routledge, pp. 26 – 45.
Riessman, C.K. (1993). Narrative analysis. Qualitative research methods. Vol. 30. Newbury Park, California: Sage.
Sociohistorical views of language
Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and his world. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Kress, G. (2001). From Saussure to critical sociolingustics – The turn towards a social view of language. In M. Wetherell, S.Taylor and S.Yates (Eds.) Discourse Theory and Practice. London: OUP, pp. 29 – 46.
Wertsch, J.V. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Critical Discourse Analysis: Language and society
Chapter 1: Introduction – Critical language study. In Fairclough, N. Language and Power. Essex: Longman, pp. 1 – 16.
Chapter 2: Discourse as social practice. In Fairclough, N. Language and Power. Essex: Longman, pp. 17 – 42.
Gee, J. (2004). Chapter 2: Discourse analysis – What makes it critical? In Rogers, R. (Ed.). An introduction to critical discourse analysis in education. London: Routledge, pp. 19 – 50.
van Dijk, T. (1993). Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis. Discourse and Society: Sage. 4(2): 249 – 283.
van Leeuwen, T. (1993). Genre and field in critical discourse analysis: A Synopsis. Discourse and Society: Sage. 4(2): 193 – 223.
Discourse analysis in use: Variations and perspectives
Gergen, K. (1994). Self narration in social life. In Realities and relationships: Sounding in social construction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Gumperz, J., Alakh, G. and Kaltman, H. Chaper 2: Thematic structure and progression in discourse. In Gumperz, J., (Ed.) Language and Social Identity (1982). Cambridge: CUP, pp. 22 – 56.