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Journal of Pragmatics 41 (2009) 1282–1285 www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma
Book review Advances in Discourse Studies Vijay K. Bhatia, John Flowerdew and Rodney H. Jones (Eds.), Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge Press, 2008. ISBN 13 978 0 415 39809 1 (Hardback), ISBN 13 978 0 415 39810 7 (Paperback). ix + 262 pp. The term discourse analysis first entered general use in a series of papers published by Harris (1952). During the past 10 years, the study of discourse analysis has turned into a growth industry in linguistics. An extensive body of pragmatic and linguistic research deals with functional utterances or written texts in human interaction. Studies of discourse have been carried out within a variety of traditions that investigate the relations between language, structure and agency. Up to now discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of social science disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, sociology, cognitive psychology, sociology, international relations and communication studies, etc., each of which is subject to its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis, and methodologies. Advances in Discourse Studies brings together contributions from leading scholars in the field, investigating the historical and theoretical development of discourse studies and pointing towards new directions for the future of the discipline. Among the more recent developments are an increasing ‘critical’ turn in discourse analysis, a growing interest in historical, ethnographic and corpus-based approaches to discourse, more concern with the social contexts in which discourse occurs, the social actions that are employed and the identities that are constructed through it, as well as a revaluation of what counts as ‘discourse’ to include multimodal texts and interaction. With respect to discourse analysis a lot of approaches have tackled this issue and the editors bring together some of the most prominent scholars of discourse analysis to survey the field in light of their new development, reflecting the perspective of the editors. As the name of the book suggests, the present volume is not interested in describing the type of work that has been done using these various approaches as the editors are showing how those working areas are changing certain parameters, which often involves borrowing from other fields and other schools of discourse analysis. The volume opens with a general remark, which serves as an introduction to the book; the editors provide an overview of the key concepts and issues that have been raised by the new discursive turn of language in use in particular and a brief synopsis of the different approaches to discourse analysis. Their comprehensive review of literature on the treatment of discourse in use is one of the strengths of the volume. Following the general introduction, the book is divided into seven parts to discuss some of the specific topics. The main discussion, divided into subsections, is preceded with an overview in this particular field and followed with suggestions for further work, which enables researchers to expand knowledge on topics in which they are interested. The topics dealt with in this volume include the following areas: conversation analysis, ethnographic-based discourse analysis, corpus-based discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, genre analysis, critical discourse analysis and mediated discourse analysis respectively. This is an invaluable resource for researchers of interdisciplinary discourse analysis. The book closes with a four page index of authors and concepts, facilitating easy access to specific issues. The following is a detailed introduction to each part. Part One mainly discusses topics on conversation analysis. Conversation Analysis (CA), a research tradition that grew out of ethnomethodology, bears some unique methodological features. The central goal of conversation analytic research is the description and explication of the competences that ordinary speakers use and rely on in participating in intelligible, socially organized interaction. Of the two articles presented in this chapter, Drew and Curl’s paper Conversation analysis: overview and new directions (22–35) reviews the background and progress of CA and points out the gap in previous research by enlarging the research scope to investigating the organizations of and interconnections between four underlying characteristics 0378-2166/$ – see front matter # 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2008.12.012
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of talking-in-interaction, that is turn-taking, turn design or construction, sequence and sequence organization (Drew, 2005). Based on the analysis of phone conversations, they indicate how the syntactic forms utterances take are associated with characteristic and appropriate places in interaction and typically used to deal with particular interactional circumstances or contingencies. Nevile’s article Being out of order: overlapping talk as evidence of trouble in airline pilot’s work (36–50) is a typical application of CA methodology in the work place. He examines the sequential organization of turns in interaction as evidence for how airline pilots create and understand the progress of their collaborative work. This investigation of work place overlapping talk can potentially inform professional practice and offer a new perspective on intractable issues for particular work settings. Part Two is about ethnographic-based discourse analysis. As to applying ethnography to discourse analysis, this volume mainly owes a debt to the American anthropological linguistic tradition which has proven especially fruitful in explorations of the construction of knowledge in schools and workplace settings. In this chapter Smart’s article Enthnographic-based discourse analysis: uses, issues and prospects (56–66) presents two of his ethnographic-based discourse studies. One is the study of discourse use in a Canadian bank to examine the technology-supported discourse practices of the bank’s economists and the other is a study of student-interns from an undergraduate professional writing program in a university to observe what the interns experienced as they move from classroom to professional settings. In this paper Smart makes a distinction between some underlying concepts for the approach, such as method and methodology, ethnography and case study, ethnography and textual analysis and so on. Lin’s research article entitled Using ethnography in the analysis of pedagogical practice: perspectives from activity theory (67–80) mainly focuses on an ethnographic approach to discourse in classroom practice from the perspective of activity theory. She concludes that CA and other forms of discourse analysis are strong in uncovering and analyzing the symbolic tools in the activity theory framework; other ethnographic methods are needed to uncover and analyze other important components in the discourse settings. Part Three of the book, corpus-based discourse analysis, which includes three papers, focuses on corpora and its application on discourse analysis. Corpus linguistics is now at a point at which it ‘‘is becoming part of mainstream linguistics’’ (Mukherjee, 2004:118). However, as to the application for discourse studies, criticisms have prevailed in the past few years since it is easier to have a bottom-up analysis rather than a top-down analysis which is a prerequisite for discourse analysis. There has been relatively more and more discussion of the usefulness of corpus work in discourse analysis. A couple of years into the new century a slightly different picture of the compatibility of computerassisted method with discourse-level phenomena was presented (Adel and Reppen, 2008:2). This can also be found in a summary by Partington (2004) in which he offers an explanation for the historically sight application of corpuslinguistics methods in the studies of text and discourse. Of the three articles in this section, Lee’s article Corpora and discourse analysis: new ways of doing old things (86–99) addresses the issue of ‘‘new ways of doing old things’’ by a review of corpus linguistics and its application in discourse studies. He holds that some of the work that has been done so far can be quite comfortably labeled as corpus-based discourse analysis. Biber’s paper Corpus-based analyses of discourse: dimensions of variation in conversation (100–114) employs the multi-dimensional approach to analyze conversation. He examines the dimensions of variation in conversation based on Longman Spoken and Written English Corpus (LSWE) with the aim of examining in more detail the relationship between context and corpora, i.e. in what circumstances it is necessary to rely on context for interpretation of corpus data, and on what occasions the concordance data reveal institutionalized discourse practices. The main finding is that corpus-based conversation analysis is similar to the dimensions of variation found in earlier multi-dimensional analysis of spoken and written registers. Flowerdew’s paper Corpora and context in professional writing (115–127) examines the relationship between context and corpora, i.e. in what circumstances it is necessary to rely on context for interpretation of corpus data, and on what occasions the concordance data can reveal institutionalized discourse practice. In her study she chooses the areas of semantic prosody and epistemic stance for her investigation. Part Four deals with the topic of multimodal discourse analysis. Discourse analysis is about language in use. Whether this is in the form of spoken language or text, it is always and inevitably constructed across multiple modes of communication, including speech and gesture not just in spoken language but through such ‘‘contextual’’ phenomena as the use of the physical spaces in which we carry out our discursive actions or the design, papers, and typography of the documents within which our texts are presented. Thus discourse in nature is a mixed genre or it is displayed in the form of intertextuality. In this Part Two articles both outline the recent shift in multimodal discourse analysis away from the decontextualized text alone to a large scope of observation including some social semiotics factors in daily interaction. Norris’s paper Some thoughts on personal identity construction: a multimodal perspective (132–148) uses
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a multimodal framework of interaction to investigate identity construction in classroom interaction. He believes that only by viewing interaction and identity constructions in a modally holistic way we can uncover the silent discourse of power. Jewitt and Jones in their article entitled Multimodal discourse analysis: the case of ‘‘ability’’ in UK secondary school English (149–160) demonstrate how multimodal micro-description of how discourses are realized in the classroom by focusing on a poem lesson. This will open a new window for the discourse analysis since many easily filtered out factors by a linguistic lens can be all taken into account in the analysis. Part Five tackles issues regarded as genre analysis. Genre is defined as a type of discourse that occurs in a particular setting. Genre analysis, then, calls for a multi-methodological approach, especially if the researcher is studying the text and the communicative situation, or, as Swales puts it, if the researcher is doing a ‘‘textography’’ (Swales, 1990). In this part, Bhatia’s paper Towards critical genre analysis (166–177) makes a review of genre analytical approaches in the field of English for Special Purposes and he indicates a strong shift of emphasis from text to context. He also highlights an important development of the role and function of interdiscursivity in genre construction, appropriation and interpretation, which accounts for a variety of discursive processes, some of which include mixing, embedding and bending of generic norms in professional practice. The second article written by Berkenkotter entitled Genre evolution? The case for a diachronic perspective (178–191) is on the topic of ‘‘genre evolution’’. She makes a survey on the diachronic studies of the development of the disciplinary and professional genre for discourse analysis. Like Bhatia, she also argues for a multi-method approach to studying the textual dynamics of professional genres in their social-historical contexts. Based on the studies done by rhetoricians, historians of science and applied linguists she undertakes a diachronic investigation on genre theory. Their differences mainly lie in either a text-based or contextbased approach. She focuses on psychiatric case reporting to illustrate her concept of historical evolution of genre. She concludes that doing genre analysis needs a repertoire of techniques for capturing the complex interactions between social-historical, technological demographic and epistemological factors in order to track and interpret textual changes in disciplinary texts. Part Six deals with the topic of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse, which views language as a form of social practice and focuses on the ways social and political domination is reproduced by text and talk (Fairclough, 1995). Critical discourse analysis is founded on the idea that there is unequal access to linguistic and social resources, resources that are controlled institutionally. In his article Critical discourse analysis and strategies of resistance (195–210) Flowerdew deals with some fundamental questions of CDA and raises some strategies of resistance. He holds that CDA is not a theory but an approach and believes that it is not appropriate to apply Systemic-Functional Linguistics to CDA and he makes a detailed tool-kit for CDA as well. Moreover, he points out some new directions for future development; such as the analytical framework should be simplified, positive discourse analysis (PDA) should be emphasized. As Luke (2002) points out, CDA would need to begin to develop a strong positive thesis about discourse and the productive uses of power. That is to say, the term ‘‘critical’’ incorporates both positive and negative, deconstruction and construction. In addition, she advocates that CDA has been interested in debunking the abuse of power by the powerful, it should also be appropriate for it to take up the position of the less powerful and to document their resistance in the face of the powerful. The second paper presented by Chouliaraki on the topic Mediation, text and action (211–227) argues one major concern for discourse analysis today is to engage in critical studies of culture under conditions of mediation. The author outlines a discourse analytical approach to conceptualize media texts as instantiations of ethical values that propose options for action at a distance to diverse media publics. This approach seeks to study the conditions of possibility for action in our mediated culture by analysis of the production of meaning in hybrid media texts, and the production of social relations of power in these texts. Part Seven is about the study of mediated discourse analysis (MDA). The area of MDA considers texts in their social and cultural contexts to explore the actions individuals take with texts and the consequences of those actions. As a pioneer in this particular field, Scollon’s paper Discourse itineraries: nine processes of resemiotization (233–244) bases his work on the study of the word ‘‘organic’’ to illustrate how the concept of intertextuality has become elaborated in nexus analysis. Through the nine processes of resemiotization he proposes that MDA take the word ‘‘itinerary’’ as its central task to map such itineraries of relationships among text and action. In the second article entitled Good sex and bad karma: discourse and the historical body (245–254), Jones employs the mediated discourse analytical approach to examine the concept of ‘‘historical body’’ through his investigation on ‘‘Good sex and bad karma’’. It’s clear that in MDA the discourse is submerged into the ‘‘historical body’’ of the individual social actor as social practice. As discourse analysts of course, the main way in is usually through the discourse since MDA’s main
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focus is on social actions and how discourse is being used to take actions. The author makes an exploration of the relationship between discourse and the historical body and to suggest how, through attention to retrospective and anticipatory discourse. He then makes an analysis on the discourse of gay men around sex and sexual risk behavior and the problem of unsafe sex and HIV transmission. As said earlier, MDA focuses on discourse as a means to take social action. This focus on action allows us to see knowledge, attitude and behavior not as separate entities in a linear relationship, but rather as integrated with and circulating within the historical body. This volume provides a rich resource for the development and advances of discourse analysis. Although it does not cover all the approaches to discourse analysis, it is unnecessary to do so to some extent. The chapters overlap and cross-refer in a variety of ways, most notably in the multimodal approach and critical discourse analysis as well as the conversation analysis and ethnographic-based discourse analysis. Overall, Advances in Discourse Analysis is a comprehensive and valuable resource for both beginning and experienced researchers since it represents a most useful edition to discourse analysis and it is certain to provide much for language professionals to discuss and to investigate in the years to come. References Adel, A., Reppen, R., 2008. The challenges of different settings: an overview. In: Adel, A., Reppen, R. (Eds.), Corpora and Discourse: The Challenges of Different Settings. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, pp. 1–6. Drew, P., 2005. Conversation analysis. In: Fitch, K., Sanders, R. (Eds.), Handbook of Language and Social Interaction. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 71–102. Fairclough, Norman, 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. Longman, Harlow. Harris, Zellig, 1952. Discourse analysis. Language 28, 1–30. Luke, A., 2002. Beyond science and ideology critique: developments in critical discourse analysis. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 22, 96– 100. Mukherjee, J., 2004. The state of the art in corpus linguistics: three book-length perspectives. English Language and Linguistics 8 (1), 103–119. Partington, A., 2004. Corpora and discourse, a most congruous beast. In: Partington, A., Morley, J. (Eds.), Corpora and Discourse. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, pp. 11–20. Swales, J., 1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Yanjiang Teng is a researcher at the Department of College Foreign Language Teaching of Ludong University, China. His current research interests include discourse analysis, functional linguistics and philosophy of language. He has published over 20 academic articles in the areas of discourse studies, foreign language teaching, and cognitive linguistics.
Yanjiang Teng* Department of College Foreign Language Teaching, Ludong University, Yantai 264025, PR China *Tel.: +86 535 6672561; fax: +86 535 6672474. E-mail address:
[email protected]
