Discourse analysis

Abstract

This chapter describes the different approaches to discourse analysis, and discusses how discourse analysts explain semantic and lexico-grammatical features. Discourse analysis is the analysis of language in its social context. Discourse analysts are just as interested in the analysis of spoken discourse as they are in the analysis of written discourse. The important position that discourse analysis occupies in applied linguistics has come about because it enables applied linguists to analyse and understand real language data, for example, texts written by first and second language learners, or recordings of the spoken output of second language learners, or among learners themselves in classrooms. The major contribution to the study of spoken discourse has come from sociology, in particular from conversational analysis. Conversation analysis is concerned with the detailed organization of everyday interaction; thus, it contrasts with much of the work in mainstream sociology which focuses on large-scale categories of class, gender, age groups and so on.