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Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change.
Cambridge, UK ; Cambridge, MA:
Polity Press.
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This book is a critical introduction to
discourse analysis as it is practised in a variety of
disciplines today, from linguistics and sociolinguistics
to sociology and cultural studies. The author shows
how the concern with the analysis of discourse can be
combined in a systematic and fruitful way, with an interest
in broader problems of social analysis and social change.
Fairclough provides a concise and critical review of
the methods and results of discourse analysis. He discusses
the descriptive work of what he calls non-critical approaches
as well Critical Linguistics as the more historically
and theoretically oriented work of Michel Foucault.
Building on this critical overview, Fairclough develops
a well developed framework for discourse analysis which
formly situates discourse in a broader context of social
relations. This framework brings together text analysis,
the analysis of processes of text production and interpretation,
and the social anlysis of discourse events. It breaks
new ground by showing how the analysis of discourse
and textual processes can be combined with the study
of political and ideological change. The usefulness
of this approach is demonstrated by means of specific
and up-to-date examples. Specific examples of education
are developed in chapter 7.
This book has been for over a decade now invaluable
as an introduction to current debates concerning discourse,
power and ideology and as a practical guide for the
analysis of texts. |
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Lemke, Jay L. Textual Politics: Discourse and Social
Dynamics. Bristol, PA: Taylor &
Francis Inc., 1995, 206 pages |
Textual Politics is a complex book about the way we
produce meanings in the social world through language
and its products, namely texts and discourses. This
production of meaning is always social and political.
The book is supported through a build up of contemporary
theory, and a critical look at the way the book itself
is analyzed as an example of the author's involvement
with the dynamics of discourse. Lemke's is an account
of the theoretical complexity in dealing with the dynamics
of text, power, and politics, and the methodological
refinement in the analysis of particular texts.
The strength of this book is that it offers a disciplined
effort to integrate critical and post-modern thought.
Central here is the production of texts, from utterances
to discourses. Discourses are linked to dynamic communities
and positions within systems, but also to heteroglossia
(i.e., socially defined discourse types in a community),
dialogue, and intertextuality, and, from there, to discourse
formations, registers, social semiotics, the discourse
habitus. Chapter 2 introduces these concepts with clarity,
drawing upon such theorists as Bakhtin, Halliday and
Bernstein, Foucault, and Bourdieu. Chapter 3 provides
a concrete example of the way meaning and conflict is
found in texts. The examples show clearly how homosexuality/gay
rights are politically constituted. Disability Studies
scholars will see that the dimensions of meaning-making
can be applied equally to disability. The following
chapters extend the argument with issues dealing with
the political uses of discourses and the constitution
of the subject and with ecology and change.
The book also confronts the more ethical issues surrounding
the production of discourses in our society. It suggests
a critical praxis and its application in education,
literacy, and politics. Critical praxis "assumes
that we are part of the problem, that even our most
basic beliefs and values should be suspect. Critical
praxis should lead to changes in these beliefs and values
as well as to changes in our actions" (p. 131).
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Thompson, G. (2004). Introducing Functional Grammar.
London: Arnold.
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Closely based on Michael Halliday's Introduction to
Functional Grammar, this book is an accessible introduction
to Halliday's approach. The book can be used in its
own right or to prepare students for the more theoretical
presentation of grammar in Halliday's book. It explains
why the functional approach is necessary in order to
investigate how grammar is used as a resource for making
meaning, and it describes each of the major grammatical
systems in terms of the kind of meaning that they contribute
to messages.
Starting with procedures for identifying the choices
in a particular system, each chapter discusses the
function of the system in context. This involves analysing
what it means to make one choice from the system rather
than another - e.g. what choices are open to a speaker
in the Mood system of the clause (declarative, interrogative,
imperative), and why a speaker might choose to ask
a question (using an interrogative form) rather than
make a statement (using a declarative form). The book
examines how each system works in the construction
of clauses - the basic units for conveying meanings
- and how the meanings in clauses contribute to the
overall meaning of a text. |
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David Butt, Rhondda Fahey, Susan Feez, Sue Spinks &
Colin Yallop (2005). Using functional grammar: An explorer's
guide. Second edition.
This book is a great resource that acts as a guide for those
new to the field of functional grammar by building up a picture
of what functional grammar means and how it operates. Very
accessible reading for language educators and students as
well as those interested in exploring the role of language
in social and educational contexts. An interesting feature
is that the content is linked to language education at the
end of every chapter.
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Fairclough, Norman (2003). Analyzing Discourse:
Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge.
The author asserts that the main purpose of this book
is to provide an introduction to social analysis of spoken and
written language hoping to construct a framework for linguistic
analyisis that might be used in a productive way to address
a range of issues in social research. Fairclough calls for an
interdisciplinary effort that combines other methods of social
research such as ethnography with the kind of discourse analysis
he is advocating for (Critical Discourse Analysis). His view
of discourse analysis is not one that equates textual analysis.
Rather, he sees discourse analysis as "oscilating' between
a focus on specific texts and a focus on what I call the 'order
of discourse". The focus of this book however is on linguistic
analysis of texts which at the same time is part of a broader
project of developing critical discourse analysis as a tool
for social analysis and research. |
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Rogers, Rebecca (2003). A Critical
Discourse Analysis of Family Literacy Practices: Power In
and Out of Print. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates |
Rebecca Rogers explores the
complexity of family literacy practices through an in-depth
case study of one family, the attendant issues of power
and identity, and contemporary social debates about the
connections between literacy and society. The study focuses
on June Treader and her daughter Vicky, urban African
Americans labeled as "low income" and "low
literate." Using participant-observation, ethnographic
interviewing, photography, document collection, and discourse
analysis, Rogers describes and explains the complexities
of identity,
power, and discursive practices that June and Vicky engage
with in
their daily life as they proficiently, critically, and
strategically negotiate language and literacy in their
home and community. She explores why, despite their proficiencies,
neither June or Vicky sees themselves as literate, and
how this and other contradictions prevent them from transforming
their literate capital into social profit. This study
contributes in multiple ways to extending both theoretically
and
empirically existing research on literacy, identity, and
power.
Some specific topics of the book are:
* An exploration of Critical discourse analysis. The
analytic technique of critical discourse analysis is brought
into the area of family literacy. The detailed explanation,
interpretation, and demonstration of critical discourse
analysis proves to be helpful for students learning to
use this technique.
* The Combination of critical discourse analysis and
ethnography. This new synthesis, which is thoroughly illustrated,
offers an explanatory
framework for the stronghold of institutional discursive
power. Using
critical discourse analysis as a methodological tool in
order to build
critical language awareness in classrooms and schools,
educators
working toward a critical social democracy may be better
armed to
recognize sources of inequity.
* Other issues explored are researcher reflexivity (especially
as it refers to making explicit the researcher’s
role and investment in the study) and a discussion that
centers on the raced, classed, and gendered nature of
interacting with texts that constitutes a family's literacy
practices. Based on Fairclough’s model for Critical
Discourse Analysis, this book provides in depth exploration
on how the power relationships that are acquired as children
and adults interact with literacy in the many domains
of a family's literacy lives.
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Bloome, D (2005). Discourse Analysis
and the study of Classroom Language and Literacy Events.
A Microethnographic Perspective. London: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates. |
Table of Contents
Introduction.
A Microethnographic Approach to the Discourse Analysis of
Classroom Language and Literacy Events.
A Microethnographic Approach to the Discourse Analysis of
Cultural Practices in Classroom Language and Literacy Events.
Microethnographic Discourse Analysis and the Exploration
of Social Identity in Classroom Language and Literacy Events.
Microethnographic Discourse Analysis and the Exploration
of Power Relations in Classroom Language and Literacy Events.
Locating Microethnographic Discourse Analysis Studies of
Classroom Language and Literacy and the Research Imagination.
Appendix: Key to Transcription Symbols. |
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Christie, Frances (2002). Classroom
Discourse Analysis: A Functional Perspective. London:Continuum |
Christie offers an approach
to discourse analysis deeply rooted in Systemic Fuctional
Linguistics and uses it along with genre theory and specific
sociological terms from Bernstein (1990; 2000). Based
on Bernstein's work, she argues that two registers are
at play in pedagogical discourse: a regulative register,
and an instructional one. Pedagogical discourse is defined
as "the rule that embeds a discourse of compentence
(skills of various kinds) into a discourse of social order
in such a way that the former always dominates the former.
We shall call the discourse transmitting specialized competences
and their relation to each other instructional discourse,
and the disocourse creating specialized order, relation
and identity regulative discourse (Bernstein
1990:183 as cited in Christie 2002).
Christie's view of classroom interaction as a structured
experience around language (she acknowledges the contribution
of other meaning making systems, but still considers language
as the fundamental one) allows her to think of larger
units of curriculum as curricular genres or macrogenres
in which interactional patterns (i.e., IRE) are to be
located. This also allows her to call language choices
as choices in registers.
Chapters 2 and 3 deal with curriculum genres. She uses
the model of classroom discourse analysis to analyze and
critique aspects of the ideologies of much that applies
to early childhood education. She relies on the sociology
of Bernstein and his discussion around ‘competence’
models which have affected early childhood education in
the last 30-40 years. In chapter 2 she specifically focuses
on the schematic structure of a classroom event: morning
news to show how the regulative and instructional registers
operated and how the first ‘projects’ the
last. Ch. 3 looks again at how the two registers operate
in a different context. She gives specific examples of
how the two registers are realized interpersonally, experientially,
and textually. |
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Rogers, R. (2004). An introduction to critical
discourse analysis in education. Mahwah, N.J., L. Erlbaum Associates.
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Young, L. and C. Harrison, Eds. (2004). Systemic Functional Linguistics
and Critical Discourse Analysis: Studies in Social Change. London,
Continuum.
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Discourse Strategies
To understand the role of language in public life and the social
process in general, we need first a closer understanding of how
linguistic knowledge and social factors interact in discourse
interpretation. This volume is a major advance towards that understanding.
Professor Gumperz here synthesizes fundamental research on communication
from a wide variety of disciplines - linguistics, sociolinguistics,
anthropology and non-verbal communication - and develops an original
and broadly based theory of conversational inference which shows
how verbal communication can serve either between individuals
of different social and ethnic backgrounds. The urgent need to
overcome such barriers to effective communication is also a central
concern of the book. Examples of conversational exchanges as well
as of longer encounters, recorded in the urban United States,
village Austria, South Asia and Britain, and analyzed to illustrate
all aspects of the analytical approach, and to show how subconscious
cultural presuppositions can damagingly affect interpretation
of intent and judgement of interspeaker attitude. The volume will
be of central interest to anyone concerned with communication,
whether from a more academic viewpoint or as a professional working,
for example, in the fields of interethnic or industrial relations.
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Literacy in Society (Applied Linguistics and Language
Study)
by Ruqalya Hasan, Geoff Williams. Addison Wesley Publishing Company;
(December 1, 1996)
Applications of SFL to CDA in literacy (mostly
Australian, which has a textual view of CP).
. Authors who use the SFL approach to in the end produce a pedagogical
discourse concerned with questions of social equality p. xi. In
this sense CDA and SFL align. In literacy, this is so through
Martin’s framework (genre-based movement). It provides explicit
linguistic descriptions of the main ‘genres’ of educationally
valued texts. (see inside text for notes on specific articles).
Key terms: Deconstruction of texts (not
in postructural sense though), genre based movement, Critical
Pedagogy (text based).
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Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical Reason: On the theory of action.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Titscher, Meyer, Wodak, and Vetter
Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis
For a more detailed Bibliography on DA see here |
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Ruth Harman |
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J. Andres Ramirez |
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206 Furcolo Hall
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University of Massachusetts
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Amherst, MA 01003-9308
Phone: (413) 577-0863, (413) 545-0246 • FAX: (413) 545-1227
rharman@educ.umass.edu; jramirez@educ.umass.edu |
