Publisher's Synopsis
* What is a text?
* Can discourse analysis help our understanding even when a text is not spoken or written?
* How can we use discourse analytic approaches for different varieties of text?
This clearly-written and innovative introduction to discourse analysis for the uninitiated takes a broad view, building on a range of studies carried out on different kinds of text. The chapters work through examples of analysis on many texts that are beyond the range of spoken and written material usually tackled by discourse researchers.
Methodological issues of reading and representation are explored in critical descriptions of how we might read such things as advertising, bodies, comics, film, letters, organizations, sign languages and other language systems. The book illustrates ways in which discourse may be studied wherever there is meaning, and it accessibly introduces the principles of discourse research to conversations, interviews, newspaper articles and fiction, providing an overview of existing research on these kinds of texts.
Critical Textwork is a comprehensive introductory text for students of discourse across the social sciences, including psychology, cultural studies, sociology and human geography. It looks at the organization of language and examines ways of reading texts to excavate and illuminate signs in cultural life.
