Publisher's Synopsis
This 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 language 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.