Discourse Analysis
Discourse analysis studies language in use—spoken, written, and multimodal—examining how texts and talk construct meaning, identity, and power above the level of the sentence.
Definition
Discourse analysis is the study of language above the sentence and of language in social use, investigating how spoken, written, and multimodal texts produce meaning, structure interaction, and enact social relations.
Scope
This area covers the analysis of discourse as it spans linguistics, social science, and the humanities. It includes critical discourse analysis of language and power, conversation analysis of talk-in-interaction, Foucauldian and poststructuralist accounts of discourse as systems of knowledge, and the study of narrative and genre. It treats discourse both as connected stretches of language and as socially shaped practices of meaning-making.
Sub-topics
Core questions
- How is meaning organized in stretches of language beyond the sentence?
- How does language use reproduce or contest social power?
- How is conversation systematically organized as social action?
- How do discourses constitute objects of knowledge and subject positions?
Key concepts
- text and context
- ideology and power
- turn-taking
- discursive formation
- genre and register
- intertextuality
Key theories
- Critical discourse analysis
- Fairclough and van Dijk treat discourse as a three-dimensional social practice linking texts, discursive practices, and social structures, analyzing how language sustains ideology and power relations.
- Discourse as knowledge-power
- Foucault reconceives discourse as historically situated systems of statements that produce the very objects they describe, tying discourse to the formation of knowledge and power.
History
Discourse analysis coalesced in the 1970s and 1980s from several roots: linguistic study of cohesion and text grammar, the ethnomethodological conversation analysis of Sacks and Schegloff, sociolinguistics, and continental theory, especially Foucault's account of discursive formations. Critical discourse analysis emerged in the late 1980s through Fairclough, Wodak, and van Dijk, establishing discourse studies as a broad interdisciplinary field.
Debates
- Linguistic detail versus social critique
- Approaches differ on how closely analysis should attend to fine textual and conversational structure versus broad ideological and institutional critique, and critics question the interpretive validity of critical readings.
Key figures
- Norman Fairclough
- Teun A. van Dijk
- Michel Foucault
- Deborah Tannen
- Ruth Wodak
Related topics
Seminal works
- fairclough1992
- foucault1972
- schiffrin2001
Frequently asked questions
- Is discourse analysis the same as linguistics?
- It overlaps with linguistics but is broader. Linguistic discourse analysis studies structure above the sentence, while social and critical varieties treat discourse as social practice, drawing on sociology, philosophy, and cultural theory as well as language study.