Comparer des méthodes

	Analyse sémiotique	Analyse du discours	Ethnographie
Domaine	Qualitatif	Recherche qualitative	Qualitatif
Famille	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Année d'origine	Late 19th–early 20th century (Saussure ~1906–1911; Peirce ~1867–1914); systematic application in social research from the 1960s	1989 (Fairclough); 1987 (Potter & Wetherell)	c. 1922 (Malinowski's Argonauts of the Western Pacific)
Auteur d'origine	Ferdinand de Saussure (structural semiology); Charles Sanders Peirce (semiotic triads); Roland Barthes (applied cultural semiotics)	Norman Fairclough; Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell	Bronisław Malinowski (modern ethnography); rooted in 19th-century anthropology
Type	Qualitative research method	Method	Qualitative fieldwork tradition
Source fondatrice	Barthes, R. (1967). Elements of Semiology (trans. A. Lavers & C. Smith). Hill and Wang.	Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. Longman.	Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (2019). Ethnography: Principles in Practice (4th ed.). Routledge. ISBN: 978-1138504462
Alias	semiotics, sign analysis, structural semiotics, semiological analysis	DA, Critical Discourse Analysis, Discursive Analysis	Etnografi, participant observation, fieldwork, ethnographic research
Apparentées	6	2	5
Résumé	Semiotic analysis is a qualitative method for interpreting how signs — words, images, sounds, gestures, and objects — produce and communicate meaning within a cultural context. Drawing on the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the triadic sign theory of Charles Sanders Peirce, and popularised as a research tool by Roland Barthes, semiotics moves beyond surface denotation to expose the connotative and ideological meanings embedded in texts and visual culture.	Discourse analysis is a qualitative research methodology that examines how language, communication, and power shape meaning, identity, and social reality. Developed across linguistics, sociology, and psychology (particularly by Norman Fairclough and Jonathan Potter), discourse analysis goes beyond content to analyze language use as a social practice that constitutes and reflects power relations, ideologies, and social structures.	Ethnography is a qualitative research tradition in which a researcher immerses themselves in a social group or community over an extended period — typically three to six months or longer — to study its culture, values, and behaviours in their natural setting. Originating in social and cultural anthropology, and consolidated as a rigorous method by Bronisław Malinowski in the early twentieth century, ethnography produces rich, contextualised accounts of how people live, work, and make meaning together.