Alba Juez, Laura (2005). Discourse Analysis for University Students. Madrid: UNED. ISBN 84-363-5150-4. 313 pages.
Summary:
Discourse Analysis for University Students has been conceived as the main course book for the subject entitled Análisis del Discurso (y Lingüística del Texto) en Lengua Inglesa corresponding to the 5th year of the English Philology program at the UNED. However, the book can also be used in any other introductory course to Discourse Analysis or by any person who, having certain linguistic knowledge, is interested in exploring the fascinating world of discourse.
The book is an introductory course which aims at providing the student/ reader with the necessary basic information and knowledge about the main techniques of analysis and the main schools of thought within the discipline.
All the chapters contain both a theoretical and an empirical section, the latter containing examples of analysis as well as exercises (Tasks) whose answers can be found at the end of the book (Answers to tasks) to facilitate the students' self- evaluation.
The course is divided in twelve units. The first two units introduce basic information about discourse analysis and text linguistics, as well as the necessary techniques for gathering data, including a very brief introduction to corpus linguistics. Units 3-11 present and discuss the different approaches studied, namely Pragmatics, Interactional Sociolinguistics, Conversation Analysis, The Ethnography of Communication, Variation Analysis, Functional Sentence Perspective, Post-Structuralist Theory and Social Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis y Mediated Discourse Analysis. Finally, Unit 12 deals with some further and important issues in the study of discourse, such as the type of discourse chosen for the analysis, the strategies and functions of discourse, or the problem of what unit(s) should be used for the particular kind of analysis the researcher wants to make.
Discourse Analysis for university students may prove of value to all those who are professionally involved in the area of discourse studies or simply to those who wish to acquire the necessary basic knowledge and techniques for analyzing any type of discourse, from medical, journalistic or political discourse to computer-mediated, humoristic, or hegemonic discourse (where the use and abuse of power is an important issue), just to name a few of the innumerable possibilities.