scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Topic

Discourse analysis

About: Discourse analysis is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 16055 publications have been published within this topic receiving 515384 citations. The topic is also known as: DA & discourse studies.


Papers
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, a social constructionist approach to psychology is presented, and discourse analysis is introduced as a methodology which can sustain a constructionist, post-empiricist analysis.
Abstract: This paper serves as an introduction to social constructionist approaches to psychology. It outlines the arguments which have prompted a shift away from empiricism in the social sciences. Harre's (1992) distinction between behaviourism and the first and second cognitive revolution is used to provide a broad historical framework to develop contrasts between mainstream empiricist psychology and constructionist approaches. The central claim is that theories of meaning are embodied in theories of science, and that we need a new (constructionist) theory of science to underpin a psychology which takes the meaningful nature of human activity as its object of study. Finally, the paper introduces discourse analysis as a methodology which can sustain a constructionist, post-empiricist analysis.

148 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: This paper examined the extent to which seven forms of language were perceived as powerful and effective when used by an interviewee in a hypothetical job interview and found that respondents made rather fine discriminations among powerful and powerless language forms, that these discriminations were quite stable, and that some ostensibly powerless forms were judged to be relatively powerful in fact.
Abstract: Two studies are reported. The first study examined the extent to which seven forms of language were perceived as powerful and effective when used by an interviewee in a hypothetical job interview. Results suggested a five‐level model of linguistic power and effectiveness, which is independent of communicator sex. The second study examined the same seven linguistic features but in this case two dissimilar intentions were attributed to the interviewee: desire to appear sociable versus desire to appear authoritative. Results indicated that power of style interacted with communicator intention, qualifying to an extent the five‐level model suggested by Study 7. Again, effects were independent of communicator sex. Results of both studies showed that respondents made rather fine discriminations among powerful and powerless language forms, that these discriminations were quite stable, and that some ostensibly powerless forms were judged to be relatively powerful in fact.

146 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors show that the problem is not one of a single construction potentially occupying two different positions, but rather one of two quite different constructions, an initial purpose clause and a final purpose clause, which share the same morphology, but behave in radically different ways in the organization of the discourse.
Abstract: Purpose clauses, like most adverbial clauses in English, can occur either before or after the main clause with which they are associated. To the researcher interested in the relationship between discourse and grammer, an obvious research question to which this alternation gives rise might be: given two positions, initial and final, for a purpose clause in written English, what are the discourse factors determining which position it will take? Such aformulation assumes that the problem can be thought of in terms of a 'choice' between these two positions. However, closer examination reveals that the problem, rather than beingone ofasingle 'construction* potentially occupying two different positions, is actually much more appropriately viewed äs one of two quite different constructions, an initial purpose clause and a final purpose clause, which share the same morphology, but behave in radically different ways in the organization of the discourse: the initial purpose clause functions to state a 'problem' within the context of expectations raised by the preceding discourse, to which the following material (often many clauses) provides a solution, while the final purpose clause plays the much more local role of stating the purpose for which the action named in the immediately preceding clause is performed.

146 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper studied science-in-the-making in a high school physics classroom and found that science was portrayed and interactionally acknowledged across the shifting sociocultural contexts that constitute this high-school physics class studied.
Abstract: In this article we drew from studies in the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) to create a new perspective for understanding school science. In doing so, we brought together ethnography and discourse analysis to study science-in-the-making in a physics classroom. We sought to document the social practices that constituted students' experimental data trials. To understand these interactions, we investigated the local conceptual ecologies created in the moment by student laboratory groups and the views of science made available across multiple classroom-based activities. Throughout the study we asked what counts as science in this science classroom. In doing so, we traced how science was portrayed and interactionally acknowledged across the shifting sociocultural contexts that constitute this high school physics class studied. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

145 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors pointed out that the target of Widdowson's article is confusingly unclear, and pointed out the need to distinguish between text and discourse, and argued that there has been confusion about the ature of discourse as distinct from text.
Abstract: 1 certain ways. There are differing positions within CDA,3 but in the notes /hich follow I shall refer only to my own work. One preliminary point to be lade about Widdowson’s article is that its target is confusingly unclear. He efines his ’main purpose’ in the article as to show that the name ’critical iscourse analysis’ is a contradiction in terms because CDA is interpretation, nd therefore not analysis (p. 159). But a large part of the article is taken up with critique of those who fail to distinguish text and discourse. I have always made us distinction in my work, and actually in a way which is roughly similar to Viddowson’s, though with important distinctions I return to. So what are we to iake of this sentence: ’There has been confusion, I have argued, about the ature of discourse (as distinct from text) and about analysis (as distinct from iterpretation) and I have suggested that this confusion is bred of commitment’

145 citations


Network Information
Related Topics (5)
Educational research
38.5K papers, 1.3M citations
83% related
Experiential learning
63.4K papers, 1.6M citations
82% related
Higher education
244.3K papers, 3.5M citations
81% related
Qualitative research
39.9K papers, 2.3M citations
80% related
Social change
61.1K papers, 1.7M citations
80% related
Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023216
2022394
2021632
2020851
2019833
2018803