Project Summary

This book presents a linguistic anthropological method for doing discourse analysis both within events and across pathways of linked events. Discourse analysis is a research method that provides systematic evidence about social processes through the detailed examination of speech, writing and other communication. Recent theoretical and empirical work has made clear that many important social processes can only be understood if we move beyond single speech events to analyze pathways across linked events. In order for discourse analysis to be a useful method for studying cross-event processes, it must allow analysts to discover how people, signs, knowledge, and resources travel from one event to another and facilitate behavior in subsequent events. Drawing on theories and methods from linguistic anthropology and related fields, this book is the first to present a systematic methodological approach to doing discourse analysis of linked events. It provides easy-to-use tools and techniques for analyzing discourse both within and across events. Offering transparent procedures and clear illustrations, the book shows how the approach can be modified to analyze three types of data: ethnographic, archival, and new media.

Approach

This book introduces a new approach to discourse analysis. It argues that discourse analysts should look beyond fixed speech events and consider the development of discourses over time. Drawing on theories and methods from linguistic anthropology and related fields, the book is the first to present a systematic methodological approach to conducting discourse analysis of linked events, allowing researchers to understand not only individual events but also the patterns that emerge across them.

Timeline

• Second edition published 2021

Key Findings

• Draws on theories and methods from linguistic anthropology and related fields; 
• Presents the first systematic methodological approach to doing discourse analysis of linked events; 
• Provides easy-to-use tools and techniques for analyzing discourse both within and across events; 
• Offers transparent procedures and clear illustrations to show how the approach can be applied to analyze three types of data: ethnographic, archival, and new media; 
• Second edition includes a new chapter focusing on the discourse analysis of contemporary nationalist new media data.