Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader (Published in association with The Open University) Review

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Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader (Published in association with The Open University) ReviewThis is not really a stand-alone book, as it needs to be read in conjunction with the authors'/editors' companion volume Discourse as Data. Having said that, this Reader offers a very thorough introduction to various disciplines which all, broadly speaking, fall under the umbrella of discourse analysis. Included here are contributions by thinkers in different traditions, including sociolinguistics, Foucauldian discourse analysis, discursive psychology, and more.
The field I found particularly interesting was discursive psychology, but even this represents an umbrella for approaches with different emphases. This book does indeed represent something of that plurality in its section on Minds, Selves and Sense Making. Here we see the re-framing of such topics as emotion or subjectivity, conventionally seen as "interior" phenomena, as well as the more obviously "exterior" forms of "doing" you would expect from a book on discourse.
What this book doesn't always make clear, however, are some of the distinctions (sometimes subtle) between approaches within the same field. For instance, some theorists dealing with discursive psychology apparently see a shift from cognition to discourse as far more decisive than do others. Such distinctions, in my view, sometimes need to be drawn out through other reading.
All-in-all, this book is an absolute treasury of resources drawn from a range of theorists. It may be hard going in places, but this volume is both varied and (given its length) systematic.Discourse Theory and Practice: A Reader (Published in association with The Open University) Overview
Discourse Theory and Practice is much more than a collection of key classic articles and papers in the field of discourse analysis. The aim of the book is to introduce students to the major figures in the field, and to some of their writings which, combined with the interspersed editorial commentaries, should allow students to understand the key epistemological and methodological issues of discourse theory and practice.

The Reader is organized into four coherent Parts, namely: Foundations and Building Blocks; Social Interaction; Minds, Selves and Sense-Making; and Culture and Social Relations. Key readings include works by Stuart Hall, Jonathan Potter, David Silverman, Erving Goffman, Teun van Dijk, Derek Edwards and Michael Billig. Chapters introduce the student to each individual and their reading, contextualizing each in terms of their contribution to the field, theoretical standpoint and individual method of doing discourse analysis. The many didactic elements of the book make it ideal as an introduction to the study of discourse for all students of psychology, sociology, linguistics or cultural studies.


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