Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis

Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics

by Theo van Leeuwen

Adding a new introduction and two previously unpublished papers, Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis brings together van Leeuwen's methodological work on discourse analysis of the last 15 years. Discourse, van Leeuwen argues, is a resource for representation, a knowledge about some aspect of reality which can be drawn upon when that aspect of reality has to be represented, a framework for making sense of things. And they are plural. There can be different discourses, different ways of making sense of the same aspect of reality that serve different interests and will therefore be used in different social contexts.

However abstract some discourses are, discourses ultimately always represent doings, van Leeuwen argues. Doing is the foundation of knowing, and social practices are the foundation of discourses. Studying children's books, newspaper reports, brochures and other texts, as well as photographs and children's toys, van Leeuwen investigates what can happen when practices are transformed into discourses and provides analytical tools for reconstructing discourses from texts.

Throughout the book, van Leeuwen makes connections between sociological and linguistic or semiotic concepts and methods to ensure the social and critical relevance of his analytical categories. van Leeuwen's work has already been widely used by critical discourse analysts across the world. This volume will be a welcome guide for anyone looking for a form of discourse analysis that is both explicit and methodical, and critically incisive.

Genres: Linguistics

185 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2008

Reviews

[Kriangkrai Vathanalaoha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read it because I have to use some theory for my qualitative module in the university. The book is systematic and reader-friendly; however, I guess the example of "Australian immigrants" are too much liquidated and far-fetched. Sometimes Leeuwen didn't say how to achieve his spider-web framework substantially. It sounds promising, but I will recommend this one only to the person who really keens on discourse, ideology and hegemony as a beginner textbook.

[Books from Faeries · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Today's young children, sitting at the computer, too often must learn to follow the sometimes quite inflexible trajectories that designers have programmed for them and, despite all of the talk of choice, may live in much more structured world than they parents did when they were children".

This book is a perfect introduction to discourse analysis, aside from the one by Fairclough. This one focuses on different modes of discourses, from written texts, multimodal text, images, conversations, and children's play.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

At some point I will be able to read books that aren't entirely for school, but today is not that day. This was a good look at Critical Discourse Analysis and very interesting, although parts of it are extremely academic and hurt my brain. When I understood it, it was pretty interesting and relevant for my research.

[Pedro Santana · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're ever looking for a good cry, this is it.

[Andrea Precht]

A good introduction to CDA