BOOK REVIEW 1
A Book Review
Discourse Analysis: An Introduction
By Brian Platridge
To begin with, the book entitled “Discourse Analysis: An Introduction” is written by Brian Paltridge. This is the second edition for the very first one for undergraduate students, graduate students, teachers, or even researcher who are interested in this topic. It is focusing on the discourse analysis for those who are interested in it are starting to know further about discourse analysis. The author is a professor of TESOL who has taught English as a second language. He also has published extensively internationally in peer-reviewed journals. In addition, this edition is equipped by a companion website which provides fruitful slides on power-point.
The book focuses on discourse analysis including the definition, how it is related to society, pragmatics, genre, conversation, and grammar in chapter one to six. Also, it discusses on the several types of approaches to discourse analysis. Ultimately, it also tells the readers how and important points in doing discourse analysis.
Discourse analysis is one of the branches of linguistics which acquires a greater attention of those who are interested in investigating something beyond language. This book offers complete and sufficient overview about discourse analysis including the approaches and the major fields which are closely related to it. It doesn’t only cover the theories, but is also offers the practice. Thus, the readers do not only learn, but they can implement what they have learnt from the book. Issues provided in some chapter assist readers to gain the world of knowledge under the issues.
Besides identifying the definition of discourse analysis, the book offers a sufficient thought why does it relate to other external aspects such as society. It links the two aspects with the clear concepts underlining the two. The detail information, messages, and input is one of the positive things of the book. Issues are raised with the evidence in which the readers usually undergo. Paltridge portrays the real-world issues related to the topic to engage the readers who will say “I second that” after reading. The illustration works well. Other examples are taken from stuff we are familiar with, such as films, talkshow program, newspaper, etc. which we are already know.
In the very beginning of the chapter, there is such outline containing the points to cover. In providing the explanation, he refers to various experts focusing on the same filed. Further, the elaboration of each single point is crystal clear. If only there is such concept which is too intricate, tables will be provided to depict it giving another way to transmit the idea. Every concept he quotes is added by his own concepts, thoughts, and perspectives explaining from two different sides. The “Summary” in every chapter gives readers the big picture of the chapter. Meanwhile, the “Discussion Questions” part is fruitful for readers to check or measure their comprehension. The “Data analysis projects” is provided the extent to which the readers can implement the theory within the chapter by giving them chances to analyze certain situation or condition related to the topic within the chapter.
Moreover, Paltridge in each of chapter, there are also exercises and directions for further reading. This helps readers both to know the extent to which they get the points and suggestions from the author for some who are interested in certain topics to read more on it. Within the directions for further reading, he provides several books written by experts in such fields with a brief review under the books. This will help readers to know what the suggested books are like.
Chapter One provides a brief overview on discourse analysis if it is connected to social and cultural contexts. First off, it elaborates the definition and the emergence of the term discourse analysis. Paltridge provides several definitions. Other than that, other terms are also explained such as the language and context, discourse structure of texts, etc. Every subtopic covers the explanation about the very first time it emerges, examples, and experts who invented it. He also points out the different views of discourse analysis from different experts with their own ideas on discourse analysis. In the end, he adds the summary on those. Chapter One talks more about concepts or theories. Useful website is also provided for those who are interested in.
Chapter Two talks more about the two types of discourse; written and spoken and how they are very related to the discourse contexts particularly in the social and cultural contexts. The discussion on it is lengthier and detail. The discussion centers on discourse communities, language as local and social practice, discourse and gender, discourse and ideology, and discourse and identity. A film Sex and the City is taken as the example of any topics in this chapter.
In Chapter Three, the writer relates the discourse to pragmatics that is language in use. It tells us that there is a relationship between language and contexts. It begin with the sufficient discussion on the term Pragmatics. As we know, speech act is one of the subtopic on discourse analysis. Thus, in this chapter, there is more elaboration on it including the direct and indirect speech acts. Moreover, felicity condition, presupposition, cooperative principle, maxims are also included. For every subunit, there is elaboration and examples. He provides another important issue that is cross-cultural in discourse. Here, the readers must be familiar with the example provided. This is an accessible knowledge for people who are interested in cross-cultural on discourse. Implicature is one of the factual issue discussed on this including the scalar, conversational, and particularized implicature. Other than that, he gives us understanding how politeness and face differ. Those all subunits are connected in terms of social and cultural contexts. How they seen from those two aspects.
Chapter Four underlines the communicative events in discourse which is often called as genre. After defining genre from different perspectives, he suggests about written and spoken genres and how they differ from one culture to another. How to do the genre analysis is broken down into steps which is clear for the readers including the implementation of the analysis.
Chapter Five focuses on one of the major study on discourse analysis, conversational analysis which looks at the social relations between the listener and the hearer. It figures out how people can understand others and manage their interactions. The view on the principle of conversational analysis is written in simple and brief one. It covers turn taking, adjacency pairs, and discourse markers in which people usually can apply their understanding on those. Although there is discussion on it, the criticism appear is also provided to suggest two-side perspectives on the topic being discussed.
Chapter Six give us an evidence how sentence-based perspective is substituted by discourse-based perspective. How grammar is seen in the world of discourse, the involvement and a sample analysis of cohesion in texts, theme-rheme, and the grammatical differences between spoken and written discourse are the major focus within the chapter. The elaboration on cohesion includes the grammatical and cohesive devices which are written in details completing with the example taken form films, novels, etc.
Chapter Seven is entitled “Corpus Approaches to Discourse Analysis” pointing out the advantages of using the collection of authentic spoken and written texts. This chapter focus more on the corpus definition, issues under it, and the example of corpus taken form a very well=known organization in education. Although in the beginning he suggests several positive things of corpus, he also provides how is criticized by various experts.
Chapter Eight underlines about the multimodal discourse, the use of modalities such as film, pictures, videos, and sounds in doing discourse. It cover the background, the examples, the relationship among genre, speech acts, and multimodality, how to use the modalities, and the limitations. In the end of Chapter Eight, the exercises are given to the readers involving a book and film.
Chapter Nine begins with an appeal statement ‘the norms and values which underlie texts are often ‘out of sight’ rather than overtly stated’ (p. 186). In this chapter, he elaborates in details about critical discourse analysis and how it is distinctive from the others. Principles and steps in doing CDA (Critical Discourse Analysis) are explained. Also, the criticism is also provided.
The ultimate chapter, Chapter Ten discuss how to do discourse analysis. Several issues are arose when planning and carrying out a discourse analysis project. Previous studies in the same fields are provided as instances. Finally, the evaluation on it is considered important to be elaborated.
To conclude, this book is comprehensive in providing the theory as well as how to practice. This is really accessible for students, graduate students, or even professors to look at the implementation of the theory. The language style which is simple can be easily comprehended. I recommend this book for everyone who is interested in discourse analysis and its implementation in various aspects of life such as education, mass media, social environment, politics, and work.
Reviewer: Indah Mutiara
17202241045
PBI UNY 2017
