Methods of Critical Discourse Studies

by Ruth Wodak (editor), Michael Meyer (Editor)

This   is a sophisticated and nuanced introduction to critical discourse analysis (CDA) that covers a range of topics in an accessible, engaging style. With international examples and an interdisciplinary approach, readers gain a rich understanding of the many angles into critical discourse analysis, the fundamentals of how analysis works and examples from written texts, online data and images. This new Clearly written, practical and rigorous in its approach, this book is the ideal companion when embarking on research that focuses on discourse and meaning-making.

272 pages, Paperback

First published December 14, 2015

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very dense book that expects a lot from its readers, even though it is clearly a textbook. It is aimed at graduate students and scholars who have an understanding of critical theory, especially the works of Michael Foucault and Jurgen Habermas. The way critical discourse studies (sometimes known as critical discourse analysis) is presented is as a way of looking at written documents as well as other communication forms such as graphics to examine what they say about persuasion, power, master narratives, and disenfranchised people. The explosion in social media has given critical discourse theory a huge boost as there are now thousands of accessible documents to look at and analyze. I learned more about the European study and theory from reading this book. The first chapter which discusses the history and development of critical discourse studies was particularly rich with references to theorists. Other chapters presented both a background methodology and an example of how to do critical discourse study (or analysis) using either the methodology or using the kind of discourse the chapter is about.

[Serge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent overview of the umbrella of methodologies that critical discourse analysis encompasses. I have used this textbook with my AP Research students this semester and they have benefited from the carefulattention to political discourse analysis, social practice analysis in the tradition of Durkheim/Bourdieu/Parsons and the excellent synthesis of multimodality in the tradition of Kress.