Abstract
The contemporary landscape of discourse analysis is fundamentally multimodal, multilingual and multidisciplinary. Researchers are faced with a vast range of analytical possibilities, which is reflective of the complexity and multiplicity of the concept of discourse itself. Celebrating such diversity, Cynthia Gordon’s edited collection brings together upcoming and established scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds to offer ‘a window onto the branches of our discipline, and how they diverge, intertwine, and blossom’ (p. 6). To do this, the book presents 11 distinct chapters that exemplify the different topics, cultural contexts, modes, analytical approaches and disciplinary foundations that all fall within the ever-broadening umbrella of discourse analysis. What unites these chapters is the common goal of ‘understanding communication as fundamentally connected to human agency and creativity, as co-constructed, and as embedded in and constitutive of our social and cultural worlds’ (p. 2).
Combined, the chapters cover a range of theoretical approaches and methodologies. Perhaps unsurprisingly considering that the edited collection pays tribute to Deborah Schiffrin, closely basing its title on her (1994) book, Approaches to Discourse, the field of interactional (socio)linguistics is particularly prominent (see Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 10). Of course, each chapter draws on distinctly different approaches within this interactional focus, including conversation and corpus assisted analysis, alongside various theories such as grammaticalisation, politeness and discourse markers. Moreover, such chapters are supplemented by anthropological, cultural, multimodal, critical, mediated, historical and mixed discourse analysis approaches to establish a truly interdisciplinary overview of discourse analysis.
While the majority of chapters focus on English, a range of languages and language varieties are examined, namely Egyptian Arabic and Modern Hebrew (Marmorstein, Chapter 5), Portuguese (Telles Ribeiro and de Souza Pinto, Chapter 6), Arabic (Al Zidjaly, Chapter 9) and Ukrainian, Russian and mixed Ukrainian-Russian (Tovares, Chapter 10). The original utterances and English translations are presented alongside one another to provide a more comprehensive picture of the source material that is accessible to monolingual English and bilingual speakers. The numerous examples of bilingual transcriptions, alongside different analytic focuses across the chapters, result in a range of transcription conventions that may prove useful for familiarising readers to different norms within sub-disciplines.
In terms of data, the chapters focus on primarily verbal and written language, in person and online, and in informal and formal/institutional contexts. Examples include interviews with the Blackfeet people of Northern Montana in the United States (Carbaugh and Grimshaw, Chapter 2), healthcare professional and patient interactions (Telles Ribeiro and de Souza Pinto, Chapter 6 and Heritage, Chapter 7) and a comparison of conversation, casual-personal prose (e.g. blogs) and Egyptian Wikipedia (Marmorstein, Chapter 5). Acknowledging the multimodality of the field, other chapters consider visual and non-verbal aspects of discourse. Regarding the latter, Streeck considers the use of hand gestures in an American automobile repair shop (Chapter 3), and Tovares, the use of laughter in online trolling of pro-Putin content (Chapter 10). Tovares also briefly considers visual communication though trolls’ avatars, while Al Zidjaly incorporates images within a language-oriented analysis of Twitter activism (Chapter 9). Meanwhile, Ehrlich’s multimodal chapter provides a more sustained visual focus through examining the higher status of photographic images compared to written evidence and spoken testimonials as evidence in a rape trial (Chapter 8).
The chapters are presented without any thematic, theoretical or methodological subsections. Reading it, I found that the theme of multiplicity – of methods, of meaning and of power – binds these chapters together. Issues of power thread throughout; Philips observes how speakers’ political-economic positions determine which discourses are ‘treated as truth, as reality’ (p. 13), something that Wodak returns to in her chapter on how far-right politicians manipulate social reality to scapegoat the less powerful, such as refugees, and position themselves as advocates for the (narrowly defined) ‘people’ against the ‘elites’. Taking a different track, Ehrlich attributes the excessive power that photographs hold in trials to the widespread ideology that photographs accurately represent reality. Chapters on healthcare interactions indicate ambiguity in health professionals’ positions of power; Heritage charts the decreasing expression of power by doctors as patient centredness gains prominence, suggesting that treatment recommendations reflect a trade-off between physician expertise and patient beliefs and preferences. Meanwhile, Telles Ribeiro and de Souza Pinto showcase the ambiguity expressed by mental healthcare professionals regarding their role as institutional representatives in a psychiatric hospital ‘(caring? protecting? controlling?)’ (p. 97), exemplified by uncertainty regarding how they should respond to patients’ sexual practices, which ‘challenge unstated conventional rules that sustain power relations in such institutions’ (p. 100). Numerous chapters examine forms of resistance to the discourses of those in power. Carbaugh and Grimshaw analyse how Blackfeet spokespeople resist non-native discourses in the United States, which too often contradict, stereotype and disempower indigenous people. Al Zidjaly explores how Twitter activists repair Islamic texts that they consider problematic as a means of advancing socioreligious change, and similarly, Tovares draws on Bakhtin’s notion of the Carnival to argue that online political trolling suspends and subverts the established power of Putin’s propaganda machine to provide a space for resistance. Throughout, then, power is variously expressed, negotiated and resisted.
Particularly relevant to academic culture, Tannen reflects on her surprise that what she, as a professor, regarded as informal friendliness in emails is often interpreted by students as impolite, demonstrating that a communicative move ‘intended to show solidarity or create connection can come across as ― and simultaneously be ― an expression of power’, and vice versa (p. 66). Tannen uses this to remind scholars to be wary of assuming only one interpretation of an utterance or non-verbal expression. Following Tannen’s observation of polysemy, Marmorstein’s subsequent chapter showcases the variety of meanings of the Arabic yaʕni (‘it means’) and Hebrew borrowing, ya’ani, in different communicative and cultural contexts to convincingly show that discourse markers and their contexts ‘co-shape each other’ (p. 85). Meanwhile, in Chapter 8, Ehrlich highlights the need for researchers to attend to the semiotic ideologies of participants, as this is ‘crucial in understanding how representing something through images or language has an impact on meaning’ (p. 133). Clearly, participants’ perspectives and contextual factors must be attended to, as these can challenge and expand the researcher’s existing knowledge to provide a more nuanced view of how semiotic resources are received.
Overall, this edited collection is an important contribution that further supports Schiffrin et al.’s (2015: 5) proclamation that ‘the vastness and diversity of discourse analysis is a strength rather than a weakness’. Of course, more contexts and approaches can always be suggested. However, considering its inevitable spatial limitations, the collection effectively balances methodologies, theories, datasets, languages and modalities to provide a nuanced showcase of the diversity and interdisciplinarity of discourse analysis as a field. Scholars and students from any disciplinary background will be able to benefit from this collection, which should be able to push readers beyond their own established niche to consider the depth and breadth of what studying discourse can mean.