Abstract
As a multidisciplinary set of theories and methods, discourse analysis has been well tested and has established itself as an effective tool for unraveling the complexity of issues in language education, and it comes as no surprise that the appeal of a discourse approach to language education has increased over the past decade. John Flowerdew’s Discourse in English Language Education gives this trend a further boost.
The book is organized into 10 chapters. Chapter 1 centers on defining key terms of discourse, discourse analysis and discourse studies, and properties of these terms as related to language teaching are also delineated. At the same time, rationales for the design of the book are given, and the systemic structure of each chapter is provided. As a result, the ideas in the book are made more accessible and readers will find such mind-maps helpful.
Chapters 2–10 attend to specific approaches or areas within discourse studies that are relevant to language education. Chapter 2 focuses on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and the theory of register, theories of how language use varies systematically with context. Chapter 3 deals with cohesion, which is about how texts are held together by formal linguistic links. Chapter 4 is concerned with how a text coheres with thematic development. Chapter 5 is on speech act theory and Chapter 6 on the cooperative principle and politeness. Both deal with features of discourse within the traditional domain of pragmatics. Chapter 7 introduces conversation analysis, which investigates the structure and meaning of spoken interaction. Chapter 8 deals with genre analysis, theories about how recognized discourse structures and communicative functions of communicative events are associated with context. Chapter 9 focuses on the corpus-based approach and explores how computational tools can be applied to reveal patterns of language use. Chapter 10 is concerned with critical discourse analysis, an approach that takes language as a form of social practice and addresses the instrumental perspective of discourse that reproduces and reinforces social norms and structures.
The above approaches are clearly introduced. In each chapter, key concepts and theories, and their relevance for language education, are first elucidated. The concepts and theories are made accessible with the help of ample examples of real-world discourses like classroom interaction, daily conversation, speech by celebrities, news, advertisements and blog posts. These diverse examples not only aid readers’ comprehension of the ideas, but also demonstrate how data can be analyzed using a particular approach. For example, in Chapter 6 (pp. 104–106), the author analyzes a personal letter to show how to apply the cooperative principle to pedagogy. The analysis based on the four maxims of the cooperative principle (quantity, quality, relation and manner) can help readers to develop their analytical skills. Furthermore, seminal and recent publications on key issues of an approach with regards to language education are thoroughly reviewed in each chapter to facilitate readers’ understanding of the concepts and theories.
All the chapters conclude with a section on pedagogical applications, and some are complemented by a critique. The critique is a concise evaluation of a certain approach, with a particular emphasis on its relevance to language education. In the pedagogical application section, an extensive review of relevant literature on language education is provided to suggest how a certain approach can be applied, which can serve as a useful reference list for researchers.
Discussions on intercultural issues run throughout the book, as testified by the vast array of examples and reviews. The authors’ comments on these examples and reviews, however brief they are, raise readers’ cross-cultural awareness and could be a source of inspiration for future cross-cultural discourse studies.
What is left to be desired is coverage of multimodal discourse analysis, an emerging field which focuses on how meaning is made through multi-semiotic resources such as language, images, colors and hyperlinks as opposed to just language. Multimodal discourse analysis has gained increasing prominence as a result of the computational and internet boom since the late 1990s and has become a widely recognized approach to discourse (see Jones, 2012). Approaches like SFL (e.g. O’Halloran, 2008), genre analysis (e.g. Bateman, 2008) and critical discourse analysis (e.g. Lassen et al., 2006) have already made substantial advances in dealing with multimodal discourse. Inclusion of multimodal discourse analysis, either as an independent approach or as a new development of current approaches, can better inform readers of the ongoing developments of language education, as multimodal discourses are becoming an integral part of students’ literacy skills and of educational practices in general in the 21st century (see Bazalgette and Buckingham, 2013; The New London Group, 1996).
That gap aside, the book is a comprehensive introduction to approaches in discourse studies, and to how they can inform language education. In addition, it provides rich insights into how to do research on language education from a discourse perspective. It is written in a highly engaging and accessible manner. Hence, it is a must read for discourse analysts, language teachers, and researchers in language education.