Abstract
An Introduction to Discourse Analysis (IDA) and its companion volume, How to Do Discourse Analysis (HDDA), are primarily addressed to undergraduate students of linguistics and social sciences who are making first steps in the field of discourse analysis. Both books boast a transparent and engaging writing style and a wealth of examples and practical exercises – the qualities which recommend them readily as course books for introductory courses and account for the popularity of the preceding editions. Nevertheless, the particular flavour of discourse analysis that Gee chooses may turn out to be a deal-breaker for more linguistically oriented instructors. It is a variety of critical discourse analysis which pays a lot of attention to the political and societal implications of ways of speaking. At the outset of IDA, Gee states that further discussion is based on the premise that all language is political (p. 9), since any linguistic action ‘involves potential social goods and their distribution’ (p. 10). Both books largely introduce this specific variety and the methodological apparatus developed by Gee, including the seven ‘Building Tasks’ (pp. 32–35, IDA) and the six theoretical ‘Tools of Inquiry’ (p. 156, HDDA). Since it is not the purpose of this review to critique Gee’s approach, I will not comment on its comparative strengths and weaknesses, though the reviewer of the second edition of IDA in Discourse Studies (Xie, 2006) did make some remarks in that regard. However, the narrow focus may misrepresent the field of discourse analysis to a beginner and may be a reason for deciding against Gee’s two books as a course’s main reading.
As remarked above, the books are built around explaining the role of language in the construction of the seven building tasks or ‘areas of reality’ (p. 32, IDA): Significance, Practices, Identities, Relationships, Politics, Connections and Sign Systems & Knowledge; and the tools of inquiry which help an analyst to uncover these construction processes: The Situated Meaning Tool, The Social Languages Tool, The Intertextuality Tool, The Figured Worlds Tool, The Big D Discourse Tool and The Big C Conversation Tool. Each chapter concludes with a list of recommended readings, which include classics as well as more recent literature.
The new edition of IDA has been supplemented with two chapters: a Conclusion and a general discussion of what discourse analysis covers (‘What is Discourse Analysis?’, Ch. 2). These do a great job of explaining to the reader the interactive and constitutive nature of language as embodied in recipient design, position design and response design (pp. 21–22, IDA). Chapters 3 and 4 give an overview of the building tasks and the tools of inquiry, while Chapters 5–7 detail the meaning and use of these methodological constructs with the help of many examples of natural language. Chapter 8 is devoted to the notion of linguistic and extra-linguistic context. Some practical issues, such as transcribing speech and determining validity of analysis, are touched upon in Chapter 9. Chapter 10 finally turns to the structural linguistic aspect and introduces some ‘technical details about the structure of sentences and of discourse’ (function vs content words, stress and intonation, theme and rheme), albeit rather concisely. Here, too, Gee remains true to his own brand of discourse analysis and extensively uses a somewhat unusual structural model of subdividing speech into ‘lines’, ‘stanzas’ and ‘macro-lines’ (pp. 154–162, IDA). This and other instances of overlap between Gee’s adopted terminology and more traditional terminology of pragmatics (which Gee includes in his field of discourse analysis; p. 20, IDA) may cause students some confusion. For instance, Gee labels ‘direct speech acts’ what students have probably been taught to recognize as ‘explicit speech acts’ (p. 31, IDA; p. 51, HDDA). Chapters 11–13 exemplify the application of the tools discussed in the preceding chapters to the transcribed speech samples that stem from Gee’s own research. In contrast to the earlier editions, this edition does not have the section on applying discourse analysis to multimodal texts.
Although IDA is also very hands-on and may certainly be used without the companion volume, HDDA offers even more examples of natural language and sample analyses, and additionally supplies multiple questions for students, to engage them into doing the discourse analysis instead of simply reading about it. The structure of the book is as follows: the topics from IDA are here coached in terms of 28 tools (e.g. The Fill in Tool, The Vocabulary Tool). A short description of each tool is provided, followed by a section ‘Working with […] Tool’ that offers two to seven specific questions for each language sample. Eight ‘Grammar interludes’ comprise short linguistic introductions to the terms and theories that are referenced in other sections, from deixis to phonetics and text linguistics. IDA and HDDA are not entirely complementary; indeed, they overlap in many instances, and the teacher should be conscious of this fact when recommending both books as course reading. For instance, some study questions from HDDA have already been explicated as sample analyses in IDA (with the same language excerpts). Moreover, some of the ‘Grammar interludes’ may not be sufficient for independent study as they provide only a very short and condensed presentation of linguistic theory. As practice shows, the Interlude 5 on clause structure does little to clarify the matter to a student unfamiliar with syntactic theory, and may confuse one who had only a basic syntactic course by using slightly different terminology (e.g. in German universities, it is common for undergraduates to work with Quirk et al.’s (1985) grammar of English).
On the whole, the textbooks are full of excellent material and will make a worthwhile contribution to the bulk of learning aids in any discourse-analytic course. However, I have found that they work best under close guidance and supervision from an instructor, and not as materials for independent study.
Both textbooks have already appeared in earlier editions by Routledge. In addition to the changes mentioned earlier (two new chapters and the elimination of the appendix on multimodal analysis in IDA), some sections of the books have been slightly rewritten to improve readability. The lists of recommended readings have been updated – in the case of HDDA, mostly by adding classic sources such as Fillmore (1997) or Gumperz (1982), and in IDA, with Gee’s own recently published contributions. The Big C Conversation, ‘all the talk and writing that has gone on in a specific social group or in society at large around a major theme, debate, or motif’ (p. 46, IDA), has been promoted to the status of the sixth tool of inquiry. Perhaps the most significant change is the introduction of the notions of recipient and position design, the ‘two key types of work we carry out as speakers or writers’ (p. 21, IDA) that emphasize the active and playful aspect of speech production. The glossary at the end of the book has been updated accordingly, and is also available on the companion website. The new version of HDDA boasts seven new tasks and a section on Big C Conversation. In sum, although the new editions have been updated, it is not a drastic overhaul that would induce an instructor to buy the new version immediately. As before, the main strengths of the textbooks lie in the clear, engaging style that makes complicated concepts accessible through the use of metaphor, and the abundance of examples. I would recommend everyone who teaches discourse analysis to have these two books in their inventory, if not as main course books then for selective use as a collection of readings and exercises.