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Working with Written Discourse
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Working with Written Discourse



March 2014 | 216 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
An outstanding introduction to discourse analysis of written language in an age that is more and more characterized by multilingual, digital, and generically hybrid texts. In an accessible style, Working with Written Discourse illustrates how these texts can be analyzed employing a wide variety of approaches that are critical, multidisciplinary, and productive.
- Professor Jaffer Sheyholislami, Carleton University


"Comprehensive and up-to-the-minute in its discussion of areas like multimodality and the new media, without overlooking ‘older’ media and more conventional writing. I will recommend it highly to students at all levels."
- Dr Mark Sebba
, Lancaster University

Addressing the practicalities of research, and embracing the complexity and variety of written forms of language, this book:

  • grounds readers in a broad range of concepts, debates and relevant methods
  • focuses on both theoretical questions and the ‘how to’ of analysis
  • is loaded with practical activities and advice on the design and execution of research
  • highlights computer-mediated communication and new media discourse, from text messages and tweets to mobile phone novels and online encyclopedias 
  • draws on data from international and multilingual communities.

The perfect companion to Deborah Cameron's best-selling Working with Spoken Discourse, this book equips readers with practical and conceptual tools to ask questions about written discourse, and to analyse the huge variety of texts that make up our linguistic landscape. It is the essential guide for students of discourse analysis in linguistics, media and communication studies, and for social researchers across the social sciences.

 
Introduction
 
Preliminaries
 
Discourse and Discourse Analysis
 
Speech and Writing: The Debate on Difference
 
Writing, Technologies and Media
 
Scripts and Spelling
 
Approaches
 
Approaches to Written Discourse: An Initial Orientation
 
Critical Discourse Analysis
 
Corpus-Based Discourse Analysis
 
Multimodal Discourse Analysis
 
Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis
 
Multilingual Discourse Analysis
 
Applications
 
Working with Written Discourse in Social Research
 
Designing Your Own Projects

Working with Written Discourse in three words: erudite, elegant, engaging. Grounded in an extensive, up-to-date literature, Cameron and Panovic provide here a beautifully and sensibly organized introduction to the field. With constant opportunities for further reflection and discussion, the book is also chock-a-block with contemporary examples and fresh ideas for hands-on practice. I would – no, I will – use this book as a core text in my graduate seminars as readily as I will my undergraduate courses. Cameron’s Working with Spoken Discourse has been a key text in my classes for over a decade; my only (quite unreasonable) gripe being that it didn’t offer me enough on things like new media discourse and multimodal discourse. Well, here we have it: a perfect complement.  And much more besides.

Professor Crispin Thurlow
University of Washington

This volume is written in an admirably clear and understandable style, without compromising on the depth of the arguments and discussions. It is comprehensive and up-to-the-minute in its discussion of areas like multimodality and the new media, without overlooking ‘older’ media and more conventional writing. I will recommend it highly to students at all levels.

Dr Mark Sebba
Lancaster University

This is an outstanding introduction to discourse analysis of written language in an age that is more and more characterized by multilingual, digital, and generically hybrid texts. In an accessible style, Working with Written Discourse illustrates how these texts can be analyzed employing a wide variety of approaches that are critical, multidisciplinary, and productive.

Professor Jaffer Sheyholislami
Carleton University

Working with Written Discourse is an engaging read on current theoretical and methodological approaches to the analysis of written discourse. The book enjoys a number of distinctive features compared to parallel publications. First... this book provides a thorough introduction to common underpinning concepts and current literature on written discourse and its analysis. Second, it presents an interesting array of examples, activities and further readings to initiate the reader to a hands-on experience in written discourse analysis. Third, looking beyond conventional textual and formalistic aspects of written discourse, it highlights the role of socio-political and cultural variables and contexts in shaping and transforming written discourse as well as its analysis. Most importantly, it is one of the pro-technology publications on written discourse analysis ,as a big portion of it is dedicated to technology-mediated discourse and technology facilitated discourse analysis. The image on the front cover is a subtle gesture in this respect. 

Pejman Habibie, Faculty of Education, The University of Western Ontario, Cananda
Discourse Studies

This book provides instrumental knowledge in the use of discourse analysis methods, which are the main focus of one of the subjects I teach (Discoursive Practices).

Professor Pedro Pereira Neto
School of Sociology and Public Policies, ISCTE - Inst of Soc Sci & Bus Studies
January 31, 2016

This book is a useful complement to "Researching spoken discourse" published earlier. In an educational context where access to spoken data in the English language is limited, written texts provide a great data source for student projects. In such cases, the adopted book, particularly itsApproaches chapter, offer a good overview of suggestions of how to approach data, and the view is not only versatile but constructively critical. The texts provided to exemplify methods are always valuable to the teacher who may at times be short of appealing examples.

Professor Agnieszka Kielkiewicz-Janowiak
Faculty of English, Uniwersytet im Adama MICKIEWICZA W POZ
October 19, 2015

This book provides a clear overview of discourse analysis from a variety of perspectives. While opted for a collection of chapters and articles for my course on Theory of Discourse last year, I did request that the library order this book and I will likely use it in the future.

Ms Shala Barczewska
Interdiscipline , Uniwersytet Jana Kochanowskiego w Kielcach
August 6, 2015

Clear and accessible guidance to discourse analysis. Useful methodological text for our level 5 module. will be ordering for library and adding to reading lists

Dr William Jackson
School Of Social Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University
August 14, 2015

An ideal text for undergraduate researchers looking to get to grips with discourse analysis.

Mr John Perry
School of Medicine, Southampton University
July 1, 2015

Clear and accessible introduction. Full of useful examples and exercises. Popular with my students.

Mr Anders Hansen
Department of Media and Communication, University of Leicester
April 14, 2015

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter One: Discourse and Discourse Analysis


Deborah Cameron

Deborah Cameron teaches at Oxford University, where she is Professor of Language and Communication. Her main research interests are in sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and the study of gender and sexuality; her previous publications include Working with Spoken Discourse (2001) and Working with Written Discourse (with Ivan Panovic, 2014), Good to Talk? (2000),The Myth of Mars and Venus (2007), and Verbal Hygiene (1995/2012).  More About Author

Ivan Panovic

Ivan Panovic received his doctorate from Oxford University, where he went on to spend two years as a postdoctoral research fellow in Arabic sociolinguistics. He is now Assistant Professor of sociolinguistics at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. His book Literacies in Contemporary Egypt will be published in 2014. More About Author

Also available as a South Asia Edition.

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