27.1511, Review: Discourse; General Ling; Text/Corpus Ling: Carter, Goddard (2015)
The LINGUIST List via LINGUIST
linguist at listserv.linguistlist.org
Thu Mar 31 18:29:02 UTC 2016
LINGUIST List: Vol-27-1511. Thu Mar 31 2016. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 27.1511, Review: Discourse; General Ling; Text/Corpus Ling: Carter, Goddard (2015)
Moderators: linguist at linguistlist.org (Damir Cavar, Malgorzata E. Cavar)
Reviews: reviews at linguistlist.org (Anthony Aristar, Helen Aristar-Dry, Robert Coté, Sara Couture)
Homepage: http://linguistlist.org
***************** LINGUIST List Support *****************
Fund Drive 2016
25 years of LINGUIST List!
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
Editor for this issue: Sara Couture <sara at linguistlist.org>
================================================================
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2016 14:28:37
From: Rui Sousa-Silva [r.sousa-silva at forensis.pt]
Subject: How to Analyse Texts
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36118557
Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/26/26-3786.html
AUTHOR: Ronald Carter
AUTHOR: Angela Goddard
TITLE: How to Analyse Texts
SUBTITLE: A toolkit for students of English
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2015
REVIEWER: Rui Sousa-Silva, Centro de Linguística da Universidade do Porto
Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry
SUMMARY
It’s been over three decades since Malcolm Coulthard first published ‘An
Introduction to Discourse Analysis’ (1977), ‘Advances in Spoken Discourse
Analysis’ (1992) and ’Advances in Written Text Analysis’ (1994). Taken
together, the three books, which were preceded by Sinclair and Coulthard’s
‘Towards an Analysis of Discourse: English Used by Teachers and Pupils’
(1974), provide beginners and advanced learners, native and non-native
speakers of English alike, with an in-depth knowledge across all areas of
applied linguistics, and guidelines on how to analyse the different instances
of written and spoken text. ‘How to Analyse Texts: A Toolkit for Students of
English’ recalls these books for several reasons: not only is the book aimed
at students of English across the world, but also, as a textbook, it
encourages the readers to think about language use in everyday texts. As it
focuses on language patterns both intrinsically and extrinsically, it is a
step-by-step resource for understanding and interpreting different texts.
The book is organised into three different parts, each covering a step of text
analysis. Part I introduces the reader to a set of basic research principles
underlying the complex process of analysing texts. It shows the readers how to
adopt some learning and research routines. In particular, it provides the
readers with step by step instructions on how to collect, store/archive and
approach the data, and how to choose the right research methods. The authors
encourage the learners to conduct independent analysis, especially by
illustrating how to take notes, how to go about analysing the texts
confidently, and how to report on the research findings. Part II approaches
texts intrinsically; it focuses on some of the structural aspects of language
to discuss and explain how texts are structured. This part is divided into
three different sections, each covering a different structural aspect of
language: the first section focuses on language as a semiotic system, and
covers graphological and phonological aspects; the second section discusses
lexis and semantics, showing readers how words and expressions contribute to
making meaning in texts; the third section, which covers aspects of grammar,
directs learners to how grammatical structures are used to shape meanings in
texts. Part III adopts a more text-external perspective; it approaches
questions about how texts represent the world, by discussing some contextual
aspects of interpretation. Some of the core elements covered in this part are
place and time, perspective and point of view, culture and gender, and genre
and intertextuality.
The three parts contribute to a very coherent volume. Part III complements the
text-internal approach of Part II, and both contribute to improving the
research skills of Part I. With each part, Ronald Carter and Angela Goddard
provide a number of activities, ideas for assignments and commentaries on most
of the examples presented, as well as a glossary of key terms and a summary
checklist covering the different topics discussed in the book.
EVALUATION
Carter and Goddard’s book adds to an already substantial body of literature.
Indeed, over the last decades many other books have been published on text and
discourse analysis that provided useful analytical tools across all areas of
linguistics and discourse, focusing especially on English.
In ‘Worlds of Written Discourse’ (2004), Bhatia attempts to analyse written
discourse in real-life contexts other than language teaching and learning.
Conversely, Fairclough (2003), in ‘Analysing Discourse: Textual analysis for
social research’, targets students and researchers in social science and
humanities - with little or no background in language analysis -, as well as
linguistics students and researchers. Both Johnstone (2002) and Paltridge
(2006), in their books called ‘Discourse Analysis’, aim to provide
undergraduate and beginning graduate students with a discourse analysis
toolkit, explicitly (in the case of Johnstone) or implicitly (in the case of
Paltridge). Both authors provide the readers with a discussion and summary of
the topic approached in each chapter, as well as directions for further
reading. Cameron (2001) shifts from written discourse to provide a textbook
for linguistics students on ‘Working with Spoken Discourse’. The aim of
reinforcing the practical side of discourse analysis, in addition to the
theoretical explanations, is met as the book abounds with practical examples,
chapter summaries and suggestions for further reading. Kress and van Leeuwen
(2001), in ‘Multimodal discourse: the modes and media of contemporary
communication’, and Kress (2010), in ‘Multimodality: a social semiotic
approach to contemporary communication’, focus on a specific area of discourse
analysis - multimodality - to provide a theoretical background for advanced
readers on how to analyse discourse produced by different modes, and not only
written and spoken text. Last, but not least, in ‘Language: Its Structure and
Use’ Finegan (2004) provides students, both at beginner and advanced level,
with an invaluable resource for conducting linguistic analyses of all sorts,
from lexicon and morphology to phonetics and phonology, and including syntax
and semantics, pragmatics, language variation and language acquisition. The
strong theoretical explanations provided are always accompanied by practical
examples that make it very easy for students to understand the theory, and the
international edition suits well non-native learners of English.
Notwithstanding, ‘How to Analyse Texts’ provides several reasons for deserving
a place of its own among the existing body of literature, owing in particular
to the practical nature of the book: more than providing a theoretical
description of language use and how texts can be analysed, the book works as a
toolkit that provides learners with the tools required to analyse texts, and
furthermore shows them how to use those tools. The book therefore aims to
encourage an active learning process, whereby practical applications and
activities encourage the readers to acquire real analytical skills.
‘How to Analyse Texts’ competently addresses its main audience: learners of
‘World Englishes’, although it is also a valuable resource for learners of
English across the world. The book is logically and coherently organised: it
starts with the basic research principles, continues with text-internal
analysis and ends with text-external analysis. The volume is written in a
style that is accessible to less advanced readers, including to non-native
learners of English, without compromising its accuracy and its commitment to
the discipline. The core concepts are clearly defined and often explained by
resorting to analogy (including visual analogy); and the theoretical points
raised throughout the book are explained and complemented by concrete and
detailed examples, including commentaries. The wide range of examples and
exercises for self-study from a diversity of text types and genres provided is
particularly helpful for undergraduate students, who will gain the skills
required to understand and interpret texts. Beginning learners will certainly
benefit from the guidelines and examples of how to appropriately conduct a
research project, including how to use quotation and citation conventions; on
this point, Carter and Goddard go much farther than just showing how to
analyse texts.
‘How to Analyse Texts’ can, on the other hand,, be less exciting for more
advanced learners, who may be disappointed by some of the topics covered in
the book. This audience will, however, find the suggestions for more sustained
research in the longer term extremely useful. One of the main merits of the
book is that advanced learners are encouraged to apply the analyses of the
texts in English to texts in their own languages as well, while the analyses
conducted by the authors can serve as models for how to write about the
aspects covered. As they provide a contextualisation of the analyses of the
English language texts, while suggesting that the readers should work on their
own mother tongue for comparison purposes, the authors encourage the learners
to develop their text analysis skills further. The book thus presents very
good suggestions for future empirical research in the area.
In addition to the topics usually discussed in linguistics textbooks, such as
writing, speech and critical discourse analysis, ‘How to Analyse Texts’ also
covers other analyses and applications, such as multimodality and multimodal
contexts and situations, as well as forensic linguistics. Regrettably, some of
these are covered very superficially, and occasionally inconsistently. An
example of the latter is the explanation of the terms ‘text’ and ‘discourse’:
although in the introduction the authors argue that the two terms are often
used as synonyms despite the differences between them, in Chapter 4 ‘text
analysis’ and ‘discourse analysis’ are used as synonyms to refer to the same
research method.
In addition, the book would benefit from a more detailed explanation of
corpora, although the appendix on corpus resources and projects towards the
end of the book can direct the reader to past and present corpora research
projects. Likewise, the explanation of multimodality does not account for the
complexity of the analysis, and neither do the guidelines provided in this
respect compare to the other topics covered. Although the book provides
examples of some forensic applications of linguistic analyses, such as accent
identification for court cases, this application is not given much attention
or detail; on the contrary, the information provided is supplemented only with
further reading suggestions on more scientific applications of phonetics, and
no further suggestions are made to readings on forensic linguistics in
general. Maybe as a result of these being paid less attention, the use of the
expression ‘linguistic fingerprints’ as a synonym of ‘idiolect’ can be
misleading and inaccurate, as argued by Coulthard (see e.g. Coulthard &
Johnson 2007). Although these shortcomings do not overshadow the merits of the
book, future editions of the volume could be improved in this regard.
‘How to Analyse Texts: A Toolkit for Students of English’ was written by
Ronald Carter and Angela Goddard, two experienced and renowned teachers of
English, and that reflects on the pedagogical nature of the book: as a result
of the wording used, of the organisation of the book, and of the quality and
diversity of the data analysed, this volume undoubtedly encourages the active
learning of its readers. ‘How to Analyse Texts’ is therefore key reading for
beginning students and a good reference resource for more advanced readers.
The authors have definitely achieved their goals with the book, which will
have its own place among the existing extensive body of literature.
REFERENCES
Bhatia, Vijay K. 2004. Worlds of Written Discourse. London and New York:
Continuum.
Cameron, Deborah. 2001. Working with Spoken Discourse. London: Sage.
Coulthard, Malcolm. 1977. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis. London:
Longman.
Coulthard, Malcolm (ed.). 1992. Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis. London
and New York: Routledge.
Coulthard, Malcolm (ed.). 1994. Advances in Written Text Analysis. London and
New York: Routledge.
Coulthard, Malcolm & Alison Johnson. 2007. An Introduction to Forensic
Linguistics: Language in Evidence. London and New York: Routledge.
Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual analysis for social
research. London and New York: Routledge.
Finegan, Edward. 2004. Language: Its Structure and Use. Australia, United
Kingdom: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning.
Johnstone, Barbara. 2002. Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.
Kress, Gunther. 2010. Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to
Contemporary Communication. London and New York: Routledge.
Kress, Gunther and Theo van Leeuwen. 2001. Multimodal discourse: The Modes and
Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Paltridge, Brian. 2006. Discourse Analysis. London and New York: Continuum.
Sinclair, John McHardy & Malcolm Coulthard. 1974. Towards an Analysis of
Discourse: English Used by Teachers and Pupils. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Rui Sousa-Silva is assistant professor of the Faculty of Arts and
post-doctoral researcher at the Linguistics Centre (CLUP) of the University of
Porto, where he is currently conducting his research into Forensic Linguistics
and Cybercrime. He has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Aston University
(Birmingham, UK), where he submitted his thesis on Forensic Linguistics:
‘Detecting Plagiarism in the Forensic Linguistics Turn’. He studied
cross-cultural attitudes to plagiarism, and proposed an approach to
translingual plagiarism detection. He also authored and co-authored several
papers on (computational) authorship analysis, and is co-editor of the
recently founded international bilingual journal Language and Law / Linguagem
e Direito.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
***************** LINGUIST List Support *****************
Fund Drive 2016
Please support the LL editors and operation with a donation at:
http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
This year the LINGUIST List hopes to raise $79,000. This money
will go to help keep the List running by supporting all of our
Student Editors for the coming year.
Don't forget to check out Fund Drive 2016 site!
http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/
For all information on donating, including information on how to
donate by check, money order, PayPal or wire transfer, please visit:
http://funddrive.linguistlist.org/donate/
The LINGUIST List is under the umbrella of Indiana University and
as such can receive donations through the eLinguistics Foundation,
which is a registered 501(c) Non Profit organization. Our Federal
Tax number is 45-4211155. These donations can be offset against
your federal and sometimes your state tax return (U.S. tax payers only).
For more information visit the IRS Web-Site, or contact your financial
advisor.
Many companies also offer a gift matching program, such that
they will match any gift you make to a non-profit organization.
Normally this entails your contacting your human resources department
and sending us a form that the eLinguistics Foundation fills in and
returns to your employer. This is generally a simple administrative
procedure that doubles the value of your gift to LINGUIST, without
costing you an extra penny. Please take a moment to check if
your company operates such a program.
Thank you very much for your support of LINGUIST!
----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-27-1511
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
http://multitree.org/
More information about the LINGUIST
mailing list