Textbook Suggestions

[David Samuels]

In reply to Moses Samuel's question: There's a new reader that Routledge is
putting out which touches a lot of bases, a bit too CA for my taste, which
you might want to look into, although it struck me as advanced for an intro
class.  They sent me the TOC, if people would like me to upload it to the
list.

In the past, for lx anthro (not specifically discourse) I've used Keith
Basso's 1990 (91?) collection of essays in lx anthropology and Barbara
Johnstone's "The Linguistic Individual."

I like them both: the Basso because it's about Apache, and because the
ordering of the essays moves starts with reference, but moves the reader
away from semantics to metaphor to poetics, which is how I like to
structure my introduction; The Johnstone because it presents, in a clear
and well-written fashion (with the exception of ten very dense pages in the
introduction) idiolect and style as central problems for understanding the
circulation of discourse.

I have to say, though, that my students have found Basso to be a dull
writer, which surprises me, but I suppose I can see that there's a
formalism to his style that they're reacting to; and they not to think
they need the entire Johnstone book to get the point, which I think may
be true.

So I'm kind of looking around, too. In future, I'd probably select
chapters of these.  Johnstone's chapter on the Texas Survey is
brilliant, and her chapter on Barbara Jordan and Sunny Nash is a real
good corrective to the "two cultures" approach to gender.

Best,

David

-----------

>I'd like to ask members of this list who teach undergraduate or
>beginning graduate courses on Discourse Analysis, what textbooks they
>use to organize their course around.  I've used Deborah Schiffrin's
>(1994) _Approaches to Discourse Analysis_.  I'm also interested in
>responses you've had to your recommended texts.
>
>Moses Samuel
>


David W. Samuels
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
212 Machmer Hall
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003

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