Concrete "how to" discourse analysis references

[Jeff Solomon]

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to this list, so my apologies if this topic has been addressed before. Part of my work entails writing government grant proposals for health care research projects. Reviewers of proposals often have an at-best sketchy understanding of qualitative methods, let alone discourse analytic ones. I'd like to cite some sources in my proposals that are "how to" approaches to doing discourse analysis in very concrete terms. And I prefer to shy away from critical discourse analysis, because I think such a focus will not be palatable to proposal reviewers. Even though I was trained in linguistic anthropology, the works I know best are rather dense, and the methods tend to be implied or assumed in the articles/monographs. Does anyone have any suggestions for works that are much more straightfoward and comprehensible?

Thanks in advance for your ideas.

Jeff Solomon, PhD
Research Health Scientist
Center for Health Quality, Outcomes & Economic Research
ENRM VA Hospital
Bedford, MA 01730