Working with Written Discourse
- Deborah Cameron - University of Oxford, UK
- Ivan Panovic - Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
- 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.
Students have found the book a bit difficult to follow.
“Working with Written Discourse” provides a clearly written introduction to the various ways to analyse discourse and visual communication in modern society. The fundamentals of analysing texts are clearly outlined and up-to-date references to on-line material are a great resource for students. Furthermore, each chapter contains activities for students and recommended readings. Although the book is mainly aimed at students of linguistics, it provides a solid framework for those of other disciplines. The final chapter discusses how to design a research project and would be of great assistance to undergraduate students. I would recommend this book for classes that explore the analysis of discourses in the modern era of digital discourses.
A potentially useful if dense introduction to this topic.
Excellent book, recommended to MPhils and PhDs working on dissertations that relate to discourse analysis.
A good book that helps students to understand DA.
Not quite suitable for beginning students.
An interesting book that tackles the subject reasonably well. Some useful insights are offered.
This text addresses quite lofty ambitions in that the author takes a complex subject and addresses its main components succinctly and with clarity. The fact that this deft trick is pulled off is testament to the depth of their knowledge and understanding of the subject matter.
For our purposes this text is intended to enlighten a group of non-specialist students in accessing a level of understanding which allows them to use elementary analysis of written discourse in their research assignments and it appears that they have understood the subject well enough, using this text in support of the taught componnent, to achieve the desired ends. Only their assignments due in two weeks time will gauge this accurately. In the menatime we will be suggesting that next years stage two students purchase a copy of the book and also asking our library to purchase copies for general use.
Helpful for research methodologies
Sage College Publishing
