xvi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS coorah Tannen, ‘New York Jewish conversational strle’ from the ee ocrevemational Journal of Sociology of Cangoage: 30, 1981. Reproduced by permission of Mouton de Gruyéer and Deborah Tannen. Deborah Tannen and Cynthia Wallat, ‘Interactive frames and knowledge schemas in interaction: examples from a medical examination/ interview’, from Social Psychology Quarerly, June 1987. Reproduced by ical Association and Deborah oun A rn A. van D B bo oh Katharine Young, ‘Narrative embodiments: enclaves of the self in the realm ‘medicine rom Teer dnc, ete by J Shower and Kj. Gergen, 1989, Reprinted by permission of Sage Publleaons Lid Jk, “Discourse and the denial of racism’, from Dicouse & Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd and Teun Every effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyright material, If any proper acknowledgement has not been made, oF permission not received, we would invite copyright holders to inform us of the over- sight. Introduction: PERSPECTIVES ON DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Adam Jaworski and Nikolas Coupland Discourse: an interdi inary movement Deborah Schitirin’s (1994) book, Aporoaches to Discourse, discusses various definitions of discourse. Schiffrin (gp. 23-43) compiles and Here are three of them from Discourse is: “language above ihe sentence or above the clause’. (Stubbs 198321) “The study of discourse is the study of any aspect of language use (Fasold 1990: 65) the analysis of discourse is, necessarily, the analysis of language in-use. AS such, it cannot be restricted to the description of lin- ‘uistic forms independent af the purposes or functions which these forms are designed to serve in human affairs. (Brown and Yule 1983: 1) *100T -tysaomep-w ‘Tepead esznoostd Sud oz wopuoT ‘afpetanod (spa) pueTdnoD 'N2 ADAM JAWORSKI AND NIKOLAS COUPLAND Have are some others: leave the domain of language as a system 110 another universe, that of language as an ‘sametimtes as the general domain of al statements, some- Jimas as an indivi yeements, and sometimes as a ragulated practice that account (Foucault 1972: 60, cited in A programme for literary studies has :ne aim ature 50 that a jiauals in ideology, experience ang social change or ven conscious engagements nization Fowler 1982: 199) language use: it is anguage Discourse constitutes the social, Three dimensions of the social tions, and social ‘dentity ‘major funczions of lations of paver, and se correspond respectively course is shaped by language invested with (oeoloaies. (Fairclough 1992: 8) see also Chanter According to Lee, it Is an ‘uncomfortable fact that th: “giscourse’ is used 10 cover a wide range of phenomena ... 20 cover a wide range of practices from such well documented speaking that are 2asy 10 describe in general ste." (Lee 1992: 197) phenomena as sexist discourse to ways +5 recognise in particular texts but diffe 15 (competitive discourse, discourse of so! _ course is, an inescapabl INTRODUCTION 3 ‘Discourse’ ... refers to language in use, as 2 orocess which is socially situated. However... we may 0 on to discuss the can- and dynamic role of either s course vucturing areas of knowledge anc practices which are associated with them. In this sense, ‘5 a means jing and writing about and acting upon worlds, social practices within these worlds, snd in so doing both repro- duces and constructs afresh part iscursive practices, constrained or encouraged by more macro movements in the over- arching saciat formation (Candin 2997: ix Other aefinitions of discourse will appear the ones above, span a considerable range, emerges. It is this core, and intend to unpack in the pages of aguage in use’. 8 ‘che chapters to follow, These, and hough a core set of concerns also boest-estabi‘sted deviations irom Reader. The quotations above consist there is a large body of apinion (sé key factor exeiaining 3 of discourse with such psychologists, and many others. Despite important differences of emphasis, dis portant, concert for understanding society and human responses to it, as well as for understanding language itself. Part of the exalanation for the upsurce of interest in discourse lies in 2 fundamental realignment that has taken olace, over the last two decades or so, in now academic knowledge, and perhags atl knowledge, is assumed to be con stituted, To put the negative side of this change, we might describe it as a weakening of confidence in traditional ways of explaining ohenomena and processes, a radical questioning of how peonie, including academics, came to what we know and what it means to know ~ that is, a shiftin enistemelogy, jn the theorising of knowledge (See Foucauit, Chapter 30). The question of4 ADAM JAWORSKI AND NIKOLAS COUPLAND how we build knowledge has come more to the fore, anid this is where issues So go with language and linguistic representation come into focus. Academic study, but in fact all aspects of experience, are based on acts of classification, and the building af knowledge and interpretations is very largely a process of defining boundaries between conceptual classes, and of ‘apelling those classes and the relationsinigs between them. This is one central reason why all intellectual endeavour, and all routine social iving, needs to ‘2xamine language, because it is through language that classification becomes possible (Lee 1992), Seen this way, language ceases to be a neutral medium he transmission and reception of ars-existing knowledge. {t is the key ingredient in the very constitution of knowledge. Many discialines, mare or ass simultaneously, have come to see the need for an awareness of language, and of the structuring potential of language, as eart of their own investica- sions. This is the shift often referred to a5 the “linguistic ue Sciences, but it is being exgerienced in academic study more general {is not as if linguistics, ‘the scientifie study oF ianguage’, has always provided the most approariate means of studying knowledge making processes and their social implications. Linguistics has tended to be an inward-iooking discipline, [t Aas not always appreciated the relevance of language and discourse to people other than linguists. The dominant tr ions in 5, one could say until at least the 1970s, were oarticularly narrow, focusing an providing goad descrigtions of the grammar and pranun- ciation of utterances at the level of the sentence. Considerations of mean! in general, and garticularly of how language, meaning and society interrelate, are still quite recent concerns. Discourse analysis is therefore a relatively new area af importance to linguistics 100, which is moving eeyons its earlier ambitions to describe sentences and to gain autonomy for itself as a ‘scien area of academic study. Under the heading of discourse, st language have come to be concerned wider issues, Discourse analyse, for example, the structure of conversations, stories and various forms of written text, the subtleties of imalied meanings, and how language in the form of speech interacts with non-linguistic (e.g. visual or spatial) commu- ication. Under the headings of cohesion and coherence they study how one communicative act or text depends on previous acts or texts, and how people creatively interact in the task of making and inferring meaning. We consider some of these main developments, in linguistics and in other disciplines, in mare detail in Part Qne of the Reader. So discourse has gained importance through at east two different, concurrent develaoments - a shift in the general theorising of knowledge and INTRODUCTION 5 1a broadening of perspective in linguistics. The Reader includes extracts from many of the most influential original writings on discourse, both theoretical and applied, which have orought about and benefited from this confluence of ideas. As individual chapters show, language studied as discourse opens up countless new areas for the critical investigation of social and cultural life = the composition of cultural graups, the management of social relations, the constitution of social institutions, the perpetuation of social orejudices, and so on. Other general trends too have promoted interest in discourse. One is the growing recognition that contemporary life, at feast in the world’s most affluent and ‘developed’ societies, has qualities which distinguish it quite markedly from the ‘modern’ industrial, are-World War Two period. One of the most obvious manifestations of what Anthony Giddens has called “Late for “High Modernity’ (Giddens 1991; see Chapter 24), and what is more generally referred to as Postmodernity, is che shift in advances capitalist sconamies fram manuiacturing to service industries. Norman Fairclough (1992; 1995; Chapter 11) refers to one part of this phenomenon as the ‘echnolagisation of discourse in post-Fordist societies (since the beginning of mass sraduction of motor cars and similar Industria! developments). Manufacturing and assembly workers warking on praduction lines, isolates from consumers of the items they are araducing, have been largely veplaced by teams of workers networkea together on communication tasks of different sorts or representing thelr companies in different kinds of service encounters ith cliants. In a rather literal sense, languace takes on greater significance in the warlds of providing and cansurning services, even if onty in the pramo= tlonal language of selling services in the competitive environment of banking, insurance companies or telephone-sales warenouses. Rapid growth in communications media, such as satellite and digital Jevision and radio, desktop publishing, telecommunications (mobile phone networks, video-conferencing), email, internet-mediated sales and services, information provision and entertainment, has created new media for language use. It is not surprising that language is being more and more closely seru- tinised (2.9. within schoo! curricula and by self-styled experts and guardians of so-called ‘linguistic standards’ ~ see Milroy and Milroy 1991; Cameron 1995 for detailed discussion of these issues), while simultaneously oeing shaped and honed (e.9., by advertisers, journalists and broadcasters) in a drive to generate ever-more attention and persuasive impact. Under these circumstances, language itself becomes marketable and sort af commodity, and its ourveyors can market themselves through their skills of linguistic and