Genre Pedagogy across the Curriculum

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Title: Genre Pedagogy across the Curriculum
Subtitle: Theory and Application in U.S. Classrooms and Contexts
Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Equinox Publishing Ltd
http://www.equinoxpub.com/

Book URL: http://www.equinoxpub.com/home/genre-pedagogy-across-curriculum/

Editor: Luciana de Oliveira
Editor: Joshua Iddings

Hardback: ISBN:  9781845532413 Pages: 162 Price: U.S. $ 100 Comment: £60

Abstract:

This volume provides the most recent scholarship using a theory of genre emerging from Systemic Functional Linguistics. It describes both theoretical and practical applications of a language-based curriculum from elementary through to university level within a U.S. context. While there are other genre-based pedagogies in the U.S., SFL-based genre pedagogies illuminate the importance of language and linguistic choice within the curriculum, aiming to make these choices explicitly understood by scholars, teachers and students. Each chapter shows how this pedagogy can be adapted and used across many different disciplines and student age groups.

This volume will be of interest to postgraduate students and scholars of functional linguistics, discourse analysis, educational linguistics, genre studies and writing theory and pedagogy.

Interviews with M.A.K. Halliday: Language Turned Back on Himself

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This volume is a collection of 14 interviews with Professor M.A.K. Halliday, the founder of Systemic Functional Linguistics (hereafter SFL). In these interviews, recorded over four decades, Halliday recounts and discusses his own experience as a student of language and linguistics in Britain and China and his career as a linguist, and explores key notions and concepts of SFL, the evolution of the theory around the world, its place in the field of general linguistics, as well as its many sites of application. The subtitle of the collection, as the editor explains, adapts a well-known saying of Firth’s, which characterises linguistics as language turned back on itself, and very fittingly describes the general spirit of this volume.

The interviews are presented chronologically, in the sequence in which they were originally conducted. Interview 1, conducted by Herman Parret in 1972, was originally published in 1974 inDiscussing Language – a collection of interviews with leading influential linguists of that time (Chafe, Chomsky, Greimas, Hartmann, Lakoff, Lamb, Martinet, McCawley, Saumjan). This interview explores in particular the theoretical context and the social semiotic orientation of Halliday’s linguistic theory, its European heritage and North American connections, as well as some key concepts in the theory.

Interview 2, conducted by Noboru Yamaguchi and Shun’ichi Segawa in 1977 at the University of Sydney, reveals some of Halliday’s views about Chomskyan linguistics and its place in the history of the study of language. It also clarifies some concepts in SFL and compares the theory with the various perspectives deriving from the Chomskyan paradigm. The strength and courage of Halliday’s convictions (at a time when SFL was still marginalized) are very much in evidence here. The interview also discusses Halliday’s work on child language development.

Interviews 3 and 4 both have a focus on the language in education themes. In Interview 3, published in The English Magazine in 1981, Halliday maintains that language is rooted in social meaning and that learning a language is learning the significant social meanings of a society. The positioning of his work in relation to educational concerns further illuminates the orientation of his theory. In Interview 4, conducted by Dr M. L. Tickoo in 1985 at the Regional Language Centre in Singapore, also focuses on the exploration of language in education, particularly his unifying notion of language across the curriculum – that of learning language, learning through language and learning about language.

Both Interviews 5 and 6 are in-depth interviews conducted by well-established fellow systemic functional linguists. Interview 5 (by Paul Thibault in 1985) was originally published as a chapter in the two-volume festschrift, Language Topics, prepared for Halliday upon his retirement from University of Sydney. This interview thematises the systemic, the functional and the social semiotic bases of Halliday’s work and explores the epistemological and theoretical criteria on which these are based. It clarifies the position of Halliday’s thinking in relation to other contemporary theoretical positions in linguistics and semiotics.

Interview 6, conducted by Ruqaiya Hasan, Gunther Kress and Jim Martin at the University of Sydney in 1986, is another in-depth interview. It opens with a section (Semogenesis) covering biographical details relevant to the development of Halliday’s career, the influence of his teachers such as Luo Changpei, Wang Li and Firth, and then picks up on and further develops several of the themes introduced in previous interviews (grammatical theory, language in education, language and context, etc.). Of particular interest is the discussion of Halliday’s interest in the development of a Marxist linguistics, and the need of the “backing-off movement”, and how these have impacted on his career path as a linguist.

Interview 7, conducted by Michael O’Toole at Murdoch University in Perth at the ‘3D: Discipline – Dialogue – Difference’ conference in 1989, also includes Gunther Kress, who was also a participant at this conference. Apart from issues under the general heading of language in education, this interview adds the theme of multimodality to the discussions, reflecting the emerging concern of the interviewers with the grammar of other semiotic systems. Halliday discusses the potential of exploring other semiotic codes, pointing out that as linguists, “we can then feed back into our understanding of the grammar precisely what we learn by applying these to other forms of semiotic” (p141).

Interview 8 was conducted by Caroline Coffin in 1998 in support of a masters-level course in Applied Linguistics. In this interview, Halliday explains how his theory came to be called systemic functional linguistics, and discussed the notion of context with reference to the work of Malinowski and Firth, and comments on the development of work on context in SFL.

Both Interviews 9 and 10 were conducted during the 25th International Systemic Functional Congress at Cardiff University in 1998. Interview 9 (conducted by Manuel Hernández) returns to and develops a number of themes introduced in Interviews 1, 5 and 6. Halliday’s discussion of the influence of his teachers in China and the UK (Wang Li and Firth in particular) and of colleagues (Bernstein, Hasan, etc.) is of particular interest. Interview 10, conducted by Geoff Thompson and Heloisa Collins, focuses on the development of the theory, SFL and other schools of linguistics, critical linguistics, linguistics and cognition, register, practical analysis issues and computer-aided analysis.

Interview 11 was conducted by Anne Burns in 2006. It explores Halliday’s position in the field of Applied Linguistics, language in education in particular. In this interview, Halliday articulates his view of SFL as an appliable linguistics, involving a dialectic of theory in practice, as well as his concern that this dialectic should evolve in an expanding range of applied contexts. Concerning studies on multimodality, Halliday emphasizes the importance of maintaining language itself “at the centre of attention, as being in some way the key” (p187).

Interview 12 was conducted by Hu Zhuanglin and Zhu Yongsheng in a plenary session at the 36th International Systemic Functional Congress at Tsinghua University in 2009. In this interview, Halliday discusses issues concerning the developments of SFL, the concept of appliable linguistics, SFL studies in China, grammatical metaphor, language generation and machine translation.

Interview 13, conducted by Bilal Ibne Rasheedin in Pakistan in 2010, explores a range of issues, including the relationship between Halliday’s politics and SFL (its consequences for his career path, both institutional and theoretical), the relationship between language and literature, Halliday’s views on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and his criticism of Chomsky’s Transformational Generative Grammar.

The final interview, conducted by Jim Martin and Paul Thibault at Halliday’s home in Sydney in 2011, serves as “a capstone chapter” for this volume. It explores, again from an ‘insider’ perspective, a range of contemporary theoretical and descriptive concerns in SFL. The interview also fills in bibliographical details missing from previous interviews.

Overall, this volume is an extremely valuable resource for those working in SFL, and complements Halliday’s Collected Works and other SFL publications. Although many of the interviews have been published elsewhere, some may not be so easily accessible. For me, what is most important is that it provides a delightfully rich reading experience – a useful surrogate for readers who have not had the privilege of discussing language and linguistics face-to-face with Halliday. For students and novice linguists of the field, it is learning by dialogue at its best. The dialogic mode enacted in the interviews allows Halliday to touch on details of his personal history and intellectual challenges that have not been addressed in other publications.

The interviews in this collection, from different angles, also help us understand more deeply the contexts and commitments that have long guided Halliday’s appliable linguistics and the humane qualities that make it so appealing as a theory of language and its relevance to the many areas of application. Moreover, as the editor rightly comments in the Introduction, these interviews reflect “Halliday’s enduring spirit of generosity as far as alternative points of view are concerned, a generosity not always afforded him by others with respect to either his political beliefs or his evolving model of language and social context” (xiv).

Punctum: Semiotics of the Web

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Journal Title: Punctum

Call Deadline: 15-Jan-2015

Semiotics of the Web

Special issue of Punctum

The inaugural special issue on the ‘Semiotics of the Web’ is intended to
connect the launch of the international semiotics journal Punctum with the
most epoch-making and challenging recent development in the space of semiosis.
In the past two decades the growth of the Web has vastly expanded the
boundaries and complexity of the semiosphere, fostering, at the same time, its
radical restructuring. Amongst the wealth of cross-disciplinary and
interdisciplinary responses these developments have provoked semiotics has
been largely absent. Although regularly employed in more instrumentally
oriented tasks, like webpage design and e-marketing, semiotic theory and
research had failed to address the manifold issues raised by this whole new
continent of signs and meaning-making processes in any sustained and
systematic fashion.

Underscoring the need to recast the priorities of current semiotic research,
the special issue on the ‘Semiotics of the Web’ aspires to contribute to the
advancement of the semiotic study of communication processes and practices on
the Web by inviting papers which engage in the analytical and critical
investigation of the diverse Web environments, cultures and applications
focusing on topics such as: graphic user interfaces, website design, digital
symbol and sign systems, codes and textualities, digital literacies,
epistemologies and ontologies, social networks, multiplayer games, online
communication, identities and interaction.

Prospective authors should submit an abstract of approximately 300 words by
mail to Gregory Paschalidis (paschagr@jour.auth.gr), including affiliation and
contact information. Acceptance of the abstract does not guarantee
publication, given that all full research articles go through the journal’s
peer review process.

Timeline
Deadline for abstracts: January 15, 2015
Notification of acceptance of the abstract: January 30, 2015
Deadline for submission of full articles: April 30, 2015
Final revised articles due: June 30, 2015
Publication: Volume 1, Number 1 (July 2015)

Book: Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies

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Title: Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies
Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Book URL: http://bloomsbury.com/contemporary-critical-discourse-studies-9781441141637/

Editor: Christopher Hart

Electronic: ISBN:  9781472527042 Pages: 416 Price: U.K. £ 99.99
Hardback: ISBN:  9781441141637 Pages: 648 Price: U.K. £ 100

Abstract:

CDS is a multifarious field constantly developing different methodological frameworks for analysing dynamically evolving aspects of language in a broad range of socio-political and institutional contexts. This volume is a cutting edge, interdisciplinary account of these theoretical and empirical developments. It presents an up-to-date survey of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS), covering both the theoretical landscape and the analytical territories that it extends over. It is intended for critical scholars and students who wish to keep abreast of the current state of the art.
The book is divided into two parts. In the first part, the chapters are organised around different methodological perspectives for CDS (history, cognition, multimodality and corpora, among others). In the second part, the chapters are organised around particular discourse types and topics investigated in CDS, both traditionally (e.g. issues of racism and gender inequality) and only more recently (e.g. issues of health, public policy, and the environment).

This is, altogether, an essential new reference work for all CDS practitioners.

Book: Discourse, Grammar, and Ideology

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Title: Discourse, Grammar, and Ideology
Subtitle: Functional and Cognitive Perspectives
Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing (formerly The Continuum International Publishing Group)
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/

Book URL: http://bloomsbury.com/discourse-grammar-and-ideology-9781441133571/

Author: Christopher Hart

Electronic: ISBN:  9781441104854 Pages: 256 Price: U.K. £ 74.99
Electronic: ISBN:  9781441101358 Pages: 256 Price: U.K. £ 74.99
Hardback: ISBN:  9781441133571 Pages: 232 Price: U.K. £ 75.00

Abstract:

Researchers in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) have often pointed to grammar as a locus of ideology in discourse. This book illustrates the role that grammars as models of language (and image) can play in revealing ideological properties of texts and discourse in social and political contexts. The book takes the reader through three distinct grammatical frameworks – functional grammar, multimodal grammar and cognitive grammar. Using examples taken from a range of discourses relating to globalisation, including discourses of immigration, war, corporate practice and political protests, the book demonstrates the individual utility and the interconnectedness of these models inside CDA. A key argument advanced is that the cognitive processes necessarily involved in making sense of language are based in visual experience. This position offers new ways of understanding the ideological effects of grammatical choices in texts and suggests a reassessment of the relationship between linguistic and multimodal grammars in CDA.

The book will appeal to students and researchers interested in CDA and the relationship between discourse, cognition and social action.

Thesis: Investigating International Postgraduate Business Students’ Multimodal Literacy And Numeracy Practices: A Multidimensional Approach

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Institution: University of Adelaide
Program: European Studies and Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2014

Author: Hesham Suleiman Dawoud Alyousef

Dissertation Title: Investigating International Postgraduate Business Students’ Multimodal Literacy And Numeracy Practices: A Multidimensional Approach

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics
Discipline of Linguistics
Discourse Analysis
Linguistic Theories

Dissertation Director(s):
Peter Mickan
Michelle Yvette Picard

Dissertation Abstract:

The purpose of this ethnographic case study is to document multimodal literacy
and numeracy practices of seven Saudi postgraduate students enrolled in the
Master of Commerce Accounting program at the University of Adelaide,
Australia. Specifically, it aims to investigate the interrelated dimensions of
multimodal texts, literacy and numeracy practices, and contexts.

The study employs a multidimensional framework for researching the
participants’ literacy and numeracy practices in three course modules:
Accounting Concepts and Methods, Principles of Finance, and Management
Accounting. The study includes a metadiscourse analysis of collaborative wiki
literacy practices in the Intermediate Financial Reporting module. The
framework consists of three stages of analysis: description of literacy and
numeracy requirements, description of literacy events and participants’ actual
practices and their experiences, and a Systemic Functional Multimodal
Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) of business texts. The analysis of the study is
primarily based on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) (Halliday, 1985;
Halliday & Hasan, 1976; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). The findings of the
case study revealed the academic literacy and numeracy practices students were
expected to manage with in key topics in the business modules.

The analysis of the three accounting modules and the online literacy practices
revealed the multimodal and multisemiotic nature of accounting discourse,
diversity of text type, the literacy and numeracy practices, and features of
collaborative learning. The multiple-perspective framework has implications
for the investigation of tertiary students’ literacy practices in other
disciplines with the application of an SF-MDA of financial statements, graphs,
and mathematical symbolism.

Book: Discourse and Democracy

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Title: Discourse and Democracy
Subtitle: Critical Analysis of the Language of Government
Series Title: Routledge Critical Studies in Discourse

Publication Year: 2014
Publisher: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
http://www.routledge.com/

Book URL: http://bit.ly/1vpECk9

Author: Michael Farrelly

Hardback: ISBN:  9780415872355 Pages: 138 Price: U.K. £ 85.00

Abstract:

In this new study, Farrelly gives a critical examination of democracy as it is
conceived and practiced in contemporary advanced liberal nations. The received
wisdom on democracy is probelmatized through a close analysis of discourse in
combination with critical theories of democracy and of the State. The central
theme of the book is the paradox of pervasive reference to democracy as a
legitimation of political action by liberal governments versus the converse
weakening of actual democratic practice within the liberal world. Farrelly
builds on the work of Fairclough and others to examine this paradox,
developing a new critical concept of “democratism” as an ideology that
undermines the possibility of a more genuine democracy through political
actors who oversimplify the idea of democracy. The book includes critical
analyses of key political texts taken from presidential and prime ministerial
speeches from the US and UK that attach democracy to non-democratic practices.

Review: An Introduction to Discourse Analysis

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AUTHOR: James Paul Gee
TITLE: An Introduction to Discourse Analysis
SUBTITLE: Theory and Method, 4th Edition
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Michael Schwartz, St. Cloud State University

Review’s Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

James Gee’s fourth edition of “An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory
and Method” (2014) was much anticipated for those who are familiar with his
earlier editions.  Intended as a textbook for upper undergraduate, graduate
students, and scholars across a wide variety of disciplines, including
linguistics, sociology, communication, education, and anthropology  who are
interested in learning about discourse analysis and how it can inform and
enrich their disciplines, Gee attempts to condense, simplify, and make
accessible and applicable a large and often abstract body of work from
multiple fields of inquiry that claim discourse analysis.  Furthermore, Gee,
as in the previous three editions, argues throughout for essentially a bottom
up approach to the analysis of language-in-use, “situated meaning” rather than
the traditional top-down conception of language, which embodies a belief that
humans are merely players in an a priori system of language as promulgated by
the proponents of Chomsky (1965).  For this, Gee is to be commended.  His
clear and simple examples of how the words “coffee” or “burrito” can mean
quite different things when situated in context demonstrate how much meaning,
by both producer and receiver of language, depends on the everyday situations
and experiences of humans.  Furthermore, that Gee includes in the theory and
method of discourse analysis not just orthographic or spoken forms of language
but also multimodal forms, such as pictures, art, architecture, music, and
historical documents, is an important contribution to doing and understanding
discourse analysis and how it can empower humans with knowledge about
communication and interactions.

The book is largely a reprint of the third edition with only two entirely new
chapters, “What is Discourse Analysis” — Chapter 2 and “Conclusion- Proactive
Design”- Chapter 14.  The book is divided into 4 sections, plus a Glossary and
Index: 1) Introduction and Defining Discourse Analysis, 2) Theory and
Definitions, 3) Application, and 4) Conclusion.

Section 1 includes the Introduction and Chapter 2: “What is Discourse
Analysis” in which Gee defines his interpretation of discourse analysis (DA)
and lays the groundwork for the rest of the book, providing the historical
context for and the various applications for DA across disciplines.

Chapters 3 through 8, mostly untouched from the 3rd edition, define and
describe the various tools and methods that researchers can and do draw on
when conducting research through a DA lens.  Chapter 3: “Building Tasks”
presents Gee’s vision of the things that we use language for in order to
accomplish day-to-day activities. “We use language to build things in the
world, to engage in world building, and to keep the social world going” (p.
31).  Chapter 4: “Tools of Inquiry and Discourses“ extends Gee’s 7 building
tasks by defining and describing the necessary linguistic tools needed to
dismantle the complex building tasks inherent in any text (spoken or written)
into manageable and analyzable parts, which can then be reassembled in a way
that provides a richer, more contextualized and more nuanced interpretation of
any given stretch of language.

Chapter 5: “Social Languages, Conversations, and Intertextuality” and Chapter
6: “Form-Function Correlations, Situated Meanings, and Figured Worlds”
continue with a sharpened focus on the tools of inquiry.  I particularly find
his description of the different aspects of grammar “the traditional set of
units” and the “conventions” that are used to “create patterns” (p. 67) in
Chapter 5 to be useful, clear, and empowering, adding, as do his other tasks
and tools, to his argument that communication and meaning are co-constructed
via people and the social context in which any specific interaction occurs.
Likewise, in chapter 6, Gee’s explanation of “figured worlds” is particularly
insightful as this concept, to me, is a central goal of DA work: trying to
understand how a particular person or a group of people filter the words,
phrases, sentences, and/or images they encounter in any given text to construe
their unique meaning of that text or interaction.  Seemingly, Gee agrees as he
devotes an entire chapter, Chapter 7, to the concept of Figured Worlds.
Figured worlds are historically grounded and layered according to a person’s
individual experiences as well as the experiences of the local and larger
communities in which the person participates. “A figured world is a picture of
a simplified world that captures what is taken to be typical or normal.  What
is taken to be typical or normal, of course, varies by context and by people’s
social and cultural group” (p. 89).

Chapters 9: “Discourse Analysis” and 10: “Processing and Organizing Language”
begin pulling the previous seven chapters together with more robust, yet
scaffolded, analyses of DA at work.  Gee does an excellent job of
demonstrating the analytical power of the tools of inquiry.  Throughout these
chapters, Gee frequently reminds readers of these various tools as he takes
readers step-by-step through a text to demonstrate how the building blocks and
tools of inquiry work together to unpack a text within a larger Big “D”
Discourse.  As is true for any empirical work, validity is a major concern
that researchers and scholars must address.   It is perhaps of greater
importance to qualitative researchers because of the overall disposition of
those grounded in quantitative methods to assume DA simply means interpreting
another’s words, or “…that they are just the analyst’s opinion” (p. 141).
This is where Gee takes readers back to the tools of inquiry and suggests that
the more tools that a DA researcher uses to “triangulate” the analysis, the
greater the validity of the analysis.  In other words, the tools of inquiry
can be employed for doing DA analysis work, as well as to verify the
interpretation.  While Gee’s treatment of validity is good, it is also
somewhat disappointing.  Given the importance of validity, it is a wonder why
there are only a total of two pages or 11 paragraphs devoted to this important
topic.  The fact that the discussion comes at the end of chapter 10, before
the three Sample DA chapters, suggests that the need to address validity is
almost an afterthought, doing little to highlight its significance.

In  chapters 11, 12, and 13, the Sample Discourse Analyses chapters, Gee
attempts to apply how his theory of DA, using his building tasks and tools of
inquiry, can be used to extrapolate an interpretation of a particular stretch
of text.  These chapters are provided with good intentions, yet in the
previous two editions, I found these chapters to be too abstract to be of use.
This continues to be the case in the 4th edition.It might be better to pair
each sample with a particular set of tasks and tools at the ends of the
chapters 4, 5, and 6.  At times, Gee does refer readers to the sample chapters
at the end of the book, but I think these references would be more effective
with specific page numbers and targeted questions to help the reader begin to
do discourse analysis with the tools of inquiry.  However, I think there’s a
larger issue at play here: one that speaks to the overall dilemma DA
perpetually struggles with.  Regardless of how much context and how many
“figured world” layers are added, more can always be provided and that “more”
always seems needed to finally provide the epiphany that is sought.  Thus the
three sample chapters do help and Gee is to be commended for attempting the
difficult task of demonstrating the applicability of his tasks and tools in
such a limited space.

Chapter 14 is a welcome addition, and probably the best chapter in the book.
In summarizing the overarching argument of the book, Gee introduces his
alternative to the traditional view of how meaning is constructed through
words and images.  Rather than mentally storing images, words and their
meanings in our brains for recall in interaction, meaning is co-constructed
and situated in what Gee calls “a proactive design theory.”  Gee defines a
proactive design theory as “… any use of semiotic resources (whether words
or any other sorts of signs) is … always and everywhere situated.  By this
[it] is meant that the meaning of any word or phrase (or other sort of sign)
is not a general or generic meaning or concept, but is actively ‘assembled on
the spot’ on the ground of practice” (p. 214).  In other words, proactive
design recognizes the creative nature of any and all interactions; and words
and images, while sometimes used in predictable ways, may also be used in
novel, unique, and unexpected ways, stretching the boundaries of their
associated exemplars, or more common iterations.

The fourth edition also has a companion website (www.routledge.com/cw/gee),
which promises to be a welcome supplement to the text.  At the time this
review was written, it contained four tabs:  Questions, Glossary, Journal
Articles, and Feedback.  Currently the Questions tab provides brief
descriptions of frequently asked questions, such as, “What is syntax, what is
discourse analysis, and what is the relationship of discourse analysis to
ethnography?”   Linked to question 3, “what is ‘basic’ or ‘literal’ meaning”
is a useful PDF of exercises that take students step-by-step through the
process of analyzing text in context, giving students practice with the
concept of situated meaning in increasingly more complex texts, both written
and oral.  Hopefully, additional PDFs and links will be provided to supplement
the remaining ten FAQs.  The glossary tab is also quite useful and user
friendly.  A list of the terms Gee uses in the text is provided, and simply
clicking on a term reveals a brief definition/description of the term.  The
journal tab currently only lists three of Gee’s many journal articles, which
are dated at this point: 1999, 2003, and 2009.

EVALUATION

There are a few things about the text that deserve to be called into question,
some of which are the responsibility of the author, though others are more the
responsibility of the editor and publisher.  At times I find Gee’s writing
style to be annoying.  He attempts to set a conversational tone with the
reader, as if we were sitting around the fireplace in his personal study,
contemplating the situated meaning of humanity’s great questions.  Yet, the
parenthetical, extended nominalizations, and intrasentential sidebars, though
well intended, are distracting at times.  Chapter 14 is my favorite chapter in
this edition. In addition to introducing the concept of “proactive design
theory,” the chapter flows with lucidness and clarity.  I attribute this to
Gee’s straightforward language and the reduction of his conversational style
sidebars.

I must also take issue with Gee’s conflation of discourse analysis and
conversation analysis.  This is perhaps the biggest fault  with Gee’s approach
to DA.  Like Gee, I tend to think of DA, rooted in sociology and anthropology,
as the umbrella framework that supports and informs a host of sub-genres
including but not limited to narrative analysis, critical discourse analysis
(CDA), speech act theory, corpus linguistics, and conversational analysis
(CA).  Gee states, “Discourse is the sequence of sentences. It is the ways in
which sentences connect and related to each other across time in speech or
writing.  As we speak or write we choose what words and phrases we will put
into or ‘package into’ sentences” (p. 18).  To me, this is the work of CA
researchers, who specifically and adamantly claim that they are interested in
understanding the internal architecture of conversation (Grice, 1975; Lerner,
2004; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974; Schegloff, Koshik, Jacoby, &
Olsher, 2002; Seedhouse, 2004); whereas DA, which may rely on the work of CA,
is driven by understanding how “why that now” is understood and acted upon in
socially situated contexts.  Gee gets away with conflating these two related
but very distinct methods of inquiry through his disclaimer in the
introduction, “No set of research tools and no theory belong to a single
person, no matter how much academic styles and our own egos sometimes tempt us
to write that way.  I have freely begged, borrowed, and patched together. If
there is any quality to my work it is primarily in the ‘taste’ with which I
have raided others’ stores and in the way I have adapted and mixed together
the ingredients and, thereby, made the soup” (p. 11).  Yet, I would like for
him to at least acknowledge CA as a legitimate and historically grounded
research method that is driven by specific questions quite distinct from those
that DA analysts ask.

The fourth edition, like the third, is often promoted with Gee’s companion
text, “How To Do Discourse Analysis: A Tool Kit.”  It would be nice if the
links to the two texts were made more intentional, such as references to
particular chapters or sections from the “How To” text to the Introduction
text.  Providing a Discussion and Problems section at the end of each chapter
in the Introduction to DA text and linking these directly to sections in the
How To do DA text would make the companion texts truly companions.

Finally, I have some notes to the editor.  Throughout the book, there are
numerous and frequent typographical errors, missing, additional, or
incorrectly used words, making it not only annoying but also difficult at
times to maintain cohesiveness.  More careful proofreading and copy editing
would be a much-appreciated improvement, particularly for a text that is
intended to be an introduction for beginning researchers. Careless editing
sends a message that attention to detail is unimportant, a direct
contradiction to the message that Gee himself iterates when doing any kind of
research, DA or not.

REFERENCES

Chomsky, N. (1965). “Aspects of the theory of syntax”. Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press.

Gee, J. P. (2014). “An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method
(4th ed.)”. New York, USA: Routledge, Taylor, and Francis Group.

Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. “Syntax and semantics”, 3, 41-58.

Lerner, G. H. (Ed.). (2004). “Conversation analysis: Studies from the first
generation”. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Sacks, H., Schegloff, A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for
the organization of turn taking for conversation. “Language”, 50(4), 696-735.

Schegloff, E., Koshik, I., Jacoby, S., & Olsher, D. (2002). Conversation
analysis and applied linguistics. Annual review of applied linguistics, 22,
3-31.

Seedhouse, P. (2004). Conversational analysis methodology. In P. Seedhouse
(Ed.), The interactional architecture of the language classroom: A
conversational analysis perspective (pp. 1-54). Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishing.

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Michael Schwartz is currently an Assistant Professor in the MA-TESL program at
St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud Minnesota, USA and the Director of the
Intensive English Center.  He teaches courses in Discourse Analysis and World
Englishes.  His interests include second language acquisition, second language
writing, and international education.  He earned his Ph. D. in Educational
Linguistics from the University of New Mexico.

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