A groundbreaking collection by leading scholars that spans a broad range of social situations, cultural contexts, and analytic perspectives The contemporary landscape of discourse analysis-which examines spoken, written, and multimodal communication-is so diverse that, as volume contributor Deborah Tannen observes, "discourse" has become almost synonymous with "language" and, for many scholars, extends well beyond it. The ways in which we communicate grow and change and so do approaches to discourse analysis along with the diversity of topics, analytic contexts, and disciplinary foundations. How do we conceptualize discourse? What are the various approaches to studying it? And how can we put these approaches into dialogue? Scholars within the field of linguistics and beyond contribute to this volume with discourse analyses in multiple languages, contexts, and modes. These snapshots show the different ways language is used in modern social situations-from email messages between professors and students, to Twitter activism, to political trolling on online news articles, to video-chats between US doctors and patients. Collectively, the chapters highlight the diversity and complexity of the field. Across these varied approaches, what emerges is a common understanding of communication as fundamentally connected to human agency and creativity and as embedded in and constitutive of our social and cultural worlds. Approaches to Discourse Analysis demonstrates the importance of the diverse perspectives that various approaches to discourse bring to bear on human communication. Linguists and other readers interested in the interplay of language and culture will gain new insight and understanding from this rich compilation.

A groundbreaking collection by leading scholars that spans a broad range of social situations, cultural contexts, and analytic perspectives The contemporary landscape of discourse analysis-which examines spoken, written, and multimodal communication-is so diverse that, as volume contributor Deborah Tannen observes, "discourse" has become almost synonymous with "language" and, for many scholars, extends well beyond it. The ways in which we communicate grow and change and so do approaches to discourse analysis along with the diversity of topics, analytic contexts, and disciplinary foundations. How do we conceptualize discourse? What are the various approaches to studying it? And how can we put these approaches into dialogue? Scholars within the field of linguistics and beyond contribute to this volume with discourse analyses in multiple languages, contexts, and modes. These snapshots show the different ways language is used in modern social situations-from email messages between professors and students, to Twitter activism, to political trolling on online news articles, to video-chats between US doctors and patients. Collectively, the chapters highlight the diversity and complexity of the field. Across these varied approaches, what emerges is a common understanding of communication as fundamentally connected to human agency and creativity and as embedded in and constitutive of our social and cultural worlds. Approaches to Discourse Analysis demonstrates the importance of the diverse perspectives that various approaches to discourse bring to bear on human communication. Linguists and other readers interested in the interplay of language and culture will gain new insight and understanding from this rich compilation.

Philips looks at the languages of judges in the courtroom to show that, while judges see themselves as impartial agents of the constitutional right to due process, there is actually much diversity in the way that judges interract with defendants due to their interpretations of the law, their attitudes toward courtroom control, and their own political-ideological stances regarding due process. She uses courtroom transcripts, interviews, and the written law itself to show how ideological diversity is organized in legal discourse.

Most studies of gender differences in language use have been undertaken from exclusively either a sociocultural or a biological perspective. By contrast, this innovative volume places the analysis of language and gender in the context of a biocultural framework, examining both cultural and biological sources of gender differences in language, as well as the interaction between them. The first two parts of the volume on cultural variation in gender-differentiated language use, comparing Western English-speaking societies with societies elsewhere in the world. The essays are distinguished by an emphasis on the syntax, rather than style or strategy, of gender-differentiated forms of discourse but also often carry out the same forms differently through different choices of language form. These gender differences are shown to be socially organized, although the essays in Part I also raise the possibility that some cross-cultural similarities in the ways males and females differentially use language may be related to sex-based differences in physical and emotional makeup. Part III examines the relationship between language and the brain and shows that although there are differences between the ways males and females process language in the brain, these do not yield any differences in linguistic competence or language use. Taken as a whole, the essays reveal a great diversity in the cultural construction of gender through language and explicity show that while there is some evidence of the influence of biologically based sex differences on the language of women and men, the influence of culture is far greater, and gender differences in language use are better accounted for in terms of culture than in terms of biology. The collection will appeal widely to anthropologists, psychologists, linguists, and other concerned with the understanding of gender roles.

Philips looks at the languages of judges in the courtroom to show that, while judges see themselves as impartial agents of the constitutional right to due process, there is actually much diversity in the way that judges interract with defendants due to their interpretations of the law, their attitudes toward courtroom control, and their own political-ideological stances regarding due process. She uses courtroom transcripts, interviews, and the written law itself to show how ideological diversity is organized in legal discourse.