Discourse Analysis and Text Linguistics
1 Discourse Analysis
Interpretation and Indeterminacy. 
Throughout the essay, I will argue a hard line: the exact meaning of a speaker’s utterance in a contextualized exchange is often indeterminate. Within the context of the analysis of the teacher-pupil exchange, I will argue for the superiority of interactional linguistics over speech act theory because it reduces the indeterminacy and yields a more principled interpretation, especially when the interactional approach is complemented by elements from other sociologically influenced methods, namely the ethnography of communication and Labovian sociolinguistics. Read more …
A Wittgensteinian Approach to Discourse Analysis. This essay seeks to take Wittgenstein’s influence on discourse analysis a step further by using his writings as the theoretical foundation for an approach to analyzing discourse that is distinct from speech act theory, 
which stems from the analytic tradition in philosophy, and to suggest that a Wittgenstein-inspired approach may actually be closer in spirit and content to that of an unlikely candidate whose views, in contrast to the analytic school, harbor a distinctly Continental flavor which has come to influence critical theory: Mikhail Bakhtin. Read more …
Indoctrination and Resistance in Psychotherapeutic Dialogue
The Construction of the Double as Social Object
Ethnomethodology: Core Principles, Concepts, Views. Ethnomethodology is “the study of common social knowledge, in particular as it concerns the understanding of others and the varieties of circumstance in which it can take place.” – Simon Blackburn, 
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, p. 126. Read more …
Grice’s Cooperation Principle and Conversational Maxims
Motivations for News Language Style: Audience Perception or Cultural Orientation?
Outline of Selected Chapters of Gumperz’s Discourse Strategies
Proposal and Readings for a Course on Educational Linguistics: The Acquisition of Literacy
2 Critical Discourse Analysis
What Is Critical Discourse Analysis?
A List of Basic Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis, submitted by Teun A. van Dijk. (For papers and bibliographies, see www.discourse-in-society.org.)
3 Text Linguistics
Coherence and Cohesion in Text Linguistics
Can Research into Coherence Affect How Writing Is Taught?
A List of Readings in the Acquisition of Writing
Vachek’s Definition of Written Language
Vachek’s Functionalist Approach to Written Language
Vachek on the Correspondence of Phonemes and Graphemes
4 Topical Structure Analysis
Theory and Method of Topical Structure Analysis
The Three Topical Progressions
How to Diagram Topical Progressions