Preface and Acknowledgments.

Part I: The Scope of Discourse Analysis.

1. Overview.

2. Definitions of Discourse.

Part II: Approaches to Discourse Analysis.

3. Speech Act Theory.

4. Interactional Sociolinguists.

5. The Ethnography of Communication.

6. Pragmatics.

7. Conversation Analysis.

8. Variation Analysis.

Part III: Conclusion.

9. Structure and Function.

10. Text and Context.

11. Discourse and Communication.

12. Conclusion: Language as Social Interaction.

Appendix 1: Collecting Data.

Appendix 2: Transcription Conventions.

Appendix 3: Sample Data.

Bibliography.

Index

Deborah Schiffrin is Associate Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University. She is author of Discourse Markers (1987).

"Deborah Schiffrin has written a rigorous yet accessible description and comparison of various approaches to the analysis of discourse." Pragmatics