Please help me about 'Methods and Resources for Discourse Analysis'

[sthtoremember]

Hello everyone. I need to prepare a presentation about 'Methods and Resources for Discourse Analysis' for one of my courses. However, I cannot find any sources related to this topic, especially the 'resources' part. Therefore, I am not even sure what the presentation will be about exactly. If you know any books, book chapters, or articles on the related topic, could you please let me know? I'd appreciate it. Thank you.

[Daniel]

Honestly it sounds like you're preparing for this far too late. Your instructor should provide you with at least some general guidance regarding the topic or which resources might be appropriate.

All that we can do here is point you in the general direction, such as linking to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis

We can't help with anything more specific because either:
(1) you should look up general references on the topic (very easy with a basic internet search), such as identifying what Discourse Analysis is.
(2) you did not provide us with more specific information about a particular approach, topic, etc., and in that case you already know where to begin.

Asking people on the internet is not the way to approach class assignments: the 'right' answers will vary by class/instructor/textbook, and only your instructor can tell you the expectations and context for an assignment.

[sthtoremember]

Honestly it sounds like you're preparing for this far too late. Your instructor should provide you with at least some general guidance regarding the topic or which resources might be appropriate.

All that we can do here is point you in the general direction, such as linking to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourse_analysis

We can't help with anything more specific because either:
(1) you should look up general references on the topic (very easy with a basic internet search), such as identifying what Discourse Analysis is.
(2) you did not provide us with more specific information about a particular approach, topic, etc., and in that case you already know where to begin.

Asking people on the internet is not the way to approach class assignments: the 'right' answers will vary by class/instructor/textbook, and only your instructor can tell you the expectations and context for an assignment.

Firstly I would like to thank you for your answer. We have a paper for the assigned topics for each person in the class. The title given me says only 'Methods and Resources for Discourse Analysis'. I have 4 weeks to prepare this presentation. With a preliminary research, I saw some articles related to 'methods' but I happened to find nothing referring to 'resources', so I got worried. I think 'resources' refer to the written or spoken text types or visuals which we can analyze in terms of discourse, rather than the literary resources describing what discourse analysis is or etc. However, I am not sure.

I wanted to ask this question here with the hope that maybe someone might know a book or a book chapter specifically related to this topic which can guide me through my presentation. I'll keep on searching for a couple days more and if nothing comes up, I'll talk to my instructor for help.

[Daniel]

First, I'm sorry for I think misreading your original question, where I thought you had said your presentation was coming up soon. Yes, it's good you're preparing early.

Second, what I wrote above still applies: the context/expectations of your presentation will be determined by your class/instructor. Is your presentation the only one about Discourse Analysis, or are they all on that topic, but yours is specifically about methods and resources? Is it 5 minutes or an hour? You are really in the best position to understand these expectations, and you should check with your instructor if you need more information. If you're not the first to present, then other presentations before yours should give you a good idea of the expectations. If you are the first, then your instructor should help you understand what to do because you'll be the example others will follow.

It would be appropriate to discuss specific aspects of Discourse Analysis here, but it's a huge topic: if you're not finding any resources, then you're not searching well. Some scholars spend their entire careers on the topic, and a lot has been written. Often a good place to start for this sort of overview is a (recent) 'Handbook' that has a chapter on it and work from there. The bibliography on Wikipedia can also be helpful as a place to start.

In case it helps, here are some intro videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUSAoqiaSfw
(And there are others in that same series you should be able to find.)

[Daniel]

Here are some Handbooks or Handbook chapters that may be helpful. You should be able to locate at least some of these at your university library.

https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Handbook+of+Discourse+Analysis%2C+2nd+Edition-p-9780470670743

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/browse?btog=chap&t=ORR%3AORRLIN002&t0=ORR%3AAHU01290

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195384253.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195384253-e-9

[sthtoremember]

Thank you for your recommendations. To clear that out, we have a number of topics assigned for each week to be presented by different people. For example, some of the topics are as follows: discourse analysis and grammar, discourse analysis and vocabulary, critical discourse analysis, and so on. Mine is specifically 'Methods and Resources'. I also thought maybe I've not been searching well. I think maybe I should use different key words to search for the same end, different from 'resources', since this key word does give me nothing on the internet actually. 

I am not the first one to present, there are a lot of presentations before mine. Each presentation is planned to go about more than 1 hour, since discussions take place with the audience during the presentation on some certain points. I'll check the process in the following weeks, I'll keep on searching and later talk to my instructor.

[Daniel]

In that case, you will need some specialized information. Talking to your instructor during office hours is one option. Another would be to investigate what DA researchers use as resources. This isn't my field so I can't give specific recommendations, but there are a lot of things to consider. What software might be useful? What about corpora offering texts to analyze, and which formats are most useful? And what about technical skills relevant to methods like statistics? Or why you may need and how to obtain research approval from the university's Institutional Review Board (or similar) for human subjects research. Obviously these are topics that can cover a whole term, not just one presentation, but you could mention the issues.

What about networking resources such as conferences or mailing lists? There are some useful lists for some related topics I know about:
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=VAR-L
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=LING-ETHNOG
There also might be one specific to Discourse Analysis, but I'm not sure, and those lists are both very active.

Since this sounds like a more in depth research project, you could join a list like that and ask for recommendations. Or you could look at some of the online logs for emails that are publicly accessible (at least for one of those from what I'm seeing).

[sthtoremember]

Just to let you know, I talked to my instructor. She told me that she quoted this title 'Methods and Resources for Discourse Analysis' from a book chapter as she remembered and she will lend me the book for me to prepare the presentation.