A method of qualitative analysis consisting of an analysis of spoken language by members of speech community or written texts that moves beyond the study of grammar in order to try and understand how language is used, and what its effects are in particular social and cultural contexts. It regards language not just as describing reality, but also as an activity that constructs it. As such, it enables one to reveal the hidden motivations behind a spoken conversation or text, or behind the choice of a particular method of research to interpret that conversation or text. Over the years, its practitioners have developed well-defined rules that govern the sequence of permissible linguistic units that are demarcated by expressions such as “anyway”, “OK” or “I mean” (so-called discourse markers), and tuning-taking in everyday conversations. Despite such rules, discourse analysis does not possess preferred procedures, but rather a multifaceted theoretical approach that covers a broad range of methodologies. Firmly embedded in linguistics, it has in recent years become increasingly applied in social psychology (e.g., with regard to what constitutes national identity, something of current interest in the UK with the devolution of political power from Westminster to Scotland and Wales)
See Content analysis, Conversation analysis, Critical literacy, Genre theory, Narrative, Qualitative research, Semantics, Social psychology, Syntax