Discourse Analysis: discussions, debates, resources

I prefer having a bit of diversity among study resources, hence, I searched for some podcasts on discourse analysis. Two particularly useful podcasts have been made available on the Podbean channel ‘discourse and pragmatics, by enrodney where you find a lecture on Mediated Discourse Analysis and another one on The Ethnography of Speaking .

The Speech Accent Archive is a great research tool – but also useful for actors who want to learn a particular accent (certainly not mutually exclusive…and certainly recommended for Daniel Day-Lewis who adopted an Austrian rather than an Italian accent for Nine (2009) which makes him sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Transcription symbols have been provided by John W Du Bois, University of California Santa Barbara in a file that compares symbols and their function and meaning in terms of transcription categories.

Conversation analysis by Charles Antaki, Loughborough University, – in particular lectures 3, 4 and 5 offer valuable summaries of applied key concepts such as adjacency pairs, preferreds and dispreferreds as well as turn-takes .

Nick Llewellyn, University of Warwick, has made interesting and useful tutorial available, the material focuses on transcription of video footage .

Emanuel Schegloff, University of California LA, illustrates a number of detailed talk-in-action sequences which feature overlapping talk, micropauses and aspirations as well as intonations – all transcripts are made available as audio, this is a major plus, especially for those unfamiliar with a specific accent.

The Open University, UK, D843 course forum (i.e. communal area shared by system users) is a bit hard to find as the post-graduate course on discourse analysis does not provide a tutor-moderated forum (as common) but only a group run by students. This kind of forum is not linked to the Studenthome where students could find it easily but is embedded on a deeper level. Here is the chain of clicks required to navigate through:

Option 1:
Go to Open University studenthome > Links > OU Mailbox and discussion forums server
> Directory > search for OUSA D843 – create mail to
Option2:
Go to Open University studenthome > Links > OU Mailbox and discussion forums server > OU Student Association > OUSA signpost – D843

I recommend making the effort as there are comprehensive archives dating back to 2007, they contain discussions and resources – I am sure this will also be an efficient tool in the exam preparation. We recently discussed the meaning of reality as constructed within discourse as well as what constitutes relativism in DA.

Then there was discussion around correct referencing in Harvard style – I shared my favourite online Referencing Guide because the PDF is comprehensive and very well structured.

With regard to relativism I had come across Mette Haagen’s study: Indian Organ Trade; From the Perspective of Weak Cultural Relativism (2005) which uses discourse analysis in order to investigate the impact discourses of human rights and inequality poverty have on the understanding of the existence of the Indian organ trade. It is a fascinating read and a significant topic – explored over 30 pages.

Audacity – podcasting made easy

Recording an Audio Podcast mp3 with Audacity

This is a very useful and clearly explained tutorial. I had downloaded the software some time ago but had not yet managed to look into some of the aspects I felt I need to improve. Towards the end of the year, I will be required to produce podcasts for the H808/eProfessional course. So, I’ve just been updating the course-related (password secured, I know…what’s the point) Wiki and will get a headset as soon as the Royal Mail decide they have been striking enough for this summer…

Audacity is free open-source software for editing sounds/producing mp3 files that works on various platform, quick to download.