Disourse analysis' is a term which has come to have differentinterpretations for scholars working in different disciplines. Fora sociolinguist. it is concerned mainly with the structure ofsocial interactionmanifested in conversation; for a psycholinguist,it is primarily concerned with the nature of comprehension of shortwritten texts; for the computational linguist, it is concerned withproducing operational models of text-understanding within highlylimited contexts. In this textbook, the authors provide anextensive overview of the many and diverse approaches to the studyof discourse, but base their own approach centrally on thediscipline which, to varying degrees, is common to them all -linguistics. Using a methodology which has much in common withdescriptive linguistics, they offer a lucid and wide-rangingaccount of how forms of language are used incommunication.
Their principal concern is to examine how anylanguage produced by man, whether spoken or written, is used tocommunicate for a purpose in a context. The discussion is carefullyillustrated throughout by a wide variety of discoursetypes(conversations recorded in different social situations,extracts from newspapers, notices, contemporary fiction, graffiti,etc.). The techniques of analysis are described and exemplified insufficient detail for the student to be able to apply them to anylanguage in context that he or she encounters.

A familiarity with elementary linguisticsis assumed, but the range of issues discussed in conjunction withthe variety of exemplifcation presented will made this a valuableand stimulating textbook not only for students of linguistics, butfor any reader who ishes to investigate the principles underlyingthe use of language i natural contexts to communicate andunderstand intended meaning.

Preface by Halliday
王宗炎序
導讀
Preface
Acknowledgements
Transcription conventions
1 Introduction:Iinguistic forms and functions
1.1 The functions of language
1.2 Spoken and written language
1.3 On'data'
2 The role of context in interpretation
2.1 Pragmatics and discourse context
2.2 The context of situation
2.3 The principles of local interretation and ofanalogy
3 Topic and the representation of discourse content
3.1 Discourse fragments and the notion topic
3.2 Sentential topic
3.3 Discoures topic
3.4 Relevance and speaking topically
3.5 Speaker's topic
3.6 Paragraphs
3.7 Discourse topic and the representation of discourescontent
3.8 Problems wity the proposition based representation ofdiscourse content
3.9 Memory for text-content:story-grammars
4 Staging and the representation of discourse structure
5 Information stucture
6 The nature of referene in text and in discourse
7 Coherence in the interpretation of discourse
References
Subjct index
Author index
文庫索引