Discourse Analysis in Education Research

Discourse analysis is used to describe the diverse collection of qualitative approaches to studying language and language use. These approaches were developed within the field of discourse studies in which researchers from various disciplines were concurrently theorising and examining the relationship between language and social life. Each approach to discourse analysis comprises a theory of discourse, analytic concepts, and distinctive methods for generating accounts of the functions of language and language use. Common across these approaches is the view that language shapes and is shaped by social practice. With considerable theoretical and methodological diversity, discourse analytic research offers a way to describe, examine, and critique how language produces social life.