- Email: [email protected]
Discourse Studies in Composition
422
Book reviews / English for Specific Purposes 22 (2003) 419–431
Discourse Studies in Composition Ellen Barton and Gail Stygall (Eds.), Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ, 2002, 416 pp. $32.50 paperback ISBN 15-727-3328-4. Considerable numbers of books on rhetoric and composition are published in the US every year, but few of them are likely to be of great interest to those working in ESP. As Faigley (1992) has pointed out, composition oscillates between pedagogical and theoretical perspectives on such local issues as the status of freshman composition, but it has yet to define itself consistently as a field of research. Endeavoring to more fully integrate the research practices of discourse analysis into the field of composition and rhetoric, Discourse Studies in Composition brings together 16 essays from over 20 different researchers. Some of the authors will be familiar to readers of ESPJ (Huckin, Vande Kopple, Swales), but others will not. In the introduction the editors state their hope that each essay in the volume will ‘‘offer composition scholars methods of research that provide insight into the linguistic aspects of writing’’ and will provide ‘‘an enriched view of the contexts for the production and interpretation of writing, insights less easily available from other methodologies’’ (p. 2). Indeed, the most compelling chapters in the book carefully lay out the theory underlying a particular analysis of discourse, discuss the methods employed, and then make explicit the connections of the study to central concerns in composition. Because of the wide range of approaches represented in this collection, the book cannot easily be read cover-to-cover. Even so, the editors sequence the essays skillfully, clustering chapters with similar topics and approaches. While partitioning groups of chapters into labeled sub-groups would have improved readability, the overall progression of topics is clear enough: general discourse features in spoken and written contexts; approaches to academic discourse; critical discourse and rhetorical analyses; various professional discourses and Web maps; and discourse in the composition classroom. Most chapters follow a user-friendly organizational scheme—first an approach and/or theoretical position is elaborated and defined, then methods and materials are described, a case study is examined, and conclusions and suggestions for further research are outlined. Both the introduction and first chapter lay the conceptual groundwork for rethinking the role of discourse analysis in the field of composition and rhetoric. In the introduction, Barton and Stygall provide a handy overview of the entire volume and sketch out the recent history of the fields of composition/rhetoric and discourse analysis, noting the times and places the fields have intersected and diverged. In the first chapter, Barton identifies the systematicity and applicability of discourse methodologies. Here she contends that discourse analysis attempts to combine qualitative and quantitative methods by analyzing what she calls rich features in texts—countable linguistic features that bear significant contextual meaning. Particularly effective is her analysis of such features in the case study, where she presents one of her previously written studies on methods sections, adding commentary in italics to discuss how she came to discover such rich features as left-dislocated phrases that reveal an urgent need to justify actions. Her meta-commentary fills in
Book reviews / English for Specific Purposes 22 (2003) 419–431
423
some of the gaps in the procedures of her original study and raises the issue of how much researchers leave out in their own research write-ups. Chapters 2–4 describe approaches to the study of spoken and written discourse. Chafe’s chapter is one of the weaker chapters in the collection. While he summarizes his numerous findings on speech and writing—including intonation units in speech and punctuation units in writing—he makes no explicit connections between discourse analysis and composition and provides no methods to follow. A more effective essay is Meyer’s ‘‘Functional Grammar and Discourse Studies.’’ Meyer is careful to explain the Hallidayian framework he has adopted and to describe his use of corpus linguistics and concordancing programs. In the subsequent chapter, Vande Kopple also incorporates Halliday’s grammar into his study of the interpersonal and textual functions of metadiscourse. This chapter provides a helpful overview of current work on metadiscourse, with an elaborate definition of the term and numerous examples under separate sub-headings. The study of academic discourse is addressed in chapters 4 and 5. In their chapter, Swales and Luebs provide an absorbing narrative about how a rough and ready discourse analysis was helpful in planning an academic writing course. Because it raises significant questions about the general lack of composition courses for American graduate students, the chapter may be interesting for those involved in course planning. In one of the strongest essays of the volume, ‘‘The Analysis of Academic Discourse(s)’’, MacDonald outlines her approach to the study of humanistic discourse to uncover the construction, transmission, and justification of knowledge. Before providing a case study analysis of academic disagreements in anthropological writing, she gives specific details on how to perform such an analysis, including how to choose a sample, how to notice and identify important features, and how to categorize and operationalize a study of those features. She suggests that discourse analysis could help novice writers learn and adopt the conventions of their disciplines and could even help check the theoretical assumptions of various fields about their own knowledge-building practices. Chapters 7–9 provide insight into critical discourse and rhetorical analyses. In his chapter, Huckin produces a useful outline of the categories of features analyzed in critical discourse analysis and an interpretive framework to select such features—a sort of hermeneutics of discourse. Fahnestock and Secor delineate the elements of rhetorical analysis and distinguish its reliance on traditional notions of rhetorical purposes from the inductive approaches of discourse analysis. In his chapter, Atkinson recommends the fusion of approaches to study the history of discourse. He combines rhetorical analysis with a Multidimensional analysis (i.e. corpus linguistic techniques applied to the study of register) to examine the development of scientific discourse. Each of these chapters describing rhetorical analysis provides excellent detail on methods and justifications for the approaches, though the reader is left to draw connections between these studies and their usefulness for research on writing. The authors of chapters 10–13 tie analyses of professional discourse to considerations of written composition. Berkenkotter and Ravotas reveal how attention to genre, intertextuality, and interdiscursivity helped them locate the omission of a client’s perspective in a formal psychological assessment despite its regular inclusion
424
Book reviews / English for Specific Purposes 22 (2003) 419–431
in session notes. In their chapter on temporal analysis and pre-hospital care, Geisler and Munger demonstrate that an activity-theoretic perspective, with especial attention to material conditions, explains how a writer’s work can vary over time as well as space. Charney advocates the use of usability testing—in which the effectiveness of a document is tested by members of its target audience to identify problems in readability—in more research on composition. While she emphasizes that these methods could be applied to analyze the effectiveness of academic articles on readers, she sidesteps the logistical difficulties in planning such a study on any level higher than that of one individual’s composition. The most compelling essay in this part of the book is Gail Stygall’s ‘‘Narrative Discourse Analysis and Legal Texts.’’ She contextualizes the term narrative, contending that literary studies and composition and rhetoric have privileged fictional versions of narrative over others and argues that identifying linguistic features of narratives can open up one’s understanding of the larger cultural discourses represented in these narratives. While chapter 14—Dillon’s ‘‘The Semiotic Art of Web Maps’’—will probably interest only those studying web authoring, chapters 15 and 16 should immediately appeal to all teachers of composition. In their chapter, Fuller and Lutz provide an intriguing self-study of their own composition pedagogy. A discourse analysis of student interviews and their own syllabi enabled these teacher/researchers to see the multiplicity of roles they perform—from dictator to nurturer to expert—in the institutional documents they compose and the classes they teach. In the final chapter, Nystrand employs a dialogic model of discourse analysis to recover the writing and revision process of students in a composition classroom. This chapter not only provides strong evidence for the reciprocity of writing and reading and the benefits of peer editing on student writing, but it also suggests other areas in composition research awaiting applications of dialogic discourse analysis. The short Afterword by Grundlach reiterates the importance of identifying rich features when analyzing texts and their related contexts. Like the other authors in this volume, he argues convincingly that the diverse approaches of discourse analysis can raise critical questions about composition practice and theory. Overall, the detailed discussion of theories, methods, case studies, and directions for further research make this volume an invaluable resource for junior researchers in writing and language studies in both Ll and L2 contexts. And for that matter, this scrupulously edited and indexed collection would benefit anyone interested in teaching and researching the production and reception of written language. References Faigley (1992). Fragments of rationality: postmodernity and the subject of composition. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Chris Palmer University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/S0889-4906(03)00002-4
Book reviews / English for Specific Purposes 22 (2003) 419–431
Discourse Studies in Composition Ellen Barton and Gail Stygall (Eds.), Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJ, 2002, 416 pp. $32.50 paperback ISBN 15-727-3328-4. Considerable numbers of books on rhetoric and composition are published in the US every year, but few of them are likely to be of great interest to those working in ESP. As Faigley (1992) has pointed out, composition oscillates between pedagogical and theoretical perspectives on such local issues as the status of freshman composition, but it has yet to define itself consistently as a field of research. Endeavoring to more fully integrate the research practices of discourse analysis into the field of composition and rhetoric, Discourse Studies in Composition brings together 16 essays from over 20 different researchers. Some of the authors will be familiar to readers of ESPJ (Huckin, Vande Kopple, Swales), but others will not. In the introduction the editors state their hope that each essay in the volume will ‘‘offer composition scholars methods of research that provide insight into the linguistic aspects of writing’’ and will provide ‘‘an enriched view of the contexts for the production and interpretation of writing, insights less easily available from other methodologies’’ (p. 2). Indeed, the most compelling chapters in the book carefully lay out the theory underlying a particular analysis of discourse, discuss the methods employed, and then make explicit the connections of the study to central concerns in composition. Because of the wide range of approaches represented in this collection, the book cannot easily be read cover-to-cover. Even so, the editors sequence the essays skillfully, clustering chapters with similar topics and approaches. While partitioning groups of chapters into labeled sub-groups would have improved readability, the overall progression of topics is clear enough: general discourse features in spoken and written contexts; approaches to academic discourse; critical discourse and rhetorical analyses; various professional discourses and Web maps; and discourse in the composition classroom. Most chapters follow a user-friendly organizational scheme—first an approach and/or theoretical position is elaborated and defined, then methods and materials are described, a case study is examined, and conclusions and suggestions for further research are outlined. Both the introduction and first chapter lay the conceptual groundwork for rethinking the role of discourse analysis in the field of composition and rhetoric. In the introduction, Barton and Stygall provide a handy overview of the entire volume and sketch out the recent history of the fields of composition/rhetoric and discourse analysis, noting the times and places the fields have intersected and diverged. In the first chapter, Barton identifies the systematicity and applicability of discourse methodologies. Here she contends that discourse analysis attempts to combine qualitative and quantitative methods by analyzing what she calls rich features in texts—countable linguistic features that bear significant contextual meaning. Particularly effective is her analysis of such features in the case study, where she presents one of her previously written studies on methods sections, adding commentary in italics to discuss how she came to discover such rich features as left-dislocated phrases that reveal an urgent need to justify actions. Her meta-commentary fills in
Book reviews / English for Specific Purposes 22 (2003) 419–431
423
some of the gaps in the procedures of her original study and raises the issue of how much researchers leave out in their own research write-ups. Chapters 2–4 describe approaches to the study of spoken and written discourse. Chafe’s chapter is one of the weaker chapters in the collection. While he summarizes his numerous findings on speech and writing—including intonation units in speech and punctuation units in writing—he makes no explicit connections between discourse analysis and composition and provides no methods to follow. A more effective essay is Meyer’s ‘‘Functional Grammar and Discourse Studies.’’ Meyer is careful to explain the Hallidayian framework he has adopted and to describe his use of corpus linguistics and concordancing programs. In the subsequent chapter, Vande Kopple also incorporates Halliday’s grammar into his study of the interpersonal and textual functions of metadiscourse. This chapter provides a helpful overview of current work on metadiscourse, with an elaborate definition of the term and numerous examples under separate sub-headings. The study of academic discourse is addressed in chapters 4 and 5. In their chapter, Swales and Luebs provide an absorbing narrative about how a rough and ready discourse analysis was helpful in planning an academic writing course. Because it raises significant questions about the general lack of composition courses for American graduate students, the chapter may be interesting for those involved in course planning. In one of the strongest essays of the volume, ‘‘The Analysis of Academic Discourse(s)’’, MacDonald outlines her approach to the study of humanistic discourse to uncover the construction, transmission, and justification of knowledge. Before providing a case study analysis of academic disagreements in anthropological writing, she gives specific details on how to perform such an analysis, including how to choose a sample, how to notice and identify important features, and how to categorize and operationalize a study of those features. She suggests that discourse analysis could help novice writers learn and adopt the conventions of their disciplines and could even help check the theoretical assumptions of various fields about their own knowledge-building practices. Chapters 7–9 provide insight into critical discourse and rhetorical analyses. In his chapter, Huckin produces a useful outline of the categories of features analyzed in critical discourse analysis and an interpretive framework to select such features—a sort of hermeneutics of discourse. Fahnestock and Secor delineate the elements of rhetorical analysis and distinguish its reliance on traditional notions of rhetorical purposes from the inductive approaches of discourse analysis. In his chapter, Atkinson recommends the fusion of approaches to study the history of discourse. He combines rhetorical analysis with a Multidimensional analysis (i.e. corpus linguistic techniques applied to the study of register) to examine the development of scientific discourse. Each of these chapters describing rhetorical analysis provides excellent detail on methods and justifications for the approaches, though the reader is left to draw connections between these studies and their usefulness for research on writing. The authors of chapters 10–13 tie analyses of professional discourse to considerations of written composition. Berkenkotter and Ravotas reveal how attention to genre, intertextuality, and interdiscursivity helped them locate the omission of a client’s perspective in a formal psychological assessment despite its regular inclusion
424
Book reviews / English for Specific Purposes 22 (2003) 419–431
in session notes. In their chapter on temporal analysis and pre-hospital care, Geisler and Munger demonstrate that an activity-theoretic perspective, with especial attention to material conditions, explains how a writer’s work can vary over time as well as space. Charney advocates the use of usability testing—in which the effectiveness of a document is tested by members of its target audience to identify problems in readability—in more research on composition. While she emphasizes that these methods could be applied to analyze the effectiveness of academic articles on readers, she sidesteps the logistical difficulties in planning such a study on any level higher than that of one individual’s composition. The most compelling essay in this part of the book is Gail Stygall’s ‘‘Narrative Discourse Analysis and Legal Texts.’’ She contextualizes the term narrative, contending that literary studies and composition and rhetoric have privileged fictional versions of narrative over others and argues that identifying linguistic features of narratives can open up one’s understanding of the larger cultural discourses represented in these narratives. While chapter 14—Dillon’s ‘‘The Semiotic Art of Web Maps’’—will probably interest only those studying web authoring, chapters 15 and 16 should immediately appeal to all teachers of composition. In their chapter, Fuller and Lutz provide an intriguing self-study of their own composition pedagogy. A discourse analysis of student interviews and their own syllabi enabled these teacher/researchers to see the multiplicity of roles they perform—from dictator to nurturer to expert—in the institutional documents they compose and the classes they teach. In the final chapter, Nystrand employs a dialogic model of discourse analysis to recover the writing and revision process of students in a composition classroom. This chapter not only provides strong evidence for the reciprocity of writing and reading and the benefits of peer editing on student writing, but it also suggests other areas in composition research awaiting applications of dialogic discourse analysis. The short Afterword by Grundlach reiterates the importance of identifying rich features when analyzing texts and their related contexts. Like the other authors in this volume, he argues convincingly that the diverse approaches of discourse analysis can raise critical questions about composition practice and theory. Overall, the detailed discussion of theories, methods, case studies, and directions for further research make this volume an invaluable resource for junior researchers in writing and language studies in both Ll and L2 contexts. And for that matter, this scrupulously edited and indexed collection would benefit anyone interested in teaching and researching the production and reception of written language. References Faigley (1992). Fragments of rationality: postmodernity and the subject of composition. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Chris Palmer University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA E-mail address: [email protected] doi:10.1016/S0889-4906(03)00002-4