Analyzing Public Discourse demonstrates the use of discourse analysis to provide testimony in public policy consultations: from environmental impact statements to changes in laws and policies. Scollon asserts that it is in the best interest of democratic public discourse for all participants in the process to be working with a common discursive framework. He puts forward a strategy by which discourse analysts can become engaged in this framework as participants through the process of public consultations. Using documents which are publicly available online from specific consultative projects, Scollon provides the reader with concrete examples and introduces basic skills for discourse analysis. Accessible to readers who are new to discourse analysis, Analyzing Public Discourse will be of interest to students of linguistics and language studies as well as to those on environmental studies courses. This book can also be used as a guide for any public consultation which calls for public responses.

Analyzing Public Discourse demonstrates the use of discourse analysis to provide testimony in public policy consultations: from environmental impact statements to changes in laws and policies. Scollon asserts that it is in the best interest of democratic public discourse for all participants in the process to be working with a common discursive framework. He puts forward a strategy by which discourse analysts can become engaged in this framework as participants through the process of public consultations. Using documents which are publicly available online from specific consultative projects, Scollon provides the reader with concrete examples and introduces basic skills for discourse analysis. Accessible to readers who are new to discourse analysis, Analyzing Public Discourse will be of interest to students of linguistics and language studies as well as to those on environmental studies courses. This book can also be used as a guide for any public consultation which calls for public responses.

This text explores the workings of the connection between community & communication by providing a mature treatment of public argument that will encourage the student to evaluate public discourse critically.

"The book is an essential resource seeking to analyze real texts and discourse."--BOOK JACKET.

This book investigates linguistic strategies of threat construction and fear generation in contemporary public communication, including state political discourse as well as non-governmental, media and institutional discourses. It describes the ways in which the construction of closeness and remoteness can be manipulated in the public sphere and bound up with fear, security and conflict. Featuring a series of case studies in different domains, from presidential speeches to environmental discourse, it demonstrates how political and organizational leaders enforce the imminence of an outside threat to claim legitimization of preventive policies. It reveals that the best legitimization effects are obtained by discursively constructed fear appeals, which ensure quick social mobilization. The scope of the book is of immediate concern in the modern globalized era where borders and distance dissolve and are re-imagined. It will appeal to students and researchers in linguistics, discourse analysis, media communication as well as social and political sciences.

In this accessible new textbook, Isabela and Norman Fairclough present their innovative approach to analysing political discourse. Political Discourse Analysis integrates analysis of arguments into critical discourse analysis and political discourse analysis. The book is grounded in a view of politics in which deliberation, decision and action are crucial concepts: politics is about arriving cooperatively at decisions about what to do in the context of disagreement, conflict of interests and values, power inequalities, uncertainty and risk. The first half of the book introduces the authors’ new approach to the analysis and evaluation of practical arguments, while the second half explores how it can be applied by looking at examples such as government reports, parliamentary debates, political speeches and online discussion forums on political issues. Through the analysis of current events, including a particular focus on the economic crisis and political responses to it, the authors provide a systematic and rigorous analytical framework that can be adopted and used for students’ own research. This exciting new text, co-written by bestselling author Norman Fairclough, is essential reading for researchers, upper undergraduate and postgraduate students of discourse analysis, within English language, linguistics, communication studies, politics and other social sciences.