> I'd like to learn about discourse analysis, both how to do it and
> what sort of results to hoipe for (that is, why do it?). Can anyone
> suggest books on the subject? Thanks.
Ken,
In addition to the works Ronald Ross suggested, I would STRONGLY recommend
that you download Jeffrey T. Reed's dissertation. It is due out in
published form from Sheffield any day now, but you can get the unpublished
form from his web site:
http://www.wtp.net/go/reed/manuscripts.html
Before you wade through a lot of linguistic material, read Part 1 of
Reed's dissertation. It contains a very brief overview of the development
of discourse analysis, and then a brief history of its use by biblical
scholars. He then presents a sketch of my favorite theory for doing
discourse analysis, systemic functional grammar. The heart of his project
is an application of discourse analysis to the issue of the literary unity
of Philippians, but his opening chapters present a bunch of generally
useful information.
For an easy-to-read book on doing discourse analysis using systemic
functional grammar that is written by a non-biblical-scholar linguist, see
Suzanne Eggins, 1994, *An Introduction to Systemic Functional
Linguistics*. I am using it to teach discourse analysis to undergraduates
in a linguistics department this semester.
Philip Graber Graduate Division of Religion
Ph.D. Candidate in New Testament 214 Callaway Center
Emory University
pgraber@emory.edu Atlanta, GA 30322 USA