Editing Discourse analysis (section)

{{Short description|Generic term for the analysis of social, language policy or historiographical discourse phenomena}}
{{original research|date=November 2024}}
{{Sociolinguistics}}
{{Linguistics|Subfields}}
{{Research}}
'''Discourse analysis''' ('''DA'''), or '''discourse studies''', is an approach to the analysis of written, spoken, or sign language, including any significant [[semiotic]] event.{{cn|date=November 2024}}

The objects of discourse analysis ([[discourse]], writing, conversation, communicative [[symbolic interactionism|event]]) are variously defined in terms of coherent sequences of [[sentence (linguistics)|sentences]], [[proposition]]s, [[speech acts|speech]], or [[Conversation Analysis#Turn-taking organization|turns-at-talk]]. Contrary to much of traditional linguistics, discourse analysts not only study language use 'beyond the sentence boundary' but also prefer to analyze 'naturally occurring' language use, not invented examples.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/discourse-analysis-what-speakers-do-conversation |title=Discourse Analysis—What Speakers Do in Conversation |website=Linguistic Society of America |access-date=2019-11-25}}</ref> [[Text linguistics]] is a closely related field. The essential difference between discourse analysis and text linguistics is that discourse analysis aims at revealing [[social psychology (sociology)|socio-psychological]] characteristics of a person/persons rather than text structure.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://yatsko.zohosites.com/integrational-discourse-analysis-conception.html |title=Yatsko's Computational Linguistics Laboratory |website=yatsko.zohosites.com |access-date=2019-11-25}}</ref>

Discourse analysis has been taken up in a variety of disciplines in the [[humanities]] and [[social science]]s, including [[linguistics]], education, [[sociology]], [[anthropology]], [[social work]], [[cognitive psychology]], [[social psychology]], [[area studies]], [[cultural studies]], [[international relations]], [[human geography]],  [[environmental studies]], [[communication studies]], [[biblical studies]], [[public relations]], [[Argumentation theory|argumentation studies]], and [[translation studies]], each of which is subject to its own assumptions, dimensions of analysis, and [[methodology|methodologies]].{{cn|date=November 2024}}