About the Book
"How great to have this practical introduction to doing critical discourse analysis, especially one that provides examples of multimodal discourse analysis. Extremely useful for students who need tools for the study of text, talk and images."
- Teun van Dijk, Pompeu Fabra University
The authors have truly achieved the impossible: to make extremely complex phenomena accessible for students and scholars alike. Thus, this textbook will provide a most helpful guide when looking for adequate ways to grasp and analyze the intricate interdependence of written, oral and visual forms of semiosis.""
- Ruth Wodak, Lancaster University
How do media texts manipulate and persuade us? How do language and images play out the ideas, values and identities?
This book shows readers exactly how language, power and ideology are negotiated in media texts, from magazine and advertising, to YouTube and music videos. Presenting a systematic toolkit of theories, concepts and techniques for doing language and image analysis, students learn how to dig deep into discourses and the media landscape.
With case studies and examples from a range of traditional and new media content, the book equips students to understand the relationship between language, discourse and social practices.
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Table of Contents:
Introduction: How Meaning Is Created
Making Active Choices: Language as a Set of Resources
Analysing Semiotic Choices: Words and Images
Presenting Speech and Speakers: Quoting Verbs
Representing People: Language and Identity
Representing Actions: Transitivity and Verb Processes
Concealing and Taking for Granted: Nominalization and Presupposition
Persuading with Abstraction: Rhetoric and Metaphor
Committing and Evading: Truth, Modality and Hedging
Conclusion: Doing Critical Discourse Analysis and Its Discontents
Glossary
About the Author :
David Machin is Professor of Linguistics at the Institute of Corpus and Applications, Shanghai International Studies University. He publishes in a range of academic fields applying multimodal critical discourse analysis to provide unique insights. His books include Introduction to Multimodal Analysis (2020), Doing Visual Analysis (2018), Visual Journalism (2015) and The Language of War Monuments 2013). He is coeditor of the journal Social Semiotics, which publishes researching which uses multimodal critical discourse analysis and is on the editorial board of a range of leading journals in the field.
Andrea Mayr is currently Associate Professor in Media and Communication at Zayed University, UAE, where she works in the fields of Critical Discourse Analysis and Multimodality, with a particular focus on crime and deviance, social exclusion and (digital) media activism. In her widely used books and peer-reviewed journal articles she applies mostly linguistic methods to the study of multimodal communication, such as in Language and Power (2019).
Review :
How great to have this practical introduction to doing critical discourse analysis, especially one that provides examples of multimodal discourse analysis. Extremely useful for students in media and cultural studies who need tools for the study of text, talk and images.
The authors have truly achieved the impossible: to make extremely complex phenomena accessible for students and scholars alike. Thus, this textbook will provide a most helpful guide when looking for adequate ways to grasp and analyze the intricate interdependence of written, oral and visual forms of semiosis.
David Machin and Andrea Mayr have written a well informed book combining critical discourse and visual analysis. They present, in a very accessible way, a range of semiotic tools introducing readers to both theory and practice. Highly useful to students of communication studies in general.
Media and cultural studies scholars have needed this book for some time - a critical and comprehensive introduction to the themes and tools of multimodal critical discourse analysis and, importantly, a clear framework for applying them in analysis. The book both summarises and develops a critical approach to analysing visual and linguistic communication, and should be mandatory reading for every student and scholar interested in examining how text and talk function.
This book is a must for any student or scholar who is interested in ‘doing’ critical discourse analysis. At present, it is not easy to find a book like this one which is dedicated to providing a practical introduction to the analytic tools used by CDA practitioners...I am impressed by the fact that the authors explain extremely complicated phenomena in such an accessible way, which shows their excellent understanding of the subject in question.
Extremely challenging with the departure of our own custom is languages. The author compiled with cases and some images inside, it was attractive and exemplify to the real critical research design with sense of discourse.
The approach to CDA in this book doesn′t quite have the psychological emphasis I′d want for a recommendation for a whole module on our psychology programme. Will be asking the library to get a couple of copies, though, as I′m sure it will be of use to individual students, especially at Masters and Doctoral level, perhaps even some of the stronger undergrads for their dissertations.
This is an excellent book which I will be using as a main textbook.
A must for students who really want to get invloved with doing practical work on CDA.
An accessible and engaging introduction for both undergraduates and postgraduates.
In 2012 I wrote a book myself about discourse analysis. At that time I had doubts about the possibility to extend the analysis to images. I decided not to do so, because I thought it would be a tricky combination. Peter Machin succeeds convincingly to bind analysising image and text in a similar vocabulary. Critical discourse analysis is a book that I will heartily recommend this book to all students and will use it myself in the courses that we do in our masterstudies.
This book is very useful to students as it offers an accessible route for exploring Critical Discourse Analysis, and explains multimodal techniques very clearly. I have also recommended it to those dissertation students who are considering methods for exploring visual material as part of their MA degrees in branding and/or promotional media.
Good examples, clear definitions, easy to read.
Same information is often rephrased in 2-3 consecutive sentences, redundant to the lecturer but good for students new to the subject.
I thought I would miss provided exercises, but I don′t. ;-)
This is a very useful book for introducing the practical of critical discourse analysis. The authors combine a clear theoretical introduction to different aspects of communication with many real examples of multimodal discourse. I would have liked a chapter on basic methodological issues to help students in the first steps of this kind of analytic approach. In any case, the conclusion of the book includes some methodological suggestions. Although the book has many practical examples and case studies, would be nice to include some activities for students.
A very good introduction to CDA for undergraduate students. Recommended!
This excellent book demonstrates a wide range of meanings that can be conveyed by language in a manner that is accessible to students.
Provides a nice framework for students to analyse contemporary culture
This is a really accessible text book that I recommended to my students this past year and will continue to use in other modules in the future.
This books offers a clear introduction to the key concepts and approaches associated with Critical Discourse Analysis. It is written in an accessible style and uses lots of good examples to illustrate complex ideas. It will be particularly appreciated by first year students.
This is an excellent textbook, illustrated with many specific case studies. It will be exceedingly useful in introducing undergraduate media students to these analytical techniques.
I was hoping that this book would serve as a replacement for my current CDA text, Fairclough′s Language and Power. However, although the practical aspect in Machin and Mayr is wonderful, the theory is too thin. I need my students in CDA to have a good grounding philosophically and that is just much more detailed in L&P. In Machin and Mayr′s book, the discussion of Ideology and Power, for example, is just over a page, which is much too brief for my purposes. I′ll recommend it to students when they do their coursework analysis, but not as the course text book. I will also be recommending it to all my research students, who number about 9 or 10 each year. For them it is perfect. I really like the way the analysis has been divided up - it will be enormously useful in practical applications - and the addition of the visual dimension, although it sometimes feels a bit like an add on, is helpful.
A brilliant, hands-on introduction to CDA that will inform one of the key approaches of my forthcoming module on the Falkland War′s legacy in Argentine culture.
Machin lays out the foundation for approaching CDA without getting too bogged down in history, linguistics and semiotics. There is enough here to get started and learn as you go or learn by doing. This book will be a nice addition to our new Multimodal research course.
This just wasn′t very helpful.
A good text.
An excellent book which has been added to the essential reading list for those using discourse analysis in their research.
A very clear discussion of all aspects of CDA, and finishing with a good critique of CDA
This represents one of the clearest discussions of discourse theory that i have come across. As such its extremely useful for our undergraduate students as preparation for dissertations. We have a growing number that are choosing forms of media analysis due to ethical and practical difficulties and constraints in other research areas involving subjects. The worked examples are especially helpful. I have recommended that our library purchases a number of copies and know that they will prove very useful additions.
A clearly laid out text book that gives practical applications of conducting critical discourse analysis. A very useful book for both undergraduate and post graduate students considering using CDA.
The book is highly recommended for post-graduate students doing critical discourse analysis. It is comprehensive and well-organized. The book guides researches gradually to different approaches to CDA with a special contribution of introducing multimodal CDA.
This book offers a critical approach to analysing visual and linguistic communication in an accessible format.
Definitely worth using for students looking into more complex notions of language and text.
This is an accessible and useful addition to the texts we recommend to our students to help them reflect on their supervisory interactions in the workplace.
Excellent resource. Will consider adopting it for term after next.
Highly relevant for any student or academic engaged with discourse analysis.
A specialised understanding is provided of this much misunderstood area.
