Basic Concepts of Discourse Analysis

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Frankfurt (Main) (Institut für England- und Amerikastudien), course: Introduction to Language and Language Learning, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper has been designed to provide an efficient overview of theoretical discourse analysis by discussing the following questions: - What is discourse analysis - defining the difference between the terms text and discourse and discourse analysis itself. As well as: What are the basic concepts and aspects of discourse analysis - taking a closer look at context, coherence, the importance of background knowledge and the differences between spoken and written language. And finally: What are the uses of discourse analysis - investigating on the problem of application and social relevance of discourse analysis.