Discourse &
Society: Criteria for Preferred Papers
Contributions to Discourse & Society should satisfy
the
following criteria:
1. Systematic discourse analysis. Discourse & Society is
primarily a discourse analytical journal. That is, articles should
provide a detailed, systematic and theoretically based analysis of text
or talk. It is insufficient to merely quote, summarize or paraphrase
such discourse, or to comment only on their 'content' without paying
attention to any kind of non-trivial discourse structures.
This means that articles are preferred that focus on specific
structures, processes or strategies of discourse that are not
self-evident to the casual reader. These may include grammatical,
stylistic, rhetorical, narrative or argumentative structures; cognitive
processes and mental representations; pragmatic, conversational or
interactional dimensions of socially situated talk; or the political or
cultural functions or implications of such discourses, among many other
properties of communicative events. For detail, see What do
we mean by 'discourse analysis'?
See also the very useful discussion paper of the Loughborough discourse
analysis group: "Discourse Analysis Means Doing
Análisis."
Discourse & Society does not publish exclusively theoretical
papers, but each paper should feature a prominent theoretical section
and a critical review of the relevant literature as a foundation for
empirical research. Theoretical notes or short discussion pieces are
welcome for the D&S Forum section. It goes without saying that
both theory and analysis should make an original contribution to the
field.
2. Explicit social analysis. As its title suggests, Discourse &
Society particularly welcomes articles that study the social contexts
of discourse, the discursive dimensions of social structures or any
other relation between discourse and society (including politics and
culture). Social and political analyses should be explicit and
theoretically based. Ideally, D&S articles should provide a
unique integration of discourse analysis and social analysis.
Among other aims, Discourse & Society encourages work that
critically studies relevant social, political or cultural issues and
problems, such as the discursive aspects of various types of
domination, inequality and resistance.
3. A sizeable corpus of data. Articles are preferred that are based on
a sizeable corpus of interesting texts or talk collected by the
author(s) themselves, and not merely on a single or few discourses.
Authors are expected to have a thorough knowledge of, and experience
with, the corpus, domain or genre of discourse being analyzed, for
instance as a result of an extended research project, so as to
facilitate empirical generalizations. Analyses should be illustrated by
several extracts quoted in the text.
4. Multidisciplinary, multicultural, international. The study of the
relations between discourse and society takes place in several
disciplines, in many countries and by women and men from many different
cultural backgrounds. Discourse & Society highly values this
diversity and particularly invites contributions which reflect such
diversity in their authorship, theories, methods, data and the use of
scholarly literature.
5. Accessibility. Discourse & Society aims to be accessible to
readers from a broad range of disciplines, and of various levels of
specialization and expertise, especially including students. For
theoretical, methodological, pedagogical and social reasons, therefore,
contributions should be well-organized, have a clear style, avoid
esoteric jargon, and explain unfamiliar or new technical concepts.