What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices

by Bazerman; Charles

• ISBN13: 9780805838053
• ISBN10: 0805838058
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

In What Writing Does and How It Does It,editors Charles Bazerman and Paul Prior offer a sophisticated introduction to methods for understanding, studying, and analyzing texts and writing practices. This volume addresses a variety of approaches to analyzing texts, and considers the processes of writing, exploring textual practices and their contexts, and examining what texts doand how texts meanrather than what they mean.Included are traditional modes of analysis (rhetorical, literary, linguistic), as well as newer modes, such as text and talk, genre and activity analysis, and intertextual analysis. The chapters have been developed to provide answers to a specified set of questions, with each one offering: *a preview of the chapter's content and purpose; *an introduction to basic concepts, referring to key theoretical and research studies in the area; *details on the types of data and questions for which the analysis is best used; *examples from a wide-ranging group of texts, including educational materials, student writing, published literature, and online and electronic media; *one or more applied analyses, with a clear statement of procedures for analysis and illustrations of a particular sample of data; and *a brief summary, suggestions for additional readings, and a set of activities. The side-by-side comparison of methods allows the reader to see the multi-dimensionality of writing, facilitating selection of the best method for a particular research question. The volume contributors are experts from linguistics, communication studies, rhetoric, literary analysis, document design, sociolinguistics, education, ethnography, and cultural psychology, and each utilizes a specific mode of text analysis. With its broad range of methodological examples, What Writing Does and How It Does Itis a unique and invaluable resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and for researchers in education, composition, ESL and applied linguistics, communication, L1 and L2 learning, print media, and electronic media. It will also be useful in all social sciences and humanities that place importance on texts and textual practices, such as English, writing, and rhetoric.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(10)
Charles Bazerman and Paul Prior
PART I: ANALYZING TEXTS	11	(154)
1. Content Analysis: What Texts Talk About	13	(20)
Thomas Huckin
2. Poetics and Narrativity: How Texts Tell Stories	33	(24)
Philip Eubanks
3. Linguistic Discourse Analysis: How the Language in Texts Works	57	(26)
Ellen Barton
4. Intertextuality: How Texts Rely on Other Texts	83	(14)
Charles Bazerman
5. Code-Switching and Second Language Writing: How Multiple Codes Are Combined in a Text	97	(26)
Marcia Z. Buell
6. The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts Incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media	123	(42)
Anne Frances Wysocki
PART II: ANALYZING TEXTUAL PRACTICES	165	(176)
7. Tracing Process: How Texts Come Into Being	167	(34)
Paul Prior
8. Speaking and Writing: How Talk and Text Interact in Situated Practices	201	(38)
Kevin Leander and Paul Prior
9. Children's Writing: How Textual Forms, Contextual Forces, and Textual Politics Co-Emerge	239	(40)
George Kamberelis and Lenora de la Luna
10. Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts Persuade Readers	279	(30)
Jack Selzer
11. Speech Acts, Genres, and Activity Systems: How Texts Organize Activity and People	309	(32)
Charles Bazerman
References	341	(16)
Author Index	357	(6)
Subject Index	363