Search This Blog

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Discourse Markers

Ryan is here to "warn everyone" about this book. I ran across his 2003 rant on Discourse Markers on the Amazon website.


The book is widely cited and is the foundational work on discourse markers, but Ryan Witte gives the book 1 star. He then goes on to argue that, "Any halfway decent undergrad professor, if s/he'd seen this, would have told her to start over or write a different book." 

Who is a good researcher he recommends instead? William Labov. (Ryan Unwittingly recommends Deborah Schiffrin's mentor and advisor.) 

Luckily, much more intelligent and well-informed Warren, appeared in 2011 to comment on Witte's review:
  • Making accusations against qualitative research projects which lack a "control group" is only the worst and most moronic of his comments, followed closely by recommending William Lebov's research method as an example of how Dr. Schiffrin's work /should/ have been done.

A google search for Witte's "extensive research" in discourse brings up only his bitter review of Dr. Schiffrin's book. The book is part of the cannon of discourse analysis. Get a copy, and feel free to write an educated review about it.

No comments: