A TENTATIVE MAP OF DISCOURSE STUDIES AND THEIR PLACE IN LINGUISTICS

In this paper I want to look at a range of approaches to discourse analysis with a view not to describing any of them in detail but to seeing how they relate to each other in the discipline. Surveys are a necessary evil at best; they inevitably offend by simplification and omission and sometimes by distortion as well. Despite my best en-deavours, this survey is unlikely to be any exception. By way of com-pensation the latter part of the paper attempts a tentative charac-terisation of the place of discourse studies within linguistics in general and seeks to suggest why there are differences in focus betwen such studies; if this part of the paper offends, it will at least offend by com-mission. Discourse analysis has become over the past few years one of the growth areas of modern linguistics. As a result there is now far more being written every year than any person could possibly read. In es-timates prepared for an inter-University working party on a com