A collection of original writings on discourse analysis. Designed as a structured source book for students from introductory undergraduate level upwards, the "Reader" is divided into clear sections covering the foundations of modern discourse analysis. It represents all the contemporary methods and traditions of discourse analysis, including pragmatics, conversation analysis, the ethnography of communication, narrative analysis and critical discourse analysis. Each section is introduced by the editors, and provides recommendations for further reading. The text is an introduction to the theoretical writings of: Foucault, Bourdieu, Bakhtin, Giddens, Goffman, Austin, Grice, Malinowski, Watzlawick, Gumperz, Sacks, Schegloff, Sperber and Wilson, Fairclough, Labov and others. It represents examples of discourse analysis, for example, in the work of Potter and Wetherall, Duranti, Ochs, Bell, Schiffrin, Sherzer, Brown and Levinson, Holmes, Bauman, Tannen and Wallat, Kress and van Leeuwen, Cameron, Mehan, van Dijk.