Includes bibliographical references and index.

This title provides a concise and accessible introduction by author James Paul Gee to the fundamental ideas behind different specific approaches to discourse analysis, or the analysis of language in use. Gee stresses how grammar sets up choices for speakers and writers to make, choices which express, not unvarnished truth, but perspectives or viewpoints on reality. In turn, these perspectives are the material from which social interactions, social relations, identity, and politics make and remake society and culture. The book also offers an approach to how discourse analysis can contribute to lessening the ideological divides and echo chambers that so bedevil our world today.