ACTION-IMPLICATIVE DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Action-implicative discourse analysis is the name for a new type of discourse analysis, developed to be useful in the critique and cultivation of communicative practices in society. Developed within the metatheoretical framework of grounded practical theory, an extension and formalization of Craig's earlier ideas about communication as a practical discipline, action-implicative discourse analysis seeks to characterize the communicative problems, conversational techniques, and situated ideals of communicative practices. After overviewing the method's metatheoretical framework, the article proceeds to highlight what is distinctive about this new method. By comparing and contrasting action-implicative discourse analysis with four markedly different discourse analytic approaches-conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, and discursive psychology-the article seeks to make the methodological approach's distinctive character visible. The article's final section explicates criteria that could be used in assessing interpretive discourse approaches generally, and action-implicative discourse analysis in particular