Pros and cons of choosing discourse analysis in your PhD Dissertation – A PhD dissertation is one of the most challenging milestones to achieve. It demands long-term commitment, dedication and hard work to be completed. Selecting a narrow topic, defining objectives, gathering data to discover relationships between variables, and analyzing or interpreting patterns in the raw data are detailed descriptions of the PhD dissertation writing process. Students can use various guides if they struggle with any essay writing stage. However, the data analysis process is a bit technical and focuses on some of the questions students often ask about this analysis. Thus, to guide the students about the process of this analysis and the frequently asked questions:

What is the main focus of this type of data analysis?

The previous section explained discourse analysis with the help of an example. Once you understand what type of analysis discourse is? The next thing to be considered is when to use it? The following is a brief list of the objectives of this analysis (if the goals of your PhD dissertation coincide with the purpose of discourse data analysis, you may, of course, opt for this).

• It explains the purpose and impact of different types of languages.
• It is good for exploring cultural rules and communication traditions.
• Traditions or modern ways of communicating values, beliefs and brief.
• It links the communication method or language used with the historical, social and political context.

What are the benefits of data analysis using discourse techniques for PhD research?

It is a recent but comprehensive method to discover the facts behind the data collected through interviews, focus groups and surveys. This is good for doing research in some social sciences, such as a PhD dissertation related to public relations. In public relations, it is the most sought-after method for ascertaining the attitudes and perceptions that may portray a corporate image. It is a thinking and problem-solving approach, especially to qualitative research. It provides a positive social psychological critique of a concept or phenomenon. It is flexible in terms of time, place and population. Simultaneously, researchers can uncover the motivation behind a lesson that helps them solve problems from a higher position. In this type of analysis, the social and historical context facilitates researchers in understanding the meaning of spoken and written language in a text.

What are the disadvantages of discourse analysis?

Following are some disadvantages of using the discourse approach in your studies.

• Discourse analysis is a lengthy process that takes significant time and effort.
• This analysis has limited application in looking at the facts behind the data. Instead, it focuses entirely on the language used in the body of the data. Data is undoubtedly essential in public relations, but it rarely tells the story of a hidden trend in a dataset.
• There are several approaches to speech analysis. Thus, selecting the most suitable method is a bit difficult.
• It presents various alternatives due to variations in different traditions, which lead to many methodological problems.
• It often fails to provide clear answers to problems in the light of scientific research.
• There are many controversial comments about discourse analysis. For example, some people think it is nothing more than a fragmented reading of a text to understand its underlying meaning.

Final thoughts:

Consequently, discourse analysis is simply the review of text collected through a qualitative data collection method (focused groups, interviews, and many others) to gain a deeper understanding. Furthermore, it explains the purpose, tradition and cultural communication rules in a political, social and historical context. Thus, it is up to you to decide whether or not you want to choose discourse analysis for a PhD dissertation, considering its pros and cons.