Definitions for "Discourse analysis"
The analysis of language and/or speech above the level of the sentence. Roland Barthes and other semioticians have undertaken a "linguistics of discourse" to exhibit the rules and units of discourse. A metaphor used by Barthes is that linguists are like the botanists who describe the flower, and discourse analysis is describing the way flowers are arranged in the bouquet.
the study of meaningful language units larger than a sentence.
Analysis of the social function of discourses. There are some things that cannot be said or thought. This means that discourses may have an effect similar to that of ideology.