{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.019637462235649546, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 5.524630541871921, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Book review: Lubie Grujicic-Alatriste (ed.), Linking Discourse Studies to Professional Practice

the peer-to-peer network. By analyzing how ‘netspeak’ is reconstructed in offline physical spaces, Lee contends that marginalized textual practices can become more visible and valued in such public domains as commercial spaces or government campaigns. This book is a fascinating demonstration of how tools from traditional discourse analysis can be used to understand and analyze discourses associated with digital practices. With each chapter devoted to a different type of digital media, the book covers a broad spectrum of digital practices, ranging from video gaming and apps to photo sharing and social networking. One major contribution of the book is the practical and operational advice given to those who conduct research on digital media. All of the studies in the book demonstrate that digital technology is not just an object of research, but also an important research tool. The book sheds light on the practice of discourse analysis itself, examining the affordances and constraints of the different analytical and theoretical tools we make use of to engage in this practice. While all the studies confirm the significance and robustness of the discourse analysis paradigm, the contributors also observe the inadequacy of approaches that focus solely on textual data removed from its context. Many contributors opt for more ethnographic approaches to data gathering, combining the collection of texts with such techniques as observations, interviews, focus groups, the gathering of photographic data and stimulated recall sessions. Consequently, a wide variety of interesting topics and concepts such as ‘affordance’, ‘interdiscursivity’, ‘subjectivity’ and ‘flows of language’ are reconceptualized in the context of digital media. Another strength of the book is its orientation toward a critical approach to digital discourse. Critical evaluation of texts within virtual worlds is recommended and demonstrated, which helps to unveil the connection between dominance and inequality inherent in digital education, the commercial and ideological forces underlying digital services and apps, and the social injustice incurred by the uneven distribution of new technologies. This book should therefore prove to be an invaluable resource for researchers and advanced students within the areas of digital literacies, digital practices and discourse analysis. It will also be of interest to those who study or work with digital technologies in such fields as education, mass media, critical studies, cultural studies and multimodality studies.