Similarly, I will favour the term discourse analysis over other terms for
reasons of convenience rather than theory. The term text analysis would do
equally well except that it usually implies a particular European tradition of
text linguistics. The term conversational analysis might also serve, except
that it almost always implies work which derives from ethnomethodology. It
is also too narrow in that it implies a restriction to conversation, and the exclusion of more formal discourse, although there are problems in the
analysis of discourse which are common to formal and informal, written and
spoken laguage - for example, the analysis of lexical and grammatical
cohesion.