microdiscourse
Microdiscourse is a term used in linguistics and communication studies to describe the analysis of discourse at a small scale. It focuses on the immediate, interactional units that construct meaning in everyday talk and writing—utterances, turns at talk, moves in a sequence, and the use of discourse markers. Researchers examine how these micro-structures, including hesitations, repairs, backchannels, and prosodic cues, shape interpretation and alignment between participants. Microdiscourse is contrasted with macrodiscourse, which examines broader genres, ideologies, and institutional discourses across longer stretches of text or time.
Applications extend across spoken interaction, digital communication, and mixed modalities. For example, microdiscourse analyses can illuminate
Methodologically, microdiscourse relies on close analysis of transcripts and, when possible, video data. Tools include conversation
Potential uses include research on classroom talk and workplace communication, improvements in language teaching and communication
See also: discourse analysis, conversation analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, macrodiscourse, discourse markers.