204 REVIEWS Gillian Brown and George Yule, Discourse Analysis (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983. xii 4- 288pp. £20.00 (hard cover), £6.95 (paperback). Reviewed by ISTVÁN KENESEI, Attila József University Discourse analysis is to linguistics somewhat like medicín is to biology. Both the discourse analyst and the physician are faced with something 'real', in contrast with the theoretical objects, such as the phoneme or the genetic code, of the linguist or the biologist. The latter are primarily interested in overall explanations or theories, whereas the former in analysis, inference and generalization. While discourse analysis and medicine make consisider- able use of the conceptual schemes of linguistics and biology, respectively, their own concepts, eg. coherence or allergy, are quite loose and ill-defined. Studies in Language 10:1 (1986), 204–208. DOI 10.1075/sl.l0.1.16ken ISSN 0378–4177 / E-ISSN 1569–9978 © John Benjamins Publishing Company