Grounded theory, discourse analysis and hermeneutics Part Two – Discourse Analysis ERPM001 Interpretive Methodologies Dr Alexandra Allan

A brief history and outline... A whole family of methodological techniques Conversation analysis Discourse analysis Critical discourse analysis Foucauldian discourse analysis Discursive psychology

A brief history and outline... Language as a vehicle for information transfer between people and as a set of symbols for conveying information Ludwig Wittgenstein J.L. Austin Language is not a medium that reflects the world. Language as a tool box. Language as social and dynamic. Contrastive and performative utterances Language as a dynamic, constructive and constitutive medium

What is discourse analysis? The analysis of language use in itself Involves the examination of all types of verbal and textual materials – spoken and written accounts, letters, journals, newspaper reports, etc. The aim is to explore the way discourse is constructed and to explore the functions served by particular constructions

What is discourse analysis? Discourse: ‘ a particular way of talking about and understanding the world’ Language is structured according to different patterns that people’s utterances follow when they take part in social life Discourse analysis explores these patterns

What it is not... The point is not to get behind the discourse or to find out what people really mean It cannot be used with all kinds of theoretical frameworks It is not just an approach to analysis It is not just one approach

Theoretical underpinnings Saussure and structuralism The meaning we attach to words is not inherent to them but a result of social conventions where we connect meanings with certain sounds, e.g. dog. Post-structuralism Signs do not derive their meaning through relations to relaity but it rejects the idea that language is stable and unchangeable

Theoretical underpinnings ‘Language, then, is not merely a channel through which underlying mental states and behaviour or facts about the world are communicated. On the contrary, language is a ‘machine’ that generates, and as a result constitutes, the social world. This also extends to the constitution of social identities and social relations. It means that changes in discourse are a means by which the social world is changed. Struggles at the discursive level take part in changing, as well as reproducing social reality’ Phillips and Jorgensen

Some key principles... Language is not a reflection of a pre-existing reality Language is structured in patterns of discourses – there is not just one general system of meaning but series of discourse These discursive patterns are maintained and transformed in discursive practices The maintenance and transformation of patterns should therefore be explored through analysis in specific contexts in which language is in action

Some different approaches... 1)Discursive psychology – work on the relationship between language and inner mental entities or processes. Used to describe action orientation of discourse. 2)Critical discourse analysis – concerned to analyse how social and political inequalities are manifest in discourse. An overt political stance drawing heavily on linguistics. 3)Foucauldian discourse analysis – Clear political intent to focus on power relations. A focus on how discourses facilitate what can be said, by whom, where and when.

Critical discourse analysis 1.The character of social and cultural processes in partly linguistic-discursive 2.Discourse is both constitutive and constituted 3.Language should be empirically analysed within its social context 4.Discourses function ideologically 5.Critical research

Critical discourse analysis An interdisciplinary perspective: 1)Detailed textual analysis with a field of linguistics (Halliday – functional grammar) 2)Macro sociological analysis of social practice (Foucault – power relations) 3)Micro-sociological interpretative tradition (ethnomethodology and conversation analysis)

Fairclough’s three-dimensional model for critical discourse analysis Social practice Discursive practice Text Text production Text consumption Every instance of language use is a communicative event consisting of three dimensions: Text Discursive practice Social practice All three dimensions need to be covered in discourse analysis: The linguistic feature of the text The processes relating to the proiduction and consumption of the text The wider social practice to which the communicative event belongs

An example of critical discourse analysis in research practice 1.Choice of research problem 2.Formulation of research questions 3.Choice of material 4.Transcription

An example of critical discourse analysis in research practice 5. Analysis - completed at three levels though not as seperate processes: Discourse: How texts are produced and consumed. E.g. what kinds of processes does a text go through before it is printed? Can an intertextual chain be traced? How do readers understand text? Text: detailed analysis of the linguistic characteristics using tools like interactional control, ethos, metaphors, wording and grammar. E.g. transivity and modality Social practice: examining the broader social practice of these dimensions, e.g. mapping the non-discursive that constitute the wider context of the discursive practice

An example of critical discourse analysis in research practice 1.Choice of research problem 2.Formulation of research questions 3.Choice of material 4.Transcription 5.Analysis 6.Results

Activity Read through the two examples of texts that I have provided for you and try to answer the following questions: 1.Can you identify aspects of interdiscursivity and intertextuality in this text? (I.e. What different discourses are drawn on in the text and what texts might these texts draw on?) 2.How is the text connected with subjects and objects? (I.e. How do the words used represent the reader and the institution itself? What evidence can you find for this?) 3.What conclusions could you draw about the discourses being drawn on in these texts? (I.e. What do they tell us about universities? How could they be related to wider social theory to make more sense?)