DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
Discourse analysis is an important theme in postmodernism especially in writers like Michel Foucault for whom it is important to analyze how people talk about the world around them.
The central idea is that the way people talk about the world does not reflect some objective truth about that world, but instead reflects the success of particular ways of thinking and seeing.
These ways of thinking and seeing tend to become invisible, because they are simply assumed to be truthful and right, and in this way people's thought processes themselves can come to represent and reinforce particular regimes of power and coercion.
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Discourse Analysis Means Analysing Discourse: Some Comments
On Antaki, Billig, Edwards And Potter 'Discourse Analysis Means Doing Analysis: A Critique
Of Six Analytic Shortcomings' - Erica Burman - Discourse Unit/Women's Studies
Research Centre, Department of Psychology and Speech Pathology, Manchester Metropolitan
University
Abstract: In this paper I discuss the 'six analytic shortcomings' of discourse analytic
work identified by Antaki et al. as concerned with contextual and part-whole relations. I
then move on to offer three more addressing questions of location: under-analysis through
uncontested readings, under-analysis through decontextualisation and underanalysis through
not having a question. I suggest that, while Antaki et al. have usefully highlighted some
prevalent limitations on current, especially introductory, work put forward as discourse
analysis, their analysis benefits from some further elaboration in order to acknowledge
and refer to the wider spectrum of discursive approaches. -
extra.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/open/2003/003/burman2003003-01.html
Discourse Analysis Means Doing Analysis: A Critique Of Six
Analytic Shortcomings
Charles Antaki, Michael Billig, Derek Edwards, Jonathan Potter - Discourse and
Rhetoric Group
Abstract: A number of ways of treating talk and textual data are identified which fall
short of discourse analysis. They are: (1) under-analysis through summary; (2)
under-analysis through taking sides; (3) under-analysis through over-quotation or through
isolated quotation; (4) the circular identification of discourses and mental constructs;
(5) false survey; and (6) analysis that consists in simply spotting features. We show, by
applying each of these to an extract from a recorded interview, that none of them actually
analyse the data. We hope that illustrating shortcomings in this way will encourage
further development of rigorous discourse analysis in social psychology. -
extra.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a1/antaki2002002-01.html
Education
and the Knowledge-Based Economy in Europe
Context is/as Critique - Jan Blommaert, Ghent
University, Belgium
In this article the treatment of context in two schools of contemporary discourse analysis
- Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Conversation Analysis (CA) - is discussed.
Starting from the observation that critical trends in discourse analysis identify the
intersection of language and social structure as the locus of critique, I first qualify
the treatment of context in some CDA work as largely backgrounding and narrative.
Contextual information that invites critical scrutiny is often accepted as 'mere facts',
framing the discourse samples analyzed in CDA. On the other hand, context is reduced to a
minimal set of observable and demonstrably consequential features of single conversations
in CA, and 'translocal' phenomena are hard to incorporate in CA analyses. Both treatments
of context have severe defects, and in the second part of the article I offer three sets
of 'forgotten contexts': contexts that are usually overlooked in critical discourse
studies but that offer considerable critical potential because they situate discourse
deeply in social structure and social processes. Using data from an ongoing project on
narrative analysis of African asylum seekers' stories in Belgium, I discuss
linguistic-communicative resources, 'text trajectories' (i.e. the shifting of text across
contexts) and finally 'data histories' (i.e. the socio-historical situatedness of 'data').
- coa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/1/13
Action-Implicative Discourse Analysis - Karen Tracy, University of Colorado,
Boulder
Action-implicative discourse analysis is the name for a new type of discourse analysis,
developed to be useful in the critique and cultivation of communicative practices in
society. Developed within the metatheoretical framework of grounded practical theory, an
extension and formalization of Craig's earlier ideas about communication as a practical
discipline, action-implicative discourse analysis seeks to characterize the communicative
problems, conversational techniques, and situated ideals of communicative practices. After
overviewing the method's metatheoretical framework, the article proceeds to highlight what
is distinctive about this new method. By comparing and contrasting action-implicative
discourse analysis with four markedly different discourse analytic approaches-conversation
analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, critical discourse analysis, and discursive
psychology-the article seeks to make the methodological approach's distinctive character
visible. The article's final section explicates criteria that could be used in assessing
interpretive discourse approaches generally, and action-implicative discourse analysis in
particular. - jls.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/1-2/195
Defining and Defending ‘Unhealthy’ Practices
A Discourse Analysis of Chocolate ‘Addicts" Accounts
Rebecca Benford, Brendan Gough
Contemporary ideals of health and nutrition conspire to render the consumption of
chocolate and similar snacks problematic. Individuals who self-define as
‘chocoholics’ therefore present an ideal opportunity to investigate how
ostensibly unhealthy acts are defined, defended and maintained within a health-conscious
climate. This article reports on an interview-based study with five self-professed
chocoholics. A Foucauldian form of discourse analysis was applied to the interview
transcripts and four main discourses identified: chocolate as dirty and dangerous;
chocolate as pleasure; self-surveillance; and addiction. The function of such discourses
in terms of upholding the moral status of these individuals is discussed. -
hpq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/3/427
Discourses in the European Commission’s 1996–2000 Health Promotion
Programme
Catherine Marie Sykes, Carla Willig, David F. Marks, Department of Psychology, City
University.
This article is a discourse analysis of ‘The Community Action Programme on Health
Promotion, Information, Education and Training 1996–2000’. The analysis uses six
stages to discourse analysis. A religious discourse is used to construct the Programme and
a military discourse is used to construct its implementation. These discourses are
embedded in a scientific discourse. This analysis reveals that despite rhetorical
endorsement of the concept of empowerment in health promotion, this Programme disempowers
through vagueness, clear hierarchies of power and an emphasis on scientific methods of
evaluation. The analysis also reveals that there has been a shift in blame in recent
health promotion policy, the reflection is now on the collective as opposed to individual
behaviour. - hpq.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/1/131
Discourse and Text: Linguistic and Intertextual Analysis within Discourse Analysis
Norman Fairclough, LANCASTER UNIVERSITY
This paper is an argument for systematic textual analysis as a part of discourse analysis,
and an attempt to stimulate debate on this issue between different approaches to discourse
analysis. Two types of textual analysis are distinguished: linguistic analysis and
intertextual analysis. On the basis of a reanalysis of data samples in papers published in
the first four issues of Discourse & Society, the paper argues that diverse approaches
to discourse analysis can be enhanced through systematic use of these two forms of
analysis, even those which claim a concern with the content rather than the form of texts.
It is suggested that textual analysis needs to be based upon a multifunctional theory of
language such as systematic-functional linguistics. Finally, the paper suggests
theoretical, methodological, historical and political reasons why textual analysis ought
to be more widely recognized as a method in social research. -
das.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/3/2/193
Critical Discourse Analysis and the Marketization of Public Discourse: The
Universities - Norman Fairclough, UNIVERSITY OF LANCASTER
This paper sets out the author's view of discourse analysis and illustrates the approach
with an analysis of discursive aspects of marketization of public discourse in
contemporary Britain, specifically in higher education. It includes a condensed
theoretical account of critical discourse analysis, a framework for analysing discursive
events, and a discussion of discursive practices (including their marketization) in late
capitalist society, as well as analysis of samples of the discourse of higher education.
The paper concludes with a discussion of the value of critical discourse analysis as a
method in social scientific research, and as a resource for social struggle. -
das.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/4/2/133
Cultural Studies, Critical Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis: Histories, Remembering
and Futures - Terry Threadgold (Cardiff)
Abstract: In this paper I have explored some of the histories which inevitably connect,
but also differentiate, critical discourse analysis and cultural studies. I have argued
that both are strongly influenced by the versions of critical theory which have been
characterised as ‘postmodernism’ and ‘poststructuralism’ and that both
could benefit not only from some serious engagement with the several disciplines from
which their interdisciplinarity is derived but also from some further in depth exploration
of the critical theory which informs them and which they have often ‘translated’
or ‘co-opted’ in reductionist ways. I have also argued that the claims sometimes
made for critical discourse analysis are inflated and that without serious ethnographies
and attention to the theorisation as well as research of contexts those claims cannot
really be sustained. On the other hand ‘resignification’ or the cultural
politics of CDA are important agendas and we need to do much more work on establishing
exactly how social change can be effected through the kinds of work CDA could do. My
conclusion is that we need to reframe and recontextualise the ways in which we define and
perform CDA and that that will involve bringing cultural studies and critical discourse
analysis together in productive new ways with other disciplinary and theoretical
formations and with proper attention to the new and different global and local contexts in
which we work. - linguistik-online.de/14_03/threadgold_a.html
The implication of visual research for discourse analysis: transcription beyond
language - Sigrid Norris, Georgetown University, Washington, DC
This article identifies some limitations of discourse analysis by analyzing interactions
between five boys in which the TV and the computer are featured as mediational means. The
incorporation of several modalities into transcripts and a shift in focus from primarily
language to human action facilitate a better understanding of the multi-modal interaction
involved. The use of conventional transcripts with a focus on language demonstrates that
movie- and computer-mediated interactions appear fragmented; by contrast, an inclusion of
images into the transcripts, representing central interactions and/or images of a movie or
computer screen, demonstrates the significant visual modes that are imperative to the
ongoing talk. Just as written words correspond to the oral language, images can exemplify
the global interaction among the participants, or they can represent the images on the
screen. In addition, viewing an image is much faster than reading a description, so that
these images also display the fast pace of the movie- and/or computer-mediated
interaction. - vcj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/1/1/97
Discourse Analysis and Social Relationships in Social Work - JOHN J. RODGER
Summary: Following a description of the criticism made of contract approaches from the
perspective of discourse analysis, the paper draws a distinction between the focus of
discourse analysis on the constitution of knowledges and the ethnomethodological project
of studying how knowledgeable human beings negotiate meaning through social interaction. I
argue that we need a discourse analysis grounded in social relationships. The paper then
describes a number of concepts derived from Basil Bernstein's analysis of language and
education with the objective of providing a perspective that can l ink an analysis of
knowledge and language with the social relationships of power and control which lie at the
core of practitioner/client negotiations about agreements and contracts. At the end of the
paper 1 stress the importance of social workers negotiating contracts and agreements on
the basis of an understanding of their client's everyday accounting systems. This specific
idea is connected to the framework of classification and framing of knowledge established
earlier in the paper by suggesting that it is facilitated by what the paper calls an
appreciative code. - bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/21/1/63
Constructing Immigrants - A Historical Discourse Analysis of the Representations of
Immigrants in US Social Work, 1882-1952
Yoosun Park, Smith College School for Social Work, USA
Summary: This study analyzes the representations of immigrants found in three US social
work periodicals published between 1882 and 1952. Beginning from Foucault’s notion of
the ‘history of the present’, an approach to history which examines the past in
order to illuminate a present-day problematic, and using textual analysis techniques
provided by Jacques Derrida, this work of historical discourse analysis traces the
discursive constructions of identity through which immigrants were problematized as
particular kinds of subjects in social work discourse.
Findings: The immigrant objects of social work attention - subjects subjugated through the
discourse of problematization - were discursive inventions. But the differential
valuations which constructed individual immigrants or whole ‘races’ of
immigrants as ‘desirable’ or ‘undesirable’ were consequential markers
invoking vastly unequal material consequences for those so categorized. Social workers, as
significant producers of discourses of immigrants, had and do have a much greater range of
influence and responsibility than that with which we were and still are wont to credit
ourselves.
Application: In making visible the discursive practices of the past, this paper seeks to
clarify the task of present-day social workers: to uncover the margins and the limits of
the discourses that construct our troubled times. -
jsw.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/2/169
Evaluating Narrative Essays: a Discourse Analysis Perspective
Siew-Mei Wu, Adult Migrant Education Service Melbourne Australia
This paper presents a case study of the use of a narrative discourse model (Labov and
Waletzky 1967) to provide a more objective assessment of two ESL compositions. The model
allows a clause by clause analysis to demonstrate the discourse function of each clause
within the narratives. A comparative analysis which describes the overall narrative
structures of the two stories is also presented. The evaluation of the narrative quality
of the essays using the model as a guide seems to be consistent with the impressionistic
marks awarded by the ESL teacher. Research has shown that the quality of a text is
enhanced by grammatical patterns within the sentence as well as patterns of discourse
organisation beyond the sentence. Various studies also suggest that the conventional ESL
writing class, which emphasises mainly intra-sentential skills may not address the
students' lack of organisational skills in a piece of discourse (Mohan and Loh 1985,
Clayton and Klainin 1994). Thus, insights from discourse analysis research can provide the
writing teacher with ideas for a more discourse oriented approach in the classroom. -
rel.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/1/1
Discourse Analysis in General Practice: A Sociolinguistic Approach
JOHN NESSA and KIRSTI MALTERUD
Nessa J and Malterud K. Discourse analysis in general practice: a sociolinguistic
approach. Family Practice 1990; 7: 77–83.
It is a simple but important fact that as general practitioners we talk to our patients.
The quality of the conversation is of vital importance for the outcome of the
consultation. The purpose of this article is to discuss a methodological tool borrowed
from sociolinguistics—discourse analysis. To assess the suitability of this method
for analysis of general practice consultations, the authors have performed a discourse
analysis of one single consultation. Our experiences are presented here. -
fampra.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/7/2/77
Reflexivity and Critique in Discourse Analysis
Mary Bucholtz, Texas A&M University
Within linguistic anthropology, the anthropological concern with reflexivity and critique
emerges most explicitly in debates over discourse analysis. Through critical discussion of
the contributions to this two-part special issue, several dominant approaches to discourse
- including critical discourse analysis, conversation analysis, interactional
sociolinguistics, and natural histories of discourse - are assessed for their ability to
yield insights into culture and power. It is suggested that an ethnographically grounded
discourse analysis can be critically effective not only within linguistic anthropology but
within anthropology more generally. - coa.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/21/2/165
Teaching ‘with an attitude’: Critical Discourse Analysis in EFL teaching
Josep M. Cots
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) sees discourse as a form of ‘social practice’,
in which language use is seen at the same time as socially influenced and influential.
Another characteristic of CDA is that it is engaged and committed; it intervenes in social
practice and attempts to reveal connections between language use, power, and ideology. The
critical approach to language study is consistent with a view of education which
prioritizes the development of the learners' capacities to examine and judge the world
carefully and, if necessary, to change it. Nevertheless, these views of language and
education respectively are all too often absent from foreign language programmes. The main
principles and notions of CDA are introduced in this article, and specific proposals are
made for incorporating them into a foreign language programme. -
eltj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/short/60/4/336
Discourse analysis and literary interpretation: a reply to H. Sopher
Tony Deyes
The present article refers to a contribution to ELT Journal Vol. 35.3 (pp. 328–33) by
H. Sopher, entitled ‘Discourse analysis as an aid to literary interpretation’.
The present author, while agreeing with Sopher's interpretation of the story analysed,
argues that such an interpretation is more clearly supported by a surface struoture
analysis. The present author demonstrates that a macro-structure analysis was not shown to
be as ’objective‘ as Sopher claimed. The text (reprinted with Sopher's analysis
on pp. 122–3) is then analysed from the point of view of anaphoric and exophoric use
of pronouns, transitivity structure, exchange structure in question-and-answer patterning,
etc. This, the present author suggests, as well as providing a more objective reading of
the story, is also more accessible as a guide to the nature of ‘text’ and to the
teaching of reading and writing. - eltj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/36/2/119
Organizational Discourse Analysis: Avoiding the Determinism– Voluntarism Trap
Charles Conrad, Texas A&M University, USA
Drawing on Alvesson and Karreman’s (2000) analysis of the methodological problems
facing organizational discourse analysis, this commentary examines the four primary essays
in this special issue in terms of their ability to deal adequately with micro-discourse,
mesodiscourse, grand discourse, and mega-discourse. -
org.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/11/3/427
Justification, Legitimization and Naturalization of Mergers and Acquisitions: A Critical
Discourse Analysis of Media Texts
Eero Vaara, Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, Finland,
evaara@hkkk.fi
Janne Tienari, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland, janne.tienari@lut.fi
This article concentrates on the discursive construction of mergers and acquisitions in
the media. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, the article focuses on justification,
legitimization and naturalization processes in three historically significant cases in the
Finnish media. The analysis reveals four distinctive discourse types- `rationalistic',
`cultural', `societal' and `individualistic'-and elaborates their structural
characteristics. The analysis shows that rationalistic discourses typically dominate
discussion, while the other discourses are subordinated to the rationalistic discursive
practices. This usually means justification of particular merger or acquisition deals and
legitimization of specific actions taken by management. In the longer run, this is likely
to lead to naturalization of specific management practices in the mergers and acquisitions
context. - org.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/9/2/275
Multimodality, resemiotization: extending the analysis of discourse as multi-semiotic
practice - Rick A M Iedema, University of New South Wales
This article has the following two overarching aims. First, it traces the development of
multimodal discourse analysis and sets out its main descriptive and analytical parameters;
in doing so, the article highlights the specific advantages which the multimodal approach
has to offer and exemplifies its application. The article also argues that the
hierarchical arrangement of different semiotics (in the way common sense construes this)
should not be lost from sight. Second, and related to this last point, the article will
advance a complementary perspective to that of multimodality: resemiotization.
Resemiotization is meant to provide the analytical means for (1) tracing how semiotics are
translated from one into the other as social processes unfold, as well as for (2) asking
why these semiotics (rather than others) are mobilized to do certain things at certain
times. The article draws on a variety of empirical data to exemplify these two
perspectives on visual communication and analysis. -
vcj.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/2/1/29
Europe as a Discursive Battleground - Discourse Analysis and European Integration
Studies - THOMAS DIEZ
Problems of European integration and governance are increasingly analysed from a
discursive perspective. This article reviews the merits of such an approach. Two
analytical strands, the Copenhagen and the Governance School, are discussed in depth, both
of which in their own ways look at the possibility of legitimately articulating a
particular conception of Europe (and governance). Out of this discussion, and taking on
board the ideas of German `radical constructivists' as well as discourse analysts Ernesto
Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, the article develops the analytical concept of `discursive
nodal points'. This concept helps in addressing the problems of the status of European
policy in relation to discourse, the national focus in many discourse analyses, and the
limitations of conceptualizing change. Throughout the article, this theoretical and
methodological discussion is illustrated with examples taken from an analysis of British
European policy since World War II. It is argued that a discursive nodal point approach
can contribute significantly to our understanding of the multiple positions within the
British debate and of the changes within the dominant conceptions of European governance
over time, as well as assist us in a critical assessment of these conceptions. -
cac.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/1/5
Peripheral Vision - Discourse Analysis in Organization Studies: The Case for Critical
Realism - Norman Fairclough, Lancaster University, UK
Although studies of organization certainly need to include analysis of discourse, one
prominent tendency within current research on organizational discourse limits its value
for organizational studies through a commitment to postmodernism and extreme versions of
social constructivism. I argue that a version of critical discourse analysis based on a
critical realist social ontology is potentially of greater value to organization studies,
and I refer in particular to the contribution it can make to research on organizational
change. - oss.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/26/6/915
Incomplete Determinism: A Discourse Analysis of Cybernetic Futurology in Early
Cyberculture - Sheryl N. Hamilton
Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, this paper examines five temporal regularities
produced in emergent cyberculture discourse in the immediate post-WWII period in the
United States. The construction of entropy as social; the understanding of systemic change
in evolutionary terms; the embrace of the present as a revolutionary historical
discontinuity; the adoption of a machine standard of condensed time; and the shaping of
memory as a notion of performative efficiency, work to shape a particular vision of time
and the future. The cybernetic futurology which emerges has continued power/knowledge
effects within the discursive formation of cyberculture. Time is fast, chaotic, and
unpredictable; history is no longer relevant for understanding the present or future;
information technology forms an ubiquitous terrain upon which teleological cybernetic
futurologies unfold; and the future becomes, not about its prediction, but about the
control and management of the risks of the present. -
jci.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/22/2/177
Discourse Analysis Means Analysing Discourse
Education
and the Knowledge-Based Economy in Europe