Thursday, July 20, 2006
More on Discourse Analysis
My first notes …
Gee, Fairclough, and Van Dijk
Fairclough’s analysis tries to describe, interpret, and explain social practices; and up to a certain point Gee does the same. Nevertheless, the way they look at/consider the “critical” component in CDA/cda is their main difference. For Fairclough, critical is related “to uncover[ing] power relationships and demonstrat[ing] inequities embedded in society” (Rogers, 2004, p. 3).
However, Gee’s analysis is more closely related to language form, with its grammatical components and its implications to matters of politics – “status, solidarity, distribution of goods, and power” (Gee, 2004, p. 33). According to Gee, language-in-use and its function or meaning, is always political (Gee, 2004, p. 34). These are identified by Gee with lowercase d and uppercase D, that is ‘d’iscourse and ‘D’iscourse, respectively. Lowercase discourse is more attuned with language form, “language-in-use” (Gee, 2005, p. 7). Uppercase discourse is more about social practices … and culture.
(July 3rd, 2006)
But then ...
Trying to find similarities and differences between these researchers’ work about discourse analysis made me realize I was not ready. And so, I went back to researching, reading, summarizing, comparing, reflecting, … Please, do not take this as a bad thing, somehow it is a job I enjoy. It reminds me of myself, many years ago, as a young girl, trying to find the right piece in order to complete a section of a puzzle. I went to the references of the articles and books I’ve read lately and used the Internet to find more about discourse analysis.
I identified a set of articles by J. Potter alone and with different co-authors (published from 2002 to 2004), and a few others that seemed to complement his work in one way or another (Burman, 2003; Parker, 2002). What a great feeling was reading these articles! I read about a general overview of discourse analysis and its relationship with discourse psychology, a historical perspective, theoretical strands of discourse analysis, analytic materials including naturalistic data, the meaning of analysis and its shortcomings, and validation. I also found information about Foucauldian discourse analysis and his relationship with language and knowledge as power (Parker, 2002). I found references to N. Fairclough and T. A. van Dijk, but there was none to J. P. Gee; I also found references to K. J. Gergen and references to social constructionism. Finally, the example of discourse analysis, “a bit concerned” was very helpful in showing how a piece of text is chosen to be analyzed and analyzed through discourse analysis (Hepburn & Potter, 2003).
Still, there is more. The connection between social constructionism and discourse analysis is something I need to read more about. So, the search continues … :-)
The only thing is that I am getting a little behind schedule. I am working a lot less than what I though I would do, but at the same time we are still on summer vacation. Once the semester starts things will go back to the routine and it will be easier to follow a 'work' schedule.
Antaki, C., Billig, M., Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (2002). Discourse analysis means doing analysis: A critique of six analytic shortcomings. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a1/antaki2002002-paper.html
Burman, E. (2003). Discourse analysis means doing analysis: Some comments on Antaki, Billig, Edwards, and Potter ‘Discourse analysis means doing analysis: A critique of six analytic shortcomings. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/open/2003/003/burman2003003-paper.html
Hepburn, A. and Potter, J. (2003). Discourse analytic practice. In C. Seale, D. Silverman, J. Gubrium & G. Gobo (Eds.). Qualitative Research Practice, pp. 180-196. London, Sage. [Uncorrected proofs.]
Parker, I. (2002). Discourse resources in the discourse unit. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a2/parker2002001-paper.html
Potter, J. (2003). Discourse analysis and discursive psychology. In P. M. Camic, J. E. Rhodes and L. Yardley (Eds.). Qualitative Research in Psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design, pp. 73-94. WA: APA.
Potter, J. (2004a). Discourse analysis. In M. Hardy & A. Bogman (Eds.). Handbook of Data Analysis, pp. 607-624. London, Sage.
Potter, J. (2004b). Discourse analysis as a way of analyzing naturally occurring talk. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative Research: Theory, method and practice, pp. ##-## (2nd. ed). London: SAGE.
A special thanks to professor J. Potter, from Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK, for sending me copies of some of these articles.
Gee, Fairclough, and Van Dijk
Fairclough’s analysis tries to describe, interpret, and explain social practices; and up to a certain point Gee does the same. Nevertheless, the way they look at/consider the “critical” component in CDA/cda is their main difference. For Fairclough, critical is related “to uncover[ing] power relationships and demonstrat[ing] inequities embedded in society” (Rogers, 2004, p. 3).
However, Gee’s analysis is more closely related to language form, with its grammatical components and its implications to matters of politics – “status, solidarity, distribution of goods, and power” (Gee, 2004, p. 33). According to Gee, language-in-use and its function or meaning, is always political (Gee, 2004, p. 34). These are identified by Gee with lowercase d and uppercase D, that is ‘d’iscourse and ‘D’iscourse, respectively. Lowercase discourse is more attuned with language form, “language-in-use” (Gee, 2005, p. 7). Uppercase discourse is more about social practices … and culture.
(July 3rd, 2006)
But then ...
Trying to find similarities and differences between these researchers’ work about discourse analysis made me realize I was not ready. And so, I went back to researching, reading, summarizing, comparing, reflecting, … Please, do not take this as a bad thing, somehow it is a job I enjoy. It reminds me of myself, many years ago, as a young girl, trying to find the right piece in order to complete a section of a puzzle. I went to the references of the articles and books I’ve read lately and used the Internet to find more about discourse analysis.
I identified a set of articles by J. Potter alone and with different co-authors (published from 2002 to 2004), and a few others that seemed to complement his work in one way or another (Burman, 2003; Parker, 2002). What a great feeling was reading these articles! I read about a general overview of discourse analysis and its relationship with discourse psychology, a historical perspective, theoretical strands of discourse analysis, analytic materials including naturalistic data, the meaning of analysis and its shortcomings, and validation. I also found information about Foucauldian discourse analysis and his relationship with language and knowledge as power (Parker, 2002). I found references to N. Fairclough and T. A. van Dijk, but there was none to J. P. Gee; I also found references to K. J. Gergen and references to social constructionism. Finally, the example of discourse analysis, “a bit concerned” was very helpful in showing how a piece of text is chosen to be analyzed and analyzed through discourse analysis (Hepburn & Potter, 2003).
Still, there is more. The connection between social constructionism and discourse analysis is something I need to read more about. So, the search continues … :-)
The only thing is that I am getting a little behind schedule. I am working a lot less than what I though I would do, but at the same time we are still on summer vacation. Once the semester starts things will go back to the routine and it will be easier to follow a 'work' schedule.
Antaki, C., Billig, M., Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (2002). Discourse analysis means doing analysis: A critique of six analytic shortcomings. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a1/antaki2002002-paper.html
Burman, E. (2003). Discourse analysis means doing analysis: Some comments on Antaki, Billig, Edwards, and Potter ‘Discourse analysis means doing analysis: A critique of six analytic shortcomings. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/open/2003/003/burman2003003-paper.html
Hepburn, A. and Potter, J. (2003). Discourse analytic practice. In C. Seale, D. Silverman, J. Gubrium & G. Gobo (Eds.). Qualitative Research Practice, pp. 180-196. London, Sage. [Uncorrected proofs.]
Parker, I. (2002). Discourse resources in the discourse unit. Discourse Analysis Online. Retrieved on July 17, 2006 from http://www.shu.ac.uk/daol/articles/v1/n1/a2/parker2002001-paper.html
Potter, J. (2003). Discourse analysis and discursive psychology. In P. M. Camic, J. E. Rhodes and L. Yardley (Eds.). Qualitative Research in Psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design, pp. 73-94. WA: APA.
Potter, J. (2004a). Discourse analysis. In M. Hardy & A. Bogman (Eds.). Handbook of Data Analysis, pp. 607-624. London, Sage.
Potter, J. (2004b). Discourse analysis as a way of analyzing naturally occurring talk. In D. Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative Research: Theory, method and practice, pp. ##-## (2nd. ed). London: SAGE.
A special thanks to professor J. Potter, from Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK, for sending me copies of some of these articles.
