Discourse Analysis Flashcards
Why is the study of language important?
- Most basic and pervasive form of interaction
- Language is a medium for talk (Schegloff, 1997)
What does discursive psychology focus on?
Everyday management of relations between mental states and an external world - considers how people, in talk and text, formulate personal subjectivity - mental states, dispositions, feelings, judgements, and reactions
Where did discursive psychology develop from?
Discourse psychology
What are three core observations of discourse analysis?
- Discourse is both constructed and constructive (Constructed - made of linguistic building blocks used to present particluar versions of the world) (Constructive - these versions of the world are a product of the talk itself, not something that exist prior to the talk
- Discourse is action-orientated - primary medium for social action
- Discourse is situated - words are understood according to what preceedes and follow them
How do you understand discourse properly?
Must examine it in situ, as it happens
What is the Ethos and epistemological stance?
- The assumption that common sense psychological ideas need to be replaced by more scientific ones ignores the role that common sense psychological concepts play in everyday life - these arent false concepts
- Common sense psychology is part of the reality of psychological life
Example MEMORY
- Biological - interested in researching which parts of the brain are activated when the P is asked to recall certain words
- A discourse analysis would be interested in how that memory is constructed within their language and how it is recieved by others in the conversation
What is at the heart of discourse analysis?
- Language is used for a variety of functions
- Language is both constructed and constructive
- Considerable variation in accounts
- Conservations usually follow a certain convention
- The constructive and flexible ways in which a language is used should themselves become a central topic
What method is usually used to analyse and transcribe?
Jefferson method - emphasises the ways in which versions of reality are accomplished through language
Why is naturalistic data used?
- Avoids imposing the researchers’ own categories or assumptions onto the data
- Situates research in relatively messy settings of everyday life
- Provides a directly practical way of doing research
- Research can be guided by issues that may not have been anticipated by the researcher
What are the benefits of the Jefferson method?
- Researcher can concentrate and listen and respond better
- The discussion flows better when there are no distractions
- In note taking, there is an increased risk of the researcher being more subjective
- The entire interview/conversation is recorded, which gives a more hollistic pciture of what is going on
- Researcher able to go back over material during analysis
What does Transcribing involve?
- Taking notes of the interview - full script of the interview - very time consuming (5:1 ratio)
What are the criticisms of discourse analysis?
- Subjectivity
- Replicability
- Generalisability
- Transparency
What are the questions of discourse analysis?
- Credibility
- Transferability
- Dependability
- Confirmability
How can these criticisms be combated?
- Mulitple investigators (credibility)
- More than one method (triangulation - credibility)
- Thick description (transferability)
- Research should be conducted in an explicit and systematic way (dependability)
- Meticulous record keeping, including a separate diary (dependability)
- Openness and honesty about theoretical perspectives and biases (confirmability)
