Discourse Analysis Flashcards
What is this?
The analysis of talk and text in their own right - text and language as a construction
What is it concerned with?
The way that language constructs reality, and the way it manages to do things - or the way people manage to do things with language
Themes, actions and people can be talked about in all sorts of ways
What do the different ways of talking have?
Different functions or effects - for example, you would say collateral damage - to give a certain effect
What is it most interested in?
The inconsistency is of interest - everyday talk is untidy and inconsistent
If the second part of something is the real attitude, exclude the first part
Why are people inconsistent?
Talk isn’t just a reflection of the ‘in the head’ but is also used to achieve things
the speaker isn’t simply expressing an attitude, but is doing something with words
What can different versions of history do?
Be used to invoke different identities
What are distinctions made between?
There are distinctions made between two groups of people
What are the functions of the distinctions?
Legitimising different types of response for each social category - the boundaries can slip and slide
don’t want to exclude what people say when they express 2 different attitudes
What are the guidelines for DA?
- Formulating your research questions
- Gathering material
- Reading and re reading the text- get a sense of material, structure, order, content
- Coding
- Analysis
What type of material can be analysed?
Anything:
interviews, newspapers, other pre existing texts, soundtrack recordings, social media material
What does coding mean?
Selecting and organising data - not analyses itself, done before
What do you do in analysis?
Ask: what things / people does the language serve to define or construct. What are the functions of talking about these things in this context. Technique: suggest other words of phrases that might have been used instead
What are the 7 rhetorical devices?
Disclaimer Stake inoculation Extreme case formulation Category entitlement Passive voice Three-part list Identity claims
What is disclaimer?
An explicit disavowal of the very stance or opinion a speaker subsequently advocates
Function: a speaker may use this when they know that what they are about to say may attract criticism. This way they deny the criticism before it can even be made.
‘I’m not being sexist, but I just think’
What is stake inoculation?
A speaker rebuts the potential claim that they have a prior interest even before they are challenged on it - saying something first, to get rid of the suggestion they already had that view
Function: the speaker heads off the suggestion that they may just be praising the product for profit by presenting themselves as having been sceptical like anyone else would be. This makes their eventual endorsement of the product more believable.
‘at first, I was sceptical about the new cream, but after I tried it, I was convinced’
What is extreme case formulation?
Semantically extreme word or phrase used to defend or justify a description or assessment, especially in case of challenge
Often involves exaggeration
Often using expressions including extreme terms such as all, none, most, every, least, absolutely, completely
non literal descriptions
What is category entitlement?
Based on the fact that we accept that certain categories of people (e.g., ‘experts’) are entitled to make specific knowledge claims, so we give special credence to their accounts.
‘the psychologist told me my child is gifted’ - a parent presents this information as coming from a reliable source.
The psychologist belongs to the category of ‘expert’, and is thus is entitled to decide that the child is gifted.
Citing the psychologist builds the credibility of this parent’s claim - adds to the validity of your own claim
What is passive voice?
Use of the passive voice – object and verb but weak, indeterminate subject – is a way to downplay the responsibility of the actor in relation to the verb - avoids mentioning who was responsible
Function: allows the speaker to avoid or even shift attributions of blame
What is a three part list?
Lists of three sound particularly complete, satisfying and convincing - provides emphasis and serve to construct a picture of evidence building up
What is an identity claim?
Identity as something done in talk to achieve various objectives - making identity claims to justify the claim you make
e.g. Angela constructs herself as an active person, through references in the way she talks
When is interpretation correct?
All research methods involve interpretations - quantitative methods sort out issues of interpretation before, qualitative methods do it after
What is Potter and Wetherell’s validity criteria?
We can make confidence in peoples claims by looking at participants orientation - if speakers treat constructions as different, then we can have confidence in doing so, shows that people have 2 different ways of talking, in different places - keeping them separate
When are there problems according to Potter and Wetherell?
When speakers us the repertoires together - but they will use the truth will out device - the scientists were faced with a problem when the researchers confronted them with the contradictions in their accounts of science- TWOD was the solution
What is the criteria for assessing validity?
Discuss your analysis with others. Do they read the text in the same way as you?
The written presentation (illustrative examples) itself allows readers to judge
Can you defend your analytic claims?
How can you check for reliability?
The rhetorical devices have specific and identifiable features that you can other analysts can refer to for consistency - check the consistency
What are the advantages?
DA gives you the tools to study how people do things with words, how language constructs reality
Hence useful for studying power (and being critical) - critical psychologists like it
Can study almost any topic in psychology: Prejudice Attribution Memory Identity…
Can use a wide variety of types of data (secondary data as well as primary data).
Useful approach - analysing natural conversation to identify words, help understand how people communicate
What are the disadvantages?
DA doesn’t allow for the usual kind of generalizations you might make in other kinds of research - can’t compare people
Is discourse analysis the appropriate approach for the questions you want answered? (Are your questions legitimate?)
Relativism. If we can only comment on the language rather than what it supposedly represents, how can we have moral or political commitments to how the world should be?
What is DA the study of?
Talk as action
What are the discursive devices used for?
In arguments to strengthen claims
