Defining Discourse Analysis PDF

Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017  6 Introduction Here are some answers gathered from a casual poll in a university administra-...

Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017  6 Introduction Here are some answers gathered from a casual poll in a university administra- tive office: communication or dialog between two people conversation between two or more people with an emphasis on content not relationships one’s means of communication ((sigh)) back-and-forth of conversation speech Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 a fancy word for talking talking things over the act of conversation talking or a conversation that has a beginning and an end. Some recurring words are talking, conversation, and communication. Our ver- nacular understanding of discourse seems to revolve around social interac- tion. Would an academic definition of discourse be any different? Defining Discourse One can approach the question by considering the sorts of things discourse analysts study. A cursory survey of the recent issues of major discourse jour- nals such as Text & Talk, Discourse Studies, Discourse Processes, Journal of Pragmat- ics, and Research on Language and Social Interaction yields a rich assortment of interests including humor, reported speech, intercultural impoliteness, disaf- filiation in Japanese interaction, discourse of resistance to racism, conversa- tional style on Twitter, deception in computer-mediated communication, turn-taking in the skating pool, topical themes in research articles, plagiarism policies in Australian universities, and negotiating knowledge bases in peda- gogical discourse. Like the responses gathered from the casual poll at a uni- versity office, the list here roughly points to an understanding of discourse as actual instances of language use in the real world as opposed to language as an abstract system, which would accommodate invented instances of lan- guage such as Colorless green ideas sleep furiously (Chomsky, 1957). The study of language as an abstract system, for example, is documented in Language, the flagship journal of the Linguistic Society of America, where topics such as case alternation, polarity particle, and patterns of contrast in phonological change are dealt with in great depth. As wide a chasm as there appears to be between (theoretical) linguistics and discourse analysis nowadays, there was a time when the study of discourse was simply the study of linguistics. In reflecting upon her foray into the field of discourse analysis, Deborah Tannen recalls an era devoid of any journals with “discourse” in their titles, where she did not think of what she was doing as anything but linguistics, and in searching for a label for the different kind of linguistics she was studying,  Overview of Discourse Analysis 7 she came to redefine her work as neither linguistics, nor sociolinguistics, but “discourse analysis” (Schiffrin et al., 2015, p. 3). Beyond the commonality of highlighting language use in the real world between the vernacular and the academic lists, the information from the discourse journals also gives us a sense of what specific aspects of talking, conversation, and communication constitute objects of scientific investigations for discourse analysts. In other words, from the scholarly journals, we are afforded greater specificity in understanding what constitutes discourse. In the spirit of further pursuing such specificity, I make three additional obser- vations in attempting a more comprehensive answer to the question of what Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 is discourse? First, discourse is clearly not limited to face-to-face interaction but instead includes text and talk delivered through a variety of technolo- gies (e.g., pen, phone, computer) and platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, online learning management systems). Second, discourse is not limited to language but includes manifold semiotic resources such as gaze, gestures, body movements, artifacts, and the material setting. Indeed, topics such as gesture, multimodality, and embodied action are featured in the second edition of Handbook of Discourse Analysis (Tannen, Hamilton, & Schiffrin, 2015) and constitute the theme of the groundbreaking volume Embodied Interaction: Language and Body in the Material World (Streeck, Goodwin, & LeBaron, 2011; also see Nevile, 2015). This “language and beyond” notion of discourse provides a perfect segue into our third, related point that speci- fies what constitutes discourse. An influential dichotomy in the field of discourse analysis is that between the little “d” discourse and the Big “D” discourse (Gee, 2011). The little “d” discourse refers to “any instance of language-in-use” (spoken or written) (Gee, 2011, p. 205), and the Big “D” discourses “ways of combining and integrating language, actions, interactions, ways of thinking, believing, valuing, and using various symbols, tools, and objects to enact a particular sort of socially recognizable identity” (Gee, 2011, p. 201). In other words, Gee’s Big “D” refers to a full ensemble of resources one employs to enact a particular identity; notably, it goes beyond language and multimodal resources to include one’s beliefs and values, much of which, as I suspect, may be located in the actual use of language and multimodal resources. Being a first-time mom, for example, is more than the language one speaks. The Big D of a first-time mom includes not only her use of vocabulary such as diapers, naps, and snacks but also the nursery rhymes she learns, the Internet sites she visits, the section of the wood floor she learns to walk on in order not to wake up the baby, and much more. The Big D  8 Introduction of a first-time mom is an entire way of comporting, behaving, and living, through close observations of which, we also become privy to what she thinks, believes, and values. So where do all these specifications leave us? Are we in a better place to define what discourse is? I believe we are. Considering how the word dis- course has been used in all its incarnations both vernacularly and academically, in this book, we define discourse as follows. Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 Discourse refers to the actual use of language along with other multi- modal resources (e.g., facial expression, gazes, gesture, body movements, artifacts, and the material settings) to accomplish actions, negotiate identities, and construct ideologies. Task 2: On the basis of the definition of discourse we have discussed so far, decide whether the following are examples of discourse: 1. Political speech 2. Gossip 3. Lecture 4. Group discussion 5. Music 6. Newspaper article 7. Stop sign 8. Photograph 9. Painting 10. Book cover. Defining Discourse Analysis Once we have figured out what discourse is, the definition of discourse analysis cannot be more obvious, or so it seems. If discourse is the actual use of language along with other multimodal resources to accomplish actions, negotiate identities, and construct ideologies, discourse analysis must be the analysis of such actual use. But what is analysis? You are probably familiar with terms such as political analysis or psychoanalysis. If you are a lin- guistics or applied linguistics major, you have perhaps already done gram- mar analysis, phonetics analysis, sociolinguistic analysis, or interlanguage analysis. In the popular U.S. TV show CSI Miami, crime scene investigators conduct forensic analyses of a wide range of evidence in order to solve a criminal case.  Overview of Discourse Analysis 9 Task 3: What kinds of analyses have you done? What is involved in those analyses? In doing analyses, you look closely, you make observations, you ask ques- tions, you pull things apart, you make connections, you uncover meanings, you conduct evaluations, or you identify problems and devise solutions. To various extents, we do all these things to discourse when we engage in dis- Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 course analysis. In an e-mail exchange I was carbon copied on, one writes, “Btw—Seeing as I’m the ‘to’ in your message, no need to emphasize my name again (inferring impatience) at the end of your sentence.” The writer of the message is assigning the meaning of impatience to the mention of her name, arguing that such mention is otherwise unnecessary given her clearly marked recipient status. In her own way, she is doing a form of discourse analysis in this very e-mail message! In an academic tenure review, the com- mittee members engage in repeated close readings of the candidate’s dossier: They observe patterns, point to the presence or absence of particular indica- tors, and note items of greater or lesser values. They participate in a collective discourse analysis of the candidate’s CV, statement, publications, teaching evaluations, and letters from external reviewers. In the United States, each time after the president has addressed the nation in a televised speech, a panel of pundits would analyze that speech on multiple television stations imme- diately thereafter. They would comment on what is highlighted, what is omitted, what they are hearing for the first time, what effects the president’s remarks would have on various political contingencies, and so on. They too are engaging in a form of discourse analysis. Discourse analysis refers to the close reading of actual use of language along with other multimodal resources for the purpose of dissecting its structures and devising its meanings. Task 4: What informal discourse analyses have you done at home, at work, or in any other social situations? What were your findings? Questions and Analyses In this section, I provide an initial sampling of what the work of doing dis- course analysis looks like, that is, what doing close reading means in actual discourse analytic work, and I do so by presenting examples of discourse  10 Introduction analysis in response to four broad questions discourse analysts ask: (1) how is discourse structured (e.g., what are the components of X?), and how does such structuring contribute to meaning making? (2) how are social actions (e.g., build rapport, manage conflict, balance work and play) accomplished in discourse, (3) how are identities (e.g., survivor, concerned parent, novice teacher) negotiated in discourse, and (4) how are ideologies (e.g., heteronor- mativity, gender discrimination, racial ideologies) constructed in discourse? It is important to register from the outset that these questions are not mutu- ally exclusive but jointly elaborative. Understanding the structure of X can be the basis for understanding the work involved in accomplishing actions, Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 negotiating identities, and constructing ideologies. It may also be argued that by performing a particular social action, one is inevitably engaged in some sort of identity work or even perhaps signaling a particular ideology. Regardless of such interwoven links, however, individual discourse analysts would typically choose to foreground one aspect of discourse over another in the presentation of their work, as evidenced, for example, in the title of the work, the research questions asked, and the contributions highlighted. For a useful discussion on what doing discourse analysis entails, see Antaki, Billig, Edwards, and Potter (2003). How Is Discourse Structured? The issue of discourse and structure will be addressed in greater detail in Chapters 2–3. As will be shown, discourse analysts have gone to great lengths to detail the structure of narrative, conversation, classroom discourse, various genres of text, and so on. The structure of a summary, for example, may be of interest to many. From second grade on and throughout graduate school, we are asked to summarize stories, articles, studies, books, speeches, argu- ments, and so on. Summary appears to be such a simple and straightforward genre, and yet young children are often at loss as to where to begin, and even graduate students can hand in summaries of a research article that miss key elements of that article. How do you teach someone to write a summary? A helpful answer may be found in Li and Hoey’s (2014) analysis of strategies of writing summaries based on 80 hard news texts and summaries writ- ten by information retrieval experts. The authors addressed the question of how summaries are structured by identifying how summaries are assembled in the first place—via the strategies of deletion, substitution, and abstrac- tion. Deletion involves omitting trivial and unimportant information and is found to be the first and easiest strategy to acquire in learning to do summa- ries. Selection is the next stage in the developmental sequence of summary writing and entails selecting a part of the original text as important to be repacked through nominalization, paraphrase, and the replication of linkages that do or do not occur in the original texts. Abstraction is the highest-level strategy and the most difficult to acquire because it requires one to combine several partial acts or events into an overall macroact or macroevent.  Overview of Discourse Analysis 11 Li and Hoey made it very clear that a prerequisite of implementing the three summary strategies of deletion, substitution, and abstraction is a solid understanding of how the original text is structured. In order to make deci- sions on what to delete and what to select, for example, one needs to begin with a clear understanding of how the different parts of the texts relate to each other, and where such relationships are often signaled by linguistic devices such as subordinators, conjuncts, lexical repetitions, and parallelism. Propositions stated in the independent clauses in the leads of the original news stories, for example, are more likely to be considered core information to be included by summary writers. In the case of abstraction, for exam- Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 ple, the original texts present a series of instances in support of a common theme without explicitly stating such a theme, and the equal status among the instances is signaled by their parallel structure created through repetition. Task 5: Consider the following text taken from Li and Hoey (2014, p. 100). All the sentences are numbered for easy reference. Identify the rela- tionships among the propositions in this text and any parallel instances that illustrate a common theme, and identify the common theme. BEIJING—(1) A new circular by Fujian’s provincial education department on Tuesday has targeted academic plagiarism by col- lege teachers, amid increasing worries over the practice. (2) College teachers in Fujian may also be dismissed if they spread misinforma- tion against the country’s laws and regulations to mislead students, the circular said. (3) An increasing number of teachers in universities in China are turning to the Internet or other academics’ research to advance their own careers. (4) Shen Yang, a professor at Wuhan Uni- versity who released a research paper in 2009, said the country lacks an effective thesis supervision system and the convenience brought by the Internet drives the booming ghostwriting market. (5) His study shows there were more than 1.1 million full-time teachers in universities and colleges across the country in 2007. (6) They had to publish more than half a million theses within two years in nearly 1,800 important periodicals to keep their positions. (7) Other banned practices include teachers abusing their power for personal benefit and teachers acting fraudulently on student enrolment, assessment and exams. (8) The circular also emphasized that teachers will lose out on promotion opportunities and pay rises if they are irrespon- sible in students’ safety or induce students to participate in any “ille- gal or superstitious activities”. (9) It said teachers were not allowed to use “physical punishment on students or insult them”. (10) Violators will have any academic award and honor canceled, and will not be able to apply for new research projects for specified periods.  12 Introduction Here are the three one-sentence summaries of the previous text written by experienced summary writers in Li and Hoey (2014): (1) Circular was published to punish errant teachers in Fujian. (2) Fujian published new circular to punish misbehaving teachers. (3) New circular published by Fujian aims to punish misbehaving teachers. As can be seen, punish and misbehaving are used to capture the common themes embedded in multiple sentences in the original text. Thus, analyzing the structure of discourse involves identifying the recogniz- Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 able components of a particular piece of text or talk. Insofar as understanding the structure of X often provides an effective entry point into understanding its meaning, discourse analysis offers an important resource for discovering such structures in the first place. How Are Social Actions Accomplished in Discourse? Questions such as how to request, compliment, built rapport, or manage con- flicts, as will be discussed in great depth in Chapters 4–5, are in many ways the central preoccupation of discourse analysts. Take line 04 in the following extract for example (Schegloff, 1988, pp. 119–120). What is it doing? (Key: brackets = simultaneous speech; equals sign = second utterance latched onto first without perceptible break; colon = sound stretch; CAPS = loud speech; hehehheh = laughter.) (1) Ice cream sandwich 01 ((door squeaks)) 02 Sherri: Hi Carol.= 03 Carol: =[Hi::. ] 04 Ruthie: [CA:RO]L, HI:: 05 Sherri: You didn’t get an ice cream sandwich, 06 Carol: I kno:w, hh I decided that my body didn’t need it. 07 Sherri: Yes but ours di:d= 08 =hh heh heh heh heh heh heh.hhih Schegloff (1988) offers an elaborate account of how Sherri’s turn in line 05 is produced and recognized as a complaint. He does so by looking at how the turn is composed and how it is responded to. For example, You didn’t get an ice cream sandwich is a negative observation of a failure. And Carol responds to that negative observation with an account, which is one of the ways complaints are typically responded to. Aside from answering this ques- tion of how social actions are accomplished in a single conversational turn such as this, discourse analysts have also tackled questions based on larger collections such as how agreements or disagreements are done. Agreements, according to Pomerantz (1984, pp. 65–68), are done as an upgrade, the same,  Overview of Discourse Analysis 13 or a downgrade vis-à-vis the prior speaker’s talk and done so without any delay, mitigation, or account, as shown in the following three examples: (2) Upgrade 01 A: It’s a beautiful day out isn’t it? 02 B: Yeh it’s just gorgeous... (3) Same 01 A:... She was a nice lady—I liked her. Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 02 B: I liked her too. (4) Downgrade 01 A: That’s beautiful. 02 B: Isn’t it pretty. Task 6: Consider the following data taken from Pomerantz (1984, pp. 71, 75). In what ways are disagreements done differently from the agreements? (Key: number in parentheses = length of silence in sec- onds; italics = stress) (1) 01 C:... You’ve really both basically honestly gone 02 your own ways. 03 D: Essentially, except we’ve had a good relationship 04 at home. (2) 01 A:... You sound very far away. 02 (0.7) 03 B: I do? 04 A: Yeah. 05 B: No I’m no:t, As Pomerantz (1984) pointed out, disagreement generally features delay (e.g., silence, questions, reluctance markers, agreement preface), mitigation (e.g., essentially), and accounts (e.g., except we’ve had a good relationship at home). How Are Identities Negotiated in Discourse? Another central question for discourse analysts concerns the role discourse plays in identity negotiation—an issue to be discussed in greater detail in  14 Introduction Chapters 6–7. Identities such as upper-class British vs. Jewish New Yorkers, for example, can become visible in their diverging conversational styles (Tan- nen, 1984, p. 120). In the following dinner conversation, for example, Sally’s telling of her airplane meal encounters incurs multiple interjections from her co-participants, which are intended as cooperative prompting. (Key: acc = spoken quickly; two dots = less than half a second pause; three dots = half a second pause; four dots = full second pause; brackets = simultaneous talk) (5) Bagel and cream cheese Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 01 Sally: Oh I was amazed to see the uh.. the meal on the 02 airplane today. 03 Peter: What was it? 04 Sally: It was.. a bagel with cream cheese.... 05 David: [What’s this? 06 Peter: [For lunch? 07 Sally: At lunch,... a bagel with cream [cheese 08 Peter: [That’s.. that’s 09 Air Canada, right?... um Pacific= 10 Deborah: =A.. a bagel [and cream cheese? 11 Sally: [It was United. 12 A bagel and cream cheese,... 13 acc 14 and a whole pile of ham. 15 [laughter] As Tannen observed, when Sally ends with bagel and cream cheese in steady intonation and a pause in line 04, the others thought she was done. But Sally keeps going back to a bagel and cream cheese first in line 07 and then in line 12, the latter of which is done with accelerated speed, clearly indicating that the point of her story is yet to come. It turns out that her point is not that bagel and cream cheese were served as lunch but that these Jewish food items were served with the nonkosher ham (line 14)! During playback interviews where the participants listened to their own talk and made comments, Tan- nen (1984) found that the cooperative prompting offered by herself (Debo- rah) and Peter (Jewish New Yorkers) were considered obstructive by Sally (upper-class British) who “couldn’t understand why Peter kept interrupting her story to question her about irrelevant details” (p. 121). In this case, the same linguistic conduct is intended as cooperative but interpreted as obstruc- tive. Tannen attributed this style difference in part to geographic and ethnic differences (e.g., upper-class British vs. Jewish New Yorkers). In a study on a family political identity, Gordon (2004) showed how a 4-year-old boy and his parents collaboratively create their shared identity as Democrats and supporters of Al Gore. They do so by, for example, using referring terms that create closeness to Gore and distance from Bush (Gor- don, 2004, pp. 617–618). (Key: angle brackets = enclose descriptions of vocal  Overview of Discourse Analysis 15 noises; words> = angle brackets enclose descriptions of the manner in which an utterance is spoken; square brackets = enclose simultaneous talk.) (6) We want Al 01 Jason: So they— 02 And we’re also voting for President at my school too. 03 Neil: For President?> 04 [Or just ice cream?] 05 Jason: [(They’re) talking ] about the President. Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 06 Neil: Oh well you tell ’em you’re votin’ for Al Gore.> 07 Jason: [Yea:h!] 08 Clara: [Yea:h!] 09 Neil: Not that [‘W’ guy. ] 10 Clara: [(That’s the one.)] 11 Not W! 12 Neil: Say no W. 13 Clara: No [W!] 14 Neil: [We] want Al. 15 Clara: We want Al.> 16 Jason: Who’s Al? 17 Neil: Al Gore. 18 He’s a cool guy [that we– ] 19 Clara: [He’s Daddy’s] friend. 20 Neil: That’s right. 21 He’s my friend. 22 He’s gonna be President. 23 Clara: We hope. 24 Neil: We hope. 25 Clara: He’s Jackie’s friend too. 26 Neil: 27 That’s right, 28 Jackie knows him. As shown, the democratic nominee Al Gore is referred to affectionately as AL (line 15), a cool guy (line 18), Daddy’s friend (line 19), my friend (line 21), and Jackie’s friend (line 25)—the person the family wants to be president (line 22). Republican nominee George W. Bush, on the other hand, is dis- missed as That ‘W’ guy (line 09) or just W (lines 11–13)—the guy that they as a family say no to (lines 11–13). Task 7: Consider the following extract taken from Gordon (2004, p. 622), where Jason is watching TV with his mom. What discourse  16 Introduction evidence is there to show how the family identity of Democrats is being constructed? 01 Clara: That’s the man that Daddy doesn’t like. 02 Jason: Who. 03 Where. 04 Clara: That guy. 05 Bu- GW. 06 Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 07 Jason: (Is that the guy?) 08 Clara: That’s the one. 09 Jason: Oh.. how come they’re all clapping about him. 10 Clara: Um, 11 I guess some people like him, 12 but- but I think– 13 I think it’s the hunters, 14 and the pe- the other people who don’t know any better. How Are Ideologies Constructed in Discourse? Aside from performing actions and negotiating identities, discourse is also, as will be discussed in greater detail in Chapters 8–9, a crucial means through which ideologies are constructed. In his effort to elucidate how anti-immigration ideology is perpetuated in a 1989 article published in the British tabloid the Sun, Dijk (1996) called attention to the large banner headline “Get Lost, Spongers!”, the adjectives bogus and phony used to describe immigrant students and the colleges that admit them, and the popu- lar rhetorical styles (“get lost,” “spongers,” etc.) engaged to legitimize what is assumed to be the popular resentment against immigration. Task 8: Consider the note pasted on our office refrigerator years ago. Is there any particularly notable choice of language? If yes, how does the choice construct realities in a certain way? What ideology is mani- fested in the choice? Please help keep this room clean! No one’s mother works here! Montse works here, but it’s not her job. Jessie works here, but it’s not her job.... IT’S YOUR job to keep it clean! ~the Anti-Cockroach Coalition  Overview of Discourse Analysis 17 One might note the use of “mother” in this message, wherein “mother” is constructed as the resident cleaning person. Consider the alternative: “No one’s father works here!” Some would say it doesn’t make sense, or it’s not natural. The message reveals the writer’s understanding of a world in which the job of cleaning belongs to the female parent. It naturalizes the view that mothers are there to clean after you, thereby making it unquestionable. It advances a particular ideology. Clearly, there are many different ways of doing discourse analysis. In the previous illustrations, for example, the analysis of news summaries would be typically identified as a type of genre analysis, the study of agreement and Downloaded by [University of Oregon] at 06:07 06 November 2017 disagreement is presented as one of conversation analysis, the exploration of family political identity is done within the interactional sociolinguistic approach and, finally, the scrutiny of anti-immigration ideology in newspa- per papers is an example of critical discourse analysis. Crucially, however, it is important to register that genre analysis is not the only approach to address- ing issues of discourse and structure, nor is conversation analysis the only approach to answering questions of discourse and social action, or interac- tional sociolinguistics the only approach to investigating discourse and iden- tity. Even with issues of discourse and ideology, which are often considered a specialty for critical discourse analysis, these too can be dealt with from multiple perspectives. Approaches and Transcriptions As a matter of fact, not all scholars in discourse analysis would identify their work with a specific approach; some simply frame their studies as dis- course analytic. Still, it might be useful to highlight some key features of a few approaches that are relatively distinct from each other and will make repeated appearances throughout the book (for a comprehensive treatment of approaches to (spoken) discourse, please consult the seminal texts of Cam- eron, 2001; Schiffrin, 1994). With its origin in sociology and a commitment to “naturalistic inquiry” (Schegloff, 1997, p. 501), conversation analysis (CA) insists on using data collected from naturally occurring interaction as opposed to interviews, field notes, native intuitions, and experimental methodologies (Heritage, 1984, p. 236). Analysts work with audiorecordings or videorecordings along with the transcripts of these recordings, using transcription notations originally devel- oped by Gail Jefferson to capture a full range of interactional details such as volume, pitch, pace, intonation, overlap, inbreath, smiley voice, the length of silence as well as nonverbal conduct. The goal of conversation analysis is to uncover the tacit methods and procedures of social interaction. Analysis begins with the meticulous inspection of single instances and is guided by the question “Why that now?” (Schegloff & Sacks, 1973), that is, why a particular bit of talk is produced in that particular format at that particular time: What is it accomplishing? It is in these minute details that evidence is