Scarica Discourse analysis - inglese 2 e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity!
SOCIAL RESEARCH AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
In the past fifteen years, DA has introduced new methods of research, new ways of conceptualising research questions and new ways of understanding the nature of other disciplines. For an increasing number of academics discourse analysis is the prime way of doing social research. We are part of this discursive turn within social research, if we have approach social and/or psychological issues through studying the use of language. As the discursive turn has grown, there has been a proliferation of forms of discourse analysis, about fundamental topics such as method, theory, the nature of discourse, the nature of cognition and the nature of social structure.
DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS: there is a long tradition extending back to the work of WALTER KINTSCH in cognitive psychology, which explores the cognitive substrate of discourse. KINTSCH and VAN DIJK worked together on several articles, and finally produced a book, STRATEGIES OF DISCOURSE COMPREHENSION that would have a tremendous influence in the psychology of discourse. The important notion of STRATEGIC understanding was introduced, which tried to account more realistically for what language users actually do when they speak or understand discourse. Real language users already start with the (tentative) interpretation of the first words a sentence before it has been fully heard or read. That is, understanding is ‘on line’ or linear. Also, language users may use information from both text and context at the same time, or operate at several text levels (phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics) at the same time in order to interpret the text. The same is true in DISCOURSE PRODUCTION: language users already may start to speak or write without a fully developed structure of sentences, paragraphs, turns or whole discourses ‘in mind’. Language users represent sentences and their meanings in memory. The result of such a process of understanding is a Text Representation in Episodic Memory. A macrostructure is constructed by the language user in order to organize a text representation in memory. In order to understand a text, vast amounts of social-cultural ‘world’ knowledge needs to be presupposed. It is impossible to define coherence relations between sentences, or indeed to construct macrostructures, without such knowledge. About the same time KINTSCH and VAN DIJK were writing, SCHANK and ABELSON published their famous book about ‘scripts’, taken as the abstracts ways people organize their knowledge about stereotypical events such as shopping or eating in a restaurant: in order to understand a text, language users activate one or more scripts and use the relevant information in the construction of a Text Representation in Episodic Memory.
Models KINTSCH and VAN DIJK introduced another crucial notion, that of a (situation) model. Language users do not merely construct a (semantic) representation of the text in their episodic memory, but also a representation of the event or situation the text is about, in terms of their mental models. Implicit information and inferences in discourse processing are represented in mental models, which thus also explain the notion of PRESUPPOSITION, namely as the propositions in a model that are not expressed in discourse. Models also provide an explanation for the fact that when people recall a text, they will usually ‘falsely’ recall information that never was expressed in the original text
at all. Models explain how general knowledge is related to text processing: whereas models are personal, subjective, knowledge may be seen as a generalization and abstraction from such models. Language users also build models of the communicative event in which they participate. These so-called ‘context models’ (or ‘pragmatic models’). They explain how language users manage the fundamental task of adapting their discourses to the assumed knowledge of the recipients. VAN DIJK’s later work on ideology further assumed that models also feature evaluative beliefs, that is, opinions about social and communicative events. These opinions are partly personal, and partly based on socially shared opinion-structures, such as attitudes and ideologies.
In 1980 VAN DIJK’s work took a rather different orientation. Also because of as long stay in Mexico, he decided it was time to do something serious, for example ‘RACISM’, a fundamental issue especially in Europe: VAN DIJK became interested in the ways racism is expressed, reproduced or legitimated through text and talk. He recorded, transcribed and analyzed hundreds o spontaneous interviews in various neighbourhoods in Amsterdam and San Diego, finding that at all levels of structure, such conversations are rather typical. At the level of topics, only a very limited number of topics tend to come up when people talk about ‘foreigners’. Typically, such topics are about Cultural Difference, about Deviance (crime, violence, etc.) and about Threats (economic, social, cultural). At the local level of semantic relations, vD found that people typically make use of specific semantic ‘moves’, such as the disclaimers of Apparent Denial (‘’I have nothing against Blacks, but..’’) and Apparent Concession (‘’Not all Blacks are criminal, but..’’). Pronouns and demonstratives may be selected: ‘’them’’ or ‘’those people’’. CAPITOLO 1 What is discourse analysis? The term discourse analysis was first introduced by Zelling Harris (1952) as a way of analyzing connected speech and writing. DA examines patterns of language across texts and considers the relationship between language and the social and cultural contexts in which it is used. It also considers the ways that the use of language presents different views of the world and different understandings. It examines how the use of language has upon social identities and relations. DA also considers how views of the world, and identities, are constructed through the use of discourse. DA: The analysis of spoken and written language as it is used to enact social and cultural perspectives and identities. (GEE) An analysis of language integrated with all the other elements that go into social practices, for ex. Ways of thinking or feeling. The relationship between language and context The basic consideration of DA is relationship between language and the situations where in it is produced, both spoken and written interactions. In the broader context, it’s not only the conversation that is taken into account in discourse analysis, but also the societal customs and practices as well that make the entire web of social behaviours. The discourse structure of texts Discourse analysts are interested in how people organise what they say to others in a conversation or in a piece of writing. For example there are cultural differences of greetings in Japan and Usa. In Usa they are very short while in
Identity is not just a matter of using language in a way that reflects a particular identity. It is rather a socially constructed self that people continually co- construct and reconstruct in their interactions with each other. A person’s identity “is not something fixed, stable and unitary that they acquire early in life and possess forever afterwards. Rather identity is shifting and multiple, something people are continually constructing and reconstructing in their encounters with each other in the world” (Cameron, 2001).
Discourse and gender Early work in the analysis of gender and discourse looked at the relationship between the use of language and the biological category of sex, so the examination of the ways in which language is used in relation to the social category, or rather the socially constructed category, of gender. Gender is the ‘product of social practise’ (WEATHERALL, 2002)
The deficit approach F 0E 0 his is often linked to the linguist Robin Lakoff and her influential work ‘Language and Women’s Place‘. In this study, Lakoff identified several differences in the way women used language when compared to men. Lakoff suggested that these differences she noticed were part of ‘Women’s Language’ and was general seen as inferior to men. The ‘Deficit Model’ refers to how this language use contributes to women’s lower status and weaker position in society.
The dominance approach F 0 E 0 whereas the deficit model might suggest that so-called features of ‘women’s talk’ suggest a weakness in the language, the dominance model suggests that men’s use of language ‘dominates’ the weaker female sex. Partly this stems from their higher position in the social hierarchy. Thus, either consciously or subconsciously, men use language to exert power and maintain their dominance in society.
The difference model F 0E 0 According to Tannen, many misunderstandings, arguments and disagreements between men and women could be down to gender differences. It’s important to remember that these gender differences are put forward as socially constructed, so are not down to biological differences between men and women.
Gender is ‘not something a person “has”, but something that a person does’ (Cameron, 2005) Gender doesn’t just exist, but is continually produced, reproduced, and indeed changed through people’s performance of gendered acts, as they project their own claimed gender identities, ratify or challenge other’s identities, and in various ways support or challenge systems of gender relations and privilege. (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2003) Gender is only one part of a person’s social identity, and it is an aspect which will be more or less salient in different contexts. In some contexts, for example, it may be more important to emphasise one’s professional expertise, one’s ethnic identity, or one’s age than one’s gender. (Holmes, 1997). A person can have a multiplicity of identities which may be at play at the same time, at different levels of prominence. They may not all be equally salient at a particular moment. Rather, one or more of these identities may be foregrounded at different points in time and for different reasons. People,
further, ‘do perform gender differently in different contexts, and do sometimes behave in ways we would normally associate with the ‘’other’’ gender. The relationship between language and sexuality further complicates the topic of gender and discourse by adding the notion of desire to the discussion. These desires, ‘’are not simply private, internal phenomena but are produced and expressed (or not expressed) in social interaction, using shared and conventionalized linguistic resources.
CAPITOLO 4
Biber (1988) draws a distinction between GENRE and TEXT type which has important implications. For Biber, the term ‘genre’ categorizes texts on the basis of external criteria, while ‘text types’ represent groupings of texts which are similar in linguistic form. The term ‘genre’ describes types of activities such as, for example, prayers, sermons, songs and poems, ‘which regularly occurs in society’. Text types, on the other hand, represent groupings of texts which are similar in terms of co-occurrence of linguistic patterns. Genres are ways in which people ‘get things done’ through their use of spoken and written discourse. G. are activities that people engage through the use of language. MARTIN’s definition of genre is ‘a staged, goal-oriented, purposeful activity in which speakers engage as members of our culture’. He gives examples of genres such as poems, narratives, expositions, lectures which clearly shows that his definition takes largely the same perspective on genre as that of Biber. SWALES we says that ‘a genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some set of communicative purposes’. These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale (i.e. social purpose) for the genre. This (social purpose) shapes the schematic (discourse) structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style’ [..] ‘Communicative purpose is both a privileged criterion (that is, the criterion that matters the most) and one that operates to keep the scope of a genre as here conceived narrowly focused on comparable rhetorical action (i.e. what it is doing). In addition to purpose, exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarity in terms of structure, style, content and intended audience’. REGISTER F 0E 0 variation according to use the context of situation TENOR F 0E 0 relationship between interlocutors, often characterized by greater or lesser formality FIELD (DOMAIN) F 0E 0 how language varies according to the activity in which it plays a part MODE F 0E 0 effects of the medium on which the language is transmitted Practicing a genre is almost like playing a game, with its own rules and conventions. Established genre participants, both writers and readers, are like skilled players, who succeed by their manipulation and exploitation of, rather than a strict compliance with, the rules of the game. It is not simply a matter of learning the language, or even learning the rules of the game, it is more like acquiring the rules of the game in order to be able to exploit and manipulate them to fulfill professional and disciplinary purposes. (Bhatia, 1998) A text may be a mix of different genres. WHAT IS A TEXT?
Hilles (2005) describes the process of examining grammar and discourse from a contextual perspective. The first stage in this process is to make a decision as to what aspect of language to investigate, in the next stage, to look at as many sources as possible from reference grammar and the final stage is to test the hypotheses that have been formed by the native speakers if they would make the same choices that the research suggests they would make.
COHESION AND DISCOURSE An area of language in which grammar and discourse are highly integrated is in patterns of cohesion in texts. COHESION refers to the relationship between items in a text such as words, phrases and clauses and other items such as pronouns, nouns and conjunctions. This includes the relationship between words and pronouns that refer to that word (REFERENCE ITEMS). It also includes words that commonly co-occur in texts (COLLOCATION) and the relationship between words with similar, related and different meanings (LEXICAL COHESION). Cohesion also considers semantic relationships between clauses and the ways this is expressed through the use of CONJUNCTIONS. A further aspect of cohesion is the way in which words such as ‘one’ and ‘do’ are used to substitute for other words in a text (SUBSTITUTION) and the ways in which words or phrases are left out, or ellipsed, from a text (ELLIPSIS). All of this contributes to the UNITY OF TEXTURE of a text and helps to make the text cohesive.
STANDARDS OF TEXTUALITY
- COHESION F 0E 0 the ways in which the components of the surface text (the actual words we hear or see) are mutually connected within a sequence
- COHERENCE F 0E 0 the ways in which the components of the textual world are mutually accessible and relevant
COHESION refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text and that define it as a text. Cohesive texts are sequences of sentences which seem to ‘hang together’, that contain what are called text-forming devices. These are words and phrases which enable the writer or speaker to establish relationships across sentence or utterance boundaries, and which help to tie the sentences in a text together. Cohesion is linguistically explicit and signals underlying semantic relationships between text elements. It is necessary in the creation of coherent texts. Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some elements in the test/discourse is dependent on that of another.
REFERENCE is the semantic relation that ensures the continuity of meaning in a text. References are resources to refer to a participant or to a circumstantial element whose identity is recoverable. Speakers use linguistic forms, known as referring expressions, to enable hearers to identify the entity being referred to, which is known as the referent. Reference words are words which don’t have a full meaning in their own. They include PERSONAL PRONOUNS/POSSESSIVES, DEMONSTRATIVES/ ADVERBS, COMPARATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS. The main reference patterns are ANAPHORIC, CATAPHORIC REFERENCES.
ANAPHORIC R. F 0E 0 it links back to something that went before in the text CATAPHORIC R. F 0E 0 it links forward to a referent in the text that follows
We have also COMPARATIVE CONSTRUCTIONS, when two or more things are compared in a text. This can contribute to cohesion.
GRAMMATICAL COHESION SUBSTITUTION F 0E 0 a grammatical relation where one linguistic item substitutes for a longer one. It is important to grasp the difference between REFERENCE and SUBSTITUTION. REFERENCE is a relation between the meaning of a word and a its environment where the environment can be the text or the real world. SUBSTITUTION is the relation between words. References words are words looking for meaning, substitutes are words looking for partners.
ELLIPSIS F 0E 0 with it, an essential element is omitted from the text and can be recovered by referring to a preceding element in the text. Ellipsis may involve the omission of a noun or noun group, a verb or a verbal group or a clause.
CONJUCTIONS F 0E 0 they are resources which connect messages via addition, comparison, temporality and causality. A conjunction signals relationships that can be fully understood through reference to other parts of the text.
LEXICAL COHESION REPETITION F 0E 0 repeated words or word-phrases.
SYNONYMS F 0E 0 another word which means the same or almost the same. It allows language users to avoid repetition.
SUPERORDINATES F 0E 0 they are another way of avoiding repetition by using:
- HYPONYMY: a word or a word-phrase whose semantic field is included within that of another word; ‘scarlet’, ‘vermilion’ are hyponyms of ‘red’
- HYPERNYMY: a word or a word-phrase whose semantic field is more generic than a given word; red is hypernym of colour
COHERENCE: stretches of language are connected to each other by virtue of conceptual or meaning dependencies as perceived by language users. What actually gives texture to a stretch of language is not the presence of cohesive markers but our ability to recognise underlying semantic relations which establish continuity of sense. Cohesive markers facilitate and possibly control the interpretation of underlying semantic relations. The coherence is a result of the interaction between knowledge presented in the text and the reader’s own knowledge and experience of the world, influenced by a variety of factors such as age, sex, race, nationality, education, occupation, political and religious affiliations.
CAPITOLO 8
MULTIMODALITY
Multimodality is an inter-disciplinary approach that understands communication and representation to be more than about language. We deal with multimodal texts every time we read a newspaper, watch television, play a video or
adapt to the changing lifestyle of women that, during and after the World War I, were slowly entering previously all-men environments. It was only when enough women were clearly established as authoritative in the work environment, that it was possible to renovate the women suit: no more feminized imitations of men’s professional garments but a different suit, helping women to show both their authority and their femininity. Wearing a suit not represent an effort to camouflage with men but an effort to stand out and define a clear visual presence. In fact, it was only in the second half of the 1980s that more feminine garments were introduced in the ‘’power uniform’’. POWER DRESSING DISCOURSE was significant in building a new type of working woman appearing in the society at the time. It served as a way to construct their image and to make them recognizable at public society’s eyes. Women saw this new clothing style as way to detach from the classical feminine meaning of fashion, mainly associated with aesthetics and frivolity. One of the main purposes of power dressing was reducing female body’s sexuality in order to gain authority in the workplace. The feminine body has always been associated with nature, reproduction and sexuality, something that can be problematic in some working contexts where manifesting sexuality is considered out of place. Feminists and even FREUD have spoken against this theory since both the pleasure to be looked and to look is present in both sexes, but the female body is the one that remains sexualized. Margaret Thatcher was one of the first to incorporate the spirit of power suits. She was Britain’s first female icon to pioneer at the same time politics and fashion, setting an example for women who would have come next. She claimed her style to be ‘’ never flashy, just appropriate ’’. Margaret Thatcher’s style se the rules on how female politicians should dress, which is a conservative, powerful but simultaneously feminine way. Her signature style was to be expressed in the very famous pearl necklace. Hillary Clinton is a contemporary icon of power dressing: with her pantsuits she is a follower of the Thatcher style.
CAPITOLO 9
BACKGROUND TO CRITICAL DISCOURSE Whatever genre we are involved in, and whatever the register of the situation, our use of language will also be influenced by our ideological positions: the values we hold (consciously or unconsciously), the biases and perspectives we adopt (Eggins, 2005).
CDA explores the connections between the use of language and the social and political contexts in which it occurs. It explores issues such as gender, ethnicity, cultural difference, ideology and identity and how these are both constructed and reflected in texts. It also investigates ways in which language constructs and is constructed by social relationships. A critical analysis may include a detailed textual analysis and move from there to an explanation and interpretation of the analysis. It might proceed from there to deconstruct and challenge the text(s) being examined. This may include tracing underlying ideologies from the linguistic features of a text, unpacking particular biases and ideological presuppositions underlying the text, and relating the text to other texts and to people’s experiences and beliefs.
There is no single view of what critical discourse analysis actually is, so it is difficult to present a complete and unified view on this. FAIRCLOUGH and WODAK (1997), however, describe a number of principles for critical discourse analysis. These include:
- Social and political issues are constructed and reflected in discourse : CDA addresses social and political issues and examines ways in which these are constructed and reflected in the use of discourse.
- Power relations are negotiated and performed through discourse: it suggests that it can be looked at through an analysis of who controls conversational interaction, who allows a person to speak and how they do this.
- Discourse both reflects and reproduces social relations: discourse not only reflects but also produces social relations. Both are established and maintained through the use of discourse.
- Ideologies are produced and reflected in the use of discourse: another principle of CDA is that ideologies are produced and reflected in the use of discourse. This includes ways of representing and constructing society such as relation of power, relation based on gender, class, ethnicity, etc. Critical discourse analysis is a form of social action.
Analyzing texts from a critical perspective Critical discourse analysis ‘includes not only a description and interpretation of discourse in context, but also offers an explanations of why and how discourses work’. (ROGERS, 2004) A critical analysis, then, might commence by deciding what discourse type, or genre, the text represents and to what extent and in what way the text conforms to it (or not). It may also consider to what extent the producer of the text has gone beyond the normal boundaries for the genre to create a particular effect. The analysis may consider the FRAMING of the text, that is how the content of the text is presented, and the sort of angle or perspective the writer or speaker is taking. Closely related to framing is the notion of FOREGROUNDING, that is what concepts and issues are emphasized, as well as what concepts and issues are played down, or backgrounded in the text. Equally important to the analysis are the background knowledge, assumptions, attitudes and points of view that the text presupposes (Huckin, 1997) At the SENTENCE LEVEL, the analyst might consider what has been topicalized in each of the sentences in the text; that is, what has been put at the front of each sentence to indicate what it is ‘about’. The analysis may also consider who is doing what to whom; that is, agent-patient relations in the discourse, and who has the most authority and power in the discourse. It may also consider what agents have been left out of sentences such as when the passive voice is used, and why this has been done.
MODALITY F 0E 0 refers to the way that languages indicate a speaker’s evaluation of the state affairs in a given utterance, ex. the expression of a speaker’s degree of belief in or commitment to a proposition. Another definition of modality is ‘’the relativization of the validity of sentence meanings to a set of possible worlds. Talk about possible worlds can thus be constructed as talk about the ways in which people could conceive the world to be different’’ (KIEFER, 1994)
- Some scholars have suggested that critical discourse analysis is close to becoming “an intellectual orthodoxy” (Billig 2002: 44), an institutionalised discipline with its own paradigm, its own canon and conventionalised assumptions, and even its own power structures. (R. Breeze)
- “[I]t has seldom if ever, in my opinion, advanced beyond a guerilla sniping from the margins to a successful assault on the cannon’s mouth.” (Edward Haig)
