Discursive Approaches

The Purpose of Discursive Approaches

• To qualitatively analyse 'discourse' i.e talk/text and other meaningful representations
• To identify how particular topic/issues/objects etc are discursively constructed
• To explore the multiplicity of constructions and the relationships between these constructions
• To analyse the functions/significance of the discursive resources articulated in the text
• Doesn't aim to find an objective truth 'behind' the text
• Explore social processes in discourse
• Explore social power dynamics and its consequences
• Explore dynamics in interaction and the productivity of language
• 'Stirring up' any unjust status quo (critical psychology)
• The object of analysis is the text itself
• Purpose is to analyse features of text i.e constructions/variations/functions

Discourse-Oriented Research

• Discourse understood as:
• Talk/text and other signifying practices
• Social practice
• Actively constructing 'versions of reality'
• Constructs objects/experiences/events in particular ways
• Hence inevitably re-produce (or challenge) particular power relations
• Social constructionist/critical research-focus on discourse
• Involves a critical re-theorisation of language
• Away from an everyday notion of language as a transparent medium for communicating already-existing ideas and meaning
• Towards a theorisation of discourse as actively constructing meanings and social realities e.g social power relationships
• Discourse as productive and regulatory e.g who can say/do what/when/where

Social Constructionism

• Rejection of the possibility of 'objective truths' and 'universal facts'. Idea of 'objective truth' as fantasy
• Knowledge of reality viewed as product of social interactions and social processes
• Knowledge viewed as inevitably partial/political/socially/culturally/historically contingent
• Rather than attempting to uncover truths, social constructionist researchers focus on analysing how 'realities' and meanings are constructed

Construction, Variation and Function

• Construction
• Away from attention to psychological inferiority of participants
• Away from assessment of 'objective' truth or falsity of claims
• Focus on how identity/event/illness etc is constructed in this particular sociocultural/discursive context
• Meanings: how is X constructed?
• Variation
• Objects of study constructed in multiple ways
• In what different ways is X constructed? E.g Hillsborough disaster
• What relationships are there between different constructions?
• Do participants' position themselves and others in different ways?
• Function
• What is a particular construction doing? What work is being done by this construction?
• What is the socio-political significance of this way of 'making things mean'?
• What power-relations are produced/maintained/challenged by this version of things?

Asking Analytic Questions of the Text

• Macro
• What kind of objects/themes/metaphors are there in the text?
• How is X discursively constructed?
• How else is X constructed?
• What's the relationship between these constructions?
• From what kind of position does the author speak?
• How are others positioned in the text?
• What is the significance of this particular way of talking?
• Micro
• What 'work' is being done in this interaction?
• What rhetorical/argumentative devices are used?
• What are the functions of the various (rhetorical) features of the task? E.g blaming, saving face
• How is this account presented as a factual account?
• How are competing accounts undermined?
• How is it e/g healthy eating-talk, managed in this account?
• What does an account feel its about (institutionalised) power-relations e.g between the people speaking

Practical Steps Involved in DA

• Identify topic/area and formulate research questions
• Identify relevant forms of data to analyse
• Collect/generate data
• Preliminary analysis: close, repeated reading, making notes on texts' features (could use initial, open coding)
• Developing coding categories from notes
• Applying coding categories
• Analysis working with categories of quotes