Discourse Studies - Science topic

I suggest you to use Corpus Linguistics tool as a method to analyse your discourses. Such as AntConc Application. You can search the tutorial from youtube.

The spoken text expresses discourse and usage more than the written text, which can describe the discourse, not its pragmatic analysis, while all the discursive formats are clear from the written because it represents a continuous documented system

Dear Dilu,

In principle, there should be no confusion between semantics and pragmatics, which are not exclusive, i.e. semantics is in need of pragmatics and vice versa. Without pragmatics, semantics is decontextualized language that does not make real sense. And without semantics, pragmatics will not have the fodder on which it bases its own meaningful communicative substance. Semantics is the study of the knowledge encoded in the vocabulary of the language and in its patterns for building elaborate constructions and meanings. Pragmatics is the interaction of semantic knowledge with our knowledge of the world to produce meaningful communication in contexts of use. Psychology and socio-cultural considerations definitely impact and interact with pragmatics in the way we express ourselves in our respective languages and cultures.

Dear Reza Biria,

Thank you for your answer and your interesting comments and files, some of which I already knew, especially Hyland and Tse (2004), which I have largely used in my own research and in my master's classes (www.uv.es/maes). It is true that the issues concerning the inner weakness of the model have been pointed out in a number of ways, but it is also true that, as far as I know, there haven't been serious theoretical or methodological proposals on how to tackle this problem. This is why I have posed the question here. As I said before, some colleagues and myself will hold a round table at the next CILC 2017 in Paris, where we'll attempt to pinpoint the problem taking into account our own research difficulties and results from different variables (corpus, genre, domain and language). We'll also try to reach some conclusions/proposals that can help further research. I would also like to refer you to the following file, which is my humble contribution to this matter so far. Once the round table is approved by the CILC committee I will announce it in this platform.

Best,

Francisca Suau-Jiménez

Maybe you can find some more ideas in this journal (it is bilingual  - Porteguese and English):

 http://revistas.pucsp.br/bakhtiniana

Hi Helen,

first, I suppose we are talking about critical discourse analysis (CDA), not pure discourse analysis as it is used for linguistic analyses and, given that you study policies, you want to analyse content, not language. If I'm completely wrong and you wan to to study language, I apologize in advance :).

Anyway, for me (and mainly see CDA as it was posed by Teun van Dijk) frame analysis is actually a part of CDA - you can focus on analyzing the frames present in the selected discourse because discourse is formed mainly by frames, myths, narratives, metaphors, stereotypes etc., and if you want to deconstruct (symbolical) meanings in the discourse you have analyze mentioned artefacts.  So I wouldn't put such demarcation between two methods, in fact I would not put any demarcation at all. I will give some examples to support this claim. Frames, as some cognitive artefacts created to (strategically) simplify complex problems, are often used by media to represent some social events, actors and so on. Often, these frames have normative denotation or connotation that both contribute to creation of specific discourse: squatters are framed as social deviants who pose stability risk for society and medical risk for individuals; in neoliberal social policies unemployed are framed as lazy and incompetent individuals in order to discoursively stigmatize their social position. Of course, you can omit CDA and focus purely on frames, in that case the outcome of the study would be identified frames without discourse context.

As for (dis)advantages, I cannot see how to compare CDA and frame analysis in this regard because CDA is macro-analytical method and frame analysis rather micro-analytical method (frames would be always part of a discourse). Both are qualitative methods so they are analytically demanding and, personally, I cannot think about doing frame analysis or metaphor analysis without CAQDAS that provides a tool for systematic data analysis with regard to repeating themes (discoursive formations) from which coherent frames could be identified. For CDA and frame analysis I would suggest literally anything by Teun van Dijk, for sole framing, book Framing Public Life edited by Reese, Gandy and Grant is good (the book is focused on media framing but presented ideas and procedures are portable to any data, including policy papers). 

Hopefully, this was somewhat helpful :).

Dear Liu Rui, A system for the analysis of turns that cohere to form exchanges was developed by scholars of discourse analysis associated with English Language Research at University of Birmingham. It is reported in Chapters 4,5 & 6 of Coulthard and Montgomery (eds) (1981/2014) Studies in Discourse Analysis. Unfortunately, I don't have a soft copy but it is available in a Kindle edition:

Which of Myers-Scotton's theories are you referring to? Since you mention 'diglossic' code-switching and this refers to high- and low-status languages or varieties, I would assume that you are referring to her social theories of markedness and rational actors, outlined in Myers-Scotton (1993), Social motivations for code switching. If so I would agree with the above reply suggesting Garcia's translanguaging, and would also recommend Pennycook and Makoni's (2007) Disinventing and reconstituting languages, and the state-of the-art overview of code switching research in Gardner-Chloros's 2009 book Code-switching.

Dear Onwu,

Widdowson's "Text, Context, Pretext" might be helpful for you insofar Widdowson's book provides a critical engagement with Critical Discourse Analysis. He discusses in depth various ways of understanding and defining "context".

Regards,

Ingmar

P.S. By way of advertising my own work, if I may, I like to point you to a paper in which I sketch an approach to ethnographic and postconstructivist discourse analysis which allows for studying text and context and their politics empirically, without the need to imagine some "normative conditions" that are actually out of scope of the study.

Dear Sheeraz Ali,

Focusing on discourse problems first requires paying attention to pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic levels of discourse. In the former, we focus on surface features of text or texture such as diexes, metadiscourse markers, thematic progression and so on. In the latter, however, we should address the intercultural, socioideological and suprasentential elements governing language use. Therefore based on related theories, you should pinpoint the domains and sub-domains defining the problems you want to address. Then, create a number of prompts, usually thirty to fifty, which constitute the pool of the items you need to make the questionnaire.Afterwards, you should ensure that the instrument is both valid and reliable. This can be materialized by consulting colleagues and by pilot testing. In this way you can develop your own data collecting tool. You can further increase the dependability of the data by triangulating the questionnaire by using a follow- up group focused interview. I used the recepie from a book by Zoltan Dornyei (2003) and the outcome was amazing.

Wish you lots of good luck with your research.

Best regards,

R. Biria

Dear Akin Adetunji,

I'd suggest you the two following volumes:

- Duszak, Anna (ed.). 2002. Us and Others: Social Identities across Languages, Discourses and Cultures. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

- Pavlidou, Theodossia-Soula  (ed.) Constructing Collectivity: ‘We’ across Languages and Contexts, Benjamins.

Best wishes,

Carla Bazzanella

Tom,

Thanks for sending the article reference. I'll have a look to see if it's applicable.

Rick Welland

I don't see why. To start from a real-world problem and develop a theory from attempts to solve it seems acceptable to me. cf. Newton 'theorizing' gravity to explain why an apple falls to earth. Where CDA has had its detractors (e.g. Prof. Widdowson) in the past has been because of the tendency of its practitioners to start from a problem close to their hearts and, because of that emotional involvement, compromise their ideal academic 'scientific' neutrality, skewing their interpretations for political/ideological reasons. In science, to be emotionally involved in an outcome is usually bad. Much as I like CDA, especially the earlier stuff, I'm not sure how satisfactorily they have answered this objection...

There is a genre continuum in film reviews between clearly deliberative ones and clearly epideictic ones. Ordinary moviegoers tend to treat reviews as a tool for deliberation. Thus most user created reviews you find online have a quite explicit deliberative slant.

At the other extreme professional film critics, film theory scholars, aspiring film philosophers and general film-nerds-with-way-too-much-time-on-their-hands will be on the epideictic side.

Audience design plays an important role in deciding whether the discourse is epideictic or deliberative. The film theory scholar or dilettante largely speaks to people who share her/his enthusiasm for cinema and are supposed to have watched the movie (and the countless other obscure movies that are cited in the review). The run-of-the-mill online review addresses people who have to decide whether the movie is worth watching. Explicit preoccupation with "spoilers" is a clear sign of this audience design and of a deliberative function.

Professional reviewers writing for newspapers and non-specialist magazines fall somewhere in between. They know that their readers will use their review as a deliberative tool. However, also in order to maintain their ethos of experts, they will dress their review more as an epideictic exercise that as an explicit advice. They will carefully avoid spoilers, but they will not mention the issue of spoilers explicitly.

Hi Maria,

Is this a research paper or you just want to elaborate a fact?

Well, I should say that it depends on your definition of fishing whether as a hobby, sport or as a job; and whether it includes the role of a manager of a fishery or not.

In addition, the cultural and economic aspects should be taken into resolution.

For instance, I should agree that generally fishing and angling as a hobby are regarded as masculine hobbies. However, in classic form of fishing due to cheaper labor force many women work in that industry in East Asia,

In addition, fishing industry has been modernized, and huge ships and their crew trawl with sophisticated tools. Hence, women can work as part of the crew or in the office. Yet again, Nordic and East Asian countries are good example of such.

Dear All,

There are a lot of taboos of various origin and nature. The easiest way is to mention ancient or very old taboos. In Europe and in Hungary wolves (Canis lupus) were feared animals and are protagonists of many myths: Wererwolf (Werwolf, loup-garout, vérfarkas). The Hungarian equivalent of wolf is farkas it means an animal with a tail because one must have used only a circumlocution. The wolf itself was a taboo.

Have a look in the journal of discourse & society. Also Margaret Wetherell's edited collection on identities research as part of her work at The Open University (uk). I would also reiterate Michael's recommended reading.

There seems to be some interesting discourses in the marketing of moist toilet tissues that might be worth analysing http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/24/business/media/new-campaign-for-wet-toilet-tissue-advertising.html?_r=0

Use Gilligan's ethics of care theory of feminine morality as distinct from ethic of justice that characterises masculine morality. You may use Erickson's theory of the consciousness of the inner space characteristic of the feminine psychology of order