Qualitative Data Analysis : An introduction

1. Qualitative Data Analysis : An introduction Carol Grbich Chapter 19: Discourse Analysis

2. Discourse Analysis Two approaches to identifying and analysing discourses are; • Foucauldian discourse analysis • Critical discourse analysis (CDA)

3. Discourse analysis Key points • Discourses are the spoken or written practices or visual representations which characterize a topic, an era, or a cultural practice. . • Discourse analysis spans a broad field from formal linguistic approaches through Foucauldian analyses to cultural and critical communication studies approaches . • Foucauldian discourse analysis identifies statements and tracks their changes and challenges historically in the mapping of the creation and maintenance of power-laden discourses • Critical discourse analysis (CDA) seeks how discursive practices within societal structures secure and maintain power over people • Various hybrid approaches to discourse analysis, combining with other forms of analysis and interpretation, continue to be developed.

4. Discourse Analysis • When to use: when the identification, tracking and operation of powerful discourses is useful • Type of research question best suited: How did this particular way of thinking/behaving/writing/talking eventuate? What are the outcomes? What other ways of knowing have been marginalised? • Strengths: Highlighting of the origins and functioning of commonly accepted discourses with the capacity to track them historically and to illuminate marginalised ideas. • Weaknesses: incapacity to do much beyond record the dominance of powerful discourses unless feminist/action research is undertaken to reinstitute other ideas.

5. Foucauldian discourse analysis • The Foucauldian approach uses historical and political tracking of documentation over time and the conceptual notion of power for interpretation. • Once a discourse has been established, Foucault suggests that it disperses throughout society. He uses the metaphor of the body to represent society in order to show discourses filtering through the arterial and venous systems of the populace and then being fed back in a cyclical process through the capillaries, enabling maintenance and reinforcement. Power is a key aspect of discourse. Technologies of power include • sovereign power (monarchy) • disciplinary power (legal system) maintained through ‘normalisation’ of discourses surveillance and monitoring, and enforced by the law, police, warders and the courts.

6. Foucauldian discourse analysis Two aspects: The outside looking in: • historical development and tracking of a discourse over time, • mapping the surfaces, identifying the players and the social, economic, and political climate which fostered its development. • Locating challenges and seeing what happened to these – where did they come from? Why? And if they were rejected, how were they dispensed with? And by whom? For what purpose? The inside looking out: • to identifying constituents in terms of statements, themes, arguments, traces of challenges and traces of ideas which changed directions. • Seeking disunity, discontinuity and the limits to the discourse, • monitoring dispersion and tracking discontinuity.

7. Guidelines for Foucauldian discourse analysis The following broad guidelines have been drawn from Foucault’s writings: • Track the historical development of the discourse over time, identify the players and the social, economic and political climate which fostered its development • Identify constituents in terms of objects, statements, themes, arguments, traces of challenges, traces of ideas which changed directions. • Seek disunity and discontinuity and the limits to the discourse. Monitor dispersion in other fields. • Locate challenges and see what happened to these – where did they come from? why? and if they were rejected, how were they dispensed? and by whom? for what purpose?

8. Limitations of Foucauldian analysis • The focus on language has been seen to exclude other contextual experiences which may be relevant. • Language may also be problematic depending on whether it is seen as structuralist in meaning or post structuralist (transitional) as well as having single or multiple meanings. • Feminists have criticised Foucault for not addressing the social position of women as being different from powerless groups in general. • The absence of praxis – actually doing something about any imbalances of power

9. Critical Discourse Analysis The basic premise of CDA is that discourse is shaped by social groupings, culture and constructs and has the power to limit our knowledge and beliefs. 3 things interact: • the text (representing facts , beliefs and events identity construction and interpretation) • discursive practices (the rules, norms, behavours, speech, social identites and hierachies that maintain power and create responses to the text • thebroad social context (Fairclough, 2000) 

10. Principles which underpin CDA • The focus in CDA is social problems • Power is developed and maintained in society by discursive practices • Discourses reproduce historical inequalities • A sociocognitive approach can expose the links between text and society • Systematic discourse analysis involves investigation and interpretation of content and context • Social action is part of CDA adapted from Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 271-280)

11. Guidelines for CDA Identify Framing • Read the text twice; first generally next more critically within the expected structure of its genre • Identify strategies of placement (headings, graphs, pictures, keywords,etc) • Note what could have been said (but wasn’t) • Whose voices are used and whose are missing? Interpretation • Note use of sentences – how many on one aspect of a topic how many on another • Who is depicted as powerful? Who is passive? Why? • Note use of passive verbs to focus on one aspect • Question statements the author is taking for granted • Note insinuations to take power from people (minimising, comparing with others) • Note connotations eg ‘terrorist’ v ‘freedom fighter’ • Note use of uncertainty (may, might, should, could) to slant information • Register: is it optimism? Is it scepticism? Does it use direct quotes (more legitimate) or 3rd person comment (less powerful)? Thomas Huckin (1997)

12. Criticisms of CDA • If action and emancipation are core to CDA how will they be evaluated as outcomes? • How systematic is CDA analysis? Linguistically speaking • Is the political analysis actually derived from systematic analysis of the language or is this shaped and used to further researcher political interests? • Are people active agents able to identify and resist oppression or rather to recognise it but too conditioned to act effectively? • Has the dynamic and multiple natures of individuals and their different interpretations over time been adequately recognised?