EXPLORING METHODS OF

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

IN LITERACY RESEARCH December 3, 2010

NRC/LRA, Fort Worth, TX

Amy Vetter, University of South Carolina, Greensboro

Melissa Mosley, The University of Texas at Austin

F. Blake Tenore, Vanderbilt University

Amy Burke, The University of Texas at Austin

Melody Zoch, The University of Texas at Austin

Elizabeth Years Stevens, Syracuse University

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1:20-1:25 INTRODUCTION- Amy Vetter

1:25-1:45 FOUR APPROACHES TO DA

Multimodal/Mediated Discourse Analysis

Critical Discourse Analysis

Gee‟s Building Tasks

Conversation Analysis

1:45-1:55 Video

2:00-2:30 Break out

2:30-2:30 Synthesis

2:30-2:50 discussion facilitated by Amy of the slides/questions for further analysis constructed by the group.

MMDA

MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Blake Tenore

Vanderbilt University

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES--

MULTIMODALITY

Mediation: all social action is mediated action (Wertsch, 1991, 1998)

All communicational acts are constituted of and through the social (Norris, 2004)

Communication is orchestrated through participants‟ selection and combination of modes (Jewitt, 2009)

The meanings of multimodal resources are social, situated

HOW IS MMDA PRESENT IN LITERACY

RESEARCH/TEACHER EDUCATION RESEARCH?

Literacy

Wohlwend, 2007a,b,c; 2008a,b,c; 2010

Carrington, 2003

Literacy Teacher Education

Rogers & Mosley, 2008

MMDA THEORISTS/RESEARCHERS

Gunther Kress

Robert Hodge

Theo van Leeuwen

Ron Scollon

Sigrid Norris

Karen Wohlwend

Carey Jewitt

Rebecca Rogers

Melissa Mosley

METHODS

Entry point:

Viewing video clip without sound led to an analysis of

body positioning;

Questions: What event is Althea constructing?

What modes of communication/interaction does Althea recruit in the construction of this event?

How does Althea use multiple modes to perform a specific identity (identification) in this moment?

Tools: noticing language, gesture, body positioning,

material use

Organization of data: Chart with columns

DATA SOURCES I USED

Approximately 5 min of video around “polygamy”

Blog w/images

Reflection

PROCESS OF THIS ANALYST

Choices of the analyst:

Watch video without sound/with sound

Analyze each mode independently (Norris)

Interpret modes based on noticings across the 5 minute video

Small Group Task: We will watch the video in smaller segments to look at 5 modes together, then look across those noticings.

CDA

CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Amy Burke

Melody Zoch

The University of Texas at Austin

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

An interdisciplinary theory and method for

examining language and social practices (Rogers,

2004)

Concerned with discourse as an instrument of

social control as well as discourse as an instrument

of the social construction of reality (van Leeuwen,

1993, in Wodak & Meyer, 2001)

Came from the traditions of social theory (Foucault,

Marx, Bourdieu) and critical linguistics (Fowler &

Kress, 1979)

HOW IS CDA PRESENT IN LITERACY

RESEARCH/TEACHER EDUCATION RESEARCH?

Literacy research:

Family literacy (Rogers, 2002, 2004)

Third space and youth literacy (Gutierrez, 2006)

Critical policy analysis (Woodside-Jiron, 2003)

Classroom discourse (Jimenez, Smith, & Martinez-Leon, 2003)

High school readers (Rex, 2001)

Literacy Teacher Education Research

Learning to teach literacy in practicum (Mosley, 2010)

Inservice teachers and critical literacy instruction (Van Sluys, et al., 2006)

Teacher book clubs and racial literacy (Rogers & Mosley, 2008)

MAJOR THEORISTS: CDA IN LITERACY OR

LITERACY TEACHER EDUCATION RESEARCH

James Paul Gee (2004)

Norman Fairclough (1992)

Gunther Kress (2003)

Allan Luke (1995)

Rebecca Rogers (2004)

Hilary Janks (2010)

Leslie Burns & Ernest Morrell (2005)

DATA SOURCES TYPICALLY DRAWN UPON

Transcripts

Interactional classroom discourse

Interviews

Speeches

Written texts

Student artifacts

Curricular documents

Policy (district, state, federal)

OUR PROCESS

① Read transcript and watched video.

② Created idealized lines.

③ Transferred the transcript data into a chart with columns for idealized line number, classroom talk, and analytic notes.

④ Wrote analytic notes

⑤ Added three columns for: discourse, style, and genre

⑥ Refined initial coding (from step 4) into categories of discourse, style, and genre.

⑦ Developed larger categories based on patterns in the codes (from step 5).

CDA BREAKOUT SESSION

With a portion of the transcript we will:

Write analytic notes

Code for discourse, style, and genre

Look for larger patterns among initial codes

GEE’S BUILDING TASKS Elizabeth Years Stevens

Syracuse University

GEE‟S METHOD OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS USING

BUILDING TASKS

References in literacy research on teacher identity:

Assaf, L. C. (2005). Exploring identities in a reading

specialization program. Journal of Literacy Research, 37(2),

201-236.

Rainville, K. N., & Jones, S. (2008). Situated identities: Power

and positioning in the work of a literacy coach. The Reading

Teacher, 61(6), 440-448.

Resources for discourse analysis:

Gee, J. P. (1999/2005). An introduction to discourse analysis

theory and method. New York: Routledge.

Gee, J.P. (2011). How to do discourse analysis: A toolkit. New

York: Routledge.

MAJOR THEORIST

James Paul Gee, the Mary Lou Fulton Presidential

Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State

University

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Situated meaning

“Situated” means “grounded in actual practices or

experience” (Gee, 2005, p. 53)

Identity

“The „kind of person‟ one is recognized as „being‟ at a

given time and place” (Gee, 2000, p. 99).

discourse (little “d”)

Language-in-use

Discourse (big “D”)

“…distinctive ways of acting, interacting, valuing,

feeling, dressing, thinking, and believing” (Gee, 2011, p.

177).

DATA SOURCES

Typically drawn upon

Oral or

Written text

STEPS TAKEN BY THIS ANALYST

Entry points to the analysis

Althea‟s transcript and video analysis

Tools

Gee‟s 27 tools for analyzing discourse: These tools are

used to build a context of language in use, to study

grammatical features, to use the building tasks, and to

draw on theories about language and the world.

Organization of data

I printed and copied 27 copies of the transcript and

Althea's reflection and attempted to try out all 27 of

Gee's tools (one tool per copy). I wrote memos at the

end of each and then look for points of convergence

across the analysis.

PROCESS OF THIS ANALYST

Choices of this analyst

I decided to try to use all of Gee‟s 27 tools which is not

technically required.

I realized that my analysis is limited by my “situated

meaning”.

Small group task

We will engage in a collaborative analysis using Althea‟s

transcript and Gee‟s building task tools.

CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS Amy Vetter

University of North Carolina Greensboro

“Text is the way our taken-for-granted worlds

are discovered” (Schiffron, 1994, p. 278).

WHAT IS CONVERSATION ANALYSIS?

Conversation analysis (CA) is the study of talk in interaction (both verbal and non-verbal in situations of everyday life).

Attempts to describe the orderliness, structure and sequential patterns of interaction, whether institutional or in casual conversation.

Seeks to discover the methods by which members of society produce a sense of social order.

How language both creates and is created by social context.

Microanalytic: No detail of conversation is irrelevant.

CA AND RESEARCH

Michaels (1981): “Sharing time” study (differences in telling stories with diverse students) School appropriate narratives and what that means for

success in literacy classrooms

Cazden (1988) systems of conversation in schools are not universal.

Burbules (1993) states that in a single conversation students will apply different conversational genres to accomplish the work of reasoning.

Students help each other during early literacy lessons, managing multi-party talk (Davidson, 2008).

Students are adept at contributing to whole-class instructional talk driven by complex questions that teachers ask (Baker and Freebody,1993). How students construct knowledge through talk and

interactions.

HISTORY AND MAJOR THEORISTS

Began with sociologists (e.g., Harold Garfinkel) who

developed the approach known as

ethnomethodology

Participants continually engage in interpretive activity

as a way of seeking order and normalcy during the

course of their everyday conduct.

Applied to conversation by Harvey Sacks, Emanuel

Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson.

Detailed examination of recorded conversations so

as to describe the organization of everyday language

use and the social order that it revealed (Hutchby and

Wooffitt, 1998).

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Three basic assumptions that have informed the

work of CA researchers.

(1) interaction is structurally organized

(2) contributions to interaction are contextually oriented

(3) these two properties inhere in the details of

interaction so that no order of detail can be dismissed, a

priori, as disorderly, accidental or irrelevant. (Heritage,

1984: 241)

DATA DRAWN UPON

Transcriptions of recorded, naturally occurring

conversations.

Both casual and institutional

Nonverbal talk is important, thus transcription codes are

utilized during analysis (e.g., Gail Jefferson developed a

transcription system).

STEPS TAKEN: (REFER TO HANDOUT)

Adjacency pairs: Organized patterns of stable, recurrent actions that provide for and reflect order within conversation. They provide a normative framework for actions that is accountably implemented. They provide an environment in which inferences about relevance can be assigned across utterances and which meaning can be specified. Also reflect local nature of conversational structure. Question/answer; invitation/acceptance; Order/compliance

Preferred/Dispreferred: What happens when someone does or doesn‟t answer, accept, or comply.

Repair: Organization describes how parties in conversation deal with problems in speaking, hearing, or understanding (e.g. interruption). Repair is classified by who initiates repair (self or other) and by who resolves the problem (self or other) as well as by how it unfolds within a turn or a sequence of turns.

STEPS TAKEN

Transition Relevant Place: The floor is open for

speaker bids (speaker change). These can be

indicated by pauses, terminal pitch, utterance

syntax etc.

Next position: Speaker selects next speaker, next

speaker self-selects, or current speaker continues

Treatment of silence (lapse, gap, or pause)

PROCESS OF ANALYST: POSITIONAL IDENTITY

What does turn-taking, repairs, etc. say about how

she positioned herself as teacher at that moment?

About how she positioned her students?

About how students positioned her.

IF YOU WORKSHOP WITH THE CA GROUP, YOU

WILL…

Examine text using questions from CA (Johnstone,

2002).

Examine positional identities using text as evidence

(Davies & Harre, 1990).

Refer to chart on handout for more details.

Themes MMDA

CDA Gee CA

Teacher‟s Role

(Self-Positioning)

•Teacher is “between” the

students and the

knowledge

•Teacher focused on

finishing rather than

engaged in the moment

Banking model of

schooling

•Teacher as leader,

politeness, self as

expert

•Teacher is in

charge/has authority

•Teacher is focused

on building knowledge

through lines of

questioning

•Strives to be

recognized as a

person who…

•Content-driven

teacher identity

e.g. listener to

students

•Teacher-centered

identity

e.g. focused on her

plan

Students as… •Active (when there‟s a

concept to identify and

create a shared

identification with)

•Inactive (in relation to

what content that she

has to communicate and

record for them

Part of the same

culture

Receiving knowledge

•Having background

knowledge

•Sharing cultural

meanings with

teacher

•Acknowledges

comments that make

connections

•Ridicules comments

that are used to gain

social status or

engage in ways not in

her “plan” but on topic

Text as Holding information (the

board)

Subject of attention

(board, lesson plan)

Text as authority (how

you find the meaning

in text)

•Part of the Discourse

practices of high

school classrooms

n/a

Construction of

Culture;

•Position her + students

in opposition to African

culture

•Shared conceptions of

culture are assumed and

reinforced by gesture

•Culture is customs

that are ordered,

named, and rule-

oriented

•People are

separated by cultures

•Generalizations are

made about culture

•Only in terms of topic

shifts can we identify

what topics are

introduced, changed,

or maintained

MMDA

CDA Gee CA

Examples

of Tools

•Posture/body

position in

relation to

students

•Gesture

•Eye gaze

•Materials

e.g.

Who she is

engaging with;

the types of

gesture and

what it means

Genre

•Explaining

•Interjections

•Hypothetical

questions

•Ask questions

Discourse

•See table 1

e.g. text as

authority

Style

•See table 1

e.g.

positioning

•Authority

•Topics/gram

mar of

questions

•Directives

•Patterns of

Interaction

•Open/closed

questions

•Adjacent

pairs e.g. IRE

•Overlaps

•Transition

•Turn order

•New topics

•Distribution

of turns

•Repair

AFFORDANCES

MMDA: Scollon (2001) wrote that mediated discourse

analysis (not discussed in this session) takes the

emphasis from the social issue (in CDA) to an emphasis

on the social action (event)

CDA linked social issue to the social event, unveiling

connections between conceptions of culture, positioning,

and discursive tools

Gee‟s method helps us to build these layers of meaning

about context by posing questions that relate to the

grammar and meanings “hidden” in the discourse

CA looks carefully at the turns-at-talk and the function of

those without asking questions about context,

relationships, or “hidden” understandings

PUZZLES

Deconstructive/reconstructive discourse analysis: In

what ways can each of these analyses become

reconstructive?

What moments do each analyst reveal that are

entry points for teacher educators, facilitators, or

researchers?

What is productive and unproductive about viewing

the same data source using different

theoretical/methodological lenses?