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Kamis, 15 April 2010

Discourse Analysis

Doing Analysis Uses Discourse Analysis: A Critique of Six Analytic
1. Introduction
As the discursive turn has grown, there has been a proliferation of forms of discourse analysis. The geography of the discourse terrain is complex, with widely disparate assumptions being made about fundamental topics such as method, theory, the nature of discourse, the nature of cognition, and the nature of social structure. Those using discourse analyses must take analysis seriously for there are basic requirements for analysis, regardless of the particular type of analysis one undertakes.
All of these have positive things to say about doing analysis. But they leave implicit what is not analysis. That is what we want to make explicit in this paper.
2. Well- and poorly-founded criticism of analysis
There are basically two reasons. The first is that discourse analysis still can be misunderstood by those who have been schooled in quantitative analysis. It might appear to quantitative researchers that 'anything goes' in qualitative work in general, and discourse analysis in particular. The second reason is that work continues to be produced; submitted to journals and sometimes published that embodies basic problems.
Under these circumstances, it is important to make a statement that reiterates and emphasizes the analytic basis to discursive studies. Such a statement might have value for those who are learning the trade. We have collected together six such non-analyses: (1) under-analysis through summary; (2) under-analysis through taking sides; (3) under-analysis through over-quotation or through isolated quotation; (4) the circular identification of discourses and mental constructs; (5) false survey; and (6) analysis that consists in simply spotting features.
3. An extract to work through with examples of non-analysis
Discourse analysis can be performed on a wide variety of talk and text. For convenience we reproduce an extract from an interview. The extract is part of a set of interviews generated in a research project, and written permission has been given to use it for research and teaching purposes.
4. Under-Analysis through Summary
Qualitative analyses share something important with quantitative analyses in that they both want to do something with the data. Neither is content merely to lay the data out flat. A quantitative researcher who merely presents the raw data from subjects in an experiment without putting it to some sort of statistical testing would hardly be said to have analyzed it. So it is with qualitative data.
5. Under-Analysis through Taking Sides
Under-Analysis by Taking Sides can produce a flattening of the discursive complexity, as the analyst selects quotations for the rhetorical effect of appealing to the readers as co-sympathizers or co-scolders. The result is enlistment, not analysis.
6. Under-Analysis through Over-Quotation or Isolated Quotation
Under-Analysis through Over-Quotation is often revealed by a low ratio of analyst's comments to data extracts.
More typically, Under-Analysis through Over-Quotation is liable to occur when the analyst is piecing together responses from different speakers. For instance, the analyst might wish to show that a number of interviewees had responses rather like the one in our extract. Selective quotation from such respondents might be given.
In addition to Under-Analysis by Over-Quotation is the related error of snipping out a single quote and allowing it to 'stand for itself' as if it required no further comment. This is Under-Analysis through Isolated Quotation. An author might feel that their argument can be illuminated by a quote from their respondent or from the textual source they are working on. At best, this may be a rhetorically powerful embellishment of an analysis done elsewhere; but Under-Analysis through Isolated Quotation is not itself analysis.
7. The Circular Discovery of (a) Discourses and (b) Mental Constructs
Van Dijk still analyses discourse as discourse. He does not see discourse simply as a means of discovering cognitive structures or mental representations, nor does he see the cognitive structures or mental representations as producing the discourses. Even though that is closer to our own take on the psychological nature of discourse. By contrast, merely to state that the speaker is expressing their beliefs is either to risk under-analysis through summarizing or making the circular discovery of an inner belief.
8. Under-Analysis through False Survey
There is a danger of extrapolating from one's data to the world at large. This error is not unknown in quantitative research, of course. The same danger of False Survey lurks for qualitative work that discovers that certain respondents use certain discourses or ways of speaking. It is fatally easy to slip into treating one's findings as if they were true of all members of the category in which one has cast one's respondents. Probably few discourse analysts want or intend explicitly to be reporting surveys; but without care, their reports may give that impression. Such a fault makes the work an easy target for the quantitatively-minded, which will properly see it as failing to supply appropriate evidence for its claims. If a survey is wanted, survey tools must be used.
9. Under-Analysis through Spotting
If discourse analysis demands an attention to the details of utterances, this does not mean that all such attention qualifies as satisfactory discourse analysis. Analyses provided by discursive, conversation and critical discourse analysts have, over the past twenty-five years, noticed and labeled a wide variety of conversational and rhetorical procedures. Anyone engaging in these sorts of analyses should properly acquaint himself or herself with such work. They should be able to recognize these conversational features in data extracts. The same is true of rhetorical tropes in printed persuasive materials and so on.
An analysis that consisted primarily of such spotting would not count as original research. It would be like a training exercise in running a well-known illusion such as the Müller-Lyer or administering a well-established personality test. Original analysis should seek to show how established discursive devices are used, in new sets of material, to manage the speakers' interactional business.
10. Concluding Comments
We hope we have shown the difference between something that is discourse analysis - of whatever sort -and something that is not. Writers are not doing analysis if they summarize, if they take sides, if they parade quotes, or if they simply spot in their data features of talk or text that are already well-known. Nor are they doing analysis if their discovery of discourses, or mental constructs, is circular, or if they unconsciously treat their findings as surveys.

Discourse Analysis
An Assignment about journal summary

Lecturer
Atik Rokhayani, M.Pd




Arranged by :
Abdussalam
(2007-32-244)



ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY
MURIA KUDUS UNIVERSITY
2010

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