Discourse Analysis

This chapter (a) presents discourse analysis as both epistemology and methodology; (b) suggests a sociolinguistic toolkit that could be used as one type of approach to conducting discourse analysis; (c) reviews and points to literature in music education and music therapy that have used such epistemological and methodological tools; and (d) suggests that, by engaging with discourse analysis, we can begin to ask questions about participants and their interactions within environments where music therapists operate and analyze prevailing discourses within structures and systems of music therapy. [excerpt

Discourse analysis

Discourse analysis is an umbrella term for a range of methodological approaches that analyse the use and functions of talk and text within social interaction. These approaches are used across social science disciplines such as psychology, sociology, linguistics, anthropology and communication studies. Discourse analysis is interdisciplinary in nature, developed from work within speech act theory, ethnomethodology and semiology as well as post-structuralist theorists such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, and the later works of philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. Discourse analysis approaches are crucial for understanding human relationships because they focus primarily on interaction: how we talk to each other and the discursive practices (talking, writing) through which relationships develop, fall apart and so on. This entry covers central features of discourse analysis, methodological issues and some of the most commonly used versions of discourse analysis

Analysing children's accounts using discourse analysis

Discourse analytic approaches to research depart from understandings of the individual and of the relation between language and knowledge provided by positivist and post-positivist approaches. This chapter sets out to show what this might mean for studying children’s experiences through, for example, interview-based research, and how a discourse analytic approach may bring into play conceptual resources that are particularly valuable for research with children. First and foremost, discursive approaches highlight the interpretive nature of any research, not only that with children. As a consequence, they challenge the conventional distinction between data collection and analysis, question the status of research accounts and encourage us to question taken-for-granted assumptions about distinctions between adults and children. Hence our emphasis in this chapter is on the active and subjective involvement of researchers in hearing, interpreting and representing children’s ‘voices’

Analyzing equivalalences in discourse: are discourse theory and membership categorization analysis comptatible

Facing a crucial leap from political philosophy to empirical analysis, the approach to discourse analysis that arose in the aftermath of Laclau and Mouffe (1985), and that is currently known as the Essex school of discourse theory (DT), has in recent years repeatedly been accused of suffering from a methodological deficit. This paper examines to what extent membership categorization analysis (MCA), a branch of ethnomethodology that investigates lay actors' situated descriptions-in-context as practical activity, can play a part in rendering poststructuralist DT notions such as articulation and equivalence analytically tangible in empirically observable discourse. Based on a review of Laclau and Mouffe's foundational text as well as on Glynos and Howarth's recent exposition of the framework (2007), it is argued that MCA empirically substantiates many poststructuralist claims about the indeterminacy of signification. However, MCA consistently falters - and willingly so - at the point where DT would articulate emerging equivalences between identity categories as part of a second-order explanatory concept, such as Glynos and Howarth’s notion of political logic. Nevertheless, MCA also contains the kernel of an "endogenous" notion of the political that comes fairly close to DT’s all-pervasive understanding of the concept. To support these arguments, a variety of empirical sources are mobilized, ranging from the transcript of a political talk show, a newspaper report regarding a discrimination case in a dance class, to data drawn from earlier research on the way that minority members are treated by the Belgian criminal justice system

Better Document-level Sentiment Analysis from RST Discourse Parsing

Discourse structure is the hidden link between surface features and document-level properties, such as sentiment polarity. We show that the discourse analyses produced by Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) parsers can improve document-level sentiment analysis, via composition of local information up the discourse tree. First, we show that reweighting discourse units according to their position in a dependency representation of the rhetorical structure can yield substantial improvements on lexicon-based sentiment analysis. Next, we present a recursive neural network over the RST structure, which offers significant improvements over classification-based methods.Comment: Published at Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP 2015

Using the technology of the confessional as an analytical resource: four analytical stances towards research interviews in discourse analysis

Among the various approaches that have developed from FOUCAULT's work is an Anglophone discourse analysis that has attempted to combine Foucaultian insights with the techniques of Conversation Analysis. An important current methodological issue in this discourse analytical approach is its theoretical preference for "naturally occurring" rather than research interview data. A Foucaultian perspective on the interview as a research instrument, questions the idea of "naturally-occurring discourse". The "technology of the confessional" operates, not only within research interviews, but permeates other interactions as well. Drawing on FOUCAULT does not dismiss the problems of the interview as research instrument rather it shows they cannot be escaped by simply switching to more "natural" interactions. Combining these insights with recent developments within discourse analysis can provide analytical resources for, rather than barriers to, the discourse analysis of research interviews. To aid such an approach, we develop a four-way categorisation of analytical stances towards the research interview in discourse analysis. A demonstration of how a research interview might be subjected to a discourse analysis using elements of this approach is then provided

Comparison Between Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis From Linguistics View

Tulisan ini membahas tentang perbandingan analisis wacana dan analisis wacana kritis. Hal ini dianggap penting, karena penggunaan istilah ini sudah sangat umum digunakan oleh seluruh lapisan masyarakat dan dalam berbagai macam aktivitas. Demikian pula, dari segi keilmuan, analisis wacana telah ditempatkan sebagai salah satu mata kuliah di beberapa perguruan tinggi. Oleh karena itu, tulisan ini diharapkan mampu memberikan pemahaman yang jelas mengenai analisis wacana. Selain itu, dipaparkan pula perbandingan analisis wacana dan analisis wacana kritis, serta teori-teori yang digunakan dalam analisis tersebut   This paper discusses  the comparative of Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis. It is considered important because the term has been used by public and in many kinds of activities. Such as, in a scientific field.  Discourse Analysis had been placed as one of the subjects at few universities. Therefore, this paper is expected to be able to give clear understanding and comprehension about Discourse Analysis. Besides, it is also explained about the comparative between Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis from a different side, and the theories are applied in the analysis.    &nbsp