Power

I would like to start my post with a question. In Wootfit chapter, it is stated that significant price reduction is a cultural convention. What I understood is that this is discourse analysts’ perspective. Is this right? If so, how can these two related to each other? And also how can a “laughter” be an evidence of significant price reduction? I am asking these questions because they seem very important for those who are interested in discourse analysis. It was really interesting me to learn something from my life in Turkey has meaning. When we go outside for shopping, my mother usually intend to see what happens when some people gather around something. She says that there should be something interesting and cheaper there. This situation is part of our daily life,  but after I read it is a common practice among market pitchers, I thought even these kinds of situations should have meaning. I am wondering if it is just a result of observations or discourse analysis or maybe conversation analysis because Clark and Pitch approached to selling as interactional achievement rather than economic acts. Clark and Pitch is demonstrated this interaction’s outcome as power. So, if the outcome of the interaction is power, what is relationship between power and discourse? Because we are trying to construct meaning from interactions. Therefore, I think discourse should also be an outcome of interactions. Also, according to Jorgensen and Phillips, “most discourse analysts (and probably most researchers in general) would like to contribute, through their research, to changing the world for the better.”  However, I am wondering how discourse analysis research may contribute to practice in life or to practical life? For example, when I conduct a research on technology integration in Turkey, I can recommend something to the Turkish Government to improve technology integration process. I am wondering what kinds of contribution that discourse analysis makes in practice. Finally, I am wondering the relationship between reality and discourse. Is there anything that is discourse but not real?

Week 6 Reflection

Hello,

 would like to start from “factual discourse”. It is defined and explained in the Woofit chapter 5. However, I would like to start asking “what is the exact place of factuality and authority in discourse analysis?” I mean that when we conduct discourse analysis, what is the importance of factual discourses for our analysis? I am struggling to understand this point. I liked the example that Wootfit provides us. Gender, occupation, marital status and religion can be used to refer a person. Therefore, they offer factual references. I can understand that these are important for discourse analysis, but I think they have lack of true meaning as indicated in the context of rhetorical psychology.

In terms of Wiggins paper, I really liked reading it. I was interesting to see an analysis which include about 200 hours video and audio record. I know there is no need for coding everything, but it is important to transcribe all the records, isn’t it? At this point, I have the question of whether or not we need member checking for the gestures that are indicated in the transcripts. If we interpret gestures and try to construct meaning from them, how can we make sure we do it correctly?

My other concern is that discursive psychology (DP). I know it is related to cognitive processes, but I did not see a concrete explanation of it. Or I might missed the point. What is DP? Is it a paradigm, a theoretical framework, a research field, or another concept?

Week 5 Reflection

Hello,

This week was the first time for me to see that everything is not discourse. Maybe, I am wrong but in Jorgensen and Phillips chapter, there was an example of bridge. Building a bridge is only a physical action and does not include any discursive action. On the other hand, there was an example of schools and other social institutions in Luke’s paper. I just want to make sure that although schools and other significant institutions are also physical buildings, they are kinds of social contexts for human beings. That’s why they are identified as discourse or “constituted by discursive relations”. Also, as indicated in Luke paper, it makes sense to me that we should approach to the texts or interview data skeptically, which is one of methodological contribution of Faucault’s poststructuralism, to better understand the discourse. However, to what extent do we need to be skeptical? I think it will be very hard to conduct discourse analysis if we treat very skeptical. It will be very helpful to a little bit focus on this question because I think it is very important.

Also, I realized that I was arguing with myself to understand what the easiest way of understanding discourse. I think that the main point which makes me confused has been that the discourse is both constitutive and constituted, which is the perspective critical discourse theory. However, I don’t think there is something wrong with me because when we look at the history of discourse theory, there has been difference within the discursive actions of discourse theory. For example, Laclau and Mouffe stated all social practice as discourse while Fairclough limited discourse to semiotic systems such as language and images as indicated in Jorgensen and Phillips chapter. On the other hand, one important common point or concept of discourse analysis is “construction”. Even if some limits the scope of discourse, there should be a social action to construct meaning within the discourse analysis. I have another question at this point: I can understand how texts are important as Luke indicated, but what does Luke mean with “texts position and construct individuals”?

I would like to comment a little bit on Vasconcelos article. When I read the article, I thought it will be discourse analysis paper which includes interviews. However, after reading the research questions, I thought that the questions cannot be answered by only interviews. It seems to me that the study looks very strong in terms of methodology and data collection tools. Furthermore, it is not usual to encounter with a study which has more than one theoretical or conceptual framework in my field of IST. Vasconcelos study is strong in terms of both methodology and theoretical framework. I think it can help us to see how it is possible to emerge different methodical perspectives, including discourse analysis.

 

Thanks 

Week4: Illustration of Discourse Process

Hello,


While I was reading this week papers, especially Jorgensen and

Phillips chapter, I tried to illustrate discourse process with all the

parts and constructs. I will share with you all below. However, I

first want to what I have learned from this week readings.

•  Structuralism is "the theory that elements of human culture must be understood in terms of their relationship to a larger, overarching system or structure."
• Marxism is "a worldview and method of societal analysis that focuses on class relations and societal conflicts."

Laclau and Mouffe developed their discourse theory in regard to combination and modification of those two "theoretical traditions." Actually, I am wondering whether or not "Marxism"  is a theory. I mean that what is the relationship between worldview and theory? It is also interesting to me that someone who has political theorist background are interested in discourse theory. I am wondering if we can discuss this issue. Also, in what fields is discourse analysis is more popular? Furthermore, Laclau and Mouffe are interested in Marxism. How is Marxism related to Discourse Theory? I think this week class will help me to understand these issues. It was really interesting to me the issue of fixation for different signs. It really makes sense to me that we usually intend to fix the meaning of signs trying to relate them to other signs. This point is important because according to discourse theory, we cannot ultimately fix the meanings, where the discourse analysis start appearing. Now, I would like to share my illustration of constructs in regard to discourse analysis.

 

 

According to the picture above, everything in discourse is signs (moments) that acquire their meanings from the nodal points around discourse since we try to relate the signs to other nodal points. Therefore, I indicated the nodal points around discourse as "yellow circles". If we try to fix the meaning of a sign but we do not succeed, and if we are not sure where to put a sign (i.e. into medical treatment or alternative treatment), the construct is called as "floating signifiers", which are triangles with red color. Those floating signifiers are also nodal points. Therefore, our purpose is to make a relationship between those nodal points. This attempt is called as "articulation" which is shown as two ways green arrow in the picture. On the other hand, if we are sure that the meaning of a sign is not related to any nodal points in discourse that means if the discourse excludes any signs, those signs are called as "elements" within the category of "the field of discursivity". I think this is my understanding, but I really would like to hear from you all and discuss in the class on Wednesday. Maybe, I am wrong, or we need to change the picture.

 

Finally, I have some questions:

 

1. Can we say that if we are doing discourse analysis, we are going to have only one meaning for a sign, and the other possible meanings can be categorized into the field of discursivity?

 

2. Also, I am not sure what does "the discourse can never be so completely fixed" (pg. 28) mean? What I understood is that in order to be able to call a sign as "discourse", we first have to fixed the meaning.

 

Thanks,