The Bloomsbury Handbook of Discourse Analysis 9781350156081, 9781350156111, 9781350156098

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction Ken Hyland, Brian Paltridge and Lillian L.C. Wong
Part I Approaches to Discourse Analysis
1 Data collection and transcription in discourse analysis: A technological history Rodney H. Jones
2 Conversation analysis Hansun Zhang Waring
3 Critical discourse studies Ruth Wodak
4 Genre analysis Christine M. Tardy
5 Narrative analysis Mike Baynham
6 Systemic functional linguistics J R Martin
7 Corpus-based discourse analysis Bethany Gray and Douglas Biber
Part II Areas of Research
8 Spoken discourse Rebecca Hughes
9 Academic discourse Ken Hyland
10 Researching workplace discourse Janet Holmes
11 News discourse Roberta Facchinetti
12 Discourse and intercultural communication Carolin Debray and Helen Spencer-Oatey
13 Discourse and gender Paul Baker
14 Discourse and race Angel M. Y. Lin and Ryuko Kubota
15 Classroom discourse Steve Walsh
16 Discourse and politeness Michael Haugh
Part III New Directions in Discourse Analysis
17 Discourse analysis and ethnography Dwight Atkinson, Hanako Okada and Steven Talmy
18 Multimodal discourse analysis Kay L. O’Halloran
19 Discourse and English as a lingua franca Barbara Seidlhofer
20 Discourse and computer-mediated communication Christoph A. Hafner
21 Discourse and social media Michele Zappavigna
22 Discourse and identity Lisa J. McEntee-Atalianis
23 Medical discourse Timothy Halkowski
24 Forensic discourse analysis: A work in progress John Olsson
25 Discourse and ageing Virpi Ylänne
Glossary
Index

Citation preview

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Also available from Bloomsbury An Introduction to Conversation Analysis, by Anthony J. Liddicoat An Introduction to Interaction, by Angela Cora Garcia Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies, edited by Christopher Hart and Piotr Cap Discourse Analysis, by Brian Paltridge

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS SECOND EDITION

Edited by Ken Hyland, Brian Paltridge and Lillian L.C. Wong

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2021 This edition published 2021 Copyright © Ken Hyland, Brian Paltridge, Lillian L.C. Wong and Contributors, 2021 Ken Hyland, Brian Paltridge, Lillian L.C. Wong have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xv constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image: Rice paddy terracing in Yuanyang County in south Eastern Yunnan province, China © Thitisak Mongkonnipat All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The editors and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hyland, Ken, editor. | Paltridge, Brian, editor. | Wong, Lillian L. C., 1970- editor. Title: The Bloomsbury handbook of discourse analysis / Ken Hyland, Brian Paltridge and Lillian Wong. Other titles: Bloomsbury companion to discourse analysis. Description: Second Edition. | New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. | Series: Bloomsbury handbooks | “First published in Great Britain 2011.” | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2021004915 (print) | LCCN 2021004916 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350156081 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350156098 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350156104 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Discourse analysis. Classification: LCC P302 .B567 2021 (print) | LCC P302 (ebook) | DDC 401/.41–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021004915 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021004916 ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-5608-1 ePDF: 978-1-3501-5609-8 eBook: 978-1-3501-5610-4 Series: Bloomsbury Handbooks Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

L ist

of

F igures 

vii

L ist

of

T ables 

ix

N otes

on

C ontributors 

A cknowledgements  Introduction Ken Hyland, Brian Paltridge and Lillian L.C. Wong

x xv 1

Part I  Approaches to Discourse Analysis 1 Data collection and transcription in discourse analysis: A technological history Rodney H. Jones

9

2 Conversation analysis Hansun Zhang Waring

21

3 Critical discourse studies Ruth Wodak

35

4 Genre analysis Christine M. Tardy

51

5 Narrative analysis Mike Baynham

65

6 Systemic functional linguistics J R Martin

79

7 Corpus-based discourse analysis Bethany Gray and Douglas Biber

97

Part II  Areas of Research 8 Spoken discourse Rebecca Hughes

113

9 Academic discourse Ken Hyland

125

10 Researching workplace discourse Janet Holmes

139

vi

CONTENTS

11 News discourse Roberta Facchinetti

153

12 Discourse and intercultural communication Carolin Debray and Helen Spencer-Oatey

167

13 Discourse and gender Paul Baker

181

14 Discourse and race Angel M. Y. Lin and Ryuko Kubota

193

15 Classroom discourse Steve Walsh

207

16 Discourse and politeness Michael Haugh

219

Part III  New Directions in Discourse Analysis 17 Discourse analysis and ethnography Dwight Atkinson, Hanako Okada and Steven Talmy

235

18 Multimodal discourse analysis Kay L. O’Halloran

249

19 Discourse and English as a lingua franca Barbara Seidlhofer

267

20 Discourse and computer-mediated communication Christoph A. Hafner

281

21 Discourse and social media Michele Zappavigna

295

22 Discourse and identity Lisa J. McEntee-Atalianis

311

23 Medical discourse Timothy Halkowski

323

24 Forensic discourse analysis: A work in progress John Olsson

335

25 Discourse and ageing Virpi Ylänne

347

G lossary 

360

I ndex 

364

LIST OF FIGURES

2.1

Three response formats

29

3.1

‘We are cleansing Graz’ say Peter Westenthaler and Gerald Grosz, from the BZÖ – formerly part of the FPÖ, which split 2005 into FPÖ and BZÖ. They are cleansing Graz of ‘corruption, asylum abuse, beggars, and criminality by foreigners’

41

Wojciech V., serial car thief, states: ‘Do not vote for the BZÖ because I would like to continue with my business dealings’

42

Amir Z, asylum seeker and drug dealer, states: ‘Please do not vote for the BZÖ so that I can continue with my business dealings’

42

6.1

Basic SFL parameters – stratification and metafunction

80

6.2

Language strata in relation to social context (stratified as register and genre)

80

6.3

GW Living Modern Guru column (15 November 2008)

82

6.4

Connexion relations (imp = implicit, exp = explicit; i.e. = reformulation, caus = causal, cond = conditional, add = additive, alt = alternative. succ = succeeding, prec = preceding)

85

3.2 3.3

6.5

The hierarchy of instantiation – sub-potentialization in relation to system use 92

6.6

Individuation and affiliation

93

6.7

Realization, instantiation and individuation in relation to genesis

93

7.1

Common dependent clause types (from Biber and Gray 2010)

104

7.2

Common dependent phrasal types (from Biber and Gray 2010)

105

9.1

Key resources of academic interaction

133

18.1 Systemic networks for gaze and kinetic action vectors (Tan 2005: 45)

255

18.2 Tony Abbot’s use of Tone 4 (Halliday and Greaves 2008) in ‘It IS…’ (Image produced using Praat software)

257

18.3a The change of field from legal issue to political issue

258

18.3b Gaze and gesture

258

viii

LIST OF FIGURES

18.3c Body posture

258

18.4 Camera: Visual frame

260

18.5 Multimodal analysis of the Q&A video segment

260

18.6a Tony Abbott: ‘Ah, yes it IS … ’

261

18.6b Tony Abbott: ‘… is a pretty worrying sign’

261

18.7 Q&A website: Adventures in democracy: ‘Tony, Tanya and Bob’2

262

21.1 An example of an Instagram image, Source: https://www.instagram.com/ p/BxPhQm8AQy4/

296

LIST OF TABLES

3.1 List of prevailing topoi

44

4.1 Common rhetorical moves in project summary corpus

58

4.2 Frequency of common rhetorical moves (n=20)

59

6.1 Metafunction/stratum matrix of English resources for text analysis

81

6.2 Identification chains

84

6.3 Extended reference

84

7.1 Grammatical features associated with structural elaboration

102

7.2 Grammatical features associated with structural compression

103

9.1 Selected features in research articles and textbooks (Hyland 2017)

130

9.2 Interactive features (per 1,000 words)

133

11.1 Number of blogs, posts and tokens retrieved

160

11.2 Frequency/10000 of see, know and think

161

11.3 Frequency of first- and second-person pronouns/10,000 words

162

12.1 Strategies for mutual understanding

171

14.1 The collective attribute structures of Chinese and Japanese in the storyline discursively constructed in the weblog messages

202

16.1 Different analyses of the same interactional event

222

16.2 Occurrences of considerate and inconsiderate in GloWbE (Haugh 2019: 219)

227

16.3 Comparison of actions accomplished through mentions of inconsiderate in Australian and New Zealand subsets of GloWbE (Haugh 2019: 221)

228

18.1 Camera angle, camera movement and visual frame (Tan 2009: 179)

256

18.2 Multimodal analysis of ‘leaked cabinet documents’ (Q&A Session, ABC Thursday, 29 May 2008)

256

21.1 Types of intersubjective relations possible with selfies, adapted from Zappavigna and Zhao (2020)

302–303

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Dwight Atkinson currently teaches applied linguistics at the University of Arizona and studies sociocognitive approaches to second language acquisition/use, natural pedagogy, second language writing and qualitative research approaches. Recent publications appear in TESOL Quarterly, Modern Language Journal and Journal of Second Language Writing. Paul Baker is Professor of English Language at Lancaster University. He has written twenty books on a range of topics, including discourse analysis and corpus linguistics. He is Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and commissioning editor of the journal Corpora. His book Fabulosa: The Story of Polari: Britain’s Secret Gay Language was a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2019. Mike Baynham is Emeritus Professor of TESOL at the University of Leeds and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He was co-convener of the AILA Research Networks on Literacy and Language and Migration and is a past chair of the British Association for Applied Linguistics. He has a lifelong research interest and numerous publications in oral narrative and migration beginning with his PhD on Narrative in the English of a First Generation Migrant Community. He is currently researching queer asylum stories. Douglas Biber is Regents’ Professor of English (Applied Linguistics) at Northern Arizona University. His research focuses on corpus linguistics, English grammar and register variation. He has published over 230 research articles and 23 books. He is widely known for his work on the corpus-based Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999) and for the development of ‘Multi-Dimensional Analysis’ in books published by Cambridge University Press. More recently, he has co-authored monographs on grammatical complexity in written academic English and register variation on the web. Carolin Debray is a lecturer at the Institute of Intercultural Communication at the University of Hildesheim, Germany, which she joined after working as a Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick where she has also obtained her PhD. Her main research interests are in interpersonal and intercultural pragmatics, workplace and team communication, where she focuses on positive relations as well as on power, conflict and marginalisation in interactions. Roberta Facchinetti is Professor of English at the University of Verona, Italy. Her research interests, which are supported by the use of computerized corpora of both synchronic and diachronic English, focus mainly on media linguistics, history of English and ESP. On these subjects she has authored, co-authored and edited various books, articles and special issues of journals. She is also an editorial board member of international journals and serves as a reviewer for scientific publications.

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

xi

Bethany Gray is Associate Professor of English at Iowa State University. Her research applies corpus-based approaches to register variation, grammar/lexico-grammar and disciplinary variation in academic writing. Her work has appeared in Applied Linguistics, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics and Written Communication, among others. She is co-founding editor of Register Studies. Her books include Linguistic Variation in Research Articles and Grammatical Complexity in Academic English: Linguistic Change in Writing (with D. Biber). Christoph A. Hafner is Associate Professor in the Department of English, City University of Hong Kong. He is President of the Asia-Pacific LSP & Professional Communication Association and past President of the Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics. His current projects investigate digital multimodal pedagogies in language education and second language socialization of law students in Hong Kong. His latest book, Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction (2nd edition, with Rodney Jones), is published with Routledge (2021). Timothy Halkowski, PhD, is Professor in the School of Health Sciences and Wellness at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. His research has focused on the interactional accomplishment of coherence in aphasic discourse, and how patients convey themselves to be reasonable reporters of their physical symptoms. Currently he is researching the quantification of tobacco and alcohol use in doctor–patient discourse, and the features of ‘tele-rehab’ interactions in physical therapy. He has served as a grant reviewer for the N.I.H. Michael Haugh is Professor of Linguistics in the School of Languages and Cultures at the University of Queensland. He is interested in the role language plays in social interaction. He has published widely on (im)politeness, including books on Im/politeness Implicatures (2015) and Understanding Politeness (2013 with D. Kádár). Janet Holmes is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics and Associate Director of the Language in the Workplace Project (www.victoria.ac.nz/lwp/) at Victoria University of Wellington. She has published on many aspects of workplace discourse and language and gender. With her research team, she is currently investigating the discourse of skilled migrants in New Zealand workplaces in order to assist in programmes aimed at improving their employment prospects. The team is also exploring issues of unconscious bias in a range of workplace contexts. Rebecca Hughes is Chief Officer for Learning and Teaching for the International Baccalaureate Organisation and holds an Honorary Professorship of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham. Rebecca was Global Head of Education at the British Council and Professor and Director of the Centre for English Language Education at Nottingham University. She was the first Pro-Vice Chancellor (International) at the University of Sheffield and led an international project on the Globalisation of Higher Education and Research. She has published widely in spoken language. Ken Hyland is Professor of Applied Linguistics in education at the University of East Anglia. He was previously a Professor at UCL/IOE and the University of Hong Kong. He has published 240+ articles and 28 books on writing and academic discourse with over 58,000 citations on Google Scholar. A collection of his work was published as

xii

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

The Essential Hyland (2018). He was founding co-editor of the Journal of English for Academic Purposes and was co-editor of Applied Linguistics. Rodney H. Jones is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Reading. His research interests include language and digital media, surveillance and health communication. He is co-author (with Christoph Hafner) of Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction (2nd edn) (2021). Ryuko Kubota is Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at University of British Columbia, where she teaches applied linguistics and teacher education. Her research draws on critical approaches to language education, focusing on race, gender, culture and language ideologies. Her work has been published in journals, such as Applied Linguistics, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Journal of Second Language Writing, TESOL Quarterly and World Englishes, and in many edited books. Angel M. Y. Lin is Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Plurilingual and Intercultural Education in the Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University, Canada. She is well respected for her interdisciplinary research in critical discourse analysis, classroom interaction analysis, plurilingual education, and language policy and planning in postcolonial contexts. J. R. Martin is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney and Deputy Director of its LCT Centre for Knowledge-Building. His research interests include systemic theory, functional grammar, discourse semantics, register, genre, multimodality and critical discourse analysis, focusing on English, Tagálog, Korean and Spanish – and applications in educational linguistics, forensic linguistics and social semiotics. Professor Martin is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and Director of the Martin Centre for Appliable Linguistics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Lisa McEntee-Atalianis is Head of Department and Reader in Applied Linguistics at Birkbeck, University of London. Her research focuses on issues of ‘identity’ at microand macro-discursive levels, as evidenced in her recent book, Identity in Applied Linguistics Research (2019), and publications in chapters and journals such as Critical Discourse Studies, Discourse & Communication, Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development and Narrative Inquiry. Her research has focussed on different communities and sites, for example, ethnic communities; workplace/organisational and regional (European) identities. Kay O’Halloran is Chair Professor in the Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool. Her research field is multimodal analysis, involving the study of the interaction of language with other resources in texts, interactions and events. A key focus of her work is the development of digital tools and techniques for multimodal analysis. She is currently developing mixed methods approaches that combine multimodal analysis, data mining and visualization for big data analytics of online media. Hanako Okada is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. Her academic interests are in situated qualitative research, illness narratives

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

xiii

and other reflective personal narratives, multilingual identities and sociocognitive approaches to second language acquisition. She has published in the Modern Language Journal and in edited volumes such as Language, Body, and Health and Doing Research in Applied Linguistics. John Olsson, PhD, is Lecturer at Bangor University Law School and an internationally recognized forensic linguist who has given evidence in court rooms around the world, including the United States, Australia, Canada, Singapore and the UK. His main speciality is the authorship of anonymous documents, such as hoax letters, product contamination threats and kidnap and other ransom demands. He is the author of Forensic Linguistics and Wordcrime. Brian Paltridge is Visitor Professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong and Professor of TESOL at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Discourse Analysis: An Introduction (3rd edn) (2021), The Discourse of Peer Review (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) and with Sue Starfield, Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language (2nd edn, 2020) and Getting Published in Academic Journals (2016). Helen Spencer-Oatey is Professor of Applied Linguistics/Intercultural Communication at the University of Warwick, UK. Her main research interests are in intercultural interaction in university and workplace contexts, especially the management of relations. She has published extensively in these areas, including the following books: Culturally Speaking (2000, 2008), Handbook of Intercultural Communication (with Kotthoff, 2007), Intercultural Interaction (with Franklin, 2009) and Intercultural Politeness (with Kádár, 2021). Barbara Seidlhofer is Professor of English and Applied Linguistics at the University of Vienna. Her research and teaching focus on English as a lingua franca, transcultural communication, and sociolinguistics and pragmatics more generally. Barbara Seidlhofer is the founding Director of the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) and author of Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. She is past editor of the International Journal of Applied Linguistics and founding editor of the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca. Steven Talmy is Associate Professor in the Department of Language & Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. His research has focused on K-12 English language learning in North America, investigating language and its constitutive relationships to power, social identity, cultural production and cultural/social reproduction in public school ESL/ELL classrooms. Christine Tardy is Professor of English Applied Linguistics at the University of Arizona, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in TESOL, applied linguistics and writing. Her primary research interests include genre and discourse studies, second language writing, academic writing, and policies and politics of English. Her work appears in numerous journals and edited collections. Her most recent book, Genre-Based Writing: What Every ESL Teacher Should Know, is published with the University of Michigan Press.

xiv

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Steve Walsh is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Communication in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, UK and Visiting Research professor at the University of Hong Kong. He has worked in English-language teacher education for more than twenty years, and his research focuses on classroom discourse, teacher development, second language teacher education, professional development and communication. His current research focuses on online pedagogic interactions and scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education. Hansun Zhang Waring is Associate Professor of Linguistics and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University and founder of The Language and Social Interaction Working Group (LANSI). Her books include Theorizing Pedagogical Interaction: Insights from Conversation Analysis (2016), Discourse Analysis: The Questions Discourse Analysts Ask and How They Answer Them (2018), (with E. Reddington) Communicating with the Public: Conversation Analytic Insights (2020), and (with J. Wong) Conversation Analysis and Second Language Pedagogy (2nd edn) (2021). Ruth Wodak is Emerita Distinguished Professor of Discourse Studies at Lancaster University. She was awarded the Wittgenstein Prize for Elite Researchers, and Honorary Doctorates from the Universities of Örebro and Warwick. She is member of the British Academy of Social Sciences and member of the Academia Europaea. In March 2020, she became Honorary Member of the Senate of the University of Vienna. She is co-editor of the journals Discourse and Society, Critical Discourse Studies and Language and Politics. Lillian L.C. Wong, PhD, is Senior Lecturer at the University of Hong Kong, where she teaches Masters courses in second language curricula and technology in language teaching as well as Graduate writing. Her publications focus on innovation and change in Englishlanguage education, teacher professional development, technology in English teaching and EAP. Most recently, she is Principal Investigator of a large-scale government-funded project developing a Continuing Professional Development Hub for University English teachers (HKCPD Hub) and a project on data-driven learning for postgraduate writing. Virpi Ylänne is Senior Lecturer in Language and Communication at Cardiff University, Wales, UK. Her research interests are discourse and social interaction, lifespan communication and institutional talk. She has published widely on media representations of ageing and older age. Her current projects include personal accounts of older first-time parenting, representation of older adults in advertising and nurse-to-nurse communication in a hospital context. Michele Zappavigna is Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales. Her major research interest is the discourse of social media and ambient affiliation. Recent books include: Searchable Talk: Hashtags and Social Media Metadiscourse (2018), Discourse of Twitter and Social Media (2012), Researching the Language of Social Media (2014, with Ruth Page, Johann Unger and David Barton) and Discourse and Diversionary Justice: An Analysis of Ceremonial Redress in Youth Justice Conferencing (2018, with J. R. Martin).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank Andrew Wardell at Bloomsbury for proposing a second edition of this handbook and for his and Becky Holland’s support throughout its development. We also want to thank the authors for agreeing to revise their chapters and the authors who wrote new chapters for the book. We really are delighted with their contributions and hope they enjoyed the process as much as we did. Ken Hyland, Brian Paltridge and Lillian L.C. Wong

xvi

Introduction KEN HYLAND, BRIAN PALTRIDGE AND LILLIAN L.C. WONG

Discourse is one of the most significant concepts of modern thinking in a range of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. This is because it concerns the ways that language works in our engagements with the world and our interactions with each other, so creating and shaping the social, political and cultural formations of our societies. From an applied linguistic perspective, to study discourse is therefore to study language in action, looking at texts in relation to the social contexts in which they are used. But because language is connected to almost everything that goes on in the world, ‘discourse’ is something of an overloaded term, covering a range of meanings. People who study discourse might therefore focus on the analysis of speech and writing to bring out the dynamics and conventions of social situations or take a more theoretical and critical point of view to consider the institutionalized ways of thinking which define our social lives. Discourse, in fact, can be seen to spread between two poles, giving more-or-less emphasis to concrete texts or to institutional practices, to either particular examples or to how social structures are formed by them. This book is a rebranded second edition of The Bloomsbury Companion to Discourse Analysis, originally published with Continuum in 2011 and renamed in 2013. The new title is designed to fit the publisher’s reorganization of the series, but it also distinguishes this edition from the first. We have sought here to not just update existing material from the first edition, but to reorganize the book and to expand the content, bringing in an additional editor, twelve new authors and adding four new chapters. Academic interest in areas of discourse continues to grow in various directions but we believe that the discourses of ageing, social media, lingua franca uses and politeness have become too important to omit from this edition. At the same time, we have sought to keep those things that made the first edition so successful: the breadth of the content, the accessible, reader-friendly style of the chapters and a group of authors with international reputations in their areas. We have also sought to follow the first edition in providing a way into this complex and wide-ranging field by providing teachers, students and researchers with a way of theorizing and investigating both spoken and written discourse. The book is in three parts. The first is on methods of analysis and contains chapters which explore and describe the main approaches and issues in researching discourse. Topics that the authors have addressed include assumptions which underlie the particular method or approach, issues of validity or trustworthiness, and research techniques and instruments appropriate to the goal and method of research. The second part provides an overview and discussion of a number of key areas which have traditionally been staples of discourse studies, addressing the main methods of investigation and central issues and findings. The third section explores some of the directions in which applied linguistic

2

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

discourse analytic research seems to be heading. Here we include work on forensics, medicine, ageing, identity and social media. In each chapter the authors have included a sample study which illustrates the points they are making in their discussion and have identified resources for further reading.

PART ONE: METHODS AND APPROACHES In the first chapter, Rodney Jones discussed issues in the collection and analysis of spoken data. As he points out, the kinds of data that are chosen for analysis and approach to them which are taken are cultural practices which are influenced by changes in technology and researcher identities. He gives particular attention to recent developments in digital media which have allowed analysts to capture much richer accounts of social situations without using transcription, calling into question what should constitute data for discourse analysts. Hansun Zhang Waring, in Chapter 2, offers an introduction to conversation analysis (CA) as an approach to discourse analysis. She elaborates the kinds of questions it asks, the kinds of data it explores, how analysis is conducted and how issues such as generalizability, validity and reliability are addressed. The chapter which follows, by Ruth Wodak, provides a summary of Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) approaches and their similarities and differences. She points out that similarities cohere around a shared interest in social problems such as processes of power, inclusion or exclusion and the tensions resulting from current global developments. She illustrates these issues showing how the Discourse-historical Approach can analyse identity politics in systematic and detailed ways. In Chapter 4 Christine Tardy discusses the theoretical principles and definitions of genre and genre analysis by drawing on work in English for specific purposes and rhetorical studies. She describes current methods of genre analysis, including exploration of lexicogrammatical features, rhetorical moves, multimodal elements, rhetorical contexts, intertextual genre systems and critical genre analysis. In the following chapter, Mike Baynam argues that the collection and analysis of narrative have become a key method in the humanities and social sciences, particularly for investigating questions of identity and subjectivity. After providing an overview of the development of the method, he shows how current work emphasizes narrative in conversational and interview contexts and recognizes a wide range of narrative types. Jim Martin’s chapter (Chapter 6) offers a detailed account of the theoretical background to Systemic Functional Linguistics and why it provides an influential theoretical foundation for work across semiotic systems in multimodal discourse analysis. Importantly, he points out that SFL has evolved as an appliable linguistics, designed to address language problems faced by the community, including educational, clinical and forensic contexts. In the final chapter in this section, Bethany Gray and Douglas Biber describe how corpus linguistics can be used to analyse discourse by identifying patterns of variation that are generalizable across many texts in a specific context or language variety. The chapter describes the key characteristics of corpus linguistics methodologies and provides an updated synthesis of its major approaches, considering recent advances and emerging technologies.

PART TWO: AREAS OF RESEARCH The first chapter in this section, by Rebecca Hughes, discusses issues in researching spoken discourse such as research strategies, transcription, parsing and tagging of spoken data,

INTRODUCTION

3

elicited authentic data, and conversation analysis. She goes on to provide a synthesis of current thinking and research together with sample studies of the typical stages of carrying out a spoken discourse project. In Chapter 9 on academic discourse, Ken Hyland discusses how academic discourse is important in education, knowledge construction and the careers of academics themselves. He goes on to describe what is known about its form and functions and discuss how it is studied, introducing the main methods of analysis. In Chapter 10 Janet Holmes introduces research on workplace discourse and discusses the developments that have occurred in theoretical approaches, methodologies, analytical approaches and the types of discourse which have attracted attention. She observes that current research typically explores workplace interaction, including the structure of meeting talk, the role of humour and small talk at work, the construction of professional, ethnic and gender identities in the workplace, and the contribution of email in workplace interaction. In her chapter on discourse and the news, Roberta Facchinetti illustrates the gradual changes undergone by news discourse towards its current multisemiotic and unmediated nature, whereby (a) the ‘news piece’ has given way to the ‘news package’ and (b) mainstream journalism has come to terms with citizen journalism. She then focuses on the shift in topics and methodologies undergone by studies on news discourse over the last twenty years. Chapter 12, by Carolin Debray and Helen Spencer-Oatey, is on intercultural communication. It begins with a brief discussion of the term ‘intercultural’ and then reviews discourse-based intercultural research which focuses on misunderstandings, discrimination, interpersonal relations and creativity. In doing so they draw on empirical research from contexts such as business meetings, job interviews, service encounters and university classrooms. In the following chapter Paul Baker discusses how discourse has permeated language and gender research, giving an overview of recent research. He considers the discourse-naming approach, Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis and Feminist Post-Structuralist Discourse Analysis as well as contributions from Discursive Psychology and CDS. Angel Lin and Ryuko Kubota then turn to discuss ‘race’ as a discursive construction, the role of discourse in racialization processes, and the reproduction of racial stereotypes and discrimination of marginalized groups in society. They show the influence of cultural studies, critical theory and postcolonial studies in this research and highlight intellectual milestones in this area. In Chapter 15, Steve Walsh addresses classroom discourse and issues and procedures associated with its analysis. The main reason for studying classroom discourse, he argues, is that it tells us a great deal about the learning process. By studying teacher–learner and learner–learner interactions, we can gain insights into who is participating in the learning process and how; how language is being used to display, clarify and understand new concepts; how meanings are co-constructed through the giveand-take of interactions. The final chapter in the section concerns discourse and politeness and is written by Michael Haugh. In his chapter, Haugh considers what politeness (and impoliteness) is and why the study of politeness in discourse is important. He then reviews the different ways in which researchers have studied politeness and illustrates some of the key challenges faced by researchers when analysing politeness in discourse. The chapter concludes with a brief summary of what we have learned about politeness and where recent developments are leading us.

PART THREE: DIRECTIONS IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Chapter 17, by Dwight Atkinson, Hanako Okada and Steven Talmy, examines discourse analysis and ethnography. The authors begin by locating both discourse and ethnography

4

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

in their historical and academic contexts, before reviewing the major approaches to combining discourse analysis and ethnography: ethnography of communication, microethnography and critical ethnography. Kay O’Halloran then discusses Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA), which extends the study of language to the study of language with other resources, such as images, scientific symbols, gesture, action, music and sound in texts, interactions and events. She covers the major approaches to MDA, together with emerging multimodal mixed methods approaches to big data analytics, including a discussion of visualization in MDA. In Chapter 19, Barbara Seidlhofer looks at Discourse and English as a lingua franca (ELF). She points out that ELF users are unable to rely on shared preconceived knowledge of communal norms so they must negotiate conditions for mutual understanding as they go along. ELF discourse thus reveals how discourse is achieved on-line emergently as a creative pragmatic process. Christoph Hafner discusses discourse- and computer-mediated communication. In particular he shows how digital devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops and computers influence: (1) texts and interactions, through hypertext, digital interactivity and multimodality; (2) more complex contexts, through ‘context collapse’ and overlapping copresence; and (3) power and ideology due to the intervention of machines and algorithms in interactions. Chapter 21, by Michele Zappavinga, explores social media discourse, considering how language and other modes of communication work together in social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. It focuses on the ways social media users negotiate values and forge attitudinal alignments in digital environments and explores emerging multimodal discourse analytic perspectives such as that on the discourse of selfies. In the next chapter Lisa McEntee-Atalianis looks at discourse and the research on identity as resulting from social practice and interaction. She discusses the similarities and differences of discourse approaches such as conversation analysis, critical discourse analysis, discursive psychology and narrative analysis and their impact. In Chapter 23 Timothy Halkowski explores some prominent themes in current research on medical discourse. Specifically, this focuses on empirically analysing the ways that ‘being a patient’, ‘being a doctor’ and indeed ‘being ill’ are accomplished in and through discourse. Thus he asks: what does medical discourse research tell us about ‘illness-ing’, ‘patient-ing’ and ‘doctor-ing’. John Olsson then combines discourse analysis with insights into forensic linguistics, in particular the fabrication of statements by police officers before tape and video recording became commonplace. He traces the history of forensic discourse analysis and adds data from more recent cases, including statements from the ‘Perth Swindle’ in which three brothers were falsely accused and imprisoned. In the final chapter, Virpi Ylänne looks at discourse analytic studies on age, ageing and lifespan identity. She shows how age is contextually defined and socially constructed and can be studied as interactively achieved through talk. The chapter outlines how age and age identity can be approached as a discursive and context-sensitive accomplishment by providing examples from a range of contexts, including family interaction, personal interviews and institutional encounters.

FURTHER READING Each of the chapters of this book provides suggestions for further reading on the topic being discussed. Here we list some more general books on discourse analysis that readers new to the topic may find useful.

INTRODUCTION

De Fina, A. and A. Georgeakopoulou (eds) (2021), The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gee, J. P. and M. Handford (eds) (2011), The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, London: Routledge. Hart, C. (ed.) (2020), Researching Discourse: A Student Guide, London: Routledge. Hyland, K. (ed.) (2013), Discourse Studies Reader: Essential Excerpts, London: Bloomsbury. Jones, R. (2018), Discourse Analysis. A Resource Book for Students, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. Paltridge, B. (2021), Discourse Analysis: An Introduction, 3rd edn, London: Bloomsbury.

5

6

PART ONE

approaches to discourse analysis

8

CHAPTER ONE

Data collection and transcription in discourse analysis: A technological history RODNEY H. JONES

DATA COLLECTION AS MEDIATED ACTION The focus of this chapter will be on data collection and analysis as cultural and material practices of discourse analysts (Jaffe 2007). In particular I will focus on how, over the past half century, these practices have been affected by different technologies such as tape recorders, video cameras and computers, each of which made new kinds of knowledge and new kinds of disciplinary identities possible, and each of which fundamentally changed our understanding of discourse itself. I will limit myself to discussing the collection and transcription of data from real-time social interactions (especially spoken discourse). I will not be considering issues around the collection of written texts, which has its own set of complications. Since the publication of Elinor Ochs’s groundbreaking 1979 article ‘Transcription as Theory’, it has become axiomatic that data collection and transcription are affected by the theoretical interests of the analyst, which inevitably determine which aspects of an interaction will be attended to and how they will be represented (see also Edwards 1993, Mishler 1991). Since then, much of the debate around transcription has focused on choosing the ‘best system’ for transcribing spoken discourse (Du Bois et al. 1993, Psathas and Anderson 1990) or ‘multimodal interaction’ (Baldry and Thibault 2006, Norris 2004) or arguing about the need for standardization in transcription conventions (Bucholtz 2007, Lapadat and Lindsay 1999). In order to productively engage in such debates, however, it is necessary to consider more practical questions about data collection and transcription having to do with the materiality of what we call data and the effects of the technologies we use to collect and transcribe it on the ways we are able to formulate theories about discourse in the first place. The theoretical framework I will use to approach these issues is mediated discourse analysis (Norris and Jones 2005). Central to this perspective is the concept of mediation, the idea that all (inter)actions are mediated through cultural tools (which include technological tools like tape recorders and semiotic tools like transcription systems) and

10

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

that the affordances and constraints of these tools help to determine what kinds of actions are possible in different circumstances. This focus on mediation invites us to look at data collection and transcription as physical actions which take place within a material world governed by a host of technological, semiotic and sociological affordances and constraints on what can be captured from the complex stream of phenomena we call ‘social interaction’, what can be known about it, and how we as analysts exist in relation to it, affordances and constraints that change as new cultural tools are introduced. Mediated discourse analysis allows us to consider data collection and transcription as both situated practices, tied to particular times, places and material configurations of cultural tools, and community practices, tied to particular disciplinary identities.

FIVE PROCESSES OF ENTEXTUALIZATION Nearly all of the practices discourse analysts engage in involve ‘entextualization’ – transforming actions into texts and texts into actions. We turn ideas into research proposals, proposals into practices of interviewing, observation and recording, recordings into transcripts, transcripts into analyses, analyses into academic papers and academic papers into job promotions and academic accolades. Ashmore and Reed (2000) argue that the business of an analyst consists chiefly of creating artefacts – such as transcripts and articles – that are endowed with both ‘analytic utility’ and professional value. Bauman and Briggs (1990) define ‘entextualization’ as the process whereby language becomes detachable from its original context of production and reified as ‘texts’ or portable linguistic objects. In the case of discourse analysts, this usually involves two discrete activities – one in which discourse is ‘collected’ with the aid of some kind of recording device and the other in which the recording is transformed into some kind of artefact suitable for analysis. Practices of entextualization have historically defined elite communities in society – scribes, police officers, researchers – who, through the ‘authority’ of their entextualizations, are able to exercise power over others. To create texts is to define reality. Whether we are talking about discourse analysts making transcripts or police officers issuing reports, entextualization normally involves at least five processes: 1. framing, in which borders are drawn around the phenomenon in question; 2. selecting, in which particular features of the phenomenon are selected to represent the phenomenon; 3. summarizing, in which we determine the level of detail with which to represent these features; 4. resemiotizing, in which we translate the phenomena from one set of semiotic materialities into another; and 5. positioning, in which we claim and impute social identities based on how we have performed the first four processes. These processes are themselves mediated through various ‘technologies of entextualization’ (Jones 2009), tools like tape recorders, video cameras, transcription systems and computer programs, each with its own set of affordances and constraints as to what aspects of a phenomenon can be entextualized and what kinds of identities are implicated in this act. Changes in these technologies result in changes in the practice of entextualization itself, what can be done with it, what kinds of authority adheres to it and what kinds of identities are made possible by it.

DATA COLLECTION AND TRANSCRIPTION

11

DATA IN THE AUDIO AGE The act of writing down what people say was pioneered as a research practice at the turn of the twentieth century by anthropologists and linguists working to document the phonological and grammatical patterns of ‘native’ languages. Up until fifty years ago, however, what people actually said was treated quite casually by the majority of social scientists, mostly because they lacked the technology to conveniently and accurately record it. On-the-spot transcriptions and field notes composed after the fact failed to offer the degree of detail necessary to analyse the moment-by-moment unfolding of interaction. The ‘technologies of entextualization’ necessary to make what we now know as ‘discourse analysis’ possible were not yet available. This all changed in the 1960s when tape recorders became portable enough to enable the recording of interactions in the field. According to Erickson (2004), the first known instance of recording spoken interaction for research purposes was by Soskin and John in 1963 and involved a tape recorder with a battery the size of an automobile battery placed into a rowboat occupied by two arguing newlyweds. By the end of the decade, the problem of battery size had been solved and small portable audio recorders became ubiquitous, as did studies of what came to be known as ‘naturally occurring talk’, a class of data which, ironically, did not exist before tape recorders were invented to capture it (Speer 2002). The development of portable audio-recording technology, along with the IBM Selectric typewriter, made the inception of fields like conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics and discursive psychology possible by making accessible to scrutiny the very features of interaction that would become the analytical objects of these fields. The transcription conventions analysts developed for these disciplines arose from what audio tapes allowed them to hear, and these affordances eventually became standardized as practices of ‘professional hearing’ (Ashmore et al. 2004) among these analysts. The introduction of these new technologies of entextualization brought a host of new affordances and constraints to how phenomena could be framed, what features could be selected for analysis, how these features could be represented, the ways meanings could be translated across modes and the kinds of positions analysts could take up vis-à-vis others. Framing refers to the process through which a segment of interaction is selected for collection. Scollon and Scollon (2004) use the term ‘circumferencing’. All data collection, they argue, involves the analyst drawing a ‘circumference’ around phenomena, which, in effect, requires making a decision about the widest and narrowest ‘timescales’ upon which the interaction depends. All interactions are parts of longer timescale activities (e.g. relationships, life histories) and are made up of shorter scale activities (e.g. turns, thought units). The act of ‘circumferencing’ is one of determining which processes on which timescales are relevant. Among the most important ways audio recording transformed the process of framing for discourse analysts was that it enabled, and in some respects compelled them to focus on processes occurring on shorter timescales at the expense of those occurring on longer ones. One reason for this was that tapes themselves had a finite duration, and another was that audio recordings permitted the analyst to attend to smaller and smaller units of talk. This narrowing of the circumference of analysis had a similar effect on the processes of selecting and summarizing that went in to creating textual artefacts from recordings. Selecting and summarizing have to do with how we choose to represent the portion of a phenomenon around which we have drawn our boundaries. Selecting is the process

12

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

of choosing what to include in our representation, and summarizing is the process of representing what we have selected in greater or lesser detail. The most obvious effect of audio recording technology on the processes of selecting and summarizing was that, since audiotape only captured the auditory channel of the interaction, that was the only one available to select. While many researchers accompanied their recordings with notes about non-verbal behaviour, these notes could hardly compete with the richness, accuracy and ‘authority’ of the recorded voice. As a result, speech came to be regarded as the ‘text’ – and all the other aspects of the interaction became the ‘context’. It is important to remember that this privileging of speech in the study of social interaction was largely a matter of contingency. Analysts privileged what they had access to. Sacks himself (1984: 26) admitted that the ‘single virtue’ of tape recordings is that they gave him something he could analyse. ‘The tape-recorded materials constituted a “good enough” record of what had happened,’ he wrote. ‘Other things, to be sure, happened, but at least what was on the tape had happened.’ While limiting what could be selected, the technology of audio recording hardly simplified the selection process. Because tapes could be played over and over again and divided into smaller and smaller segments, the amount of detail about audible material that could be included in transcripts increased dramatically. Whereas most analysts based their decisions about what features of talk to include on specific theoretical projects – conversation analysts, for example, focusing on features which they believed contributed to the construction of ‘order’ in talk – some analysts, like DuBois (Du Bois et al. 1993), promoted the development of more exhaustive systems of transcription which not only fit present analytical interests but anticipated future ones. One thing for sure was that the dramatic increase in the detail that could be included in transcripts had the effect of making discourse analysis seem more ‘scientific’, and over the years, the amount of detail in an analysts’ transcripts came to be seen as a criterion by which the ‘accuracy’ of their data and the ‘objectivity’ of their work were judged. As Mishler (1991:206) describes it, Researchers (strove) for more precision, detail, and comprehensiveness – pauses to be counted (by proper instruments) in hundreds rather than tenths of a second, the inclusion of intonation contours-as if that would permit us (finally) to truly represent speech. This desire to ‘truly represent’ speech was thoroughly grounded in positivist assumptions about reality – that there was something objectively occurring to represent – assumptions which would soon rub up against the more dialogic and constructionist theories that were arising from these same studies of talk-in-interaction (Scollon 2003). As transcripts revealed to analysts the contingent and negotiated nature of talk, analysts were themselves forced to confront the contingent and negotiated nature of their transcripts. More recently, analysts seem to be weighing in on the side of variety rather than standardization (Bucholtz 2007) and selectivity over comprehensiveness (Duranti 2006). Analysts like Jaffe (2007), in fact, have gone so far as to suggest that less delicate transcripts might in some cases constitute more ‘accurate’ representations of participants’ ‘voices’, because they do not make salient many micro-aspects of the interaction which are not salient to participants themselves.

DATA COLLECTION AND TRANSCRIPTION

13

Resemiotization is the process through which we translate phenomena from one set of semiotic materialities into another (Iedema 2001). Meanings are expressed differently in different semiotic systems, and so they cannot simply be transferred from one mode to another; they must be ‘translated’. In data collection using audio recorders, for example, the social interaction, what is essentially a rich multimodal affair, is resemiotized into a mono-modal audiotape, later to be further resemiotized into a different mono-modal artefact, a written transcript. In this process, the spatial and temporal aspects of the dynamic, multimodal interaction must somehow be ‘translated’ into the static, linear and mono-modal materiality of text. One important aspect of resemiotization in written transcripts is how the spatial arrangement of the page acts to translate certain temporal and relational aspects of the original interaction. Although there have been a number of experiments in the written representation of interaction using non-standard layouts and notations (see, for example, Ochs 1979, Erickson 2003), most transcription systems developed for audio data are arranged in the conventional ‘play-script’ layout, a layout that has a number of important effects on how we experience the interaction. First of all, the format creates the impression that interaction is focused, linear and monofocal, masking any simultaneity of action, nonlinearity or polyfocality that might have been part of the actual interaction. Second, it implies a contingent relationship between immediately adjacent utterances of different speakers, whether or not one actually exists (Ochs 1979). Finally, it imposes on the transcript a particular ‘chronotrope’ (Bakhtin 1981) or felt ‘time-space’ that may be radically different from that of the original interaction. In fact, one of the most jarring discoveries of those coming fresh to discourse analysis is how much longer it takes to read through the transcript of an exchange, with all of its details arranged linearly down the page, than it took the participants to actually produce the exchange. In short, the ‘playscript’ format requires that the reader rely primarily on the narrative interpretation of the analyst embodied in the sequential emplacement elements on the page to make sense of what happened. Perhaps the most important process of entextualization, at least that with the most obvious social consequences, is positioning. Whenever we turn phenomena into a text, we are making claims as to who we are and what our relationship is to those whose words and actions we entextualize and those with whom we will later share these entextualizations. One rather obvious way that practices of data collection and transcription position the analyst is in how they reveal his or her affiliation to a particular ‘school’ of discourse analysis. It is, in fact, possible to give a cursory glance to a transcript and predict the kinds of theoretical positions about language the analyst will be advancing. As Jaffe (2007) has pointed out, transcription has become a kind of ‘literacy practice’, the mastery of which has become necessary for admittance into certain communities of scholars. Beyond signalling disciplinary affiliation, however, the new forms of transcription that audio recording made possible to discourse analysts also made possible for them new positions of authority vis-à-vis their various audiences such as colleagues, tenure boards and funding bodies, as well as their ‘subjects’. This authority came, first, from the level of detail they were able to present in their transcripts, which they could use as an emblem of ‘expertise’. Bucholtz (2000) has shown how the use of special fonts and annotations works to ‘technologize’ a text and, in the process, confers an identity of scientific expertise on the author. This new authority also came from the ‘evidentiary’ nature of the tape itself as a material object, the notion that by possessing the recording the discourse analyst had access to ‘what

14

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

really happened’ against which both the ‘authenticity’ of the transcript and any claims or counter-claims about it could be measured. Ashmore and his colleagues (2004) call the tendency to confer on ‘the tape’ an epistemic authority ‘tape fetishism’. One dangerous thing about such an attitude is that the supposed ‘authority’ and ‘objectivity’ of ‘the tape’, produced as it was in particular circumstances of recording and listened to in varying contexts of hearing, are so easily called into question. Equally dangerous, however, is that the existence of the recording itself lends further authority to the transcript, which is presumed to be the ‘child’ of the tape. This overconfidence in recording and transcripts in the domain of discourse analysis simply makes for sloppy work. In other domains like law enforcement (Bucholtz 2009) the consequences can be rather more serious. With the new authority granted to discourse analysis by the invention of the portable tape recorder, there also came new responsibilities. For one thing, analysts found themselves embedded in a complex new set of ethical and legal relationships with the subjects of their analysis. Much of the pioneering work using audio recorders simply ignored this complexity – it is hard to imagine, for example, how Sacks’s recording of suicide hotlines would be treated in light of today’s standards of ‘informed consent’. Eventually, however, ethics boards and the law caught up with us. Not only do institutional review boards now demand that informed consent be obtained from any party whose voice is tape-recorded, but in many countries the law also demands it. These constraints have left discourse analyst struggling to find ways to preserve the ‘naturalness’ of interactions in which all involved are aware they are being recorded, a most ‘unnatural’ state of affairs. The great irony of recording technology for discourse analysts is that it simultaneously introduced a standard of ‘naturalness’ for our data and created social and institutional conditions that made that standard much more difficult to obtain.

VIDEO KILLED THE DISCOURSE ANALYST? Audio recording was not the only technology social scientists used in the mid-twentieth century to study communication. As early as the 1940s, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead (1942) were pioneering the use film in the study of communication, a technique that was later adopted by Edward Hall (1963) in his early studies of proxemics. By the 1970s, analysts like Birdwhistell (1970) had begun to develop transcription systems for nonverbal features of social interaction. The assumption of these analysts was that meaningful interaction proceeds not just through talk, but through a host of other behaviours as well. This assumption would nowadays be considered non-controversial, but, in the 1960s and 1970s, it failed to gain much traction, not until, of course, the invention of the video camera, a new ‘technology of entextualization’ capable of capturing not just words but also bodies in motion in a much cheaper and more immediate way than earlier film technology. Discourse analysis was ruined forever. Only in one sense, that is. Discourse analysts could no longer just pay attention to phenomena that had traditionally been labelled ‘discourse’; they could no longer ignore non-verbal behaviour, which played so demonstrably an important role in all social interactions. And the technology that allowed analysts access to that behaviour involved a whole new set of processes through which discourse analysts could frame, select, summarize and resemiotize their data and position themselves in relation to it. One important change came with the analyst now being able to frame his or her data spatially as well as temporally. With audiotape, only the duration, the starting point and ending point of the interaction mattered. Now the interaction had to be framed in space

DATA COLLECTION AND TRANSCRIPTION

15

as well, with a whole new set of choices to be made about what and whom should be included in the frame, the angle at which it should be shot and so forth. Video also made the choices involved in selecting and summarizing much more complex, as nearly every aspect of non-verbal communication from gesture to gaze to body movement could be considered potentially communicative, as could a whole host of other non-verbal cues like dress and built environment. The biggest difficulty, however, came in the process of resemiotization, the challenge of translating the rich, multidimensional display of videotape to the still-dominant two-dimensional medium of the written transcript (Park and Bucholtz 2009). Early users of video essentially treated it as an extension of the audio recorder, using it as an aid to adding information about things such as gesture and gaze as notations within what were essentially conventional audio transcriptions (see, for example, Goodwin 1986, Ochs and Taylor 1992). Many early attempts at multimodal transcription were hindered by the essentially ‘verbal logic’ of the ‘play script’ model which analysts had inherited from the audio days, a model which provided few resources for representing the complex timing and simultaneity of actions and words in multimodal interaction. The problem with most early work using video was that technologies of transcription had not yet caught up with technologies of recording. At the same time, video introduced further complexity into the analyst’s relationships with other people. Since video data so clearly identify their objects, it became much more difficult to promise anonymity and confidentiality to participants. Furthermore, the ‘gaze’ of the camera in many ways turned out to be much more intrusive than the ‘ear’ of the tape recorder, giving rise to new layers of self-consciousness and artificiality compromising the ‘naturalness’ of our data. Video technology also had an effect on the analyst’s relationship with the consumers of his or her data, particularly the publishers of academic journals and books who were in those early years still reluctant to incur the extra expense of publishing the photographs and other visual data many analysts found essential for communicating their findings, and the print medium itself, still the only medium that seemed to garner any recognition from academic institutions, lacked the ability to give readers access to anything but static images. In the 1980s and 1990s, the constraints and complications of video recording often seemed to outweigh the dramatic new affordances the medium offered, and many analysts, despite overwhelming evidence of the importance of the visual channel in social interaction, held stubbornly to the mono-modal talk-based approach to interaction which had served them so well in the past. This, however, was soon to change.

DATA COLLECTION AND TRANSCRIPTION IN THE DIGITAL AGE Many of the issues that plagued early users of video began to be resolved at the turn of the century as analysts like Baldry and Thibault (2006) and Norris (2004) began devising fully theorized systems of multimodal transcription. These breakthroughs, however, were not all theoretical. They came as well from another dramatic material change in the ‘technologies of entextualization’ available to the analyst, a change that was made possible by the digital revolution. The qualitative difference between analogue recording and digital recording as technologies of entextualization cannot be overstated. First of all, as digital video cameras shrunk in size, and as the practice of shooting digital video became more and more

16

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

ubiquitous in the general population, the inconvenience and ‘weirdness’ of collecting video data decreased considerably. In addition, digital recording tended to deliver much higher quality outputs than earlier analogue systems, and increases in the size of computer drives and other solutions such as cloud storage helped researchers to overcome difficulties in storing and backing up their data and collaborating across continents. Changes in social practices around video recording, not just among analysts, but among participants themselves, also introduced a range of new possibilities around the framing and selection of data. In particular, opportunities arose to record interactions not just from the point of view of the researcher but from the point of view of participants using micro-portable wearable cameras (Chalfen 2014) or to engage participants in gathering data themselves using their mobile phones. Such techniques allowed researchers to more easily capture the mobile dimension of many social interactions (McIlvenny 2014, Mondada 2014) as well as giving them access to more emic, experiential and embodied perspectives. Meanwhile, interactions recorded by people outside of research contexts and shared on social media sites such as YouTube became a new source of ‘naturally occurring’ data for discourse analysts (Jones 2016). Finally, digital media have dramatically altered the materiality of social interaction itself. One the one hand, many digitally mediated interactions (such as chats, instant messages and interactions on social media sites) are already produced through written text, allowing researchers to sidestep the challenges of transcription altogether, but introducing new challenges around the selection and recontextualization of data as well as ethical associated with collecting it. On the other hand, new modes of mediated embodied interaction using video chat technologies (such as FaceTime and Zoom) introduce new theoretical challenges for multimodal interaction analysts in accounting for the different ways people manage things like gaze, turn-taking and the use of physical space online. Among the most important affordances of digital audio and video recording for the discourse analyst is that it can be handled and manipulated in so many different ways, many of which are reminiscent of the ways we handle and manipulate written text – it can be searched, tagged, annotated, chopped up, rearranged and mixed with other texts, in ways that make transcription much easier or, in some cases, less necessary. In other words, digital video has not just changed how analysts are able to record video, but also what they are able to do with it afterwards and how they are able to transform recordings into objects of ‘analytic utility’. The ability to easily capture still images from video meant that analysts no longer had to rely solely on text to describe behaviour. Text and images could be integrated in ways that made transcripts themselves ‘multimodal’. The practice of including still images captured from digital video in transcripts has been developed to great sophistication by scholars like Baldry and Thibault (2006) and Norris (2004). Such ‘multimodal transcripts’, however, are still not the most multimodal means we have at our disposal to represent our data. Gu (2006), for example, has promoted the use of a ‘corpus friendly’ digital multimedia system for representing interaction which avoids the need for orthographic transcription altogether, and software solutions like Transana and Elan allow analysts to integrate their videos with their transcripts, their coding and their notations in flexible, searchable ways (Mondada 2009). Such advances have given to analysts the feeling that they are closer to the ‘reality’ of the original interaction than ever before. But they are not. They are closer to a digital fabrication of reality, which is still only a fabrication. Just as ‘tape fetishism’ led analysts in the audio age to believe that ‘accurate’

DATA COLLECTION AND TRANSCRIPTION

17

and exhaustive transcripts of tape recordings would allow them to once and for all truly represent speech, the ability these new digital solutions give to analysts today to analyse video ‘directly’, seemingly unmediated by the transcription process, creates the illusion that they do not have to truly represent anything (that the video has done that for them), that the complex problems of selecting and summarizing can be somehow side-stepped, and that the inevitable distortions that accompanied the transformation of audio tape to written text can now be completely avoided, in short, the illusion that the age of ‘transcriptionless analysis’ has arrived. As Mondada (2009) has pointed out, however, the viewing, coding and manipulating of video data with such software packages are far from unmediated. Users still need to go through the same five processes of entextualization that transcribers apply to audiotape. They still need to determine what counts for them as a meaningful unit of social interaction; aspects of the data still need to be selected, coded or otherwise summarized; and videos are still resemiotized into complex ‘semiotic aggregates’ combining symbols and writing with the audio and visual modes of the video. Unlike written transcripts, multimodal texts have no readymade ‘textual units’ apart from time codes, and so analysts must invent new ways to divide up the dynamic stream of behaviour into manageable, intelligible bits. And these products of entextualization need to be still further entextualized into objects that can be published in an academic press still dominated by the medium of print. Software can impose just as sturdy a set of theoretical assumptions on the analyst as a transcription system. All entextualizations are necessarily arrived at dialogically and are thus inherently ‘double-voiced’ (Bakhtin 1984: 185). By losing sight of this ‘double-voicedness’, by thinking they can sidestep the gap between the original and the entextualized, discourse analyst are in danger of regarding their ‘multimodal transcripts’ as somehow more objective and transparent. The notion that a ‘multimodal transcription’ of a video is necessarily a more ‘accurate’ portrayal of ‘reality’ than a careful transcription of an audiotape is really a matter of opinion. It depends primarily on how one defines ‘reality’. Both annotated video and written transcripts are artefacts, products of complex processes of framing, selection, summarizing and resemiotization, whose meanings change as they are transported across boundaries of time, space and media (Jaffe 2007).

CONCLUSION In his article ‘The Dialogist in a Positivist World’, Scollon (2003) explores the balancing act discourse analysts have to perform to avoid, on the one hand, over-reifying their data and falling into a naive positivism and, on the other hand, over-relativizing their data and sinking into deconstructive impotence. The chief concern for a discourse analyst, he argues, is how to ‘produce a working ontology and epistemology that will underpin (his or her) wish to undertake social action’ without buying into the social constructions that underpin this action (p. 71). The sometimes-paradoxical history of data collection and transcription in discourse analysis is really the history of this dilemma. The lesson of this history for anyone starting out in discourse analysis is that no technology of entextualization can capture the universe (Cook 1990). Nor is this what we need. The whole reason for entextualization is not to reproduce the universe, but to re-present it, and, by doing so, to understand it better. And it is these very processes of framing, selecting, summarizing, resemiotizing and positioning that allow us to arrive at these understandings.

18

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Too often analysts have taken a ‘deficit’ attitude towards entextualization, lamenting how much of the ‘original’ interaction was ‘lost in the transcription’. The fact is, what we search for in our transcripts is not ‘truth’, but rather ‘analytic utility’. Their ability to help us answer the questions we have about human communication and social interaction, not the degree to which they ‘resemble reality’, should be the main criterion for judging the value of our transcripts. At the same time, we must never lose sight of the ways technologies of entextualization profoundly affect our relationships with those whose words and behaviour we study. The better our technology has become at capturing the details of social interaction, the more pressing and complex have become the ethical issues surrounding the activities of data collection and transcription. As Scollon and Levine (2004:5) write: The primary question now is not: Do we have or can we develop the technology needed to record the behavior of others? The primary question is: What rights does an academic researcher have in relationship to and in negotiation with her or his subjects of study? … In short, can our data collection and our analyses do others good or harm, and can we control those outcomes?

KEY READINGS Edwards, J. A. and M. D. Lampert (eds) (2014), Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research, 2nd edn, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Jones, R. H. (2016), Spoken Discourse, London: Bloomsbury. Lapadat, J. C. and A. C. Lindsay (1999), ‘Transcription in Research and Practice: From Standardization of Technique to Interpretive Positionings’, Qualitative Inquiry, 5: 64–86. Norris, S. (2002), ‘Implications of Visual Research for Discourse Analysis: Transcription Beyond Language’, Visual Communication, 1: 97–121. Ochs, E. (1979), ‘Transcription as Theory’, in E. Ochs and B. Schieffelin (eds), Developmental Pragmatics, 43–72, New York: Academic Press.

REFERENCES Ashmore, M. and D. Reed (2000), ‘Innocence and Nostalgia in Conversation Analysis: The Dynamic Relations of Tape and Transcript’, Forum: Qualitative Social Research 1 (3). http:// www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/1020/2199 (accessed 17 September 2020). Ashmore, M., K. MacMillan and S. D. Brown (2004, ‘It’s a Scream: Professional Hearing and Tape Fetishism’, Journal of Pragmatics, 36: 349–74. Bakhtin, M. (1981), The Dialogic Imagination, translated by C. Emerson, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bakhtin, M. (1984), Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, translated and edited by C. Emerson, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Baldry, A. and P. J. Thibault (2006), Multimodal Transcription and Text Analysis, London: Equinox. Bateson, G. and M. Mead (1942), Balinese Character, A Photographic Analysis, New York: The New York Academy of Sciences.

DATA COLLECTION AND TRANSCRIPTION

19

Bauman, R. and C. L. Briggs (1990), ‘Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 19: 59–88. Birdwhistell, R. (1970), Kinesics and Context. Essays on Body Motion Communication, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Bucholtz, M. (2000), ‘The Politics of Transcription’, Journal of Pragmatics, 32 (10):1439–65. Bucholtz, M. (2007), ‘Variation in Transcription’, Discourse Studies, 9: 784–808. Bucholtz, M. (2009), ‘Captured on Tape: Professional Hearing and Competing Extextualizations in the Criminal Justice System’, Text and Talk, 29: 503–23. Chalfen, R. (2014), ‘“Your Panopticon or Mine?” Incorporating Wearable Technology’s Glass and GoPro into Visual Social Science’, Visual Studies, 29: 299–310. Cook, G. (1990), ‘Transcribing Infinity: Problems of Context Presentation’, Journal of Pragmatics, 14: 1–29. Du Bois, J. W., S. Schuetze-Coburn, S. Cumming and D. Paolino (1993), ‘Outline of Discourse Transcription’, in J. A. Edwards and M. D. Lampert (eds), Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research, 45–87, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Duranti, A. (2006), ‘Transcripts, Like Shadows on a Wall’, Mind, Culture and Activity, 13: 301–10. Edwards, J. A. (1993), ‘Principles and Contrasting Systems of Discourse Transcription’, in J. A. Edwards and M. D. Lampert (eds), Talking Data: Transcription and Coding in Discourse Research, 3–31, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Erickson, F. (2003), ‘Some Notes on the Musicality of Speech’, in D. Tannen and J. Alatis (eds), Linguistics, Language, and the Real World: Discourse and Beyond, 11–35, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Erickson, F. (2004), Origins: A Brief Intellectual and Technological History of the Emergence of Multimodal Discourse Analysis’, in R. Scollon and P. Levine (eds), Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis, 196–207, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Goodwin, C. (1986), ‘Gestures as a Resource for the Organization of Mutual Orientation’, Semiotica, 62: 29–49. Gu, Y. G. (2006), ‘Multimodal Text Analysis: A Corpus Linguistic Approach to Situated Discourse’, Text and Talk, 26: 127–67. Hall, E. T. (1963), ‘A System for the Notation of Proxemic Behavior’, American Anthropologist, 65: 1003–26. Iedema, R. (2001), ‘Resemiotization’, Semiotica, 137: 23–39. Jaffe, A. (2007), ‘Variability in Transcription and the Complexities of Representation, Authority and Voice’, Discourse Studies, 9: 831–7. Jones, R. H. (2009), ‘Dancing, Skating and Sex: Action and Text in the Digital Age’, Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6: 283–302. McIlvenny, P. 2014. ‘Vélomobile Formations-in-Action: Biking and Talking Together’, Space and Culture, 17: 137–56. Mishler, E. G. (1991), ‘Representing Discourse: The Rhetoric of Transcription’, Journal of Narrative and Life History, 1: 255–80. Mondada, L. (2009), ‘Commentary: Transcript Variations and the Indexicality of Transcribing Practices’, Discourse Studies, 9: 809–21. Mondada, L. (2014), ‘Bodies in Action: Multimodal Analysis of Walking and Talking’, Language and Dialogue, 4: 357–403. Norris, S. (2004), Analyzing Multimodal Interaction: A Methodological Framework, London: Routledge.

20

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Norris, S. and R. Jones (eds) (2005), Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis, London: Routledge. Ochs, E. and C. Taylor (1992), ‘Family Narrative as Political Activity’, Discourse and Society, 3: 301–40. Park, J. S. and M. Bucholtz (2009), ‘Introduction: Public Transcripts: Entextualization and Linguistic Representation in Institutional Contexts’, Text and Talk, 29: 485–502. Psathas, G. and T. Anderson (1990), ‘The “Practices” of Transcription in Conversation Analysis’, Semiotica, 78: 75–99. Sacks, H. (1984), ‘Notes on Methodology’, in J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, 21–7, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scollon, R. (2003), ‘The Dialogist in a Positivist World: Theory in the Social Sciences and the Humanities at the End of the Twentieth Century’, Social Semiotics, 13: 71–88. Scollon, R. and P. Levine (2004), ‘Multimodal Discourse Analysis as the Confluence of Discourse and Technology’, in R. Scollon and P. Levine (eds), Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis, 1–6, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Scollon, R. and S. W. Scollon (2004), Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet, London: Routledge. Soskin, W. F. and V. P. John (1963), ‘The Study of Spontaneous Talk’, in R. Barker (ed.), The Stream of Behavior, 228–81, New York: Irvington Publishers. Speer, S. (2002), ‘“Natural” and “Contrived” Data: A Sustainable Distinction?’, Discourse Studies, 4: 511–25.

CHAPTER TWO

Conversation analysis HANSUN ZHANG WARING

INTRODUCTION Founded by sociologists Harvey Sacks, Emmanuel Schegloff, and Gail Jefferson in the 1960s, conversation analysis (CA) is the study of social interaction as it actually happens in its natural habitat. It’s not the study of how we think it should happen, how we believe it must have happened, or how it might happen under various laboratory conditions. More importantly, CA is the study of such happenings in participants’ terms, not via analysts’ theorizing. As conversation analysts, we are interested in excavating the tacit methods and procedures participants deploy to get things done in social interaction, be that getting the floor to tell a story, launching a complaint, or moving out of a conversation. For the past five decades, CA has been effectively deployed to yield in-depth understandings of social interaction in a wide variety of ordinary conversations and institutional interactions (Sidnell and Stivers 2013). This chapter offers an introduction to CA as an approach to discourse analysis, presents a sample study to illustrate its various features, and sketches some endeavours that gesture towards intersecting with other disciplines and satisfying more practical concerns.

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS AS THEORY AND METHOD Informed by Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology (1967) and Erving Goffman’s theory of interactional order (1967), CA rests on a set of assumptions that prioritize analytic induction (ten Have 2007) and participant orientations (Schegloff and Sacks 1973): (1) social interaction is orderly at all points, that is, no detail can be dismissed a priori; (2) order is constituted by the participants, not conceptualized by the analysts; (3) such order is discoverable and describable through close scrutiny of the details of interaction. In what follows, I explicate how these assumptions are materialized in various aspects of CA’s methodology.

Research questions The idea of a CA study being driven by a research question is antithesis to its stipulation of ‘unmotivated looking’ (Psathas 1995: 45). After all, no details can be dismissed a priori. As such, one does not always find an explicitly articulated research question in a published CA study. Instead, we see phrasings that attend to the ‘aim’ or ‘purpose’ of the study, what the analysis ‘explores’ or ‘focuses on’, or what the author attempts to ‘show’ or ‘demonstrate’. With or without any explicit articulation, however, it is perhaps safe to say that CA is largely addressed to the question of ‘how’: how politicians produce

22

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

evasive answers (Clayman 2001), how proxy voicing works as embedded instruction in couples therapy (Zemel 2016), or how subversive completions are used to commandeer the recipient’s action in progress (Bolden, Hepburn and Potter 2019). Importantly, the analytical foci such as proxy voicing or subversive completion are not determined a priori but a result of unmotivated looking. This does not mean that we cannot begin with a broad question, such as how multiple demands are managed in the language classroom (Reddington 2020), where neither the types of demands nor the methods of management are predetermined (or speculated about via hypotheses) but emerge as a result of discovery through detailed, line-by-line, and frame-by-frame inspection of the video-recorded classroom interaction.

Data Given its commitment to ‘naturalistic inquiry’ (Schegloff 1997: 501), what is admissible as data in CA methodology is what Sacks (1984: 25) calls ‘actual occurrences in their actual sequence’ or what is often referred to as naturally occurring social interaction, as opposed to ‘hypotheticalized, proposedly typicalized versions of the world’ (Sacks 1984: 25). What is not admissible then is field notes, native intuitions, experimental methodologies, or interviews ‘as an appropriate substitute for the observation of actual behavior’ (Heritage 1984: 236). The does not mean that one cannot study interviews as interaction, for example, how questions and answers are handled in media talk. ‘Naturally occurring,’ in other words, simply means ‘not produced for research,’ and naturally occurring interaction is the kind of interaction that would have existed with or without the interests of any conversation analyst – on the phone, face-to-face, and in technologymediated environments (e.g. Hutchby and Tanna 2008, Tolins and Samermit 2016). The necessity for studying actual occurrences cannot be overstated. Sacks (1992 Vol. 2: 5) notes our ability to invent new sentences, but lack of ‘intuition for sequencing in conversation’. McHoul (1985: 57) also remarks on how actual occurrences ‘in their finegrained detail often disclose versions of interactional events which are markedly counterintuitive’. The fact is, working with actual occurrences allows us to ‘start with things that are not currently imaginable’ and use observation, rather than ‘hypothetical … versions of the world’ ‘as a basis for theorizing’ (Sacks 1984: 25). Crucially, these occurrences need to be audio/video-recorded for repeated listening/viewing. Of course, if one were to study, for example, text messages in an online environment, ‘recording’ would be broadly interpreted as preserving the interaction in a form that facilitates revisiting. As Pomerantz and Fehr (1997: 170) remind us, certain features of interaction are not recoverable in any other way, playing and replaying facilitate transcription and analysis, and finally, recording makes it possible to check a particular analysis against the materials and return to an interaction with new analytic interests.

Analysis Analysis begins with transcribing (when audio are video recordings are involved). The original and standard CA transcription notations were developed by Gail Jefferson (2004), and a comprehensive introduction to transcribing for social research can be found in Hepburn and Bolden (2017). The transcription notations capture a full range of interactional features, without dismissing any detail a priori, such as volume, pitch, pace, intonation, overlap, inbreath, smiley voice, the length of silence as well as non-verbal conduct (see Appendix for a partial list for the purpose of this chapter). These minute details of everyday life afford us a close look at the world and see things that ‘we could

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

23

not, by imagination, assert were there’ (Sacks 1984: 25). One might argue then that transcribing is our first pass at unmotivated looking, which is perhaps best expressed in Sacks’s (1984) account of his work ‘style’: It is not that I attack any piece of data I happen to have according to some problems I bring to it. When we start out with a piece of data, the question of what we are going to end up with, what kind of findings it will give, should not be a consideration. We sit down with a piece of data, make a bunch of observations, and see where they will go. (p. 27) How do we go about making these observations then? We do so by asking the central CA analytical question ‘Why that now?’ (Schegloff and Sacks 1973), that is, why a particular bit of talk is produced in that particular format at that particular time: what is it accomplishing? It is in these minute details that evidence is located for how social actions such as requesting or complaining are accomplished by the participants themselves. This emic, and deeply ethnomethodological, obsession with participant orientation or members’ methods as made evident in their own conduct is what distinguishes CA from other methods of qualitative research. As Schegloff and Sacks (1973) famously write: In so far as the materials we worked with exhibited orderliness, they did so not only to us, indeed not in the first place for us, but for the co-participants who had produced them. (p. 290) Rather than begin with coding then, the primary job of a CA worker is to crack the codes of social interaction. As a code-cracking enterprise, CA is not equipped to answer questions such as whether X leads to Y, but it is well equipped to make substantive contributions to our understandings of what constitutes X in the first place – for the participants themselves. For conversation analysts, sitting down and making observations are often done not in isolation but in data sessions with fellow analysts (for data sessions worldwide, see https:// rolsi.net/data-sessions/). Using transcripts along with their audio or video recordings, we may repeatedly return to the same moment of interaction, reaching for greater accuracy of the transcripts and holding each other accountable for the various claims/analyses that are being developed. In answering the question of ‘Why that now?,’ for example, we can assert that participants are ‘doing’ a particular social action (i.e. characterize the action), offer an analysis of the methods used to accomplished that action (i.e. propose a method) and propose how the method works (i.e. ‘propose features’) – this last stage being ‘the core of analysis’ with the first two being its ‘launching pads’ (Pomerantz 1990: 233). By studying each turn in interaction for its composition (how it is put together) and position (what comes before and after), we can develop an analysis of what its ‘main job’ is (Levinson 2013: 107). Turn designs may also be inspected for how they are responsive to prior talk and sensitive to the recipient (i.e. recipient design) (Drew 2013). Throughout this process, we utilize some of the basic CA concepts such as turn-constructional unit (TCU), adjacency pair, and preference (Schegloff 2007) – findings of earlier foundational CA studies (e.g. Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974, Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks 1977) as a way of illuminating, not coding, what is going on. By the same token, previous findings on related

24

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

phenomena are also referenced for comparison, not coding, purposes. For conversation analysts, just because a particular type of utterance has been shown to do a particular kind of job in a published study doesn’t mean that it implements the same type of action in this interaction for these participants.

Developing a study How do we move from conducting these initial analyses to building a research study then? As our initial observations accumulate, candidate of topics of interest can emerge. In some cases, these initial observations become a basis for a ‘single case analysis’ (Hutchby and Wooffitt 1998), as epitomized in Harvey Sacks’s (1992) work that constitutes the beginning of many CA discoveries that ensued. Also in single case analyses, ‘the resources of past work on a range of phenomena and organizational domains in talk-in-interaction are brought to bear on the analytic explication of a single fragment of talk’ (Schegloff 1987: 101). The purpose of a single case analysis, as summarized in Waring (2009), is to (a) showcase CA’s analytical potency in illuminating the intricacies of a single utterance, speech act, or episode (e.g. Schegloff 1987); (b) develop a richer understanding of an existing phenomenon within its extended local context (e.g. Raymond and Heritage 2006); (c) create a starting point from which collections of a candidate phenomenon may be built (Hutchby and Wooffitt 1998); and (d) uncover a particular aspect of interaction previously unnoticed by but important for professionals working within a specific (institutional) context (e.g. Maynard and Frankel 2003). Many CA studies, however, are collection-based, where our initial observations of single instances provide us a basis for pursuing a candidate phenomenon of interest (i.e. discovering a new practice). We start by building a collection (Sidnell 2013) of instances to describe that ‘single phenomenon or single domain of phenomenon’ (Schegloff 1987: 101), using a ‘search criterion’ (Bolden 2019) developed from our initial analyses of single instances. In reality, our criterion evolves in the process of building the collection as we develop an increasingly sharper grasp of what constitutes the X that we are studying. Each instance in the collection then is again subject to a line-by-line analysis to unveil how it is indeed an instance of a particular practice. According to Heritage (2016: 210), a practice is ‘any feature of the design of a turn in a sequence’ that has ‘a distinctive character,’ occupies ‘specific locations within a turn or sequence’ and makes a distinct contribution to the action the turn implements. When encountering cases that do not fit our claim about a particular practice, instead of dismissing these ‘deviant cases’ (Schegloff 1968), we strive to determine, upon closer examination, whether they fit the claim after all, whether our initial claim needs to be revised or whether they belong to an entirely different phenomenon or domain of phenomena. In an effort to develop a formalized account, we also closely examine our collection for variations (i.e. how the same practice works under different circumstances, with different participants, engendering different outcomes). In presenting and publishing our findings, we carefully curate our collection to identify extracts that can be shown with the greatest clarity while capturing the widest range of variations, including deviant cases when applicable.

Validity, reliability and generalizability To consider validity in CA is to think about whether the analysis is in fact uncovering participants’ practices of social interaction or ‘measuring’ what it is supposed to ‘measure.’ Put otherwise, how do we ensure that the practices we are reporting (e.g. What are you doing? as a pre-invitation) are indeed the practices engaged by the participants themselves?

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

25

Obviously, we need high-quality recordings that faithfully capture the interactions in the first place, and we need detailed transcripts that accurately represent the recordings. Most importantly, however, we need to be able to show in the publicly displayed transcripts, for instance, that What are you doing? is indeed produced and interpreted by the participants as a pre-invitation. that is, our description of the practices based on the data needs to be convincing to the reader who has equal access to the data. The transparency of analytical claims grounded in specific participant conduct, therefore, is an important validation procedure in CA. The reliability of CA findings also hinges upon the highly detailed and public nature of its transcripts. Since these transcripts (and ideally recordings) are subject to repeated scrutiny by multiple readers, the onus is on the analyst to produce findings that can stand the test of such public scrutiny, for example, to combat the multiple-interpretation problem to ensure that the same data would yield consistent analyses across time and viewers. The poorer the recording quality and rougher the transcripts, more room is left for different ‘possibilities’ and greater the opportunities for inconsistent ‘readings’. To ensure both validity and reliability, a practising analyst also attends data sessions, where participants hold each other accountable for the analyses they produce – a process that typically yields increasingly finer observations of the interaction and, at the same time, discourages any open-ended ‘reading into’ the transcripts or recordings. As in quantitative research, a valid CA finding is bound to be a reliable one (although not vice versa; consistent analysis can be performed on inaccurate transcripts, for example). Key to understanding the generalizability in CA research is the concept of possibility: CA findings produce what is possible in other settings, rather than what is generalizable – in the sense of ‘the traditional “distributional” understanding of generalizability’ (Peräkylä 2004: 296–7) – to other settings. That is, by analysing individual instances, the machinery which produced these individual instances is revealed (Benson and Hughes 1991: 130–1). Each instance is evidence that ‘the machinery for its production is culturally available, involves members’ competencies, and is therefore possibly (and probably) reproducible’ (Psathas 1995: 50). Additional instances provide ‘another example of the method in the action, rather than securing the warrantability of the description of the machinery itself’ (Benson and Hughes 1991: 131). The value of CA analysis, in Pomerantz’s (1990: 233) words, is that ‘we have identified a method … and proposed how it works sequentially and interactionally’, and ‘subsequent research can establish patterns of occurrences’.

A SAMPLE STUDY By way of illustration, I narrate here the life of one CA study from its inception to completion – that of Waring, Reddington, Yu and Clemente (2018). The study was part of the deliverables of a large multi-year grant-funded project on how representatives of a funding agency communicate with the public (Waring and Reddington 2020). We began the project by collecting and transcribing a variety of publicly available audio and videorecordings of events that involve representatives of the agency communicating their mission and programmes to audiences outside the foundation, including webinars, podcast interviews, televised interviews, public talks with Q&A sessions, and moderated panel presentations and discussion. Transcribing started in the summer of 2016, and we began meeting in Fall 2016 for weekly data sessions doing line-by-line analysis with the transcripts along with their recordings, guided by the question ‘why that now?’ without any particular analytical

26

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

focus in mind. Multiple points of interests emerged from those data sessions. We noticed, in particular, some recurrent ‘non-straightforwardness’ in representatives’ responses to prospective grant applicants’ yes–no questions in information webinars – a forum for foundation representatives to deliver program information to potential grant applicants and answer questions about those programs. For each webinar, the audience is invited to submit questions anonymously through an on-screen chat box throughout the presentations – to be answered during the Q&A portion of the webinar. In asking questions in these webinars, the speakers are often trying to get at the fundability of their specific projects, that is, seeking advice. In response, rather than addressing the specific questions or only the specific questions with a simple yes or no, the representatives tend to deliver ‘big package’ responses with multi-unit turns that do more than answer the question – a practice we glossed as ‘going general’. In responding to the question of Would the foundation be interested in X?, for example, a simple and definitive yes would be hearable as potentially advising the questioner to pursue the project related to X. On the other hand, a less straightforward formulation such as What we are looking for is Y would constitute information-giving for the general audience including the question asker. Thus, as an initial characterization, going general involves designing maximally informative responses to specific yes–no questions while resisting advice-giving on the potential projects to which those questions are addressed. Using the search criteria such as ‘yes-no questions that seek specificity’ and ‘multi-unit response’ then, we began to build a collection of ‘going general’ by going through the seventeen webinars. Our search amounted to 138 instances. The 138 instances were then subject to further line-by-line analysis to unveil exactly how ‘going general’ works, that is, to unpack our initial characterization of the phenomenon by describing what methods were utilized to produce these ‘big package’ responses. Throughout our iterative analyses, it became clear that ‘going general’ is implemented through three response formats: (a) yes/no+, (b) clausal yes/no+ and (3) non-yes/no. Yes/ no+ entails a clear yes/no (or equivalent lexical tokens such as sure, absolutely, certainly) plus further talk. Clausal yes/no+ includes a clause that is inferable as a yes/no response (e.g. Program evaluation would not be appropriate) plus additional talk. Finally, a nonyes/no response consists of a multi-unit turn that does not address the yes/no aspect of the question at all. Of the 138 yes/no question–response cases, 50 are yes/no+ (36 per cent), 24 are clausal yes/no+ (17 per cent) and 64 are non-yes/no (47 per cent). In the write-up of the study, we had to decide what to include out of the 138 cases, and in the end, we picked two cases to demonstrate each method. Multiple considerations entered into the decision such as choosing cases that can be presented with clarity within the word limit, avoiding repeating the same webinar or the same participants, and demonstrating variations of the practice itself. Of our most robust category (non-yes/ no), for example, we showed two extracts that ‘go general’ in different ways. In the first excerpt below, the audience asks whether the foundation would give a grant to a certain type of organization. The arrow points to the focus of analysis: (1) durable medical equipment 01 David: 02 03 04 05

((reads))-will the foundation consider granting an organization. that supplies durable medical equipment to under-served people with disabilities. (0.8)

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

27

06 → we are looking for organizations that 07 represent the four sectors. business, 08 philanthropy, media, a:nd (1.0) 09 Cate: °faith-based° 10 David: and faith-based. 11 Cate: °>that’s [right.mhm,in the congenital-< uh- you know (0.2) we are nO::T the sticklers for fo::rm as much as we are for substance. (0.2) so there’s no:t (.) I- we’re not looking at did you use a certain way of cite- of citi::ng (0.2) .hh u::m your- your references..hh whether they are numerica:l, or whether they are:: °u::h° primary author (0.2) listed..h (0.2)

28

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

 14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28

if REFErences are:: appro↑priate? for the kind of (.) statements? that> you’re ma↑king?< i::n you::r wicked problem impact project proposal?.hh the::n (.) we would expect to see those (.) there. but (0.2) >°you know° (it- syl)< we’re looking for substance. we are looking fo::r (0.2).hh you a::ll (.) diving into a needy (.) and worthy: (0.2) problem. word< hh .hh [] []

(period) falling intonation. (question mark) rising intonation. (comma) continuing intonation. (hyphen) abrupt cut-off. (colon(s)) prolonging of sound. (underlining) stress. the more underlining, the greater the stress. (all caps) loud speech. (degree symbols) quiet speech. (upward arrow) raised pitch. (downward arrow) lowered pitch. (more than and less than) quicker speech. (less than and more than) slowed speech. (series of h’s) aspiration or laughter. (h’s preceded by period) inhalation. (lined-up brackets) beginning and ending of. simultaneous or overlapping speech.

CONVERSATION ANALYSIS

= (2.4) (.) (( )) (( ))-word

(equal sign) latch or contiguous utterances of the same speaker. (number in parentheses) length of a silence in tenths of a second. (period in parentheses) micro-pause, 0.2 second or less. (empty double parentheses) transcriber comments. (dash) connect transcriber comments and what they apply to.

33

34

CHAPTER THREE

Critical discourse studies RUTH WODAK

INTRODUCTION1 Critical discourse studies (CDS) emerged in the early 1990s and has become a wellestablished field in the social sciences in the twenty-first century (Angermuller et al. 2014, Fairclough, Mulderrig and Wodak 2011, Hart and Cap 2014, Rheindorf 2019, Wodak and Meyer 2016a). Most generally, CDS can be defined as a problem-oriented interdisciplinary research programme, subsuming a variety of approaches, each with different theoretical models, research methods and agendas. What unites them is a shared interest in the semiotic dimensions of power, identity politics and political-economic or cultural change in society.

DISCOURSE, POWER, IDEOLOGY AND CRITIQUE The term ‘discourse’ is used in manifold ways across the social sciences and within the field of CDS. In the most abstract sense, ‘discourse’ is an analytical category describing the vast array of meaning-making resources available to everybody. At this level one can also use the term ‘semiosis’ (encompassing words, pictures, symbols, design, colour, gesture and so forth), in order to distinguish it from the other common-sense understandings of ‘discourse’ as a category for identifying particular ways of representing some aspect of social life (e.g. Labour versus Conservative discourses on social welfare and immigration; see Reisigl and Wodak 2016, Wodak 2013a). In CDS, discourse is defined as being socially constitutive as well as socially shaped: it constitutes situations, objects of knowledge, and the social identities of and relationships between people and groups of people. It is constitutive both in the sense that it helps to sustain and reproduce the social status quo, and in the sense that it contributes to transforming it (Fairclough and Wodak 1997). Thus, discursive practices may have major ideological effects: that is, they can help produce and reproduce unequal power relations between (for instance) social classes, women and men, and ethnic groups through the ways in which they represent things and position people. CDS aim to make more visible these opaque discursive practices as social practice. The term ‘critical’ has many contrasting interpretations and meanings in different cultural contexts. The notion of critique in the West has a long tradition dating from ancient Greece through the Enlightenment philosophers to the modern day. The word is used differently in everyday language, namely frequently denoting something ‘negative’, whereas in CDS it means the use of rational thinking to question arguments or prevailing ideas, that is, more generally implying not to take anything for granted and challenging surface meanings. The use of the term in CDS can be traced to the influence of Marxist

36

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

and later Frankfurt School critical theory, in which critique is the mechanism for both explaining social phenomena and changing them. This emancipatory agenda has important implications for CDS as a scientific practice (Chilton et al. 2010). This problem-oriented, critical approach to research also implies a particular meaning of methodology. Unlike some forms of discourse-based research, CDS do not begin with a fixed theoretical and methodological position. Instead, the CDS research process starts with a research topic, that is, a social problem – for example, racism, democratic participation, globalization, workplace literacy and so forth. Methodology is the process during which, informed through theory, this topic is further refined so as to construct the objects of research (pinpointing specific foci and research questions). The choice of appropriate methods (data collection and mode of analysis) depends on what one is investigating (Rheindorf 2019). Thus, for example, it is likely that a different set of analytical and theoretical tools will be required to investigate neoliberal ideology in Higher Education, from those needed to explore discriminatory practices in the workplace in a particular organization, or indeed investigate the recontextualization of global practices in national media. This entails a diversity of approaches to CDS research, drawing on various linguistic analytic techniques and theories, although all involve some form of close textual (and/or multimodal) analysis.

CURRENT APPROACHES AND DEVELOPMENTS IN CDS The most important approaches and related research agenda are summarized in this section. For a more comprehensive treatment readers are referred to a number of booklength overviews and introductions to CDS (see ‘recommended reading’ at the end of this chapter). First, I list six major areas and related challenges which are part and parcel of current research in CDS (see Wodak and Meyer 2016a for an extensive discussion): a) Analysing, understanding and explaining the impact of neoliberalism and the Knowledge-based Economy on various domains of our societies; related to this, the recontextualization of KBE into other parts of the world and other societies. Therefore, CDS integrates theories that explain how and why KBE practices and institutions diffuse different social fields and countries globally. b) Analysing, understanding and explaining the impact of globalization in most domains of our lives – as well as the contradictory tendencies of glocalization and renationalization which can be observed in many parts of the world. Interestingly, although we are confronted with an ever faster and all-encompassing communication and related networks 24/7, simultaneously, the tendencies of redefining and re-inventing the nation-state and anachronistic imaginaries of homogeneous communities are becoming stronger worldwide. c) Analysing, understanding and explaining climate change and the many controversial debates surrounding the difficult economies of producing alternative energy sources and so forth. d) Analysing, understanding and explaining the use of digitally mediated communication and its impact on conventional and new modes of communication which seem to open up new modes of participation and new public spaces. However, it still remains to be explored which impacts the new communication networks really have on social and political change in systematic detail (KhosraviNik and Unger 2016).

CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES

37

e) Integrating approaches from cognitive sciences into CDS; this requires complex epistemological considerations and the development of new theories, methodologies and tools. f) Analysing, understanding and explaining the relationship between complex historical processes and hegemonic narratives. Identity politics on all levels always entails the integration of past experiences, present events and future visions in many domains of our lives (Wodak 2020a).

Critical linguistics and social semiotics The foundations for CDS as an established field of linguistic research were laid by the ‘critical linguistics’ (CL) which developed in Britain in the 1970s (Fowler et al. 1979). This was closely associated with Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday 1978), which accounts for its emphasis upon practical ways of analysing texts, and the attention it gives to the role of grammar in its ideological, context-dependent analysis. CL drew attention to the ideological potency of certain grammatical forms like passive structures, transitivity and nominalizations. Such linguistic forms (and others like certain metaphors, argumentative fallacies, rhetorical devices and presuppositions) have subsequently proven to be fruitful points of entry for critical semiotic analysis of social problems. However, it is important to state that one cannot simply ‘read off’ ideological analysis from such forms; while they facilitate a description of the object of research, any critical interpretation must relate to the sociopolitical and historical context.

Social Semiotics Some of the major figures in critical linguistics later developed ‘social semiotics’ (Van Leeuwen 2005a, 2005b). This highlights the multisemiotic and potentially ideological character of most texts in contemporary society and explores ways of analysing the intersection of language, images, design, colour, spatial arrangement and so forth. Van Leeuwen (2011) has also investigated the functions of colours, as well as the constraints imposed by certain software, PowerPoint templates and so on. He claims that the role and status of semiotic practices in society are currently undergoing change as a result of the fact that it is increasingly global corporations and semiotic technologies, rather than national institutions, which regulate semiotic production and consumption (Van Leeuwen 2009).

The dialectical-relational approach (DRA) Fairclough has developed a dialectical theory of discourse and a transdisciplinary approach to social change (1992). Fairclough’s approach has explored the discursive aspect of contemporary processes of social transformation in much detail. His work further examines neoliberalism (in UK Labour politics, 2000); the politically powerful concepts of ‘globalisation’ (2006) and the ‘knowledge-based economy’ (Jessop, Fairclough and Wodak 2008, Wodak and Fairclough 2010). In each case CDS is brought into dialogue with other sociological and social scientific research in order to investigate to what extent and in what ways these changes are related to changes in discourse, as well as to explore the socially transformative effects of discursive change. Discursive change is analysed in terms of the creative mixing of discourses and genres in texts, which leads over time to the restructuring of relationships between different discursive practices within and across institutions, and the shifting of boundaries within and between ‘orders of discourse’ (structured sets of discursive practices associated with

38

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

particular social domains). Fairclough’s work allies itself with the Cultural Political Economy research agenda which, among other things, incorporates a theory of discourse in analysing prevailing concepts in capitalist society like the ‘information society’ and ‘knowledge economy’. His approach to CDS oscillates between a focus on structure and a focus on action. Both strategies are problem based: by all means CDS should pursue emancipatory objectives and should be focused upon the problems (or ‘social wrongs’) confronting what can be referred to as the ‘losers’ within particular forms of social life. DRA draws upon Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday 1978) which analyses language as shaped (even in its grammar) by the social functions it has come to serve.

Socio-cognitive studies A leading figure in cognitive approaches to critical discourse studies is Teun Van Dijk, whose work has highlighted the cognitive dimensions of how discourse operates in racism, ideology and knowledge (e.g. Van Dijk 1993). The seminal book Strategies of Discourse Comprehension (Van Dijk and Kintsch 1983) set the agenda for interdisciplinary and critical research on discourse and cognition. Van Dijk’s work on the role of the media and of elite public figures in the reproduction of racism has highlighted the congruence between (racist) public representations and commonly held ethnic prejudices: immigration as invasion, immigrants and refugees as spongers, criminals and perpetrators of violence (1993). Further strands to his research include the systematic study of the relations between knowledge, context and discourse, developing a typology of knowledge and a contextually grounded definition of knowledge as a shared consensus of beliefs among social groups (Van Dijk 2008, 2009). Moreover, the focus on theorizing context and knowledge is relevant. Van Dijk shows that the subjective definitions and perceptions of the relevant properties of communicative situations influence text and talk. These definitions are made explicit in terms of mental models (Van Dijk 2008). In sum, Van Dijk emphasizes that language use and discourse always presuppose intervening mental models, goals and general social representations (knowledge, attitudes, ideologies, norms, values) of the language users. In other words, the study of discourse mediates between society/culture/situation, cognition and discourse/language. Recent developments combining cognitive perspectives and CDS include Koller’s (2005) and Musolff’s (2010, 2019) work on cognitive metaphor theory. Paul Chilton’s cognitive linguistic approach has made important contributions to the analysis of political discourse (Chilton 2004), as well as to the development of the CDS research agenda (Wodak and Chilton 2007). For example, he has recently argued that in the context of an increasingly globalised research community, one of the key challenges facing CDS is to address its tendency towards culture-centrism. Specifically, he believes that CDS frequently fails to address the fact that freedoms to engage in critical practice, as well as understandings of ‘critique’, vary considerably from one culture to the next.

Discourse-historical Approach (DHA) This approach was developed by Ruth Wodak and other scholars in Vienna working in the traditions of Bernsteinian sociolinguistics and the Frankfurt school. The approach is particularly associated with large research projects in interdisciplinary research teams focusing on sexism, antisemitism, identity politics, organizational discourses and racism. One of the major aims of this kind of critical research has been its practical application. The DHA was specifically devised for an interdisciplinary study of post-war antisemitism in Austria (Wodak et al. 1990). The distinctive feature of this approach is

CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES

39

its attempt to integrate systematically all available background information in the analysis and interpretation of the many layers of a written or spoken text, while specifically distinguishing four layers of context, leading from the broad sociopolitical context to the textual co-text of utterances (Wodak 2001; see section 4 below). The study for which the DHA was developed attempted to trace in detail the constitution of an antisemitic stereotyped image as it emerged in public discourse in the 1986 Austrian presidential campaign of Kurt Waldheim. Several other studies on prejudice and racism followed this first attempt and have led to more theoretical considerations on the nature of racist discourse (e.g. Reisigl and Wodak 2001, Wodak 2020b). The DHA is designed to enable the analysis of implicit, coded prejudiced utterances, as well as to identify and expose the allusions contained in prejudiced discourse. It has variously been applied to identity construction in European politics (Wodak 2011) and to far-right politics in Austria and the UK (Heer et al. 2008, Richardson 2017, Wodak and Richardson 2013). More recently the DHA has been combined with ethnographic methods to investigate identity politics and patterns of decision making in EU organizations, offering insights into the ‘backstage’ of politics, as well as the exploration of social change in EU countries (Triandafyllidou, Wodak and Krzyżanowski 2009, Wodak 2014). Moreover, the discursive construction of social identity, both national and gender-based, was analysed in a range of different national and transnational contexts (De Cillia, Wodak, Rheindorf and Lehner 2020, Wodak et al. 2009).

Argumentation and rhetoric Given CDS’s traditional orientation to questions of power inequality, it is not surprising that an important strand of theoretical and applied critical discourse research should be devoted to the language of persuasion and justification. Chilton’s work on the language of politics draws on cognitive linguistics, pragmatics and metaphor theory (2004). Based on his socio-semantic approach to discourse strategies, Van Leeuwen formulated an extensive grammar of legitimation (2007). This approach is used to uncover the many subtle and tacitly racist ideologies underpinning immigration policy (Van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999, Wodak 2018). Numerous studies in this field have developed and applied argumentation theory (e.g. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 2004) to a diversity of contexts ranging from newspapers’ letters to the editor (Atkin and Richardson 2007), management discourse (Kwon et al. 2009), to populist, nationalist and discriminatory discourses, and political discourse more generally (Wodak 2020b). Reisigl and Wodak (2001) identify a range of argumentative patterns and common fallacies, many of which are typically found in far-right populist discourse. They also identify ‘topoi’ as key elements in argumentation strategies (see below). Ieţcu’s work combines CDS with the Amsterdam school of pragmadialectics (Ieţcu 2006) in her analyses of how a neoliberal version of transition to a free market economy was argumentatively defended in Romania throughout the 1990s

Corpus-based approaches A relatively recent development in CDS has been its incorporation of computer-based methods of analysis. Mulderrig’s study of UK political discourse (2009) brings these distinct modes of research into dialogue with political economy, while Mautner’s seminal work in this domain (2016) applies corpus-based CDS to a range of sociolinguistic issues. Methodologically, it develops novel ways of using corpus tools in CDS, for example,

40

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

‘keywords analysis’ is linked to social theory in order to investigate the historical rise and fall of the most prominent political discourses (Rheindorf and Wodak 2020). This combined method also offers a systematic and thus replicable approach to CDS. Similarly, Baker et al. (2008) utilize corpus methods to critically analyse the discourse of racism in the news.

SAMPLE STUDY: INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION – THE AUSTRIAN CASE The context In December 2007 and January 2008, traditional and less-known exclusionary discourses suddenly appeared in the public sphere, triggered by three primary factors: the expansion of the Schengen area (border controls between Austria, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovenia were abolished on 21st December 2007), the possible accession of Turkey and new and very strict immigration laws in Austria and in other EU member-states. In the city of Graz which voted for a new city council in early 2008, many examples of exclusionary racist rhetoric were posted by the BZÖ (Bündnis Zukunft Österreich) (www.sauberesgraz.at), which focused on the term ‘säubern’ (to clean/cleanse), an obvious allusion to Nazi propaganda and ideology of ‘cleansing cities of Jews’ – a euphemism for ethnic cleansing and genocide (‘Säuberung von Juden; Judenrein’). The photos below (Figures 3.1–3.3) illustrate this exclusionary rhetoric and the many negative ethnic, religious and national stereotypes which are (re)produced in this way, that is, stereotypes of the ‘Poles as thieves’ and the ‘drug-dealing African’ (see also Richardson and Wodak 2009a):

The methodology According to Reisigl and Wodak (2001,1), racism/discrimination/exclusion manifests itself discursively: ‘Racist opinions and beliefs are produced and reproduced by means of discourse … through discourse, discriminatory exclusionary practices are prepared, promulgated and legitimized.’ Hence, the strategic use of many linguistic indicators to construct in- and out-groups is fundamental to political (and discriminatory) discourses in all kinds of settings. It is important to focus on the latent meanings produced through pragmatic devices, such as implicatures, hidden causalities, presuppositions, insinuations and certain syntactic embeddings, as frequently manifest in the rhetoric of right-wing populist European politicians, such as Jörg Haider, Jean Marie Le Pen or Silvio Berlusconi. To be able to analyse these examples, it is important to briefly summarize a few analytic concepts of the DHA: Systematic qualitative analysis in the DHA takes four layers of context into account: ●●

the intertextual and interdiscursive relationships between utterances, texts, genres and discourses,

●●

the extra-linguistic social/sociological variables,

●●

the history and archaeology of texts and organizations and

●●

institutional frames of the specific context of a situation.

CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES

41

FIGURE 3.1  ‘We are cleansing Graz’ say Peter Westenthaler and Gerald Grosz, from the BZÖ – formerly part of the FPÖ, which split 2005 into FPÖ and BZÖ. They are cleansing Graz of ‘corruption, asylum abuse, beggars, and criminality by foreigners’.

42

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

FIGURE 3.2  Wojciech V., serial car thief, states: ‘Do not vote for the BZÖ because I would like to continue with my business dealings’.

FIGURE 3.3  Amir Z, asylum seeker and drug dealer, states: ‘Please do not vote for the BZÖ so that I can continue with my business dealings’.

CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES

43

In this way, we are able to explore how discourses, genres and texts change due to sociopolitical contexts. ‘Discourse’ in the DHA is defined as being ●●

●●

●●

related to a macro-topic (and to the argumentation about validity claims such as truth and normative validity which involves social actors who have different points of view); a cluster of context-dependent semiotic practices that are situated within specific fields of social action; socially constituted as well as socially constitutive.

In sum, we regard (a) macro-topic-relatedness, (b) pluri-perspectivity and (c) argumentativity as constitutive elements of a discourse (see Reisigl and Wodak (2016) for extensive discussions of particular aspects). Furthermore, it is necessary to distinguish between ‘discourse’ and ‘text’: discourse implies patterns and commonalities of knowledge and structures, whereas a text is a specific and unique realization of a discourse. Texts belong to ‘genres’. Thus, a discourse on exclusion could manifest itself in a potentially huge range of genres and texts, for example, in a TV debate on domestic politics, in a political manifesto on immigration restrictions, in a speech by an expert on migration matters and so forth. A text only creates sense in connection with knowledge of the world and of the text. ‘Intertextuality’ refers to the linkage of all texts to other texts, both in the past and in the present. Such links can be established in different ways: through continued reference to a topic or to its main actors; through reference to the same events as the other texts or through the reappearance of a text’s main arguments in another text. The latter process is also labelled ‘recontextualization’. By taking an argument out of context and restating it in a new context, we first observe the process of de-contextualization, and then, when the respective element is implemented in a new context, of recontextualization. The element then acquires a new meaning, because, as Wittgenstein (1967) already demonstrated, meanings are formed in use. Hence, arguments from parliamentary debates on immigration or from political speeches are recontextualized in a genre-adequate way in the posters depicted above through the use of salient visual and verbal features and elements. ‘Interdiscursivity’, on the other hand, indicates that topic-oriented discourses are linked to each other in various ways: for example, a discourse on exclusion often refers to topics or subtopics of other discourses, such as education or employment. Discourses are open and hybrid; new subtopics can be created at any point in time, and intertextuality and interdiscursivity always allow for new fields of action. The construction of in- and out-groups necessarily implies the use of strategies of positive self-presentation and the negative presentation of others. I am especially interested in five types of discursive strategies, which are all involved in positive selfand negative other-presentation. These discursive strategies underpin the justification/ legitimization of inclusion/exclusion and of the constructions of identities. In this brief summary of the case study, I focus mostly on the strategies of nomination, predication and argumentation (see Reisigl and Wodak (2001) and Richardson and Wodak (2009a) for an extensive overview of all strategies). Moreover, positive self- and negative otherpresentation requires justification and legitimation strategies, as elements of ‘persuasive rhetoric’. Topoi are the content-related warrants or ‘conclusion rules’ which connect the argument or arguments with the conclusion or the central claim. As such they justify the

44

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

TABLE 3.1  List of prevailing topoi.

1- Usefulness, advantage

9- Economy

2- Uselessness, disadvantage

10- Reality

3-Definition

11- Numbers

4-Danger and threat

12- Law and order

5-Humanitarianism

13- History

6- Justice

14- Culture

7- Responsibility

15- Abuse

8- Burdening

transition from the argument or arguments to the conclusion, in the sense of a ‘short-cut’: the argumentation structure in Toulmin’s sense is condensed and remains implicit. Topoi are central to the analysis of seemingly convincing fallacious arguments which are widely adopted in prejudiced and discriminatory discourses (Kienpointner 1996, 562). In Table 3.1, I list the most common topoi which are used when writing or talking about ‘others’, specifically about migrants. These topoi have been investigated in a number of studies on election campaigns (Pelinka and Wodak 2002), on parliamentary debates (Wodak and van Dijk 2000), on ‘voices of migrants’ (Delanty, Jones and Wodak 2011) and on media reporting (Baker et al. 2008). Most of them are used to justify the exclusion of migrants through quasi rational warrants (‘they are a burden for the society’, ‘they are dangerous, a threat’, ‘they cost too much’, ‘their culture is too different’ and so forth), without giving the evidence – in this sense, they condense a complex argumentative structure by appealing to common sense: migrants are thus constructed as scapegoats; they are blamed for unemployment or for causing general discontent (with politics, with the European Union, etc.), for abusing social welfare systems or they are more generally perceived as a threat for ‘our’ culture. On the other hand, some topoi are used in anti-discriminatory discourses, such as appeals to human rights or to justice (see also Rheindorf and Wodak 2020). Similarly, there is a more or less fixed set of metaphors employed in exclusionary discourse (Reisigl and Wodak 2001), such as the likening of migration to a natural disaster, of immigration/immigrants as avalanches or floods and of illegal immigration as ‘dragging or hauling masses’.

Analysis Let us now return to the examples depicted above: the three posters which form the data of our brief pilot study condense many features of racist and discriminatory rhetoric; most importantly, the insinuation to Nazi rhetoric is apparent both in the choice of words and in the use of visual metaphors and symbols (‘washing the streets with brooms’). This also applies to the stereotypes of ‘drug dealing black asylum seekers’, and ‘Polish thieves’ (as nominations), which are common in Austria. In this way, the BZÖ attempts to construct itself by applying several visual and verbal topoi to imply the ‘law and order’ party which could save Austrians and the citizens of Graz from ‘immediate and huge threats’. The posters employ many nominative and predicative strategies whereby the ‘others’ are named and certain characteristics are attributed to

CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES

45

them. On the other hand, the BZÖ leaders are also labelled and characterized, albeit contrasted in positive ways. Moreover, all posters utilize layout and fonts in black and white; explicit paradoxical statements serve as presuppositions to contrasting latent meanings: the norms and values are implied through the subtext – the opposite meanings. These persuasive strategies (implicature by contrast) belong to the political subfield of advertising. If we continue briefly with a multimodal analysis, we have to point to colours and contrast between dark and light which are salient features (see Kress and van Leeuwen 1996): dark for the ‘others’, the bad people who steal and deal drugs; light, white and orange for the ‘good guys’ who ‘will cleanse’ the city of threatening inhabitants. In this way, the images combine metaphorical, metonymic and pragmatic devices in intricate ways. The latter devices are employed as argumentation and intensification strategies. The topoi range from ‘abuse, criminality’ to ‘law and order’, ‘threat for our culture’ and ‘justice’. Due to the fact that we are discussing images where the depiction of the ‘others’ employs biological characteristics, like skin colour, certain hairstyles, dark eyes, etc., we necessarily conclude that racist meanings are intentionally (re)produced as persuasive devices. At this point, we should explore the context of the election campaign in much greater detail, the history of the two parties involved as well as the broader historical context in Austria, where similar slogans and meanings were employed by Nazi rhetoric before and during the Second World War. ‘Cleansing’ streets/stores/towns of ‘others’ (Jews, Slavs, Roma, etc.) stems from such fascist rhetoric and has now been redeployed and recontextualized to apply to Poles, migrants from Africa, among others, for this context.

SUMMARY This chapter provides a summary of CDS approaches, their similarities and differences. One of CDS’s volitional characteristics is its diversity. Nevertheless, a few salient cornerstones exist within this diversity: ●●

●●

●●

CDS works eclectically in many aspects. There is no accepted canon of data gathering; however, many CDS approaches work with existing data, that is, texts not always or even rarely specifically produced for the respective research projects. Operationalization and analysis are problem-oriented and imply linguistic expertise.

The most evident similarity is a shared interest in social processes of power, exclusion and subordination. In the tradition of Critical Theory, CDS aims to shed light on the discursive aspects of societal disparities and inequalities. CDS frequently detects the linguistic means used by diverse groups in power to stabilize or even to intensify inequities in society. This entails careful systematic analysis, self-reflection at every point of one’s research, and distance from the data which are being investigated. Description and interpretation should be kept apart, thus enabling transparency and retroduction of the respective analysis. Of course, not all of these recommendations are consistently followed, and they cannot always be implemented in detail because of time pressures and similar structural constraints; therefore, some critics will continue to state that CDS constantly sits on the

46

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

fence between social research and political argumentation (Wodak 2013b); others accuse some CDS studies of being too linguistic or not linguistic enough. Such criticism seems necessary to keep a field alive because it stimulates more self-reflection and encourages new thoughts.

FURTHER READINGS Angermueller, J., D. Maingueneau and R. Wodak (eds) (2014), The Discourse Studies Reader: Main Currents in Theory and Analysis, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Flowerdew, J. and J. E. Richardson (eds) (2017), The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, London: Routledge. Hart, C. and P. Cap (eds) (2014), Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies, London: Bloomsbury. Wodak, R. (2020), The Politics of Fear. The Shameless Normalization of Far-right Discourses, 2nd revised and extended edn, London: Sage. Wodak, R. (ed.) (2013), Critical Discourse Analysis, 3 Vols., London: Sage. Wodak, R. and M. Meyer (eds) (2016), Methods of Critical Discourse Studies, London: Sage.

NOTE 1

In this chapter, I draw on the more extensive overviews of CDS in Rheindorf, 2019, Wodak & Meyer, 2016a, Fairclough, Wodak, Mulderrig, 2011, and Reisigl & Wodak, 2016. The pilot analysis draws on the in-depth analysis in Richardson & Wodak, 2009a, and Wodak & Köhler, 2010.

REFERENCES Angermueller, J., D. Maingueneau and R. Wodak (eds) (2014) The Discourse Studies Reader: Main Currents in Theory and Analysis, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Atkin, A. and J. E. Richardson (2007), ‘Arguing About Muslims: (Un)reasonable Arguments in Letters to the Editor’, Text & Talk: 1–25. Baker, P., C. Gabrielatos, M. KhosraviNik, M. Kryzanowski, T. McEnery and R. Wodak (2008), ‘A Useful Methodological Synergy? Combining Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics to Examine Discourses of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK Press’, Discourse & Society, 19 (3): 273–306. Chilton, P. (2004), Analysing Political Discourse: Theory and Practice, London: Routledge. Chilton, P., H. Tian and R. Wodak (2010), ‘Reflections on Discourse and Critique in China and the West’, Journal of Language and Politics, 9 (4): 489–506. De Cillia, R., R. Wodak, M. Rheindorf and S. Lehner (2020) Identitäten im Wandel, Berlin: Springer. Delanty, G., R. Wodak and P. Jones (eds) (2011), Migration, Identity, and Belonging, 2nd revised edn, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Fairclough, N. (1992), Discourse and Social Change, Cambridge: Polity Press. Fairclough, N. (2000), New Labour, New Language, London: Routledge. Fairclough, N. (2006), Language and Globalization, London: Routledge. Fairclough, N. and R. Wodak (1997), ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’, in T. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as Social Interaction, 33–77, London: Sage.

CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES

47

Fairclough, N., J. Mulderrig and R. Wodak (2011), Critical Discourse Analysis’, in T. van Dijk (ed.), Discourse as Social Interaction, 2nd edn, 357–78, London: Sage. Fowler, R., G. Kress, R. Hodge and T. Trew (eds) (1979), Language and Control, London: Routledge. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978), Language as Social Semiotic, London: Edward Arnold. Hart, C. and P. Cap (eds) (2014) Contemporary Critical Discourse Studies, London: Bloomsbury. Heer, H., W. Manoschek, A. Pollak and R. Wodak (eds) (2008), The Discursive Construction of History: Remembering the Wehrmacht’s War of Annihilation, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Ieţcu-Fairclough, I. (2006), ‘Argumentation, Dialogue and Conflicting Moral Economies in Post-1989 Romania. An Argument against the Trade Union Movement’, Discourse & Society, 17 (5): 627–50. Jessop, B., N. Fairclough and R. Wodak (eds) (2008), Higher Education and the KnowledgeBased Economy in Europe, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. KhosraviNik, M. and J. W. Unger (2016), ‘Critical Discourse Studies and Social Media: Power, Resistance and Critique in Changing Media Ecologies’, in R. Wodak and M. Meyer (eds), Methods of Critical Discourse Studies, 205–34, London: Sage. Kienpointner, M. (1996), Vernünftig argumentieren: Regeln und Techniken der Diskussion, Hamburg: Rowohlt. Koller, V. (2005), ‘Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Cognition: Evidence from Business Media Discourse’, Discourse & Society, 16 (2): 199–224. Kress, G. and T. van Leeuwen (1996), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, London: Routledge. Kwon, W., I. Clarke and R. Wodak (2009), ‘Organizational Decision-making, Discourse, and Power: Integrating across Contexts and Scales’, Discourse and Communication, 3 (3): 273–302. Mautner, G. (2016), ‘Checks and Balances: How Corpus Linguistics Can Contribute to CDS’, in R. Wodak and M. Meyer (eds), Methods of Critical Discourse Studies, 154–79, London: Sage. Mulderrig, J. (2009), The Language of Education Policy: From Thatcher to Blair, Saarbrücken: VDM. Musolff, A. (2010) Metaphor, Nation, and the Holocaust, London: Routledge. Musolff, A. (ed.) (2019) Public Debates on Immigration, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Pelinka, A. and R. Wodak (eds) (2002), Dreck am Stecken. Politik der Ausgrenzung, Vienna: Czernin. Reisigl, M. and R. Wodak (2001), Discourse and Discrimination. Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism, London: Routledge. Reisigl, M., and R. Wodak (2016), ‘The Discourse-Historical Approach’, in R. Wodak and M. Meyer (eds), Methods of Critical Discourse Studies, 23–61, London: Sage. Rheindorf, M. (2019), Revisiting the Toolbox of Discourse Studies. New Trajectories in Methodology, Open Data and Visualization, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Rheindorf, M. and R. Wodak (2020), ‘Building ‘Fortress Europe’: Legitimizing Exclusion from Basic Human Rights’, in M. Rheindorf and R. Wodak (eds), Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Migration Control: Language Policy, Identity, and Belonging, 116–47, Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Richardson, J. E. (2004), (Mis)Representing Islam: The Racism and Rhetoric of British Broadsheet Newspapers, Amsterdam: Benjamins.

48

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Richardson, J. E. and R. Wodak (2009a), ‘Recontextualising Fascist Ideologies of the Past: Right-Wing Discourses on Employment and Nativism in Austria and the United Kingdom’, Critical Discourse Studies, 6 (4): 251–68. Richardson, J. E. and R. Wodak (2009b), ‘Visual Racist Argumentation’, Controversies: 45–77. Richardson, J. E. (2017), ‘Fascist Discourse’, in J. Flowerdew and J. E. Richardson (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, 447–62, London: Routledge,. Triandafyllidou, A., R. Wodak and M. Krzyżanowski (eds) (2009), The European Public Sphere and the Media. Europe in Crisis, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Van Dijk, T. (1993), Elite Discourse and Racism, Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Van Dijk, T. (ed.) (2007), Discourse Studies, 5 Vols., London: Sage. Van Dijk, T. (2008), Discourse and Context: A Sociocognitive Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Dijk, T. (2009), Society and Discourse. How Context Controls Text and Talk, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Dijk, T. (2013), ‘CDA Is Not a Method of Critical Discourse Analysis’, EDISO Debate – Asociacion de Estudios Sobre Discurso y Sociedad. http://www.edisoportal.org/debate/115cda-not-method-critical-discourse-analysis Van Dijk, T. and W. Kintsch (1983), Strategies of Discourse Comprehension, New York: Academic Press. Van Eemeren, F. and R. Grootendorst (2004), A Systematic Theory of Argumentation. The Pragma-dialectical Approach, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Leeuwen, T. (2005a), Introducing Social Semiotics, London: Routledge. Van Leeuwen, T. (2005b), ‘Typographic Meaning’, Visual Communication: 137–42. Van Leeuwen, T. (2007), ‘Legitimation in Discourse and Communication’, Discourse & Communication, 1 (1): 91–112. Van Leeuwen, T. (2009), ‘Discourse as the Recontextualisation of Social Practice: A Guide’, in R. Wodak and M. Meyer (eds), Methods of CDA, 2nd revised edn, 144–61, London: Sage. Van Leeuwen, T. (2011), The Language of Colour, London: Routledge. Van Leeuwen, T. and R. Wodak (1999), ‘Legitimizing Immigration Control: A Discoursehistorical Analysis’, Discourse Studies 1(1): 83–119. Wittgenstein, L. (1967), Philosophische Untersuchungen, Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp. Wodak, R. (2001), ‘The Discourse-historical Approach’, in R. Wodak and M. Meyer (eds), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, 63–94, London: Sage. Wodak, R. (2011), The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual, 2nd revised edn, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Wodak, R. (2013), ‘Editor’s Introduction: Critical Discourse Analysis’, in R. Wodak (ed.), Critical Discourse Analysis, 3 Vols., xix–xliii, London: Sage. Wodak, R. (2014), ‘Political Discourse Analysis. Distinguishing Frontstage and Backstage Contexts. A Discourse-historical Approach’, in J. Flowerdew (ed.), Discourse in Context: Contemporary Applied Linguistic, 321–45, London: Bloomsbury. Wodak, R. (2018), ‘“Strangers in Europe”: A Discourse-historical Approach to the Legitimation of Immigration Control 2015/16’, in S. Zhao et al (eds), Advancing Multimodal and Critical Discourse Studies, 31–50, London: Routledge. Wodak, R. (2020), The Politics of Fear. The Shameless Normalization of Far-right Discourses, 2nd revised and extended edn, London: Sage. Wodak, R. and N. Fairclough (2010), ‘Recontextualizing European Higher Education Policies: The Cases of Austria and Romania’, Critical Discourse Studies, 7 (1): 19–40.

CRITICAL DISCOURSE STUDIES

49

Wodak, R. and K. Köhler (2010), ‘Wer oder was ist fremd? Diskurshistorische Analyse fremdenfeindlicher Rhetorik in Österreich’, Sozialwissenschaftliche Studien, 50 (1): 33–55. Wodak, R. and T. Van Dijk (eds) (2000), Racism at the Top: Parliamentary Discourses on Ethnic Issues in Six European States, Klagenfurt: Drava. Wodak, R. and P. Chilton (eds) (2007), A New Research Agenda in Critical Discourse Analysis: Theory and Interdisciplinarity, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Wodak, R. and J. E. Richardson (eds) (2013), Analysing Fascist Discourse: European Fascism in Talk and Text. London: Routledge. Wodak, R. and M. Meyer (2016a), ‘Critical Discourse Studies: History, Theory, Agenda, and Methodology’, in R. Wodak and M. Meyer (eds), Methods of CDS, 1–22, London: Sage. Wodak. R. and M. Meyer (eds) (2016b), Methods of Critical Discourse Studies, 3rd revised edn, London: Sage. Wodak, R., R. de Cillia, M. Reisigl and K. Liebhart (2009), The Discursive Construction of National Identity, 2nd revised and extended edn, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wodak, R. P. Nowak, J. Pelikan, H. Gruber, R. de Cillia and R. Mitten (1990) Wir sind alle unschuldige Täter‘. Diskurshistorische Studien zum Nachkriegsantisemitismus, Frankfurt a.M: Suhrkamp.

50

CHAPTER FOUR

Genre analysis CHRISTINE M. TARDY

Genres are recognizable categories of discourse used to carry out certain actions. Genre forms become ‘typified’ (or normalized) when they are used repeatedly over time to respond to a specific need or exigence (Miller 1984). Over time, responses begin to conform to prior uses until their shape becomes expected by users. Because of their repeated use, genres are recognizable by members of communities that use them. For example, scientific researchers may recognize conventional ways to report research findings, businesspeople may recognize conventional ways of articulating a company’s mission and politicians may recognize conventional ways of delivering a campaign speech. Genres also display variations related to sociorhetorical context: research reports, mission statements and campaign speeches are likely to be carried out differently depending on factors like academic discipline, workplace context or geographic region. Genres embody a community’s expectations for not just linguistic form, but also rhetorical strategies, procedural practices, and subject-matter or content, among other dimensions. A campaign speech, for example, may be typified in terms of its rhetorical appeals, the processes for preparing the speech and the topics covered in the speech – all of which interact with the speech’s linguistic features. As socially recognized forms, genres play an important role in understanding discourse. Genre analysis – by researchers or students – aims to describe features of these socially recognized forms and actions. Such descriptions build an understanding of the relationships between language and context and produce valuable insights for language education.

CURRENT THEORY AND RESEARCH IN GENRE ANALYSIS Theories of genre as a category of discourse have spanned disciplinary orientations – most notably, in applied linguistics, those of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), English for specific purposes (ESP) and rhetorical genres studies (RGS). Despite distinct theoretical groundings and research approaches, these orientations agree on several general characteristics of genre as a category of discourse: ●●

Genres are primarily a rhetorical category.

●●

Genres are socially situated.

●●

Genres are intertextual, not isolated.

●●

Genres are carried out in multiple – and often mixed – modes of communication.

●●

Genres reflect and enforce existing structures of power.

52

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Genre analysis is an approach or set of analytic methods for studying particular texts within discourses. This chapter outlines genre analysis methods as they relate to the above characteristics. Because methods adopted within an SFL framework are described in detail in Martin (this volume), this chapter will focus primarily on approaches from ESP and RGS.

GENRE AS A RHETORICAL CATEGORY Early theoretical work in genre studies emphasized genre to be a rhetorical, rather than linguistic, category (Miller 1984, Swales 1990); in other words, what makes a text a genre is not its linguistic form but the rhetorical action that it carries out in response to the dynamics of a social context. An SFL approach similarly classifies genres by meaning, defining genres as ‘staged, goal oriented social process’ (Martin 1993: 142). This definitional conception of genre as social action or process has proved essential in the research of genre-based communication. If genres are to be distinguished by their rhetorical elements, the study of genres must investigate text and context and the relationship between the two. One method for analysing a genre rhetorically is moves analysis, first developed by Swales (1990). Swales (2004: 228) defines a rhetorical move as ‘a discoursal or rhetorical unit that performs a coherent communicative function in a written or spoken discourse’; moves can be realized through a word, clause, sentence or even several sentences or paragraphs. Rhetorical moves ‘help classify a text as a member of a particular genre’ as they ‘perform specific functions that contribute to the genre’s overarching purposes’ (Hyon 2018: 30). Moves analysis identifies the text parts that carry out distinct rhetorical functions. Beginning with a corpus of texts representative of a genre within one or more social contexts, the analyst identifies common moves. A detailed analysis may count move frequency within the corpus, aiming to identify which moves appear to be more or less obligatory and which might be optional or even rare. Sequences of moves may also be analysed, helping to identify common move patterns. More fine-grained moves analysis also examines steps, or subcategories, within a single move (see Hyon (2018) for a detailed discussion of moves analysis). Moves analysis explicitly studies texts in terms of their rhetorical goals and how they work to achieve those goals. A great deal of research has investigated rhetorical moves in academic research articles and in article introductions in particular. These studies have led to insights into how an introduction creates a research space – a goal carried out through moves like indicating a gap in prior work and situating the present research within that gap. These moves also reflect the values and practices of academic research, specifically the importance of novelty and contribution to and extension of existing knowledge. While computer programs can aid in identifying and counting moves, such technology remains limited for these purposes. Most often, moves analysis is carried out by hand and therefore tends to work with smaller corpora of around thirty or more texts. Many studies have examined moves of a single genre across subgroups, such as comparing an article abstract across academic disciplines. Such comparative analysis can identify distinct values and practices among communities of users. Moves analysis specifically studies text at the discourse level, taking into account how stretches of a text function rhetorically. Genre analysis at the lexico-grammatical level is also used to investigate the rhetorical elements of genre. Computer software applications

GENRE ANALYSIS

53

can aid in identifying patterns in metadiscourse such as frame markers (to conclude, in this section), attitude markers (curiously, interestingly) or hedges (could, might, possibly) across disciplinary uses of genres (Hyland 2004, 2006). Comparing normalized frequency counts (the relative frequency of an item in corpora of different sizes), this work at times illustrates substantial differences between hard and soft sciences. Supplementing these analyses with the insights of interviewed insiders, researchers can illustrate how lexicogrammatical patterns reflect and reinforce the community’s values and practices (e.g. Hyland 2004).

GENRE AS SOCIALLY SITUATED ACTIONS Genres are created by communities to carry out particular goals; therefore, the conventionalized forms that genres take on over time are inherently tied to their sociorhetorical contexts – they are, therefore, described as socially situated. Genres are often said to index or reflect the sociorhetorical contexts in which they exist. As socially situated ways of communicating, genres must also be somewhat dynamic and changeable in relation to their users, uses and other contextual factors. This variation may be traceable across communities of users, regional or physical workspaces, and time. Developments in technology, cultural values and literate practices may all lead to changes in a community’s genres. Historical or diachronic studies of genre trace the evolution of a single genre within a community of users over decades or centuries (e.g. Yates 1989), demonstrating how changes in the genre relate to changes in the community. Diachronic genre analysis can examine moves, linguistic features, rhetorical features or even practices associated with the genre. One well-known study of the evolution of scientific writing traces research articles in experimental psychology from the late 1800s to the mid-1960s (Bazerman 1988). This epistemological and textual history of experimental psychology reveals a change from an early research article that resembles a philosophical essay to today’s fairly rigid experimental reports. This change is accompanied by the establishment and evolution of the APA documentation style manual, which manifests growing prescriptive specifications and an increased commitment to a positivist paradigm over time. While diachronic genre analysis is one approach to analysing this co-constitutive relationship between text and social context, ethnography offers another approach. Drawing on observations, interviews and often text analysis, ethnography aims to build a ‘thick description’ of a social setting, including the users, their common and conflicting goals, their interactions, their values and their common practices (see Atkinson, Okada and Talmy this volume for a more detailed discussion of ethnography and discourse analysis). By investigating the behaviours, interactions and micro-level practices in which a genre is situated, researchers can gain insight into why generic texts look as they do and, importantly, how the genre shapes those behaviours, interactions and practices.

GENRE AS INTERTEXTUAL ACTION As genres are situated within dynamic social contexts, we see that the communicative work that they do is almost never carried out by isolated, single texts. Rather, genres work in

54

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

coordination to accomplish complex tasks and social goals. The intertextual relationships among genres have been described through metaphors like dialogues (Bakhtin 1986), systems (Bazerman 1994) and colonies (Bhatia 2004). Genres can incorporate antecedent genres explicitly through references or quotations or more implicitly as they echo communication patterns and expectations formed through repeated uses. Intertextual analysis of genres can shed light on how a genre’s rhetorical purposes are situated within complex configurations of practice, and it can enhance our understandings of the relationships between different genres. This research can also reveal how genres collectively shape a community’s practices. To examine such intergeneric relationships, a growing number of studies have used what might be termed genre systems analysis or genre network analysis. This approach aims to understand the relationship among the genres that a community uses and between those genres and the community. Yates and Orlikowski (2002) outline a framework that analyses how genres shape community expectations along six axes: why, what, how, who/m, when and where. Their heuristic helps reveal how genre systems may coordinate a community’s work. Such an analysis may focus primarily on context, or may examine both text and context. The relationship between meta-genres (such as guidelines, advice books or tutorials) and the genres they describe can also be analysed from a text-centred perspective, as in Paltridge’s (2002) study of the information available to writers of graduate theses/dissertations. Augmented with interviews, this approach can yield rich views of individual genres and the type of information that may be accessible to writers. Drawing on neo-Vygotskyan activity theory, other studies have explored how genre systems organize and carry out the work of professions, as in Berkenkotter’s (2001) study of mental health workers’ use of paperwork, drawing on observations, text analysis, and interviews to study the activities and genres used. Genres are also intertextual in their uptake of particular discourses. Emmons (2009), for example, explores how, when using a genre such as the medical symptoms list or a diagnostic survey for depression, users take up biomedical discourse and become positioned in particular ways by that discourse. Through intertextual analysis, patterns of manifest intertextuality – such as citations, summaries or paraphrases from other texts – can be identified. This type of research has been particularly prevalent in analysis of academic genres, many of which draw extensively on other texts. For instance, Hyland (2004) examined the use of integral citations (in which the reference to another author appears as part of a sentence) versus non-integral citations (in which the reference to another author appears outside of the sentence, for example, in parentheses or footnotes). Such patterns can be researched across genres and/or across communities of users. A broader framework for examining intertextuality, offered by Bazerman (2004), includes six techniques of intertextual representation: (1) direct quotation; (2) indirect quotation; (3) mention of a person, document or statements; (4) comment or evaluation on a statement, text or otherwise invoked voice; (5) using recognizable phrasing, terminology associated with specific people or groups of people or particular documents; and (6) using language and forms that seem to echo certain ways of communicating. The last two techniques here would seem to fall under the category of interdiscursivity or constitutive intertextuality (Fairclough 1992) – that is, the drawing upon of prior genres and orders of discourses. Bridging textual and contextual research and moving beyond the study of genres in isolation, these various approaches to intertextual analysis represent a component of genre analysis research.

GENRE ANALYSIS

55

GENRE AS MULTIMODAL COMMUNICATION Genre analysis that foregrounds text has tended to examine written texts, generally focusing on verbal (linguistic) modes of communication (i.e. words). Yet, even written texts are increasingly characterized by an integration of verbal and visual modes. While texts have long incorporated multiple modalities, today they are often visually saturated, with many authors having the power to create their own images, graphics or animations and to modify typeface and formatting without the assistance or direction of editors. Images can be rhetorically powerful and, in many cases, are used to communicate essential information. Presentation slides, posters, websites or so-called ‘new media’ texts cannot be analysed without attention to visual elements. Even traditionally verbal part-genres like article abstracts are now at times composed visually (Hendges and Florek 2019). Aural modalities are also increasingly incorporated into – or form the basis of – many genres that were previously written; for example, scholars now create ‘scholarly soundbites’ such as author videos, podcasts or Three Minute Theses to communicate their research (Rowley-Jolivet and Carter-Thomas 2019). Although linguistic-focused genre analysis has not tended to examine non-verbal elements, multimodal genre analysis has offered methods for doing so (see O’Halloran this volume for a discussion of multimodal discourse analysis). One excellent example of such analysis is the work by Rowley-Jolivet (2004). Analysing conference presentations in the sciences, Rowley-Jolivet categorizes visual structures or types as scriptural (i.e. text-based), graphical (e.g. graphs, diagrams or maps), figurative (e.g. photographs) or numeric (e.g. equations). Paired with systemic-functional analysis, visuals can be further examined by their meaning-making functions: ideational (conveying meaning about states of affairs), interpersonal (conveying meaning about attitudes and relations of users) or textual (guiding the reader through text itself) (Kress and van Leeuwen 1996). Together, these frameworks support a multimodal genre analysis that can investigate patterns of verbal and visual messages and the functions that these messages carry out. Approaches to multimodal and digital genre analysis are somewhat more methodologically diverse than the text-based genre analyses described previously. A study of digital hypermodal scientific articles, for example, examines the affordances of embedded genres (including video and animated genres) and hyperlinks and how these genre features contribute to knowledge building (Mirović, Bogdanović and Bulatović 2019). Hendges and Florek’s (2019) study of graphical abstracts examines the visual in terms of their layout, number of visual entities, originality and nature of the images. This methodological diversity is a strength, as researchers are building up a needed repertoire for studying the ever-expanding forms of text.

GENRE AS A REFLECTION AND REINFORCEMENT OF POWER Genres reflect their users’ values and practices, which are neither neutral nor free of power dynamics. As such, they must be viewed as both a reflection and a reinforcement of the power structures that exist in the community within which they are used. As certain forms and practices become conventionalized and expected, particular roles and relationships are normalized. School genres, for instance, inherently situate students in low-power positions, subject to the preferences and evaluation of teachers, who serve as gatekeepers.

56

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Critical genre analysis aims to uncover how genres position people within social structures, with critical discourse analysis (see Wodak this volume) providing a valuable springboard for this kind of analysis. In a study of corporate disclosure documents, Bhatia (2017) demonstrates that although such documents appear to serve the purpose of informing shareholders and the general public, their more covert purpose is to promote the company and its interests through the appropriation of linguistic conventions. Bhatia employs several methods of analysis, taking a critical, rather than purely descriptive, eye to the texts. Moves analysis of the president’s letter to shareholders reveals that companies are more likely to include moves like look back on the year when they have had a financially successful year. Lexico-grammatical analysis reveals that nominalized business terms like contractions of revenue or productivity gains evoke an appearance of objectivity and facts, removing individuals from responsibility. Critical genre analysis can also examine how lexical or grammatical choices may display the ideological commitments of different genre producers or may normalize the power of particular groups over others (e.g. Kandil and Belcher 2011), or it may draw on observations and interviews to understand how genres may reinforce or even conflict with community values (e.g. Paré 2002). Bhatia (2017) offers perhaps the most extended discussion of critical genre analysis, though power plays a somewhat limited role in his application. Future work will hopefully continue to explore how genres may be analysed from a critical perspective.

GENRE ANALYSIS AS AN APPROACH TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Genre analysis draws on the theoretical principles and research methods outlined above to explore forms of discourse, giving insight into the ways language reflects and constitutes social practice. The combination of methods within any genre analysis is guided by the analyst’s questions regarding the genre of focus, posed from a rhetorical perspective. For instance, an analyst of published research articles may want to understand how authors foreground novelty or contribution in different disciplines. A combination of moves analysis, lexico-grammatical analysis and expert interviews would be effective in garnering such insight. In another situation, an analyst may want to learn about the set of genres that coordinate the work of lawyers preparing a brief. Here, intertextual analysis, field observation and interviews would provide a more appropriate set of methods. A strong genre analysis also draws on previous research related to similar genres, bringing together insights gathered over time. The next section illustrates the application of a genre analysis approach to the study of discourse, examining the ‘project summary’ genre that exists as part of the system of grant funding in the United States. Though this analysis is small in scale, it demonstrates how multiple analytic methods can be integrated to investigate genre through a sociorhetorical lens.

PERSUASION IN THE HIGH-STAKES WORLD OF GRANT FUNDING: A SAMPLE GENRE ANALYSIS Grant proposals are an important genre for academic researchers, with external funding often playing a significant role in tenure and promotion decisions. Yet, proposals are a challenging genre that require writers to demonstrate a project’s contribution and feasibility and their ability to complete the project successfully; despite the large scale of

GENRE ANALYSIS

57

most projects, proposals are often limited in page length. Previous research into federal granting agencies has shown the complex sets of genres with which principal investigators (PIs) must contend when applying for funding (Tardy 2003). The two genres that lie at the centre of this system are the funding agency’s guidelines, which detail the requirements and review criteria, and the PI’s proposal. In the case of the National Science Foundation (NSF), a major sponsor of basic science research in the United States, the proposal consists of several separate but related texts, such as a one-page project summary, a lengthier fifteen-page project description, biographical sketches, a budget and current support. The project summary is the first description of the project that reviewers are likely to see, requiring PIs to marshal their rhetorical and linguistic resources to persuade reviewers of the project’s value. NSF describes the genre as a self-contained description of the [proposed research] activity [which] must clearly address in separate statements (within the one-page summary): the intellectual merit of the proposed activity; and the broader impacts resulting from the proposed activity … Proposals that do not separately address both merit review criteria … will be returned without review. (NSF 2009a: II-7) As part of research I conducted (Tardy 2003), an experienced NSF proposal writer described to me a major goal of this genre as appealing to non-specialist readers who have some role in the review process: In my view, the project summary is a synopsis of the full proposal to be used by secondary and tertiary panelists and program officers who have not read the full proposal. They are not necessarily experts in the details. They need to know what you want to do and why it is important … Also, the program officer, by referring to the summary, should feel confident that s/he can defend funding this work to anyone outside the disciplinary program. The corpus examined here consists of twenty publicly available NSF project summaries. All texts were taken from successful proposals, funded by NSF for an average of $1.2 million per grant. The goal of this analysis was twofold: first, to examine how successful PIs demonstrate the merit and impact of their work in the project summary, and second, to explore who may be privileged by the genre network. The former goal can give insight for grant writing novices, while the latter goal explores the bigger picture of how structures of power may function with this system and influence writers (and scientific research) in material ways. Rhetorical and linguistic features are analysed through moves analysis and lexico-grammatical analysis, augmented by an interview with an experienced NSF grant writer. Critical genre analysis examines how certain PIs may be privileged within the funding system.

RHETORICAL MOVES FOR CLAIMING MERIT AND IMPACT The textual structure of the project summary is to some extent dictated by the agency’s guidelines described above. With limited space, how do writers reach their broader goal of demonstrating the project’s merit and impact? Moves analysis reveals eight common rhetorical moves (see Table 4.1). A frequency count (Table 4.2) shows that some of these

58

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

TABLE 4.1  Common rhetorical moves in project summary corpus.

Move

Rhetorical functions and examples

Describing background

Provides necessary information for non-specialists; emphasizes importance of research area; demonstrates field knowledge ●●

Indicating a problem/gap and solution

Demonstrates exigence; situates proposed activity as a solution or answer to perceived need ●●

Describing method(s)

Using this approach we will test four hypotheses regarding individual usage and landscape responses to changes …

Demonstrates impact through tangible outcomes of the research (e.g. a web-based resource, a textbook) ●●

Identifying broad outcomes

The principal goals of this two-year study are to: (1) describe the abundance, diversity and activities of the microbial community …

Provides overview of project and its constituent parts for non-specialists ●●

Identifying specific outcomes

Our unique approach is based on combining sensor data, mathematical models of both machine and process, and a new method for data representation …

Demonstrates intellectual merit and project feasibility ●●

Outlining general description

However, little is known regarding the microbial inhabitants and their activities in freshwater sinkhole ecosystems. We seek to better understand the microbes living in these habitats.

Demonstrates merit and novel/creative approaches to problem-solving ●●

Describing objective(s)

Species are fundamental units in plant and animal communities, but is this true in the microbial world?

The design will be created distributed for free on the internet and supported through full-time staff

Demonstrates impact through potential applications, partnerships, or societal or scientific benefits that could be derived from the project ●●

The discovery of genetically separable ecotypes will broadly impact thinking in microbial evolution, systematics, …

Describing researchers’

Highlights the investigator’s/s’ credibility and expertise

credibility

●●

… to be implemented by an interdisciplinary team of award-winning educators.

GENRE ANALYSIS

59

TABLE 4.2  Frequency of common rhetorical moves (n=20).

Bkgd Gap/Sol # of texts that include this move Percentage

Methods

Objs

GenDesc SpOut BrOut

Res

13

13

12

19

18

11

20

10

65%

65%

60%

95%

90%

55%

100%

50%

moves – such as broad outcomes, objective(s) and general description – appear to be nearly obligatory. The inclusion of broad outcomes in all twenty proposals indicates a clear preference by writers and reviewers for an explicit discussion of the project’s impacts, in line with the NSF’s guidelines and mission. In contrast, appeals to intellectual merit are carried out in more complex ways. NSF (2009a) states that intellectual merit is evaluated based on the project’s importance in advancing knowledge, the researcher(s) qualifications, the project’s creativity or originality, the project’s conception and organization, and access to resources. Within the project summary, writers can use any of the eight common moves to address these aspects of merit. By dispersing their discussion of merit throughout moves, which combine to summarize the project, writers carry out multiple rhetorical tasks simultaneously.

VERBAL AND VISUAL METADISCOURSE IN SIGNALLING PROJECT VALUE Rhetorical moves offer a relatively indirect way for writers to demonstrate a project’s merit and impact. But in the high-stakes world of research funding, writers don’t take chances that their project’s worth might go unnoticed; instead, they take to heart NSF’s statement that project summaries must explicitly refer to merit and impact. Metadiscourse – through words and visual markings – offers one strategy for announcing the project’s fulfilment of these criteria. Metadiscourse has been described as embodying writerreader interaction, helping ‘to define the rhetorical context by revealing some of the expectations and understandings of the audience for whom a text was written’ (Hyland and Tse 2004: 175). In other words, metadiscourse indicates intentional rhetorical decisions. Seven of the twenty project summaries here include phrases or sentences which make direct reference to the project’s intellectual merit or broader impacts. For example: [1] The intellectual merit of the proposed pedagogical research lies in its novel approach to engineering mathematics education, to be implemented by an interdisciplinary team of award-winning educators. [2] The broader impact goal of this proposal is nothing less than the transformation of … In many cases, these phrases are combined with visual cues that draw reviewers’ attention to the major criteria. For instance, one project summary in the corpus uses boldface for words ‘intellectual merit’ and ‘broad impacts’ when they appear in the text. Additionally, 80  per cent of the project summaries include the headings ‘Intellectual

60

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Merit’ and ‘Broader Impact’. All headings are marked typographically through boldface and/or italics, so they are immediately identifiable. One writer even labelled the headings ‘Criterion One – Intellectual Merit’ and ‘Criterion Two – Broader Impacts’. Headings are not common in texts of this length, so their use here clearly serves a rhetorical function: to draw readers’ eyes to text addressing the review criteria. Experienced writers are aware of the need to highlight these points, as my informant explained: Having served on panels, I know that program officers ask reviewers to comment specifically on the intellectual merits and broader impacts. If reviewers have to infer what the merits and impacts might be, the panel discussion could degenerate into different interpretations of the proposal. When I write the project summary, I make sure that there are sentences that explicitly define what the broader impacts and intellectual merits are.

INTERDISCURSIVITY AND THE MATTHEW EFFECT The reward system in science that benefits those who already hold accumulated capital is often referred to as the Matthew effect (Merton 1968). In the grant-funding world, experience builds capital in numerous ways. First, there is the issue of researcher credibility. PIs must demonstrate their credibility and experience to reviewers throughout the proposal application; as we have seen, several moves can carry out this function. Data also suggest that experienced researchers enjoy considerable advantage: the funding rates of early career PIs and late career PIs have been around 22  per cent and 78  per cent, respectively since 2001 (NSF 2009b). Of the twenty project summaries I examined, sixteen were written by PIs with prior NSF funding – in some cases, over a dozen such grants. Nearly all of these researchers were also affiliated with prestigious researchfocused universities. But prior accomplishments represent only one way in which experienced researchers may be privileged by the funding system. These researchers have also accumulated experience with the system of grant funding. Over time, PIs learn the unwritten conventions and the rhetorical strategies needed for funding success (Tardy 2003). As they and their work gain recognition in the scientific community, researchers may be invited into the ‘inner circle’, interacting with grant programme officers and serving on review panels. Through such practices, they gain further insight into the values of funding agencies and the processes by which decisions are made, building sophisticated genre knowledge. They bring these insights back into their own grant writing, as my expert-informant explained in the quotation above regarding his experience as a proposal reviewer. Experienced researchers also bring to their grant writing a knowledge of other research genres that are interdiscursively linked. The project summary is fairly unique to grant writing – a short research summary that must overtly address evaluative criteria. Yet in crafting this genre, writers seem to draw on and appropriate discursive strategies used in other more widespread research genres. For instance, four moves commonly found in article abstracts (introduction, purpose, methods and conclusion) (Hyland 2004) have rough equivalents in the project summary. These moves help the writer describe the research activity, though they are less promotional than needed for this rhetorical context. As a result, we also see a high presence of the gap/solution move identified

GENRE ANALYSIS

61

frequently in article introductions (Swales 1990). Experienced writers, who hold broad and deep genre repertoires, can use such knowledge to navigate the social politics of the funding system and rhetorical challenges of the proposal.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS OF GENRE ANALYSIS Though genre analysis has emphasized the rhetorical nature of texts from its early conceptions, recent work takes contextual concerns even more seriously, investigating the networks and activity systems within which texts occur and bringing sociocultural context in as a crucial element of understanding generic text. Contexts can now be conceived of as virtual, mobile and networked, thus requiring flexible and innovative research tools. As genres continue to become more multimodal, additional methods of genre analysis will be needed as well. Genre analysis can no longer limit itself to the written word, when video, audio, still and animated images, and verbal text increasingly co-mingle in professional and public genres. Detailed methodological descriptions of multimodal genre analysis will be needed in the future. The complexity of social context – as texts increasingly circulate in online spaces – also may lead to increased attention to the role that readers play in co-constructing genres and to the complicated notion of ownership and authorship in many texts today. Studies already carried out from this perspective have integrated and adapted interviews, surveys and observational approaches to digital spaces (e.g. Laquintano 2010). Such approaches have great potential for building more complex understanding of emerging academic and professional. Increasingly, studies of genre are also moving away from an exclusive focus on the centripetal forces that make genres similar and towards acknowledgement of the simultaneous centrifugal forces at play. Recent studies of individual variations highlight the ways in which writers exert ownership over and creativity in their texts. Scholars have explored, for instance, the use of playful strategies which bend and break from conventions in academic genres (Hyon 2008), scholars’ assertion of identity in generic texts (Hyland 2010) and genre innovation by student writers (Tardy 2016). These diverse approaches to focusing on variation have great potential for investigating agency within generic norms. As communication continues to globalize, genre analysis should also take into account how texts within genres are composed, distributed and even translated across languages and language varieties. Work in this area has already begun but should continue to expand to capture the realities of our multilingual and networked world.

KEY READINGS Cheng, A. (2017), Genre and Graduate-Level Research Writing, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Cope, B. and M. Kalantzis (eds) (1993), The Powers of Literacy: A Genre Approach to Teaching Writing, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Hyland, K. (2004), Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Hyon, S. (2017), Introducing Genre and English for Specific Purposes, New York: Routledge. Swales, J. M. (1990), Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

62

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

REFERENCES Bakhtin, M. M. (1986), Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, translated by V. W. McGee, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Bazerman, C. (1988), Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Bazerman, C. (1994), ‘Systems of Genres and the Enactment of Social Intentions’, in A. Freedman and P. Medway (eds), Genre and the New Rhetoric, 79–101, Bristol, PA: Taylor and Francis. Bazerman, C. (2004), ‘Intertextuality: How Texts Rely on Other Texts’, in C. Bazerman and P. Prior (eds), What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices, 83–96, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Berkenkotter, C. (2001), ‘Genre Systems at Work: DSM-IV and Rhetorical Recontextualization in Psychotherapy Paperwork’, Written Communication, 18, 326–49. Bhatia, V. (2004), Worlds of Written Discourse: A Genre-Based View, London: Continuum. Bhatia, V. K. (2017), Critical Genre Analysis: Investigating Interdiscursive Performance in Professional Practice, New York: Routledge. Emmons, K. K. (2009), ‘Uptake and the Biomedical Subject’, in C. Bazerman, A. Bonini and D. Figueiredo (eds), Genre in a Changing World Fort Collins, 134–57, Colorado: The WAC Clearing house and Parlor Press. https://wac.colostate.edu/books/perspectives/genre/ Fairclough, N. (1992), Discourse and Social Change, Cambridge: Polity Press. Hendges, G. R. and C. S. Florek (2019), ‘The Graphical Abstract as a New Genre in the Promotion of Science’, in M. J. Luzón and C. Perez-Llantada (eds), Science Communication on the Internet: Old Genres Meet New Genres, 66–86, Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Hyland, K. (2004), Disciplinary Discourses: Social Interactions in Academic Writing, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Hyland, K. (2006), Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing, London: Continuum. Hyland, K. (2010), ‘Community and Individuality: Performing Identity in Applied Linguistics’, Written Communication, 27 (2): 159–88. Hyland, K. and P. Tse (2004), ‘Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: A Reappraisal’, Applied Linguistics, 25: 156–77. Hyon, S. (2008), ‘Convention and Inventiveness in an Occluded Academic Genre: A Case Study of Retention-Promotion-Tenure Reports’, English for Specific Purposes 27: 175–92. Hyon, S. (2018), Introducing Genre and English for Specific Purposes, New York: Routledge. Kandil, M. and D. Belcher (2011), ‘ESP and Corpus-Informed Critical Discourse Analysis: Understanding the Power of Genres of Power’, in D. Belcher, A. Johns and B. Paltridge (eds), New Directions in English for Specific Purposes Research, 252–70, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Kress, G. and T. van Leeuwen (1996), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, London: Routledge. Laquintano, T. (2010), ‘Sustained Authorship: Digital Writing, Self-Publishing, and the Ebook’, Written Communication, 27 (4): 469–93. Martin, J. R. (1993), ‘Genre and Literacy – Modeling Context in Educational Linguistics’, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 13: 141–72. Merton, R. K. (1968), ‘The Matthew Effect in Science’, Science, 159 (3810): 56–63. Miller, C. R. (1984), ‘Genre as Social Action’, Quarterly Journal of Speech, 70: 151–67. Mirović, I., V. Bogdanović and V. Bulatović (2019), ‘The Role of Genre Hybridity and Hypermodality in Digital Knowledge Dissemination: The Case of IEEE Spectrum’, in M.

GENRE ANALYSIS

63

J. Luzón and C. Perez-Llantada (eds), Science Communication on the Internet: Old Genres Meet New Genres, 153–72, Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. National Science Foundation (2009a), The National Science Foundation Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide, NSF 09-29. http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/ nsf09_29/gpg0929print.pd (Accessed 08 April 2021). National Science Foundation (2009b), Report to the National Science Board on the National Science Foundation’s merit review process, fiscal year 2008. http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/ publications/2009/nsb0943_merit_review_2008.pdf (Accessed 21 April 2021). Paltridge, B. (2002), ‘Thesis and Dissertation Writing: An Examination of Published Advice and Actual Practice’, English for Specific Purposes, 21: 125–43. Paré, A. (2002), ‘Genre and Identity: Individuals, Institutions, and Ideology’, in R. M. Coe, L. Lingard and T. Teslenko (eds), The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre: Strategies for Stability and Change, 57–71, Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Rowley-Jolivet, E. (2004), ‘Different Visions, Different Visuals: A Social Semiotic Analysis of Field-Specific Visual Composition in Scientific Conference Presentations’, Visual Communication, 3: 145–75. Rowley-Jolivet, E. and S. Carter-Thomas (2019), ‘Scholarly Soundbites: Audiovisual Innovations in Digital Science and Their Implications for Genre Evolution’, in M. J. Luzón and C. Perez-Llantada (eds), Science Communication on the Internet: Old Genres Meet New Genres, 88–113, Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins. Swales, J. M. (1990), Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swales, J. M. (2004), Research Genres. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tardy, C. M. (2003), ‘A Genre System View of the Funding of Academic Research’, Written Communication, 20: 7–36. Tardy, C. M. (2016), Beyond Convention: Genre Innovation in Academic Writing, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Yates, J. (1989), Control through Communication: The Rise of System in American Management, Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Yates, J. and W. Orlikowski (2002), ‘Genre Systems: Chronos and Kairos in Communicative Interaction’, in R. Coe, L. Lingard and T. Teslenko (eds), The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre, 103–21, Creskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

64

CHAPTER FIVE

Narrative analysis MIKE BAYNHAM

Narrative is first and foremost a prodigious variety of genres, themselves distributed among different substances … able to be carried by articulated language, spoken or written, fixed or moving images, gestures, and the ordered mixing of all these substances, narrative is present in myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy, mime, painting (think of Carpaccio’s St Ursula), stained glass windows, cinema, comics, news items, conversation. (Barthes 1977: 79)

INTRODUCTION If Barthes invokes the plurality of narrative genres, he could also have pointed to the sometimes bewildering plurality of approaches to the study of narrative. From the early twentieth century, narrative was thematized in literary theory (e.g. Genette 1980), folklore studies (e.g. Propp 1968) and semiotics (as Barthes suggests programmatically above). The approaches I review in this chapter are distinctive in that they all involve a linguistic turn in the study of narrative, proposing detailed linguistic analysis of various sorts applied to narrative. I will review discourse analytic (DA) approaches, conversation analytic (CA) approaches and linguistic ethnographic (LE) approaches, although much current work on narrative draws on a number of these perspectives and there are many productive points of overlap. I will particularly focus on the last term in Barthes’s list: narrative in conversation. For the reader interested in literary narrative, there are many excellent surveys and overviews, such as Herman (2007). A major issue will concern the co-textual and contextual understanding of narrative: how stories are told in the ongoing unfolding of talk and how stories both draw on and create context.

DA APPROACHES TO NARRATIVE Perhaps the best-known linguistic analysis of oral narrative is that of Labov, in which he proposed a narrative structure, developed in a series of studies (Labov 1972, Labov and Waletzky 1967). The first formulation of this in Labov and Waletzky (1967) analysed narratives of personal experience collected in sociolinguistic interviews into these elements: ●●

Abstract

●●

Orientation

●●

Complicating action

66

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ●●

Evaluation

●●

Result

●●

Coda

A major revision of the framework in Labov (1972) arose from problems with treating the evaluation as a discrete element or generic stage. Labov argues here that, rather than just being a discrete element or stage of narrative structure, ‘the evaluation of the narrative forms a secondary structure which is concentrated in the evaluation section but may be found in various forms throughout the narrative’ (Labov 1972: 369). This insight has been further developed in more recent work on subjectivity, evaluation and positioning in discourse (cf. for example Hunston and Thompson 2000) and stance (Englebretson 2007, Jaffe 2009) and indeed appraisal theory (Martin and White 2005), so that we now have the analytical apparatus to see how evaluation is realized in a whole range of linguistic choices. Labov’s analysis of narrative is picked up in Eggins and Slade (1997) who analyse narrative casual conversation in terms of a distinction between ‘chunk’ and ‘chat’. A chunk of talk is an extended turn, displaying patterns of internal structuring that, according to Eggins and Slade, are not found in the rapid transfer of turns characteristic of chat. Narrative examples include those occurring in coffee break chat in workplaces (Eggins and Slade 1997). A number of important issues emerge: firstly, a number of storytelling genres are identified (narrative, anecdote, exemplum, recount, joke), echoing Barthes’s (1977) programmatic statement about the variety of narrative genres; secondly, the data considered is based on casual conversation collected in naturalistic setting, while the data which Labov considers is gathered in interview contexts. This has emerged as a major theme in current work on narrative.

CA APPROACHES TO NARRATIVE The key narrative problem for the conversational analyst (see Waring this volume) is how the telling of a story is occasioned in the ongoing unfolding of talk, itself characterized by organized turn-taking (Slade and Eggins’s chat), signalling to other participants a claim for the extended turn necessary to tell a story. How do other participants accede to or deny that claim? Just as importantly, how does a speaker signal the closing of a story and the upcoming transitional relevance point, where other participants may take a turn? These questions make sense of Labov’s abstract and coda stages, understood as narrative openings and closings. The abstract can be taken as a claim for an extended turn in the ongoing conversation to tell a story, the coda can signal the transitional relevance point, where other participants can come in. The concept of a ‘conversational floor’ (Edelsky 1981) is a useful one here. The storyteller claims the floor, but it is co-constructed, often with comments and responses from other participants. In a classic paper Sacks (1974) analyses the telling of a joke in a group therapy session involving teenaged boys. He divides his analysis of the course of the joke’s telling using a story format into preface, telling and response. In the preface, the intending teller seeks to establish the ground of conversational consent for the actual telling. The preface leaves space for other participants to accept or refuse the offer: Ken: You wanna hear muh-eh my sister told me a story last night Roger: I don’t wanna hear it. But if you must. (Sacks 1974:338)

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

67

Sacks characterizes the preface as follows: First a party, the intending teller, producing an utterance that combinedly contains sequentially relevant components as: an offer to tell or a request for a chance to tell the joke or story; an initial characterization of it; some reference to the time of the story events’ occurrence or the joke’s reception; and, for a joke particularly, a reference to whom it was received from if its prior teller is known or known of by recipients. Such a group of components should be packed into an utterance, whose first possible completion, which will usually coincide with its first sentence’s possible completion, is ‘supposably’ the point of transition from intending teller’s talk to recipient reply. (Sacks 1974: 340–1) The recipient then has the opportunity to accept or request the joke’s telling, to question the grounds for it being told or to reject the attempt at a telling. Roger’s achievement conversationally is to manage the rejection of the idea of the joke, without actually having to deprive himself of the chance of hearing it! Two issues are worth pointing out here. Firstly that the joke to be told is framed within another narrative genre, the story of how Ken’s sister told it, which in fact turns out to be the real narrative point. This further supports the insight concerning the plurality of narrative genres mentioned above. Secondly it illustrates the important difference between a narrative told in the interactionally permissive environment of a research interview, where the narrative telling is elicited, drawn out and encouraged by the interviewer, in whose interest it is that the interviewee should claim the floor and the interactionally robust contexts of conversation, where speakers must claim space in unfolding talk, sometimes in the face of considerable opposition, risking the withering ‘so what?’ response, so insightfully identified by Labov. The key questions for conversational analysts are organizational (i.e. formal): how do participants organize and maintain ongoing talk, how do they signal to each other cruces of that organization, for example, transition relevance points? They rigorously eschew contextual information, relying on categories that will be emergent from the data. Their focus on interactional emergence is a valuable one; yet for many analysts, it leaves something unspecified, most notably the rich contextualization and the way talk itself both indexes and is shaped by context.

LINGUISTIC ETHNOGRAPHIC APPROACHES TO NARRATIVE A linguistic ethnographic approach to narrative, while drawing on the notion of the contingent emergence of understandings in talk that is characteristic of CA, also emphasizes the rich contextualization of narrative, often called by the term Geertz (1973) uses after Ryle (1971) ‘thick description’. This approach draws from a number of sources, including folklore studies of verbal performance (cf. Bauman 1993) and Hymes’s ethnopoetic approach to narrative (Hymes 1996). Bauman (1993:182) understands performance as a metacommunicative frame, the essence of which resides in the assumption of responsibility to an audience for a display of communicative competence … highlighting the way in which verbal communication is carried out, above and beyond its referential content.

68

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

He proposes a continuum of performance, from fully fledged storytelling performance to an audience at one end to ‘a fleeting breakthrough into performance, as when a child employs a new and esoteric word in conversation with her peers as a gesture of linguistic virtuosity’ (Bauman 1993: 183) Somewhere between these two poles he identifies hedged or negotiated performance, as when a salesman presents an off-color joke as having been picked up from someone else in case it is not well received by his client, but tells it as well as he can in the hope that the skill and effectiveness of his presentation may be positively evaluated. (Bauman 1993: 183–4) Hymes’s ethnopoetic analysis of narrative, again taking this emphasis on narrative as verbal art, develops a distinctive transcription for breaking up the narrative into units, based on features such as prosodic marking, discourse markers and structural parallelism. This is designed to highlight the stylistic shaping of the narrative and has been used by Blommaert (2001) and Maryns (2006) in their work on asylum seeker narratives. Both these approaches however emphasize narrative as monologue, employing, as Labov did, structural functional analytic resources to make sense of their patterning. The difference is that for Labov, narratives were elicited in interview contexts, while for Bauman and Hymes, performance was captured in the domains and settings of daily life.

CURRENT ISSUES AND APPROACHES IN NARRATIVE ANALYSIS Having established these three broad approaches to narrative analysis, citing as illustration some classic work, we can now consider how these inform more current themes in narrative analysis: i)

a shift from narrative-as-monologue performed for an audience and analysed internally in structural-functional terms, towards a notion of narrative as coconstructed in speech events;

ii) a move away from ‘canonical’ narratives of personal experience to focus on what Bamberg and Georgakopoulou have termed small ‘stories’; iii) a shift from considering narrative in the contexts of research interviews, conversations or monologic performance towards the examination of narrative in institutional contexts such as job interviews (Roberts and Campbell 2005) and asylum processes (Maryns 2006); iv) the re-evaluation of the research interview context as a site for narrative, drawing on the notion of the interview as a speech event; and v) the recent emergence of research into narrative in multimodal social media.

FROM NARRATIVE AS MONOLOGUE TO NARRATIVE AS INTERACTIONALLY CO-CONSTRUCTED It is clear from the three approaches outlined above that much foundational work in narrative analysis treated narrative as a discrete genre to be analysed to determine its internal characteristics using structural functional analytic methods. This is as much true

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

69

of work in the Labovian tradition as in that of the work in verbal art and performance of Bauman and Hymes. So one significant move in current narrative analysis is towards examining narrative not as monologue but as an interactive co-construction of participants in a speech event, whether it is a conversation or some variety of performance. This draws most obviously on the CA perspective on narrative outlined above. As Norrick (2007: 127) writes: Genuine conversational storytelling is always interactive, negotiated, and not simply designed for a particular audience by a single teller; indeed, it is often hard to determine even who is the primary teller, especially when the events were jointly experienced or the basic story is already familiar. In Norrick’s approach we see many aspects emphasized in the Sacks paper considered above, an emphasis on openings and closings in relation to the unfolding of ongoing talk, but also on features that are more LE influenced, such as what Tannen has called ‘constructed dialogue’ (Tannen 1989) and notions of tellability and storytelling rights (after Shuman 1986 2005), which go well beyond the CA perspective invoking the rich, thick documentation of context associated with linguistic ethnography.

FROM CANONICAL NARRATIVES TO SMALL STORIES An equally important move in narrative analysis has been a stepping back from the canonical narrative of experience, characterized by Labov’s analysis of schematic/generic stages, to consider a wider range of narrative types, some of which might not classically be considered as narrative at all (generic narrative, hypothetical narrative for example) or else narrative fragments in ongoing conversational interaction be characterized as momentary shifts into performance, which can be used as Georgakopoulou (2007) shows to index an already-told story, shared by a friendship group of co-conversationalists. Again, the impetus for this has come from the study of narrative in conversation and these ideas have been developed by Bamberg and Georgakopoulou (Bamberg and Georgakopoulou 2008, Georgakopoulou 2007, 2017).

NARRATIVE IN INSTITUTIONAL TALK Narrative analysis has been extended to consider the functions of narrative in institutional talk. Maryns (2006), using a Hymesian ethnopoetic analysis of narrative, examines the role played by narrative in the unfolding of an asylum-seeking process. The distinction between co-narration and rehearsed narration is crucial in the asylum hearing. Conarration refers to the joint construction of a narrative version, strongly influenced by the questioning strategies of the asylum case hearer; rehearsed narration would indicate that the story told is re-rehearsed and is likely therefore to be treated as inauthentic. Roberts and Campbell (2005) examine the role of narratives in job interviews: candidates ‘were required to construct a simplified, coherent narrative “version” of themselves … which the interviewer can evaluate, score on a scale one to ten, and note down on a prestructured form’ (Roberts and Campbell 2005: 46–7). In effect the requirement was for the candidate, through the narrative, to make him/herself bureaucratically processable (Iedema 1999:63). Interestingly the ideal structure for such narratives follows the Labov canonical model virtually exactly. There are many similarities between these two contexts: in both

70

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

narratives are told to achieve some institutional purpose, in both there are right and wrong ways of telling the story, in both the oral narrative is re-contextualized into a written account, to be used as evidence in making a decision. In research into the role of narrative in institutional contexts, many of the themes that have been discussed above as characteristic of current approaches to narrative analysis are encountered again: an emphasis on co-construction, on performance, on contingency and emergence of narrative in ongoing talk, the occurrence of non-canonical and small narratives, as shifts either into performance or into generic and hypothetical narrative. Narrative can be seen as over-determined and shaped by institutional constraints and as part of a text trajectory in which an agreed version of the narrative is re-contextualized to serve as evidence for other purposes in other places.

THE RESEARCH INTERVIEW AS A NARRATIVE SITE The discussion has so far been presented as a move away from the study of the internal structuring of canonical narratives elicited using an interview methodology and a shift towards the co-construction of narrative, including the broader range of narrative types and fragments that goes under the heading of ‘small stories’, using data from conversation and other ‘real-life’ speech activity. The influence of linguistic ethnography is very clear here, though there are also similarities with more recent DA work such as Eggins and Slade, discussed above. What happens if the research interview is treated not simply as an inert occasion for eliciting narrative data, but as a dynamic co-constructed speech event, in which narrative emerges for a range of purposes and in a range of manifestations, from full canonical narratives of personal experience to rapid shifts into performance? Current ideas about narrative analysis can be re-applied to the interview, asking how is the interview jointly constructed by interviewer and interviewee and what role does narrative play in this joint construction (cf. de Fina and Perrino 2011)? Take for example the much researched and comment on topic of identity, to which narrative has often seemed to provide privileged access. Typically, as Bamberg and Georgakopoulou (2008) point out, narrative analysis has assumed that stories are privileged forms/structures/systems for making sense of self, by bringing the co-ordinates of time, space, and personhood into a unitary frame so that the sources ‘behind’ these representations (such as ‘author’, ‘teller’, and ‘narrator’), can be made empirically visible for further analytical scrutiny in the form of ‘identity analysis.’ They argue that this approach has dominated the so-called ‘narrative turn’ in the social sciences. They argue for an emergent, discursively constructed notion of identity, which can be seen as performed or achieved in discourse, rather than extractable from discourse. The discourse is not a window into the narrator’s self, but rather in discourse the narrator engages in a work of performing the self, a notion made current by Judith Butler (e.g. Butler 1997).

MULTIMODAL NARRATIVE IN SOCIAL MEDIA Given the impact of the multimodal turn in discourse analysis and the increasing pervasiveness of on-line communication via social media, it is perhaps unsurprising that multimodality is emerging as a dynamic area of growth in narrative analysis, with

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

71

empirical findings that influence thinking on core theoretical issues. As Page puts it: ‘While stories published to social media by no means do away with the written word, they often exploit multimodal resources (such as image, video, and so on)’ (Page 2015: 345). Page (2015, 2018) provides a framework for this research, adapting insights from scholars of on-line communication such as Herring (2007), who classifies on-line genres as familiar, reconfigured, emergent and narrative theorists such as the focus in Ochs and Capps (2001) on linearity and tellership. Page shows how the affordances of different social media allow for the emergence of different patterns of linearity and tellership in on-line narratives. I will illustrate this here with a description of some issues raised by on-line shared narratives concerning linearity. According to Page, ‘the dimension of linearity concerns the options that a narrator might take up when organizing reported events in a narrated sequence’. Early studies on oral narrative assumed a fairly close mapping between the sequencing of narrative clauses and the event sequence they referred to, which Ochs and Capps (2001: 41) describe as ‘a single, closed, temporal and causal path’ in contrast to a more open text structure characterized by ‘diverse, open, uncertain paths’. The distinction between open and closed text has been around in semiotics and literary narrative studies since the work of Eco (1984), but here we can see it applying more broadly to narrative on social media, with specific affordances such as a tendency to orient to the present and thus making material available in reverse chronological order. Page points out that the practice of sharing material across multiply networked sites, such as Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter: ‘As the convergence of shared materials across multiple networked sites continues to increase, it is possible for the episodes of a particular story to be published in multiple, interlinked archives.’ (Page 2015: 387) Work on social media narrative has become an increasing feature in the work of other narrative analysts such as Georgakopoulou (cf. Georgakopoulou 2017) and is having an important impact on foundational ideas in narrative analysis. It further complexifies the diversity of narrative form introduced by Barthes, in ways that could not have been conceived when he was writing in the 1960s. In the next sections I will examine two cases to illustrate the approaches outlined here: one a study of narrative in conversational interaction within a friendship group (Georgakopoulou 2007) the other from a study of narrative in research interviews (Baynham 2011).

CASE ONE: NARRATIVE, INTERACTION AND IDENTITY IN A FRIENDSHIP GROUP This study, conducted by Georgakopoulou (2007), exemplifies in many ways the trends described in this chapter: the shift away from narrative elicited in interview contexts to narrative-in-interaction, from narrative used as a transparent window for investigating identities to performative accounts of narrative in the construction of identities, from canonical narratives of personal experience to a wider range of non-canonical narrative types and the eponymous ‘small stories’ discussed above. The study draws on a corpus of conversations recorded in young people’s peer groups in Greece. Georgakopoulou’s analysis, drawing on both CA and LE, emphasizes the interactional emergence of a range of narrative types: these include projections (narratives of what might hypothetically or actually happen), and stories of shared past experience which can be condensed over time into mini-tellings.

72

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Characteristic of the young people in this study is a shared history of interaction, routinely drawn on in the co-construction of narrative. As Georgakopoulou puts it: ‘This regular socializing over a long period of time … had resulted in a dense interactional history, rich in shared assumptions that were consistently and more or less strategically drawn on to suit various purposes in local interactional contexts’ (Georgakopoulou 2006: 86). This shared interactional history necessarily includes shared stories which can be invoked for a range of purposes. A characteristic of jointly constructed projections is that they typically have such narratives of shared experience embedded in them: ‘In the context of future narrative worlds, participants draw on shared past narrative worlds, in order to support and legitimize their own projected version of events’ (Georgakopoulou 2006: 89). In the young female peer group conversations, many projections concern planned or possible meetings with men, as in the following extract: F= Fotini, T=Tonia,V=Vivi F Orea (…) vrisko edo kapu to Maci (…) etsi? [Tell me now (…) we are talking serious. Okay (…) I bump into Makis right?] F Milai o Pavlos me ti Vivi eci, c’o Macis ine eci, ce ti tu les, TI TU LES ? [Pavlos is talking to Vivi, and Makis is there, and WHAT would you tell him, what ?] T Ta kalandra?= [The carols ?= ((jokingly))] V =Ta kalandra [=The carols ((laughs)) ] F Oci ta kalandra re pedi mu, ama su tici prota ap’ola (…) daksi ? [Not the carols man, assuming this is going to happen (…) right?] V THa tu milisis sti glosa tut u pedju, se pa:u [You’ll speak to the guy in his language, I fancy you ((imitates the local accent))] T idjus [It’s me ((imitates the local accent))] (Georgakopoulou 2007:50) Fotini’s projected meeting with Makis is jointly constructed by the girls; the projected dialogue between the two is imagined and played out. The next example involves an appeal to a shared story to resolve a particular issue in the projected meeting between Tonia and a love interest: T Na su po kati, irthane ta pedja, o Jorgos c’o Kostas [Shall I tell you something, when the guys came, George and Kostas] V Ne [Yeah] T Pu irthane ce mas lene pame ja kafe [when they came to us and said shall we go for a coffee ?] T I anthropi stin arci fenodusan oti the mas vlepane filika re pethi mu ala de borume na pume c’oti mas eroteftikan ce ceravnovola [It was obvious that the guys were interested, but it wasn’t love at first sight either.] V E tus aresame [they liked us] T Orea, lipon c’omos stin arci filika tha ujename, c’emis ipame oci tus aporipsame ce jelasame ce mazi tus

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

73

[Fine, and to being with we’d go out as friends, nothing more, but we completely dismissed them and made fun of them] V Ne re Tonia, jati itane apo to puthena, irthane me tetjo malacizmeno tropo, akoma etho isaste? C’itane ce karavlaci edaksi? Esi kamia scesi [Yes Tonia, cause they came out of the blue, and they had an attitude, the way they asked are you still there? And they were peasants right? No relation with your case.] (Georgakopoulou 2006:90) Tonia and Vivi jointly construct the shared story of the encounter with George and Kostas, though they differ sharply on how it should be evaluated. It is clear by the end of the extract that the story is being treated by both girls as an argumentative move, expressed rather explicitly when Vivi closes down the comparison which Tonia is attempting: ‘no relation with your case’. Georgakopoulou focuses on the notion of participant role or telling identities assumed by the participants in the joint construction of the stories. As might be expected from the end of the last extract, Vivi turns out to have a rather powerful participant role: ‘As discussed, Vivi is the main adjudicator or assessor of the events and characters talked about, that is, the main teller of the evaluative component of a story’ (Georgakopoulou 2006: 97). The analysis makes a connection between the participant role in talk, the situational identities that accumulate over time in the shared history of group interaction and ‘larger social identities that are consequential for the construction and interpretation of the stories’ (ibid.: 97); the girls are in part engaged in a joint project of identity construction and their shared repertoire of stories are a vital tool in this.

CASE TWO: STANCE, POSITIONING AND ALIGNMENT IN NARRATIVES OF PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE This interview-based study (reported in Baynham 2011) examined narratives of professional experience in a corpus of forty interviews in which English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) teachers were invited to reflect on their professional life histories as well as their current teaching environment. The notion of ‘stance’ emerged as a major theme (Englebretson 2007, Jaffe 2009) with narrative an important discursive resource for expressing stance. The notion of stance is examined in relation to the discursive positioning achieved through these narratives of professional experience, including small shifts into narrative, similar to Bamberg and Georgakopoulou’s ‘small stories’, also considering the ways that the interviewer aligned to the stances and positions taken up by the interviewee. The analysis contributes to an understanding of the research interview as a dynamically co-constructed speech genre rather than as a neutral locus for gathering data. Types of narrative in the data ●●

Personal narrative

●●

Generic/iterative narrative

●●

Hypothetical or future narrative

●●

Negated narrative

●●

Narrative-as-example or exemplum

74

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Narrative analysis typically distinguishes between performance features of narrative (mimesis) and the bald summary of past events and actions (diegesis). The shifts into performance in this dataset were overwhelmingly shifts/switches into performed direct speech. These shifts into performance were not just linked to personal narrative of the canonical sort, but could also co-occur with generic/iterative, hypothetical and negated narrative. The speaker momentarily shifts into performance, what Hymes (1996) calls fleeting moments of narrative orientation to the world.

Stance, positioning and alignment Stance has been the topic of sustained research interest for nearly three decades (Engelbretson 2007, Hunston and Thompson 2000. There is no space in a short chapter to review this literature; however, for brevity I will use DuBois’s synthesizing definition: ‘Stance is a public act by a social actor, achieved through overt means, of evaluating an object, positioning the self, and aligning with other subjects in respect of any salient dimension of the stance field’ (Dubois 2007:163). Stance in this sense is intimately connected to positioning and alignment. This interview was characterized above as an invitation for the interviewee to display and comment on their professional practice, thereby giving clues as to their professional identities, understood in terms of the stances they take up, and what they align to, both in terms of the interview coparticipant (the interviewer) and what the talk is about (their practice and the contexts for it). In talk these two dimensions of stance tend to overlap, so that speakers are typically simultaneously orienting to the topic under discussion and their co-participant in discourse.

Narrative as example The narrative as example or exemplum is a small story told to illustrate a point (cf. Eggins and Slade 1997: 257–9). Sometimes, as here, the example is explicitly framed by a marker such as ‘for example’; otherwise, the switch is made without marker, leaving the conversational participant to retrieve pragmatically its exemplary status. Note also how interviewer M. intervenes to align with L (‘yeah they were all doing that’).

‘KULDEEP AND SACHIN WERE SITTING THERE DOING NOTHING’ L: But you know but today considering how little support they had in terms of human support they’d learnt a lot of study skills to refer to bits of paper and write. So you know M: yeah they were all doing that. L: yeah and I actually- And they were helping each other. And I mean really really technically they needed more help but I was actually surprised athow they were helping each other. And at one point for example May got up from my group and asked if she could go and get Hari from the other group to help her. And that’s that’s that’s really- And at one point I thought Oh God Kuldeep and Sachin were sitting there doing nothing. When I went over there they seemed to be actually conferring they weren’t doing nothing. So they’ve learnt a lot in all sorts of ways. How to use their resources. The resources that I’ve given them to lean on. I think they’ve learnt a lot.

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

75

In this exemplum, the alternation between Maya’s request in indirect speech and L’s performed thought ‘Oh God’ functions to structure the narrative, dramatizing a teacher’s real-time anxiety about losing control of what students are doing in the class. A dilemma in professional practice is tellingly evoked, but underlying this is an additional perhaps more important point to the story that the students were in fact helping each other, drawing on the resources ‘that I’d given them to lean on’, thus promoting a positive representation of professional identity and professional practice: I’m the sort of teacher who values students learning from each other and provides resources to support them in doing so.

GENERIC NARRATIVE AND PERFORMANCE In the following extract the speaker adopts a generic narrative mode (a small story about students typically moaning about pairwork and how he responds) shifting away from performance into diegetic summary: MB: I think- […] They respond well to it. When you- Most respond. Of course there are always some who are very very [.] quiet and embarrassed by the whole thing. And also it’s just a teaching teaching- You know speaking speaking. And er […] but um […] you know I think that you explain to them this is why you do this. But there are always students moaning about pair work. And I say look the point is- You know you explain sort of communication going on and so on. This interesting reformulation shows how shifting/switching into and out of performance is itself a stylistic choice. Here the speaker starts in performance (‘And I say look the point is - ’) and reformulates to complete the utterance in diegetic summarizing mode (‘You know you explain sort of communication going on and so on’). Characteristic of this data, rather than canonical performed personal narrative, is a complex emergent texture involving the interaction of different kinds of narrative and indeed argument structures, with strategic shifts into performance. These have been in evidence in all the data presented so far, co-occurring with all the different types of narrative identified and thus not especially associated with personal narrative.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS In this chapter I have documented current directions in narrative research, emphasizing in particular the shift from analysing narratives elicited using an interview methodology to narratives told in conversational interaction. More recently, there has been a move to refocus on the research interview using the analytical tools of interactional analysis, which provides a more dynamic slant on this well-tried method of data elicitation. There has been corresponding expansion of the types of narrative identified, beyond the canonical narrative of personal experience or life story, as will be clear from the two cases above. New perspectives on identity have moved from identity as a pre-fixed and existing category which can be uncovered through narrative analysis towards a notion of the performance of identity in talk. There are a number of potential areas of investigation pointed to by this work. One such is an examination of the role of narrative in argument, alluded to above. There is undoubtedly more work to be done on the functions of narrative in institutional discourse, in classroom interaction, in contexts of mobility and migration

76

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

and in on-line environments, which will take the study of narrative nearer to realizing the programmatic semiotic project sketched by Barthes in the epigraph to this chapter.

FURTHER READING de Fina, A. and S. Perrino (eds) (2011), ‘Narratives in Interviews’, Special Issue of Language in Society, 40: 1. de Fina, A and A. Georgakopoulou (2015), The Handbook of Narrative Analysis, Oxford: Blackwell. Du Bois, J. W. (2007), ‘The Stance Triangle’, in R. Englebretson (ed.), Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, 139–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gray, J. and M. Baynham (2020), ‘Narratives of Queer Migration’, in K. Hall and R. Barrett (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Language and Sexuality, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Page, R. (2018), Narratives Online Shared Stories in Social Media, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

REFERENCES Bamberg, M. and A. Georgakopoulou (2008), ‘Small Stories as a New Perspective in Narrative and Identity Analysis’, in special issue: Narrative Analysis in the Shift from Texts to Practices, Text and Talk, 28(3): 377–396. Barthes, R. (1977), Image-Music-Text, Glasgow: Fontana. Bauman (1993), ‘Disclaimers of Performance’, in J. Hill and J. Irvine (eds), Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baynham, M. (2011), ‘Stance, Positioning and Alignment in Narratives of Professional Experience’, Language in Society, 40: 1. Blommaert, J. (2001), ‘Investigating Narrative Inequality: African Asylum Seekers’, Discourse and Society, 12 (4): 413–49. Butler, J. (1997), Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, London: Routledge. Eco, U. (1979), The Role of the Reader: Explorations in the Semiotics of Texts, Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Edelsky, C. (1981), ‘Who’s Got the Floor?’, Language in Society, 10 (3): 383–421. Eggins, S. and D. Slade (1997), Analyzing Casual Conversation, London: Cassell. Englebretson, R. (ed.) (2007), Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Genette, G. (1980), Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, Oxford: Blackwell Georgakopoulou, A. (2006), Small and large identities in narrative (inter)action. In A. de Fina, D. Schiffrin and M. Bamberg (eds) Discourse and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 83–102. Georgakopoulou, A. (2007), Small Stories, Interaction and Identities, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Georgakopoulou, A. (2017), ‘Sharing the Moment as Small Stories: The Interplay between Practices and Affordances in the Social Media Curation of Lives’, Special Issue, Storytelling in the Digital Age, Narrative Inquiry, 27: 311–33. Herman, D. (2007), The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herring (2007), ‘A Faceted Classification Scheme for Computer-mediated Discourse’, Language@Internet4. http://www,languageatinternet.org/articles/2007/761 (accessed 28 April 2020).

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS

77

Hunston, S. and G. Thompson (2000), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hymes (1996), Ethnography, Linguistics, Narrative Inequality: Toward an Understanding of Voice, London: Taylor & Francis. Iedema, R. (1999), ‘Formalising Organisational Meaning’, Discourse and Society, 10 (1): 49–65. Jaffe, A. (ed.) (2009), Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Labov, W. and J. Waletzky (1967), ‘Narrative Analysis: Oral Versions of Personal Experience’, in J. Helm (ed.), Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts, 12–44, Seattle: University of Washington Press. Labov, W. (1972), Language in the Inner City, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Martin, J. R. and P. White (2005), The Language of Evaluation, Appraisal in English, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Maryns, K. (2006), The Asylum Speaker: Language in the Belgian Asylum Process, Manchester: St Jerome. Norrick, N. (2007), ‘Conversational Storytelling’, in D. Herman (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Narrative, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ochs, E. and L. Capps (2001), Living Narrative: Creating Lives in Everyday Storytelling, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Page, R. (2015), ‘The Narrative Dimensions of Social Media Storytelling: Options for Linearity and Tellership’, in A. de Fina, and A. Georgakopoulou (eds), The Handbook of Narrative Analysis, Oxford: Blackwell. Propp, V. (1968), Morphology of the Folktale, East Austin: University of Texas Press. Roberts, C. and S. Campbell (2005), ‘Fitting Stories into Boxes: Textual and Rhetorical Constraints on Candidates’ Performances in British Job Interviews’, Journal of Applied Linguistics 2 (1): 45–73. Ryle, G. (1971), ‘The Thinking of Thoughts: What Is Le Penseur Doing?’, in Collected Papers, Vol. 2, 480–91, London: Hutchinson. Sachs, H. (1974), ‘An Analysis of the Course of a Joke’s Telling’, in R. Bauman and J. Sherzer (eds), Explorations in the Ethnography of Communication, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shuman, A. (1986), Storytelling Rights, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shuman, A. (2005), Other People’s Stories: Entitlement Claims and the Critique of Empathy, Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Tannen, D. (1989), Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue and Imagery in Conversational Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

78

CHAPTER SIX

Systemic functional linguistics J R MARTIN

SYNTHESIS OF CURRENT THINKING AND RESEARCH Systemic Functional Linguistics (hereafter SFL) is a comprehensive theory of language and social context developed principally in Britain and Australia over the past six decades. It draws on Saussure and Hjelmslev in its relational conception language as a stratified system of signs, and follows Firth in treating meaning as function in context. In addition, it provides one influential theoretical foundation for work across semiotic systems in multimodal discourse analysis (O’Halloran this volume). Significantly SFL has evolved as an appliable linguistics (Halliday 2008a), designed to address language problems faced by the community, including educational (e.g. Martin 2009a), clinical (e.g. Fine 2006) and forensic contexts (e.g. Zappavigna and Martin 2018. Martin (2015, 2019) and Tann (2017) provide historically contextualized reviews of discourse analysis informed by SFL. SFL models linguistic resources on three levels of abstraction – phonology/graphology, (which realizes) lexicogrammar, (which realizes) discourse semantics. Higher strata involve emergently complex patterns of lower strata ones; all levels make meaning. In addition resources on each stratum are organized metafunctionally, according to the kind of meaning they construe – that is, ideational resources naturalizing physical/biological materiality and semiosis, interpersonal resources negotiating social relations, and textual resources managing information flow. This hierarchy of realization is outlined in relation to its attendant complementarity of metafunction in Figure 6.1. Following Firth and Hjelmslev, SFL models social context as more abstract levels of semiosis; the level next to language is mapped metafunctionally as field (ideational context), tenor (interpersonal context) and mode (textual context). Field is concerned with social activity across all walks of life – including home, recreation, trades and crafts, professions and disciplines. Tenor is concerned with social relations, negotiated in relation to power and solidarity. Mode is concerned with the effect of various technologies of communication on the texture of information flow – speaking vs writing for example, alongside various electronic modalities (radio, TV, phone, texting, tweeting, e-mail, blogging, vlogging, etc.). These three register variables are coordinated in relation to social purpose by the higher level of genre, which specifies which field, tenor and mode variables map onto one another in a given culture and how their realization is staged in phases of unfolding discourse. This social semiotic model of language and context is summarized in Figure 6.2.

80

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

FIGURE 6.1  Basic SFL parameters – stratification and metafunction.

FIGURE 6.2  Language strata in relation to social context (stratified as register and genre).

Stratification and metafunction provide the theoretical parameters for the descriptive cartography deployed by SFL text analysts. English resources are mapped along these lines in Table 6.1, including key references to the descriptions commonly deployed (including Kress and van Leeuwen’s work on images which is so often deployed in intermodal verbiage/image analysis). As exemplified in Martin (2009b) the basic rule of thumb in using this matrix is to shunt among cells, taking care to look upwards to higher levels for contextualization and rightwards to textual meaning for co-textualization.

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

81

TABLE 6.1  Metafunction/stratum matrix of English resources for text analysis.

Metafunction stratum

Ideational

Interpersonal

Textual

Genre Martin and Rose (2008) Eggins and Slade (1997)

Orbital/serial structure

Prosodic structure

Periodic structure

Register Martin 1992 Halliday and Martin (1993) Christie and Martin (1997) Martin and Veel (1998) Martin and Wodak (2003) Christie and Martin (2007)

Field – activity, taxonomy

Tenor – power, solidarity

Mode – action/reflection; monologue/ dialogue

Discourse semantics Martin and Rose (2003/2007) Martin and White (2005) Hao (2020)

Ideation, external connexion

Appraisal, negotiation

Identification, internal connexion, information flow

Lexicogrammar [verbiage] Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) [image] Kress and van Leeuwen (1996/2006/2020)

Transitivity; nominal group classification, description, enumeration

Mood, modality, polarity, comment, vocation; nominal group attitude, person

Theme and information; tense and deixis; ellipsis and substitution

Formatting, emoticons, colour; tone, voice quality, phonaesthesia

Punctuation, layout; tonality, tonicity

Tone sequence Graphology/ phonology Halliday and Greaves (2008)

SAMPLE STUDY By way illustration we’ll consider the following text, ‘Testing times’, which appeared in the GW Living section of the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend magazine on 15 November 2008 (Katz 2008) – especially its opening. It is from a regular ‘agony aunt’ column entitled ‘Modern Guru’ in which Danny Katz spoofs the genre, whimsically responding to readers’ questions about ‘twenty-first-century ethics, etiquette and dilemmas’ (column reproduced as Figure 6.3). Testing Times: how to handle one mark too many I am 16 years old and still at school. Recently I got an exam back and the teacher had added up my scores incorrectly and given me an extra mark. Should I have told her about the mistake, or just kept the extra mark? E.B., Pymble, NSW

82

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Ask just about any schoolkid and here’s what they’d probably say: “Nawwwww, keep that extra mark coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know, specially if it was, like, a maths test and she added up wrong, haw haw, that’d be, like hilarical” – and, by the way, this is how all schoolkids talk; I know, I’ve snuck peeks at my own kids’ msn messages, until they blocked me out using the parental control filter. Apparently it can also filter out controlling parents. But just ask about any schoolteacher and here’s what they’d probably say: “You caddish little rotter! By pilfering that extra point, not only are you behaving reprehensibly, but you are failing to recognise your true scholastic abilities, which could lead to ongoing exam failures, resulting in a botched education, culminating in a life of destitution at a Dickensian workhouse, blacking boots for Mr Bumble!” – and by the way, that’s how I imagine all school teachers talk, and they all wear mortarboards and black gowns, and look like old wire-moustached Latin masters as drawn by Ronald Searle. But ask the rest of us, and we’d probably go a bit both ways, because sometimes life throws you lovely little windfalls that you should be able to enjoy without guilt – that extra mark on an exam paper, that accidental $10 from a faulty ATM, that unexpected meatball in your turkey-breast sub, these are some of the great moments of life and should be cherished. But at the same time, there are rules when it comes to windfalling: your lucky little bonus must be small enough that nobody gets hurt, small enough so you can enjoy it without a heavy conscience, and most importantly, small enough so you can feign ignorance if you get caught. Which is why I propose

FIGURE 6.3  GW Living Modern Guru column (15 November 2008).

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

83

a Universal Fortuitous Windfall Cut-Off Point before a person needs to advise the relevant authorities – and that cut-off point is three. You’re allowed up to three extra marks on an exam paper before telling the teacher. Up to three $10 notes from a faulty ATM before returning the cash to the bank. And up to three unasked-for meatballs on a non-meatball sub before you yell at the Subway girl. The advice column opens as follows, presented here divided into ranking clauses (i.e. non-embedded ones), with clause ellipses of the kind specified in Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) work on cohesion filled in and placed in parentheses below. Line breaks mark orthographic sentences and double square brackets mark the one embedded clause. [1] I am 16 years old [2] and (I am) still at school. [3] Recently I got an exam back [4] and the teacher had added up my scores incorrectly [5] and (she had) given me an extra mark. [6] Should I have told her about the mistake, [7] or (should I have) just kept the extra mark? [8] Ask just about any schoolkid [9] and here’s [[what they’d probably say]]: [10] ‘Nawwwww (you shouldn’t have told her), [11] keep that extra mark [12] coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know, [13] specially if it was, like, a maths test [14] and she added up wrong, haw haw, [15] that’d be, like hilarical’ With reference to Table 6.1, we’ll focus on discourse semantics. Martin and Rose (2003) outline five key systems, alongside their realization in relation to information flow (periodicity): – identification – conjunction (re-termed connexion in Hao 2020) – ideation – negotiation – appraisal Identification is concerned with discourse entities – with people, places and things, and the way they are introduced in a text and kept track of once there. As compiled in Table 6.2, our sample text involves four entities that are anaphorically interdependent, thus forming cohesive reference chains. Pronouns, a proper name, phoric determiners (the, that) and ellipsis (noted in parentheses below) are used to keep track of entities: the student E.B., his/her teacher, the extra mark and schoolkids in general. In addition, the text makes use of extended reference (Halliday and Hasan 1976) to track larger configurations of meaning. As presented in Table 6.3, this involves two instances of anaphoric reference (the mistake, that) and one of cataphora (here).

84

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

TABLE 6.2  Identification chains.

E.B.

Teacher

Mark

Schoolkid

I

the

an extra

any

(I)

teacher

mark

schoolkid

I

(she)

the extra

they

my

her

mark

me

(her)

that extra

I

the

mark

(I)

teacher

you

she

E.B.

TABLE 6.3  Extended reference.

the teacher had added up my scores incorrectly and (the teacher had) given me an extra mark.

⇐ the mistake

here ⇒

‘Nawwwww (you shouldn’t have told her), keep that extra mark coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know, specially if it was, like, a maths test and she added up wrong, haw haw, that’d be, like hilarical’

specially if it was, like, a maths test and she added up wrong

⇐ that

Connexion focuses on logical relations of addition, comparison, time and cause between figures (i.e. configurations of entity and occurrence, following Hao 2020). A reticulum displaying these relations is presented in Figure 6.4. By convention, internal relations construing the rhetorical organization of the text are modelled on the left-hand side of the diagram, and external relations construing relations of comparison, time and cause among ‘real world’ events on the right (external additive relations are modelled down the centre of the reticulum). The actual realization of explicit connexion relations in the text by conjunctions (or tense) is noted in italics; items potentially realizing implicit relations are placed in parentheses. Lexicogrammatically, connexion relations have to be realized in either the first or second of related units; when realized in the first unit dependency arrows point forward (e.g. if in unit 13 above), and when realized in the second, arrows point back, indicating retrospective dependency. As far as external relations are concerned, Figure 6.3 outlines the complicated sequencing involved in telling a story out of time, since the events in units 4 and 5 precede that in unit 3, which is in turn followed by the alternatives in 6 and 7. Internally, Figure 6.3

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

85

FIGURE 6.4  Connexion relations (imp = implicit, exp = explicit; i.e. = reformulation, caus = causal, cond = conditional, add = additive, alt = alternative. succ = succeeding, prec = preceding).

displays the interplay of motivation and reformulation involved in argumentation, with unit 9 exemplified by 10–15, unit 10 elaborated as 11–15, unit 11 justified by units 12–15 and unit 12 specified by 13 and 14. As can be seen reticula treat texts as simultaneously structured by internal and external relations, and as unfolding serially from one interdependent unit to another. For detailed discussion of this kind of representation in relation to Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), which favours a nucleus and satellite analysis, generally privileging one unit as central (unit 11 perhaps above), see Martin (1992). Unlike conjunctive relations, RST requires that every unit be related to another, including relations that SFL would model as negotiation or genre staging; this means that unlike conjunctive relations, RST is not restricted to relations that can potentially be realized by a conjunction. For the perspective of ideation, the external temporal relations reflect two short episodes of sequencing. Units 3–7 sequence the figures in which the teacher adds up the scores incorrectly, gives the extra mark, returns the exam and the student either alerts the teacher or keeps the mark.

86

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

teacher add up score incorrectly ^teacher give schoolkid extra mark ^schoolkid get exam back ^schoolkid tell teacher about mark/student keep extra mark And units 8 and 9 sequence the turns of the imagined dialogue: (someone) ask schoolkid ^schoolkid say (to someone) As far as nuclear relations within figures are concerned, the teacher’s error is configured five times, including one lexicalization (mistake) and one instance of extended reference (that), lexically rendered in square brackets below; in the examples below + marks the extension of an occurrence by an entity, × its circumstantial enhancement and ×+ its extension/enhancement by an agent or beneficiary. teacher ×+ add up + scores × incorrectly mistake teacher + stuff up teacher + add up × wrong [teacher + add up × wrong] Telling the teacher about the mark is realized twice (once via the elliptical response Nawwwww), as is keeping the mark. schoolkid + tell ×+ teacher × about mark (schoolkid + tell ×+ teacher × about mark) schoolkid ×+ keep + mark (schoolkid) ×+ keep + mark Turning to entities, the ideational focus of these sequences and figures is reinforced through repeated realizations of the student, teacher and exam. The schoolkid and teacher strings are constructed through repetition (teacher-teacher etc.) and an instance of meronymy (school-schoolkid). The exam string is more varied, including repetition (markmark), synonymy (score-mark), meronymy (exam-mark) and hyponymy (exam-maths test). These strings are presented below, including lexical rendering of all pronominal reference (in square brackets) and ellipses (in parentheses). school, [schoolkid], (schoolkid), [schoolkid], [schoolkid], [schoolkid], [schoolkid], (schoolkid), schoolkid, [shoolkid], (schoolkid), (schoolkid) teacher, (teacher), [teacher], [teacher], teacher, [teacher] exam, score, mark, mark, mark, maths test Overall the sequencing, and nuclear and taxonomic relations clearly position the text in the field of education – with respect to what is going on and the entities involved. Turning to interpersonal meaning, the text involves a double-barrelled question followed by an imagined peer response. The response first addresses the first part of the question (unit 6), which it treats as seeking information, responding in the negative:

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

87

K2  [6] Should I have told her about the mistake, K1 - [10] “Nawwwww (you shouldn’t have told her), It then responds to unit 7 as if it was an offer rather than a question, advising E/B to keep the mark, and then justifying that advice. The Modern Guru doesn’t make room for a putative response from E.B. since he is about to consider an alternative response from an imaginary teacher and then proffer one of his own. Da1 

[7] or (should I have) just kept the extra mark?

A2 -

[11] keep that extra mark

justify 

[12] coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know,



[13] specially if it was, like, a maths test



[14] and she added up wrong, haw haw,



[15] that’d be, like hilarical” -

The first response negotiates E.B.’s query as concerned with exchanging knowledge, notated as a K2-K1 sequence (where K2 stands for a secondary knower move, seeking information, and K1 for a primary knower move, providing it). The second response re-negotiates the query as concerned with action, notated as Da1-A2-justify (where Da1 stands for a delayed move by the primary actor, checking whether to act, A2 for a secondary actor move, telling the primary actor what to do, followed up by rationale for the advice given). For a detailed account of this style of conversation analysis, see Martin (1992), Martin and Rose (2007) and Ventola (1987). The complementary responses capture nicely the duality nature of asking for and giving advice – since this involves exchanging information (knowledge) about what to do (action). Turning to appraisal, we can determine the interpersonal motivation for the peer advice given. In justifying his/her counsel the imagined schoolkid judges the teacher’s behaviour negatively as incompetent (stuffed up, wrong), picking up on E.B.’s negative judgements (incorrectly, mistake), delights affectually in the supposition that she might even have been a math teacher (haw haw), and then appreciates the refined scenario as a hilariously farcical (hilarical). The basic rhetoric of feeling here, from a student perspective, is that teacher’s error is something to savour happily – and intensely, as the amplified grading highlights (Nawwwww, totally stuffed up, haw haw, hilarical). For details on the analysis of evaluation touched on here, see Martin and White (2005) (judgement in bold, affect in italics and appreciation underlined below). [1] I am 16 years old [2] and ( I am) still at school. [3] Recently I got an exam back [4] and the teacher had added up my scores incorrectly [5] and (the teacher had) given me an extra mark. [6] Should I have told her about the mistake, [7] or (should I have) just kept the extra mark? [8] Ask just about any schoolkid [9] and here’s [[what they’d probably say]]:

88

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

[10] “Nawwwww (you shouldn’t have told her), [11] keep that extra mark [12] coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know, [13] specially if it was, like, a maths test [14] and she added up wrong, haw haw, [15] that’d be, like hilarical” Although for reasons of space we will not be pursuing a periodicity analysis here (in spite of the ‘look right in Table 6.3’ prescription given above!), note that all of the inscribed evaluation in fact comes last in the clause, in the unmarked position for tonic prominence signalling News.1 It thus contrasts with topical Theme selections, boxed2 above, which are realized at the other end of the English clause and here establish schoolkids and the teacher as the text’s orientation to its education field. As we can see, unlike say conversation analysis (CA) or RST, the approach to discourse analysis exemplified here is a modular one which disperses the description across a range of metafunctionally complementary discourse systems and structures. Each of these systems is realized lexicogrammatically (which stratum is in turn realized phonologically or graphologically); and each of them is realizing social context (the systems of register and genre). Space precludes consideration of the lower levels here (see however Martin (2010) for a glimpse of their contribution to the ‘Testing Times’ text). Ultimately it is the special responsibility of the highest level of abstraction in the model, genre, to coordinate the meanings arising from different strata and metafunctions. As we can also see, the analysis is a pains-taking one, ideally involving a very close reading of every meaning a text construes – working on the assumption that nothing is there by accident and so has to be understood as part of the social function of the text as a whole. What about ‘looking up’ to social context. Beginning with register, field it will be recalled is concerned with institutional activity – our participation in domestic, recreational, devotional, governmental and professional life. This Modern Guru column deals principally with education, and so the rich co-patterning of lexis dealing with items and activities in that field we have been examining extends throughout the ‘Testing Times’ text (lexicalizations underlined below). Testing Times: how to handle one mark too many I am 16 years old and still at school. Recently I got an exam back and the teacher had added up my scores incorrectly and given me an extra mark. Should I have told her about the mistake, or just kept the extra mark? … Ask just about any schoolkid and here’s what they’d probably say: “Nawwwww, keep that extra mark coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know, specially if it was, like, a maths test and she added up wrong, haw haw, that’d be, like hilarical” – and, by the way, this is how all schoolkids talk; … But just ask about any schoolteacher and here’s what they’d probably say: “You caddish little rotter! By pilfering that extra point, not only are you behaving reprehensibly, but you are failing to recognise your true scholastic abilities, which could lead to ongoing exam failures, resulting in a botched education, … – and by the way, that’s how I imagine all schoolteachers talk, and they all wear mortarboards and black gowns, and look like old wire-moustached Latin masters as drawn by Ronald Searle. … – that extra mark on an exam paper, … You’re allowed up to three extra marks on an exam paper before telling the teacher. …

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

89

Four other fields are more sketchily constituted: electronic communication, the nineteenth-century British workhouse, contemporary banking and fast food. ‘… I know, I’ve snuck peeks at my own kids’ msn messages, until they blocked me out using the parental control filter. Apparently it can also filter out controlling parents. culminating in a life of destitution at a Dickensian workhouse, blacking boots for Mr Bumble!’ … that accidental $10 from a faulty ATM, … Up to three $10 notes from a faulty ATM before returning the cash to the bank. … … that unexpected meatball in your turkey-breast sub, … And up to three unasked-for meatballs on a non-meatball sub before you yell at the Subway girl. Tenor is concerned with social positioning – our status in relation to one another, and our degree of affinity (power and solidarity are they are typically termed). These social relations are strongly foregrounded in the contrast the Guru sets up between how schoolkids talk to one another (equal status, close friends) and how teachers talk to them (unequal status, collegial contact). Ask just about any schoolkid and here’s what they’d probably say: “Nawwwww, keep that extra mark coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know, specially if it was, like, a maths test and she added up wrong, haw haw, that’d be, like hilarical” – and, by the way, this is how all schoolkids talk But just ask about any schoolteacher and here’s what they’d probably say: “You caddish little rotter! By pilfering that extra point, not only are you behaving reprehensibly, but you are failing to recognise your true scholastic abilities, which could lead to ongoing exam failures, resulting in a botched education, culminating in a life of destitution at a Dickensian workhouse, blacking boots for Mr Bumble!” – and by the way, that’s how I imagine all schoolteachers talk, The quoted speech in these examples also strongly implicates the third register variable mode, since schoolkids talk spoken English and schoolteachers talk like books (Halliday 2008b). So kids mean what they say and say what they mean, with occurrences realized verbally (keep, stuffed up, added up), qualities realized adjectivally (hilarical) and logical connections realized conjunctively (coz, if, and); for teachers the relation between meaning and wording is less direct (Hao 2020), with occurrences and qualities regularly textured nominally (abilities, failures, destitution) and logical relations rendered verbally (lead to, resulting, culminating). Nawwwww, keep that extra mark coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know, specially if it was, like, a maths test and she added up wrong, haw haw, that’d be, like hilarical You caddish little rotter! By pilfering that extra point, not only are you behaving reprehensibly, but you are failing to recognise your true scholastic abilities, which could lead to ongoing exam failures, resulting in a botched education, culminating in a life of destitution at a Dickensian workhouse, blacking boots for Mr Bumble!

90

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

The final step we need to take as far as realization is concerned is to further contextualize our Testing Times text in relation to genre. In our discussion of field above one dimension of the institutional activities implicated in the Modern Guru text has been postponed – namely the ‘agony aunt’ discourse reflected in the text’s concern with ethics and etiquette (lexicalizations underlined below), including its question-answer format and modulated proposals. Modern Guru Danny Katz answers readers’ questions about 21st-century ethics, etiquette and dilemmas. Testing Times: how to handle one mark too many … Should I have told her about the mistake, or just kept the extra mark? … But at the same time, there are rules when it comes to windfalling: your lucky little bonus must be small enough that nobody gets hurt, small enough so you can enjoy it without a heavy conscience, and most importantly, small enough so you can feign ignorance if you get caught. Which is why I propose a Universal Fortuitous Windfall Cut-Off Point before a person needs to advise the relevant authorities – and that cutoff point is three. You’re allowed up to three extra marks on an exam paper before telling the teacher. Up to three $10 notes from a faulty ATM before returning the cash to the bank. And up to three unasked-for meatballs on a non-meatball sub before you yell at the Subway girl. This dimension of field is unlike the others in that it is more fully implicated the organization of the text as a whole. We’re dealing with the consequences of writing a test in school here, not those of sending msn messages, getting money out of an ATM or ordering food at Subway – and we’re offering advice in general about how to behave in relation to fortuitous windfalls. This social purpose in effect transcends the others, and in doing so affects all metafunctions, coordinating them as a staged goal-oriented social process that we recognize as genre. This genre has been explored by Thibault (1986) and will not be canvassed in detail here. In terms of staging the text has a Question/ problem followed by Answer/solution structure. The Answer/solution can be divided into Rationale and Advice. This Rationale explores one extreme position on the issue, then another, before coming down in between (for discussion of stages and phases in genre analysis, see Martin and Rose (2008)).

Question/problem I am sixteen years old and still at school. Recently I got an exam back and the teacher had added up my scores incorrectly and given me an extra mark. Should I have told her about the mistake, or just kept the extra mark?

Answer/solution Rationale (schoolkids’ perspective) Ask just about any schoolkid and here’s what they’d probably say: ‘Nawwwww, keep that extra mark coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know, specially if it was, like, a maths test and she added up wrong, haw haw, that’d be, like hilarical’

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

91

- and, by the way, this is how all schoolkids talk; I know, I’ve snuck peeks at my own kids’ msn messages, until they blocked me out using the parental control filter. Apparently it can also filter out controlling parents. (school teachers’ perspective) But just ask about any schoolteacher and here’s what they’d probably say: ‘You caddish little rotter! By pilfering that extra point, not only are you behaving reprehensibly, but you are failing to recognise your true scholastic abilities, which could lead to ongoing exam failures, resulting in a botched education, culminating in a life of destitution at a Dickensian workhouse, blacking boots for Mr Bumble!’ - and by the way, that’s how I imagine all school teachers talk, and they all wear mortarboards and black gowns, and look like old wire-moustached Latin masters as drawn by Ronald Searle. (compromise perspective) But ask the rest of us, and we’d probably go a bit both ways, because sometimes life throws you lovely little windfalls that you should be able to enjoy without guilt – that extra mark on an exam paper, that accidental $10 from a faulty ATM, that unexpected meatball in your turkey-breast sub, these are some of the great moments of life and should be cherished. But at the same time, there are rules when it comes to windfalling: your lucky little bonus must be small enough that nobody gets hurt, small enough so you can enjoy it without a heavy conscience, and most importantly, small enough so you can feign ignorance if you get caught.

Advice Which is why I propose a Universal Fortuitous Windfall Cut-Off Point before a person needs to advise the relevant authorities – and that cut-off point is three. You’re allowed up to three extra marks on an exam paper before telling the teacher. Up to three $10 notes from a faulty ATM before returning the cash to the bank. And up to three unasked-for meatballs on a non-meatball sub before you yell at the Subway girl.

New directions A useful resource for exploring directions in discourse analysis in SFL is Bednarek and Martin (2010) (alongside Bartlett and O’Grady 2017, Thompson et al. 2019). The Bednarek and Martin (2010) collection focuses on two relatively unexplored hierarchies in SFL, instantiation and individuation, in relation to genesis. Instantiation is the cline relating system and text. Unlike realization, which is a hierarchy of abstraction, instantiation is a hierarchy of generality. Instantiation relates culture’s systems of meanings as a whole to their specialization as registers and genres; at the same time, it generalizes recurring patterns of meaning across instances as text types;3 and from the perspective of critical theory, texts themselves can be interpreted as potentials since they afford readings of different kinds according to the social subjectivity of their consumers. Overall, what we are looking at is a scale of potentiality – all of the meanings a semiotic system allows in relation

92

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

FIGURE 6.5  The hierarchy of instantiation – sub-potentialization in relation to system use.

to their sub-potentialization as instances of language use (a cricketer’s batting average in other words in relation to his shots and the way an umpire has adjudicated them as runs or not). A crude outline of this scale is presented as Figure 6.5. Whereas instantiation refers to the specialization of the meaning potential of a culture text by text, individuation specializes that meaning potential according to people (how meaning is deployed in relation to users rather than uses of language). The Modern Guru foregrounds individuation in the contrast he sets up between the schoolkid’s and schoolteacher’s response to the extra mark: Nawwwww, keep that extra mark coz, like, the teacher totally stuffed up, y’know, specially if it was, like, a maths test and she added up wrong, haw haw, that’d be, like hilarical You caddish little rotter! By pilfering that extra point, not only are you behaving reprehensibly, but you are failing to recognise your true scholastic abilities, which could lead to ongoing exam failures, resulting in a botched education, culminating in a life of destitution at a Dickensian workhouse, blacking boots for Mr Bumble! And he explicitly claims these responses to be representative of the way all schoolkids and all schoolteachers talk: – and, by the way, this is how all schoolkids talk; I know, I’ve snuck peeks at my own kids’ msn messages, until they blocked me out using the parental control filter. Apparently it can also filter out controlling parents. – and by the way, that’s how I imagine all schoolteachers talk, and they all wear mortarboards and black gowns, and look like old wire-moustached Latin masters as drawn by Ronald Searle. In SFL the main work on individuation has been oriented to generation, gender and class in the language of the mothers of preschool children (Hasan 2009). For further discussion of the user-oriented hierarchy presented in Figure 6.6, see Martin (2009c) and Zappavigna and Martin (2018).

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

93

FIGURE 6.6  Individuation and affiliation.

Current research on instantiation and individuation has rekindled interest in genesis, and the issue of how to model time as a variable in relation to meaning in unfolding discourse (logogenesis), individual development (ontogenesis) and cultural evolution (phylogenesis). The relation of these complementary perspectives on time in relation to realization, instantiation and individuation is outlined in Figure 6.7.

FIGURE 6.7  Realization, instantiation and individuation in relation to genesis.

94

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

KEY READINGS Eggins, S. and D. Slade (1997), Analysing Casual Conversation, London: Cassell (reprinted Equinox 2005). Martin, J. R. and D. Rose (2003), Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause, London: Continuum (2nd revised edn 2007). Martin, J. R. and D. Rose (2008), Genre Relations: Mapping Culture, London: Equinox. Martin, J. R. and P. R. R. White (2005), The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English, London: Palgrave.

NOTES 1 2

3

To these we might add three instances of the bonus mark, which is graded (extra) to flag appreciation. To these we might arguably add the implied ‘schoolkid’ Subjects of imperative clauses 8 and 11, and arguably subtract it in 13 by taking the dependent conditional clause if it was, like, a maths test as a marked Theme. Halliday and Matthiessen (e.g. 1999, 2014) don’t distinguish between genre/register and text type as different levels on this scale, treat text as the instance end of the cline, and don’t of course explicitly position genre on the scale (since they don’t operate with a stratified model of context).

REFERENCES Bartlett, T. and G. O’Grady (eds) (2017), The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics, London: Routledge. Bednarek, M. and J. R. Martin (eds) (2010), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation, London: Continuum. Christie, F. and J. R. Martin (eds) (1997), Genres and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. London: Cassell Academic. Fine, J. (2006), Language in Psychiatry: A Handbook of Clinical Practice, London: Equinox. Halliday, M. A. K. (2008a), ‘Working with Meaning: Towards an Appliable Linguistics’, in J. Webster (ed.), Meaning in Context: Strategies for Implementing Intelligent Applications of Language Studies, 7–23, London: Continuum. Halliday, M. A. K. (2008b), Complementarities in Language, Beijing: Commercial Press. Halliday, M. A. K. and C. M. I. M. Matthiessen (1999), Construing Experience through Language: A Language-Based Approach to Cognition, London: Cassell. Halliday, M. A. K. and C. M. I. M. Matthiessen (2014), Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar, London: Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. and J. R. Martin (1993), Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power, London: Falmer (Critical Perspectives on Literacy and Education). Halliday, M. A. K. and R. Hasan (1976), Cohesion in English, London: Longman. Hao, J. (2020), Analysing Scientific Discourse from a Systemic Functional Linguistic Perspective: A Framework for Exploring Knowledge-Building in Biology, London: Routledge. Hasan, R. (2009), Semantic Variation: Meaning in Society and Sociolinguistics, London: Equinox (The Collected Works of Ruqaiya Hasan, edited by Jonathon Webster). Katz, D. (2008), Modern Guru, Sydney: Sydney Morning Herald, 62.

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS

95

Kress, G. and T. van Leeuwen (1996), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, London: Routledge (2nd revised edn 2006; 3rd revised edn 2020). Martin, J. R. (1992), English Text: System and Structure, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Martin, J. R. (2009a), ‘Genres and Language Learning: A Social Semiotic Perspective’, Linguistics and Education, 20: 10–21. Martin, J. R. (2009b), ‘Boomer Dreaming: The Texture of Recolonisation in a Lifestyle Magazine’, in G. Forey and G. Thompson (eds), Text-type and Texture, 250–83, London: Equinox. Martin, J. R. (2009c), ‘Realisation, Instantiation and Individuation: Some thoughts on Identity in Youth Justice Conferencing’, DELTA – Documentação de Estudos em Linguistica Teorica e Aplicada, 25: 549–83. Martin, J. R. (2010), ‘Semantic Variation: Modelling System, Text and Affiliation in Social Semiosis’, in Bednarek and Martin (eds), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation, 1–34, London: Bloomsbury. Martin, J. R. (2015), ‘Cohesion and Texture’, in D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton, and D. Shiffrin (eds), Handbook of Discourse Analysis, 61–81, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Martin, J. R. (2019), ‘Discourse Semantics’, in G. Thompson, W. Bowcher, L. Fontaine and D. Schönthal (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics, 358–81, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, J. R. and R. Veel (eds) (1998), Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science, London: Routledge. Martin, J. R. and R. Wodak (eds) (2003), Re/reading the Past: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of History, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Tann, K. (2017), ‘Context and Meaning in the Sydney Architecture of Systemic Functional Linguistics’, in T. Bartlett and G. O’Grady (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics, 438–56, London: Routledge. Thibault, P. (1986), ‘Knowing What You’re Told by the Agony Aunts: Language Function, Gender Difference and the Structure of Knowledge and Belief in Personal Columns’, in D. Birch and M. O’Toole (eds), Functions of Style, 205–33, London: Pinter. Thompson, G., W. Bowcher, L. Fontaine and D. Schönthal (eds) (2019), The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ventola, E. (1987), The Structure of Social Interaction, London: Pinter. Zappavigna, M. and J. R. Martin (2018), Discourse and Diversionary Justice: An Analysis of Youth Justice Conferencing, London: Palgrave.

96

CHAPTER SEVEN

Corpus-based discourse analysis BETHANY GRAY AND DOUGLAS BIBER

INTRODUCTION In this chapter, we describe how corpus linguistics approaches can be applied to the analysis of discourse. Corpus linguistics is a set of research methodologies that focus on describing linguistic patterns of use in principled collections of texts designed to represent a target discourse domain (the corpus), using automatic and interactive computer programs to aid in quantitative and qualitative analyses. Over the past few decades, corpus approaches have become prevalent across many subfields of linguistics, and discourse analysis is no exception. In a survey of three major discourse journals (Discourse Processes, Discourse Studies and Text & Talk), 43 per cent of all research articles published in 2014 reported on empirical corpus-based research (Egbert, Biber and Gray forthcoming). The term ‘discourse’ itself defies a singular definition. In an effort to make sense of the various ways that ‘discourse’ has been conceptualized, Schiffrin et al. (2001: 1) group conceptualizations into three major categories: 1. discourse as language in use, which investigates variation in the use of linguistic forms and traditional linguistic constructs; 2. discourse as language structure beyond the sentence level, which focuses on the broader text structure, that is, on the systematic ways that texts are constructed; and 3. discourse as social practices and ideologies associated with language and/or communication. Corpus linguistic methods have been applied to understand the nature of discourse from each of these three perspectives. In the first two perspectives, there is an explicit focus on linguistic form in a text or collection of texts. Because many corpus-based studies focus on linguistic forms in specific linguistic and/or situational contexts, and seek to identify patterns of linguistic variation that are generalizable across texts in a specific discourse domain, corpus linguistics research often adopts the language in use approach. However, as we will discuss in the final section, corpus linguistics has also been used to study text structure, and recent corpus-based research has bridged the language in use and language beyond the sentence (i.e. text structure) perspectives by investigating the linguistic realizations of textual units and the distribution of linguistic features within texts.

98

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Corpus approaches have also been applied to research based on the third perspective on discourse to consider ‘how social and political phenomena are represented and constructed in the cultural products of a society’ (Partington and Marchi 2015: 219), particularly under the umbrella of corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS; Partington and Marchi 2015) and corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA; e.g. Baker et al. 2008). Studies within this tradition typically pair the more qualitative ‘close reading’ of texts or language examples with the quantitative nature of corpus linguistics data, such as frequency lists, keywords and concordance lines (Partington and Marchi 2015). This approach is increasingly being used to explore social concerns, such as: ●●

the construction of values and biases in news discourse (e.g. Bednarek and Caple 2017),

●●

mental and physical health discourse (e.g. Baker, Brookes and Evans 2019),

●●

gender and sexuality (e.g. Baker and Balirano 2017; Baker and Levon 2016),

●●

economic inequality (e.g. Gomez-Jimenez and Toolan 2020) and

●●

political and religious issues (e.g. Zuccato and Partington 2018 on Brexit).

Because it would not be possible to provide a comprehensive coverage of all three approaches to discourse, the remainder of this chapter will focus primarily on corpus research that considers language in use and language above the sentence. Readers are directed to Baker (2006) and Partington and Marchi (2015) for comprehensive introductions to the third perspective. The goal of this chapter is to introduce corpus linguistics as a method of discourse analysis, focusing primarily on form- and function-based analyses of language in use. We first describe the key characteristics of corpus linguistics methodologies in relation to its use for discourse analysis. Following this, we provide a case study investigating structural elaboration in academic writing and conversation, illustrating a corpus-based approach to studying discourse as language in use. In section 4, we extend our discussion to studies that consider text structure (discourse as beyond the sentence) and the linguistic characteristics of the structural composition of texts.

RESEARCHING LANGUAGE IN USE THROUGH CORPUS ANALYSIS Over the past few decades, the development of corpus linguistics as a methodological approach to descriptive linguistic analysis has provided a means of making generalizable discoveries about language use in various types of discourse. As a methodological approach, corpus linguistics has the following characteristics (Biber et al. 1998: 4): 1. The approach is empirical. Findings are based on actual, observed patterns of use in naturally occurring texts. 2. The foundation for the analysis is the corpus, a principled collection of texts that is designed to be representative of a target domain. 3. Computers are used to analyse (or to facilitate the analysis of) the corpus, using both automatic and interactive techniques. 4. The analysis is both quantitative and qualitative in nature. The major goal of many corpus-based studies of discourse is to document variation in the use of lexical and grammatical features in particular registers, describing the

CORPUS-BASED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

99

functions and frequency distributions of those linguistic features. The four characteristics introduced above distinguish corpus linguistics methodologies from other discourse analysis approaches, and provide the foundation for the unique contributions that corpus studies can offer.

The contributions of corpus linguistics for discourse analysis Perhaps the primary characteristic of a corpus-based approach is the most obvious one: it is based on a corpus, a large collection of electronic texts that is principally sampled in a principled manner to represent a target discourse domain. Many terms have been used to distinguish types of discourse domains (or varieties of language), including register, genre, style and text type.1 We use the term register to refer to varieties of language use that are distinguishable based on situational characteristics such as purpose, mode, setting, author/ speaker, reader and so on (see Biber and Conrad 2019). For example, conversation is characterized by its real-time spoken mode, shared time/place between participants and highly interactive nature, among others. Academic writing, on the other hand, is defined by its written mode, editing, the lack of shared time and place among participants, and its highly informational purpose. The core contribution of a corpus-approach to discourse is that, because the corpus is a principled sample that is specifically designed to represent the target domain, the intent is for findings to be meaningfully generalized to the discourse domain (or register) as a whole. Rather than an analysis of a single or small number of texts, corpus studies can examine a large collection of texts efficiently, with the goal of learning about domain more broadly rather than specific texts. As corpus studies are based on these large samples of language, analysts rely on a variety of computer tools to assist in the analysis of the corpus. Because a computer should come to the same conclusion about a particular linguistic feature each time it is encountered, the reliability of computer-aided analysis is typically quite high, allowing the researcher to focus attention on the interpretation of the linguistic data. In addition and perhaps even more importantly, the efficiency afforded by computers means that a much greater amount of language data can be analysed. As a result of the extensive amount of language data available, calculating quantitative patterns of use (in addition to qualitative and functional analyses) is meaningful and, in fact, relatively efficient and reliable to carry out. The use of quantitative data in corpus-based discourse analysis is important for two main reasons. First, quantitative methods allow for the empirical establishment of linguistic patterns across the texts in the corpus. That is, the researcher can identify patterns of variation that are consistent across the texts in the corpus, reducing the risk that an analysis will be an inaccurate description of a domain or that results will be skewed by a particular text or small number of texts. Second, because of the ability to describe a discourse domain as a whole (in quantitative terms and based on a large number of representative texts), it becomes quite feasible to make comparisons across domains/ registers. These comparisons go beyond the description of a particular linguistic feature, to documentation of relative distributions of many lexical and grammatical features in any variety of language. Of course, a domain/register cannot be fully described in quantitative terms alone. Key to the application of corpus linguistics is the belief that language variation is both systematic and functional and can be explained by considering the functional associations between of the situation of use and the linguistic features. Thus, a second key goal of corpus linguistics research is to explain the quantitative patterns of variation in relation to the communicative functions of the linguistic features in discourse, and how those functions match the needs of a communicative situation (as illustrated in Section 3 below).

100

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

In summary, the core contribution of corpus linguistic approaches to discourse analysis is the ability to make reliable, generalizable discoveries about the patterns of linguistic variation within and across discourse domains. Corpus design and representativeness are central to the generalizability of corpus research findings. Representativeness refers to the extent to which linguistic patterns uncovered in a corpus can be accurately generalized to the target discourse domain. Thus, corpora must be designed and sampled in a principled manner that ensures that they accurately represent texts in the register/domain of use (see Egbert et al. forthcoming for a book-length treatment of representativeness).

Corpus-based studies of language in use Within the general framework of language in use, corpus-based discourse studies have investigated a wide variety of linguistic features at multiple linguistic levels, often taking a functional view of language. This focus on function contributes to our understanding of how linguistic choices are associated with particular discourse domains, how they carry out important communicative functions within their discourse contexts and how a domain can be described for its particular characteristics. One general line of enquiry seeks to describe the use of specific linguistic features and their discourse functions within and across registers. Corpus-based studies have investigated aspects of lexis and phraseology, such as studies of collocation (the cooccurrence of particular words). For example, Yamasaki (2008) examines how particular collocations of anaphoric nouns correspond to different discourse functions across spoken and written domains. Keyword analyses (which identify statistically distinctive lexical items in corpora) are commonly used as a means of identifying ideologies, biases and representations in discourse (e.g. Baker 2018). A great deal of research has focused on other types of recurrent language, such as continuous sequences known as lexical bundles (Biber et al. 1999: Chapter 13) and discontinuous sequences known as frames (Gray and Biber 2013; Römer 2010). In addition to uncovering the marked variation in the phraseological profiles of spoken and written discourse (e.g. Biber, Conrad and Cortes 2004), considerable research has focused on the discourse functions of such phraseological features. A range of functional taxonomies characterize the role that phraseological units play in discourse (e.g. Biber et al.’s 2004 framework of stance, referential and discourse organizing bundles, or Hyland’s 2008 research-, text-, and participant-oriented bundles in academic writing). Bundles have also been associated with more specific functions, such as cohesion and discourse signalling in academic lectures (Nesi and Basturkmen 2006). In many cases, much of this research would be impossible without corpus methodologies to inductively uncover the frequent and recurrent patterning of lexical items in discourse. Corpus-based studies of grammar in discourse are also prevalent, often with a focus on the distributional patterns of grammatical features in discourse, factors influencing variability in grammar, and the discourse functions of grammatical features. These studies fall under three main broad categories: 1. a focus on a single linguistic feature or construct and its use in discourse, such as Flowerdew and Forest (2015) on signalling nouns; 2. consideration of a group of grammatical features which contribute to a single discourse function, such as stance (Biber 2006) and engagement (Zou and Hyland 2020); and

CORPUS-BASED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

101

3. a focus on broad grammatical profiles that characterize a discourse domain or register, often through multidimensional analysis (Biber 1988) to uncover the cooccurrence patterns of a full range of linguistic features. Regardless of the linguistic features being analyzed, corpus-based discourse studies may focus on a particular discourse domain, often from the perspectives of English for Specific Purposes or English for Academic Purposes. Staples (2015), for example, carries out multiple linguistic analyses to characterize the discourse of nurse–patient interactions, making connections between linguistic patterns and the success of such interactions. The chapters in Pickering et al. (2016) offer corpus-based descriptions of workplace discourse in a range of contexts, while the chapters in Römer et al. (2020) focus on a range of academic registers. Corpus-based analyses are ideally suited to comparisons of the use of linguistic constructs across domains. Even when the focus is on a single domain, comparison across subcomponents of that domain is common (e.g. Friginal 2009 uses MD analysis to describe call centre discourse, while simultaneously considering variability across agents and callers, male and female speakers, and a range of other factors). In part, the prevalence of comparative analyses in corpus-based approaches is because of the precise quantitative data yielded from corpus studies and because of the ability to collect large, representative corpora of a variety of registers. Corpus-based research as a whole has shown that differential patterns of variation across registers exist for a single linguistic feature as well as sets of co-occurring features. For this reason, many corpusbased studies consider register differences in their description of the distribution and functional uses of linguistic constructs. To illustrate, the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al. 1999; republished as Biber et al. 2021) is a comprehensive corpus-based reference grammar that documents how any grammatical feature of English is distributed and used across a variety of spoken and written registers. Although a few corpus studies focus on describing the variation of a particular feature within a single register, most corpus studies compare the use of a feature across multiple varieties. This is because identifying the distinctive use of features in a register necessarily requires that the researcher compare the use of that feature in one register to its use in another register. Many times very diverse registers are compared, as in the case in comparisons of speech and writing (e.g. Biber et al. 2002). Other times, a particular ‘macro’ register like academic writing is being considered, with comparisons being made across academic disciplines (e.g. Hyland and Tse 2004) or across different types of texts within academic writing (e.g. Conrad’s 2017 comparison of research articles, student writing and practitioner reports in civil engineering). Multidimensional analysis was developed with a comparative goal in mind. In MD analysis, the statistical technique of factor analysis is used to analyse the frequency distributions of many linguistic features in corpora representing a range of discourse domains to locate those that frequently co-occur. After the statistical analyses, qualitative analysis of the functions of the co-occurring features is undertaken to interpret the findings, leading to generalizations about ‘dimensions’ of language use. Multidimensional analysis has been used to investigate many different registers, from spoken and written academic texts (Biber et al. 2002; Gray 2015; Thompson et al. 2017), web registers (Biber and Egbert 2018), social media and Twitter (Clarke and Grieve 2017; Liimatta 2019) and television language (Quaglio 2009), among others. We hope that this brief review has illustrated the range of approaches that researchers have taken. In the next section, we present a case study that integrates grammar and

102

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

discourse by considering how the grammatical resources of English are utilized in distinct ways across different discourse domains (conversation and academic writing), and the discoursal effect of such variation.

A SAMPLE STUDY: LANGUAGE IN USE The following study (adapted from Biber and Gray 2010) compares the use of linguistic features associated with structural complexity and elaboration in conversation and academic writing. This study illustrates a language in use research approach, and highlights the importance of a comparative approach and how such comparisons can reveal patterns of variation counter to intuitions and assumptions about how language is used in a particular domain.

Complexity and elaboration in academic prose and conversation Researchers have long claimed that in comparison to conversation, academic writing is structurally elaborated, relying more heavily on subordinate clauses; for example, Hughes (1996: 58–64) claimed that spoken grammar employs ‘simple and short clauses, with little elaborate embedding’, in direct contrast to writing, which uses ‘longer and more complex clauses with embedded phrases and clauses’. In contrast, scholars like Wells (1960) had argued that academic writing relies heavily on nominal structures, and Biber’s (1988) work had demonstrated that clausal subordination is more common in speech while phrasal embedding is more common in writing. However, despite these studies, the belief that academic writing is structurally elaborated and employs extensive use of clausal embedding (in contrast with speech) persists today for both language teachers and researchers. Corpus-based linguistics is an ideal method for investigating these widely held notions about speech and academic writing. By comparing the distributions of linguistic features related to structural elaboration in corpora representing the two target domains, we can see how the actual relative distributions of these features differ across speech and writing, and how those distributions are contrary to widely held beliefs about conversation and academic prose.

Method and corpus The first step in the analysis is to identify linguistic features which are related to structural elaboration. Table 7.1 lists five ‘elaborated’ dependent clause features identified from previous research. Complement clauses (finite and non-finite) typically function as the direct object of a verb, but they are elaborated in the sense that they use a clause to fill a sentence slot normally filled by a noun phrase. Adverbial clauses and relative clauses, on the other hand, are elaborated in the sense that they are optional additions to the main clause, added on in order to provide elaborating information to the main verb or head noun.

TABLE 7.1  Grammatical features associated with structural elaboration.

Grammatical feature

Examples

Finite complement clauses

I don’t know how they do it. I thought that was finished.

Non-finite complement clauses

I’d like to get one of these notebooks. Do you want to elaborate on that more?

CORPUS-BASED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

103

Finite adverbial clauses

She won’t narc on me, because she prides herself on being a gangster. So she can blame someone else if it doesn’t work.

Finite relative clauses

the quantity of waste that falls into this category … There are three sets of conditions under which the crop is raised.

Non-finite relative clauses

The results shown in Tables IV and V add to the picture … The factors contributing to the natural destruction of microbes …

As a point of comparison, we also investigate a set of features which are not ‘elaborated’ structures, but rather serve to ‘compress’ information into dense units. These features are summarized in Table 7.2. Although all of these features also add additional information to either a head noun or the main clause, they are compressed structures used to pack information into a small number of words, as evidenced by rephrasing these structures with fuller clausal modifiers; for example: unusual circumstances → circumstances which are unusual effect of salt → the effect which is caused by salt students in the class → students who are taking the class The next step in the analysis is to analyse the distributions of these features in corpora representing the target domains. We compared two corpora: (1) an academic writing corpus composed of 429 research articles (c. 3 million words) sampled from science/ medicine, education, social science (psychology) and humanities (history) and (2) the conversation subcorpus (c. 4.2 million words of American English) from the Longman Spoken and Written Corpus (Biber et al. 1999: 24–35). These corpora were annotated for grammatical categories (or ‘tagged’) by the Biber tagger. Then, specialized computer programs were developed to analyse the features associated with structural elaboration (Table 7.1) and compression (Table 7.2). TABLE 7.2  Grammatical features associated with structural compression

Grammatical feature

Examples

Attributive adjective (adjective as noun pre-modifier)

a large number, unusual circumstances

Noun as noun pre-modifier

surface tension, liquid manure

Appositive noun phrase as noun post-modifier

In four cohorts (Athens, Keio, Mayo, and Florence), investigators stated that …

Prepositional phrase as noun post-modifier

Class mean scores were computed by averaging the scores for male and female target students in the class. Experiments have been conducted to determine the effect of salt on the growth and development of paddy.

Prepositional phrase as adverbial

Alright, we’ll talk to you in the morning. Is he going to the store?

104

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

While many of the features identified in Tables 7.1 and 7.2 could be identified automatically based on the grammatical annotation, determining the function of features like prepositional phrases (functioning as a noun post-modifier versus an adverbial) was an interactive process in which a computer program located every fourth token of the feature, which were then coded by hand. All features in Tables 7.1 and 7.2 were counted, and then normalized to counts per 1,000 words (see Biber et al. 1998: 263–4) to allow for the direct comparison of the frequencies of these features across the two corpora.

Results of corpus analysis Commonly held perceptions that academic writing is more structurally elaborated than conversation would predict that academic writing would use the elaborated grammatical features to a greater extent than conversation. In fact, the results show that the opposite is true. Figure 7.1 shows the distribution of common dependent clause types. Finite and non-finite complement clauses and finite adverbial clauses are all much more prevalent in conversation than in academic writing. Only finite and non-finite relative clauses – clauses that modify a head noun – are more frequent in academic writing than in conversation. Overall, dependent clause types are nearly twice as frequent in conversation as in academic writing. In contrast, Figure 7.2 shows that much of the embedding and elaboration in academic writing comes from phrasal components modifying a head noun, with all four of the dependent phrasal structures occurring at a higher rate in academic writing. Attributive adjectives (e.g. differential reinforcement, theoretical orientation) and nouns as noun modifiers (e.g. trait information, system perspective) are quite common in academic prose in comparison to conversation. The distribution of prepositional phrases as noun postmodifiers (e.g. a strategic approach to mutual understanding; a surrogate for a suite of unmeasured covariates) in academic prose is also particularly salient.

FIGURE 7.1  Common dependent clause types (from Biber and Gray 2010).

CORPUS-BASED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

105

FIGURE 7.2  Common dependent phrasal types (from Biber and Gray 2010).

This analysis shows that the stereotype that academic writing is more structurally complex in terms of embedded dependent clauses is not supported by the corpus evidence. While conversation typically employs a higher amount of subordination (embedded dependent clauses) than academic writing, academic writing employs more structures embedded in the noun phrase. These patterns are evident in the following two excerpts. The first text excerpt illustrates the frequent use of subordinate clauses in conversation compared to a relatively infrequent use of nouns (and noun modifiers). In contrast, the second excerpt from academic prose illustrates the dense use of modifiers within the noun phrase, including both phrasal pre- and post-modifiers and relative clauses. In both excerpts, features are marked as follows: nouns, noun post-modifiers, attributive adjectives, and dependent clauses as sentence elements (first few words only).

Excerpt 1: From an unscripted organizational board meeting 1: The thing is we only need one funding this year so if they don’t VENRC should fund us 2: Right, but 3: That is true. Or the state department. I talked to Cheryl and, and she thought maybe they could come up with some. 2: Is it that bad a year? 3: Yeah, yeah. They’re eliminating all the jobs except hers at, you know, in Oklahoma. It’s really getting . 2: So, just take it out completely? 3: Um,… yes, take it out completely. Cause we don’t know yet whether she’ll… I’m pretty sure. I just sent the, uh, and the bio two days ago to so maybe because she didn’t have that she didn’t want to commit. 1: That’s an idea.

106

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Excerpt 2: From a research article in Biology A common interest in modeling is to make inferences about the effect of the longitudinal measures on the time to event, but not to make inferences about the longitudinal measures or their projected change over time. The longitudinal model is important for accounting for measurement error and defining the individual’s longitudinal trajectory between times of measurement. Because a complex model for the longitudinal measures may be too complicated to estimate in the joint model, a linear mixed model that is parametric with respect to time is most commonly used. More recently, attention has focused on relaxing assumptions on the model for the longitudinal data, but this research has focused mainly on the distributional assumptions of the random effects and has not addressed the shape of the trajectory […] Despite being approximately the same length, the dense use of nouns and nominal modifiers (attributive adjectives, nouns as noun pre-modifiers, prepositional phrases and relative clauses as post-modifiers) in the Biology article is readily evident. In particular, note that there are often multiple levels of embedding within noun phrases, such as in:

inferences about the effect of the longitudinal measures on the time to event In contrast, the conversation excerpt relies more heavily on pronouns than nouns, and has only one prepositional phrase modifying a head noun (except hers). However, the conversation excerpt does contain six finite dependent clauses. These corpus findings and the text excerpts above illustrate the distinctive patterns differentiating the discourse domains of conversation and academic writing in terms of elaboration. Academic writing is complex in that it utilizes phrasal embedding as a means of structural elaboration. Although traditional measures of complexity and elaboration focus on subordination, phrasal elements like attributive adjectives, nouns as noun premodifiers, appositive noun phrases and prepositional phrases as noun post-modifiers are also elaborating in the sense that they add optional, extra information. However, these phrasal elements are condensed in the sense that they are compressed alternatives to fuller clausal modifiers. In academic prose, writers prefer these compact structures because they are more economical and allow the expert reader to efficiently process a great deal of information. Thus, while both conversation and academic writing are complex and elaborated, they are so in dramatically different ways. This sample study has illustrated how corpus-based discourse studies of language in use can uncover systematic patterns of variation across registers. Additionally, it has shown that findings resulting from corpus-based analyses can be counter to many of our intuitions and/or assumptions about language use in a particular register.

INVESTIGATING LANGUAGE STRUCTURE BEYOND THE SENTENCE AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR CORPUS-BASED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Corpus approaches can also be used to investigate text structure, or language beyond the sentence. Biber et al. (2007), in one of the early book-length contributions in this area, combines the analysis of functional discourse units with corpus linguistic methods, developing a comprehensive framework for applying corpus-based analysis to the analysis of text structure. Biber et al. discuss two types of discourse units: those derived from top-

CORPUS-BASED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

107

down analysis (e.g. move analysis) and those derived from a bottom-up corpus-driven analysis (e.g. ‘vocabulary based discourse units’). In the traditional top-down approach, each text is segmented into ‘moves’ (see Swales 1990) based of their functions in the discourse, and then analysed for the use of lexical and grammatical features. Once each text has been analysed, general patterns can be identified for (a) the typical linguistic features of each functional category of moves and (b) the sequence of moves and functions across the texts in the corpus. In the bottom-up approach, texts are first segmented into discourse units based on linguistic criteria such as shifting vocabulary use. Each discourse unit is then analysed for its linguistic characteristics and classified into linguistically defined categories (rather than functionally-defined categories), and the patterns across the texts of the corpus can be described. Applying corpus analysis methods to the study of text structure has the same benefits as corpus analyses of language in use. While each individual discourse unit is analysed first, the end goal is to identify patterns across the texts of the corpus to reveal generalizable observations about the target register. Because large amounts of data can again be analysed in quantitative and qualitative terms, comparison can be made across registers or genres. This is in contrast to traditional studies of text structure which have focused on detailed, primarily qualitative descriptions of a single text or a very small number of texts of a single genre. Biber et al. (2007) have thus shown that it is useful to use corpus analysis to analyse text structure, integrating quantitative, generalizable analyses with qualitative descriptions. While this methodology had not yet been widely applied at the publication of the first edition of this book, large-scale corpus analyses such as these have become more prevalent today (e.g. Kanoksilapatham 2007 on biochemistry articles; Cotos, Huffman and Link 2017 on research articles). As corpus-based analyses of text structure have increased, so too has research that has bridged the language in use and language beyond the sentence perspectives to offer detailed linguistic descriptions of structural discourse units like moves or vocabulary-based discourse units. For example, Cortes (2013) and Omidian et al. (2018) consider the cooccurrence of lexical bundles and rhetorical moves to identify key phraseologies associated with discourse structure. Motivated by English for Academic Purposes concerns, there have been increasing calls for research that helps to link major grammatical resources with rhetorical moves to inform the teaching of research writing. Studies such as Tankó (2017, on research article abstracts) and Gray, Cotos and Smith (2020, on IMRD research articles) provide detailed descriptions of the linguistic realizations of moves. We hope that this type of work will continue to develop, utilizing the strengths of corpus analysis to describe discourse and its linguistic and rhetorical characteristics.

KEY READINGS Baker, P. and T. McEnery (2015), Corpora and Discourse Studies: Integrating Discourse and Corpora, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Biber, D., and S. Conrad (2019), Register, Genre, and Style (2nd edition), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biber, D. and R. Reppen (2015), The Cambridge Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biber, D., U. Connor, and T. Upton (2007), Discourse on the Move: Using Corpus Analysis to Describe Discourse Structure, Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

108

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Taylor, C. and A. Marchi (2018), Corpus Approaches to Discourse: A Critical Review, London: Routledge.

NOTE 1

See Lee (2001) and Biber and Conrad (2009: chapter 1) for a comprehensive discussion of the uses of these terms; also see Martin (this volume), Tardy (this volume).

REFERENCES Baker, P. (2006), Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis, London: Continuum. Baker, P. (2018), ‘Signposts to Objectivity?’ in A. Čermáková and M. Mahlberg (eds), The Corpus Linguistics Discourse, 77–94, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Baker, P. and E. Levon (2016), ‘“That’s What I Call a Man”: Representations of Racialized and Classed Masculinities in the UK Print Media’, Gender and Language, 10 (1): 106–39. Baker, P. and G. Balirano (2017), Queering Masculinities in Language and Culture, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Baker, P., G. Brookes, and C. Evans (2019), The Language of Patient Feedback: A Corpus Linguistic Study of Online Health Communication, New York: Routledge. Baker, P., C. Gabrielatos, M. Khosravinik, M. Kryzanowski, T. McEnery, and R. Wodak (2008), ‘A Useful Methodological Synergy? Combining Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics to Examine Discourses of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK Press’, Discourse and Society, 19 (3): 272–306. Bednarek, M. and H. Caple (2017), The Discourse of News Values: How News Organizations Create Newsworthiness, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Biber, D. (1988), Variation across Speech and Writing, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biber, D. (2006), ‘Stance in Spoken and Written University Registers’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5: 97–116. Biber, D., and B. Gray (2010), ‘Challenging Stereotypes about Academic Writing: Complexity, Elaboration, Explicitness’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 9: 2–20. Biber, D. and J. Egbert (2018), Register Variation Online, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biber, D., S. Conrad, and R. Reppen (1998), Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Structure and Use, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biber, D., S. Conrad, and V. Cortes (2004), ‘If You Look at … : Lexical Bundles in University Teaching and Textbooks’, Applied Linguistics, 25 (3): 371–405. Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad, and E. Finegan (1999), Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, London: Longman. Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad, and E. Finegan (2021), Grammar of Spoken and Written English, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Biber, D., S. Conrad, R. Reppen, P. Byrd, and M. Helt (2002), ‘Speaking and Writing in the University: A Multidimensional Comparison’, TESOL Quarterly, 36: 9–48. Clarke, I. and J. Grieve (2017), ‘Dimensions of Abusive Language on Twitter’, in Proceedings of the First Workshop on Abusive Language Online, Association for Computational Linguistics, ACL, Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, Canada, 1–10. Conrad, S. (2017), ‘A Comparison of Practitioner and Student Writing in Civil Engineering’, Journal of Engineering Education, 106 (2): 191–217. Cortes, V. (2013), ‘The Purpose of This Study Is To: Connecting Lexical Bundles and Moves in Research Article Introductions’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 12: 33–43.

CORPUS-BASED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

109

Cotos, E., S. Huffman and S. Link (2017), ‘A Move/Step Model for Methods Sections: Demonstrating Rigour and Credibility’, English for Specific Purposes, 46: 90–106. Egbert, J., D. Biber, and B. Gray (forthcoming), Towards Representativeness in Corpus Design, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Flowerdew, J. and R. W. Forest (2015), Signalling Nouns in English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friginal, E. (2009), The Language of Outsourced Call Centers: A Corpus-Based Study of CrossCultural Interaction, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gomez-Jimenez, E. and M. Toolan (2020), The Discursive Construction of Economic Inequality: CADS Approaches to the British Media, London: Bloomsbury. Gray, B. (2015), Linguistic Variation in Research Articles: When Disciplines Tells Only Part of the Story, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Gray, B. and D. Biber (2013), ‘Lexical Frames in Academic Prose and Conversation’, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 18 (1): 109–135. Gray, B., E. Cotos, and J. Smith (2020), ‘Combining Rhetorical Move Analysis with MultiDimensional Analysis: Research Writing across Disciplines’, in U. Römer, V. Cortes and E. Friginal (eds), Advances in Corpus-based Research on Academic Writing, 138–68, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hughes, R. (1996), English in Speech and Writing: Investigating Language and Literature, London: Routledge. Hyland, K. (2008), ‘As Can Be Seen: Lexical Bundles and Disciplinary Variation’, English for Specific Purposes, 27: 4–21. Hyland, K. and P. Tse (2004), ‘Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: A Reappraisal’, Applied Linguistics, 25 (2): 156–77. Kanoksilapatham, B. (2007), ‘Rhetorical Moves in Biochemistry Research Articles’, in D. Biber, U. Connor and T. Upton (eds), Discourse on The Move, 73–119, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Liimatta, A. (2019), ‘Exploring Register Variation on Reddit: A Multi-Dimensional Study of Language Use on a Social Media Website’, Register Studies, 1 (2): 269–95. Nesi, H. and H. Basturkmen (2006), ‘Lexical Bundles and Discourse Signaling in Academic Lectures’, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 11 (3): 283–304. Omidian, T., H. Shahriari and A. Siyanova-Chanturia (2018), ‘A Cross-Disciplinary Investigation of Multi-Word Expressions in the Moves of Research Article Abstracts’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 36: 1–14. Partington, A. and A. Marchi (2015), ‘Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis’, in D. Biber and R. Reppen (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of English Corpus Linguistics, 216–34, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pickering, L., E. Friginal, and S. Staples (2016), Talking at Work: Corpus-based Explorations of Workplace Discourse, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Quaglio, P. (2009), Television Dialogue: The Sitcom Friends vs. Natural Conversation, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Römer, U. (2010), ‘Establishing the Phraseological Profile of a Text Type: The Construction of Meaning in Academic Book Reviews’, English Text Construction, 3: 95–119. Römer, U., V. Cortes and E. Friginal (2020), Advances in Corpus-based Research on Academic Writing: Effects of Discipline, Register, and Writer Expertise, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Staples, S. (2015), The Discourse of Nurse-Patient Interactions: Contrasting the Communicative Styles of U.S. and International Nurses, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Swales, J. (1990), Genre Analysis: English for Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

110

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Tankó, G. (2017), ‘Literary Research Article Abstracts: An Analysis of Rhetorical Moves and Their Linguistic Realizations’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 27: 42–55. Thompson, P., S. Hunston and A. Murakami (2017), ‘Multi-dimensional Analysis, Text Constellations, and Interdisciplinary Discourse’, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 22 (2): 153–86. Wells, R. (1960), ‘Nominal and Verbal Style’, in T. A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in Language, 213–20, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Yamasaki, N. (2008), ‘Collocations and Colligations Associated with Discourse Functions of Unspecific Anaphoric Nouns’, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 13 (1): 75–98. Zou, F. K. and K. Hyland (2020), ‘“Think about How Fascinating This Is”: Engagement in Academic Blogs across Disciplines’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 43: 100809. Zuccato, M. and A. Partington (2018), ‘Brexit: Before and after, A Corpus-Assisted Study of the Referendum Campaigns and the Immediate Aftermath’, Textus, 31 (1): 119–40.

PART TWO

AREAS OF RESEARCH

112

CHAPTER EIGHT

Spoken discourse REBECCA HUGHES

INTRODUCTION Speaking is a capacity that all human beings draw on almost as easily and unconsciously as they breathe, and yet it is a complex, multifaceted, skill. As this chapter will show, work on spoken discourse in applied linguistics is very wide-ranging, central to ongoing questions in linguistic theory, and is continuing to develop apace. Spoken discourse is at the heart of both the most sophisticated and the most mundane of human activities. Everyday conversation is the social glue which underpins all human relationships, in all societies and all their languages throughout human history. By the age of three every child who develops normally has gained a good day-to-day working vocabulary and by the age of five or six has grasped the basic linguistic and pragmatic skills required to develop their own identity and relationships within their family and the wider community (see Ochs and Schieffelin (2016) for a useful survey of child language acquisition embedded in social and cultural contexts). Despite technological developments, spoken language remains the primary medium by which all humans collaborate about information and tasks, and engage emotionally and professionally with others. Spoken discourse is, therefore, a very broad category, and the questions asked in spoken language research may relate to the narrowest aspect of speech – for example, investigating a particular phonetic feature – or may deal with something extremely wide-ranging, such as the effects of literacy versus orality in societies as they develop. Sikveland (2019), for instance, looks at changes in particular phonetic features in crisis negotiation settings, whereas Wegerif (2019) proposes that a new model of education is required, dialogic rather than print based, in the internet age. Both scholars are dealing with ‘spoken discourse’ but examining it through very different lenses and for very different purposes. In spoken language research, the nature of the research techniques and strategies employed, and paradigms regarded as valid vary in line with the topic and outcomes of research which, as in these two examples, may be extremely varied themselves. And, while broad topics can be investigated, it is rare for different linguistic paradigms – for instance, neurolingistics and corpus linguistics – to feed off one another to look at speech as an object of study in its own right. For instance, speakers construct utterances in different ways from writers due to the need to process the language being spoken in real time and without the potential for editing.

This is an updated and reworked version of an earlier chapter by the same author: Hughes, R., 2015. Researching speaking. Research Methods in Applied Linguistics: A Practical Resource. Bloomsbury.

114

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

However, many of the major advances in the understanding of spoken grammar have come not, as we might expect, from the domain of speech processing, but from large studies of corpora (Carter and McCarthy 2006, 2017, Close and Aarts 2010, John and Brooks 2014, Leech 2000, Svartvik 1990). Equally, the work in psycho- or neurolinguistics on speech impairments is generally carried out in isolation from, for example, the needs of the second language learner or the norms of speech against which oral assessment is conducted. While these may seem distant research areas from one another – one being in the domain of medical research and the others in language teaching and assessment – they both tackle the question of what is ‘normal’, acceptable or comprehensible speech like? Answering this from a neurological standpoint would assist the reliability of oral assessment criteria since, as an example, hesitations and repetitions are often listed in oral assessment criteria as featuring in weaker test-taker performance. However, hesitation phenomena are features that are also regularly found in highly proficient speech (see, for instance, Merlo and Barbosa 2010). Genuinely understanding the processing constraints on spoken language that lead to hesitation and repetition in non-assessment contexts would add considerably to the sophistication and reliability of spoken language assessment criteria. Overall, in considering spoken discourse, the individual speaker and the context in which they produce their utterances are relevant in spoken language in ways that are very different from static, decontextualized written language. Speaking is generally constructed for a known, present, listener in contrast to formal written discourse. Much of the debate around the nature of spoken discourse and preferences for approaches to researching speaking revolves around these issues. Taken together with the fundamental issue of how to capture and analyse what is a transitory and dynamic medium without distortion, and the growing potential for interdisciplinarity research and applications, this makes spoken discourse one of the most stimulating and important areas in applied linguistics.

DOMAINS, STRATEGIES AND TECHNIQUES Fields of enquiry into spoken discourse range from discourse and conversation analysis to corpus linguistics, ethnography and cultural studies to psycholinguistics, second language acquisition studies to medical discourse. Most approaches to understanding spoken language depend on being able to make the original spoken form available in writing for analysis, or on emerging digital methods that analyse video and speech directly. In some domains, for instance, studies of speaking in multimodal settings, the role of transcription is less central; however, there is still often a role for transcription. Transcription can be regarded as a means of crystallizing the fluidity of speech and making it observable through time. Because of this transposition, it is easy to mistake the concrete captured language with the original data and a brief consideration of this methodological issue follows (see Jones, R, this volume, for a further overview and in-depth discussion).

Capturing spoken discourse for research purposes The simplest conversation when transcribed and put under the microscope of analysis looks, to the untrained eye, chaotic. Here, for instance, is a two-person question-andanswer exchange transcribed for research into medical discourse (Ph = pharmacist, Pt = patient): 1. Ph 05. Yeah okay and you’re happy with the box that you are using 2. Pt 09. Yeah I can manage them (0.2) they ain’t all the same some of them have

SPOKEN DISCOURSE

115

3. Pt 09. got a slide but you have to watch you don’t un uncover more than one 4. Pt 09. hole= 5. Ph 05. =Yes yeah I’ve actually brought some with me here 6. Pt 09. You see 7. Ph 05. I think the one you mean is (0.2) is it like that (0.3) is it like that so you 8. Ph 05. have to be careful when you pull the slides out 9. Pt 09. That’s right yeah they’re the ones 10. Ph 05. Yeah 11. Pt 09. Yeah (0.3) so that just pull one pull pull down to them morning 12. Ph 05. Pull down to the one you want 13. Pt 09. And then the next dinner time 14. Ph 05. Yeah and make sure you only go so far with them= 15. Pt 09. =That’s right 16. Ph 05. Yeah (Salter et al. 2007: 4) The extract shows some of the very commonly used conventions in transcribing spoken language. Indications of overlapping talk are shown by an ‘equals’ sign (=) at the end of the utterance at line 4 and another one at the start of the utterance at line 5 and that the word ‘hole’ and ‘yes’ are said simultaneously. The numbers in brackets placed within an utterance: ‘ … the one you mean is (0.2) is it like that (0.3) is … ’ indicate the length of pauses made by a speaker. Because pauses and overlapping talk have significance in conversational analysis it is very common to see this level of detail in a transcription. A transcription for phonetic research purposes would include greater detail and one, say, for the law courts, far less. The transcript fits the level of spoken discourse under investigation and is not a ‘given’. A very specific kind of transcription is used in corpus linguistics and speech recognition systems to capture not only acoustic information but also lexical and syntactic details. Parsing refers to the process by which spoken data is broken down into its grammatical constituents and tagging is the means by which these constituents, often down to the level of individual words and parts of words (morphemes), are labelled so that a computer can aid the researcher in the process of analysis. The development of sophisticated search engines that can seek and analyse data on the World Wide Web is expanding the breadth and depth of this work (Jakubíček et al. 2020). Originally, much parsing and tagging work was carried out to provide greater understanding of the patterns of syntax and word-distribution in the spoken form. Subsequently, corpora that had been parsed and tagged became the basis for other applications, particularly machine learning models. For instance, the ‘Airline Traffic Information Systems’ corpus has been used to train and develop machine learning applications and subsequently benchmark them for over three decades (Price 1990, Chen et al. 2016, Liu et al. 2019). The longevity of spoken corpora that have been parsed and tagged by human editors is due to the high cost of producing these resources. They have also tended to be applied in restricted domains where machine learning can successfully predict semantic content. The challenge that automated spoken language understanding continues to face is the accuracy of understanding in ‘normal’ environments and those

116

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

where the speech signal is ‘messed up’ by background noises (Ishi et al. 2006). However, these systems have made incredible gains in the recent past, for instance, in automatically understanding speaker emotion as well as information (Latif et al. 2019).

Elicited data and experimental approaches Research into speech does not always, or indeed necessarily, take place directly on samples of spoken language as found in our daily lives. An important category is ‘elicited speech’. Investigators who use this method fall broadly into two categories: those who seek to mimic authentic spoken discourse closely and elicit it in a more manageable way for analysis and those who construct experimental frameworks within which very precisely constrained samples of speech can be analysed. An example of the how to mimic features of authentic speech is a map task experiment. This is a technique to elicit a dialogue that creates the need for explanation, clarification and convergence of understanding. These functions in turn generate hesitations, repetitions and negotiation of meaning – features common in spontaneous speech. Participants share information about a route from point A to point B from two maps by spoken interaction only. The maps have small but important differences between them and this leads to a rich, spontaneous, dialogue between the participants as they try to carry out the task of guiding one participant to the destination. A corpus of these dialogues is available at: http://groups.inf.ed.ac.uk/maptask/index.html, and some of these have been re-transcribed and made accessible at: https://dialogbank.uvt.nl/hcrc-map-task/ (viewed 29 April 2020). This approach can be used to investigate micro- or macro-level features in spoken discourse or sociolinguistic/cultural differences (Stirling et al. 2001, Ha et al. 2016). The context is highly constrained by the method used and this adds comparability and rigour across speakers and, therefore, with large enough samples, conclusions can be reached about, for instance, differences between the spoken discourse of different gender or language backgrounds. Speech data are often also gathered in the second way mentioned above, that is, under much stricter experimental protocols than map-tasks. This tends to be the case when there is a very narrow research question being investigated. The approach might involve, for example, a group of subjects who have a particular characteristic (dyslexic children, brain-damaged patients, men between the ages of seventy and eighty), a control group (children/patients/men of similar age and background minus the feature in question) and a set of carefully chosen prompts to elicit spoken data of the kind required by the investigator. Altmann et al. (2008), in the realm of health sciences and communication, investigated the oral performance of dyslexic children by means of a strictly experimental approach that elicited the narrow sample of responses required by the research design. The careful construction of the prompts to gain the speech data, and their relationship to the research questions, becomes clear in the following extract concerning their methods: In the current study, we presented participants with three-word stimuli that included a verb form and two nouns differing in animacy [ie ability for independent action, e.g. ‘dog’ versus ‘ball’].Noun stimuli consisted of a proper name and an inanimate noun chosen to be a good argument for a particular verb, so that a conceptual connection between the two could be easily established (e.g. kicked + football). Verb stimuli consisted of the past participles of three types of transitive verbs: control (CON) verbs comprised agent–patient verbs with regular morphology (e.g. stirred, kicked).

SPOKEN DISCOURSE

117

Experimental verb types included agent–patient verbs with irregular (IRR) morphology (e.g. shaken, thrown) and theme–experiencer (TE) verbs with regular morphology (e.g. bored, confused). The two experimental verb types imposed different metalinguistic demands on participants. IRR verbs required participants to recognize that the past participle form could only be used in perfective sentences (e.g. had hidden), passive sentences (e.g. was hidden by), or in adjectival structures (e.g. the hidden X). Thus, to succeed in using IRR verbs participants had to detect the small orthographic/ phonological differences signalling the morphological form, and be explicitly aware of the grammatical constraints inherent in this morphological form. (Altmann et al. 2008: 58–9) Second language acquisition, psycholinguistics and speech processing are disciplines in linguistics that value elicited/experimental speech data. They tend to approach speech from a decontextualized perspective and regard the norms of spontaneous speech as less relevant. Hughes and Reed (2011) examine the limitations and benefits of the experimental approach in relation to understanding the essence of spoken discourse.

Authentic data and conversation analysis approaches The ‘elicited speech’ approaches described in the previous section contrast with those used by researchers who value authentic data highly. Researchers who work with elicited speech data argue that it is necessary to generate the speech through prompts and tasks because even large samples of authentic data may not contain the feature that the investigators are interested in. Those who argue for the use of authentic spoken interaction, however, turn this argument around and propose that even the apparently simplest and shortest example of a real exchange between situated interlocutors will provide a rich source of linguistic data. This thinking is the essence of the influential method (or, indeed, whole subdiscipline of applied linguistics) known as conversation analysis or ‘CA’. The starting point of CA is that language is socially constructed, that meaning resides not so much in the words and clauses as in the understanding that emerges between speakers, and that, on a moment-by-moment basis, speakers and hearers accommodate to one another in the achievement of conversational interaction. The detailed transcription, repeated hearings and interpretation by the researcher (often in discussion with others) of stretches of talk are the fundamental research tools of the CA tradition. A guest editorial by Nielsen and Wagner (2007) in the Journal of Pragmatics provides an excellent overview and key references of CA. These range from early studies in the field of sociology, through talk in institutional settings and what this reveals about individuals and organizations, to interactional linguistics and other newer branches. The role of authentic, situated, speech data is nicely summed up thus: Although CA research has engaged in new topics, settings, and disciplines, it has kept its identity and has acted as a discipline in its own right with a well-defined methodology and a strong analytic tradition in which new studies are written. Studies are carefully crafted collections of cases, sometimes assembled over many years due to low frequency. The cases are the basis for and the proof of the description of the recipies [sic] for social actions described in the studies. Herein lies the core of CA: testable sequential description of social actions, carried out on the basis of data, which have not been elicited but collected in the field. (Nielsen and Wagner 2007: 442)

118

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

A useful set of some of the seminal transcriptions used in the CA approach can be found at: https://talkbank.org/ (viewed 29 April 2020). Interactional linguistics sits at the intersection between grammar and CA. Auer and Pfänder (2011) provides insights from those who follow this approach to deepening the understanding of spoken discourse. More directly within the CA tradition, but with a strong focus on the temporality of speech is the work of Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen. Couper-Kuhlen (2012) shows how the work can bring together detailed analysis of emerging talk and some fundamental questions of linguistic theory, and many other influential researchers have adopted a similar approach. Fox et al. (2012) provide an overview of the techniques involved, and Couper-Kuhlen and Selting (2017) provide a helpful ‘state-of-the-field’ review in Interactional linguistics: Studying language in social interaction. Other approaches to spoken discourse that value actual spoken data include sociolinguistic and ethnographic approaches (which situate the research in a culture and a society and focus on interaction), corpus studies (which tend to focus more on word and clause level and the patterns that can be found in large bodies of speech data) and acoustic phonetics (which, at its most basic, deals with the stream of speech in terms of sounds as opposed to higher units such as words or clauses). The last two areas – particularly phonetic studies which have a very specialized set of measurement techniques, dedicated software and analytical equipment – provide a corrective to not confuse the preference for the use of actual instances of speech data with a particular set of spoken discourse paradigm. Using authentic speech data does not equate directly to qualitative paradigms. Samples of speech – elicited or non-elicited – can be analysed in a wide variety of ways. Work on spoken discourse sits along a spectrum moving from situated/qualitative (such as CA or ethnographic approaches) to decontextualized/quantitative (such as acoustic phonetics or frequency studies from large corpora). Along this cline there is a tendency for elicited data, by its nature, to sit well with the quantitative paradigm and authentic material to lend itself to qualitative methods.

SYNTHESIS OF CURRENT THINKING AND RESEARCH Spoken language is unusual because the debates surrounding questions of theory are intertwined with the very practical issues about what data are regarded as acceptable as a basis for investigation and how these are best approached. These issues go to the heart of a very fundamental question indeed for researching speaking: ‘What is spoken discourse and how do you analyse it?’ These questions return us to the need (or not) for wholly authentic speech data to be the basis of spoken language research. They are conundrums that relate to the much bigger question of the role of naturally occurring data in linguistic theory. For instance, a fundamental (and still debated) distinction in linguistics is the one proposed by Noam Chomsky (1965) between competence (underlying aptitude in human beings for handling the language system) and performance (the tangible evidence of language used in the real world). The status of language data, and particularly speech, remains at issue. A whole issue of the Modern Language Journal in the early 2000s was dedicated to questions arising from the basic distinction posed forty years earlier and the conceptual distinction continues to have currency into the second decade of the twenty-first century (see, for instance, Neeleman 2013, Achimova et al. 2017, Syrett and Gor 2019). The questions around the nature and status of spoken discourse cross over into other debates in applied linguistics (for instance, the interface between social and contextualized

SPOKEN DISCOURSE

119

aspects of language and second language acquisition theory (Larsen-Freeman 2007) or the debates surrounding the role of culture on the grammar of an individual language (Everett 2017)). Taking a position in relation to these central debates will influence what evidence is regarded as valid and useful in any approach to researching speaking. Therefore, the techniques and methods used to answer the questions above (‘What is spoken discourse and how do you analyse it?’) are not only quite diverse, they are also loaded in relation to contesting views of language itself. And all these points will, in turn, influence perspectives as to whether, for example, entirely natural or elicited speech data are preferable and valid. Methodological debates around spoken discourse, in the same way as the theoretical ones outlined above, are not new and have also been the source of heated discussions since the 1960s and before. For instance, this can be seen in the observer’s paradox which was first set out in a seminal chapter by William Labov (Labov 2006, first published 1966). When speech data are the object of study, they will inevitably be influenced by the presence of a researcher. Put simply, we tend to behave and speak differently if we think we are being observed or are being recorded for analysis. Labov solved this problem by designing an ingenious method for his data gathering. By asking various shop assistants for a particular item, he elicited an unselfconscious answer (‘4th Floor’) that contained the particular spoken feature he was interested in. Methods for data gathering and object of study in spoken discourse are inextricably linked. Two major trends continue to keep spoken discourse at the centre of debates in applied linguistics. The first is the acknowledgement in second language acquisition (SLA) and cognitive linguistics that context and culture are difficult to exclude from a theory if it is to be meaningful rather than simply internally consistent. The role of the situated speaker and ‘situated cognition’ as it affects communicative outputs, particularly in the realm of SLA, is gaining more attention (Mori 2007, Pekarek Doehler 2018). Similarly, the cognitive effects of language as users move between speaking and reading are under scrutiny (Huettig and Pickering, 2019). Brown (2018) provides a useful summary of the directions that situated cognition is taking. Influential applications of spoken language research such as work on oral assessment in large and high stakes international examinations of second language use have also pushed researchers to ask about the norms of spoken discourse in a variety or contexts (Hughes 2004, Pearce and Williams 2013). The second area that is influencing our understanding of spoken discourse is our everincreasing capacity to capture, store and analyse large quantities of digitally recorded speech in audio and video formats. This trend converges with two powerful drivers of change: the World Wide Web and commercial interests which require human–computer interactions through speech (historically, mostly in restricted domains such as a call centre but since around 2016 dramatically expanding into other domains). Although it emerged as a text- and image-based medium, the web today is a multimedia ecosystem. Its ‘openness’, its data sharing potential, and its sheer size and ubiquity allow groups of users to draw on spoken data in quantities that were simply unthinkable at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Entering the term ‘conversation videos’ in a search-engine will generate something like 1,710,000,000 hits, and is just one, simple, measure of the richness of oral material which the web provides. Whereas in the past the onus was on the applied linguist to design balanced spoken language corpora, the web, by sheer volume, can provide new ways to access statistically significant amounts of talk. The access to multimodal data is changing the way that research into speaking is carried out in applied linguistics. For instance, the idea of the

120

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

individual researcher recording data simply for a small, local, project and the data only being captured in the oral and then transcribed form becomes less relevant as large archives or open-access sites of video materials and automated speech recognition/transcription become readily available online. A useful summary is provided by Gatto (2014) which also presents the practical and theoretical challenges of using the web as your corpus. These changes will happen all the sooner if some of the commercial interests (for instance, gaming or automation of computers’ responses to humans) that are funding new approaches to analysing dialogue link up with applied linguistic research. Work in this field is already quite sophisticated and in computational linguistics an array of publications and platforms are being produced to deal with human–machine interactions via the spoken medium. Earlier versions included a site where a ‘chatbot’ learned to speak to you purely from the input you provided: http://www.jabberwacky.com/ (viewed 26 April 2020), but these approaches were quickly superseded by advances in artificial intelligence and the growth in computing power so that at the time of writing (early 2020) there is a thriving and highly diverse world of mobile and other voice recognition applications. These include personal ‘assistants’ that are now commonplace (Apple’s ‘Siri’ and Google’s ‘Alexa’ being two well-known examples) and that learn from the speaker’s input very rapidly. The global market in speech recognition in 2020 stands at 2.9 billion USD, with the highest uses in healthcare, IT, and in automotive (https:// www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/speech-and-voice-recognitionmarket-101382 (accessed 26 April 2020). The fact we are willing to put our health and transport into the hands of a conversation with a computer is a mark of the advances in the field of spoken discourse research and applications.

TWO SAMPLE STUDIES This section presents two contrasting studies that investigate the same topic – turn-taking in spoken discourse – in order to give a flavour of quantitative versus qualitative approaches and show them addressing the same topic through their different lenses. Speaking is distinguished by its high potential for interactivity, and spontaneous conversational data is the hardest of all for linguistic theory and for human–computer systems to model. Within speaking, the mechanisms that allow smooth and seamless turn-taking have been an object of considerable attention. The case studies presented here both look at turn behaviour as a central aspect of spoken language carried out by sharply contrasting means.

Sample Study 1: Turn-taking in spontaneous face-to-face and telephone dialogues In this study Ten Bosch and colleagues (2004) examined the differences in turn-taking behaviour in two speaking contexts: face-to-face and on the telephone (non-video). Their approach was corpus-based and rigorously quantitative. The researchers took comparable examples of speech in the two contexts from a pre-existing corpus and analysed the duration of pauses between speaker turns. They defined a ‘turn’ in a way that lent itself to the needs of a quantitative approach – that is, as utterances demarcated by silences. In their discussion the authors acknowledge the limitations of this approach, suggesting the need for a functional definition of the turn. However, their definition allowed highly objective comparisons to be made across the two modes of speaking. This is because the quantitative framework is by its nature based on a unit that has been clearly defined and lends itself to measurement and to the analytical tools being used. One of the researchers’ central findings was that pauses were of shorter duration in the telephone mode. They

SPOKEN DISCOURSE

121

tentatively suggest that the lack of other cues to hold the floor (gaze and gesture, for instance), and the fact that the whole of the attention of the interlocutors is on the talkin-hand, may account for this finding.

Sample Study 2: Turn-taking in negotiation settings This study by Angela Garcia (2000) demonstrates the application of CA approaches to a real-world problem: mediation in a dispute and the role of mediators. The CA approach helps show how participants develop understanding in the process of interaction. Earlier work on mediation, Garcia noted, had tended to focus on outcomes rather than on the processes involved and how participants expressed their consensus or resistance to a potential solution. The analysis was based on fifteen examples taken from a larger videotaped collection of mediation encounters and closely analysed using CA methods. The analyses showed, in detail, how the trained mediator retains neutrality and the linguistic strategies employed by them to help the individuals involved create their own solutions. In contrast to the first case study, the interpretive role of the researcher is presented in relation to close analysis of specific instances of talk in context, rather than positioning them as presenting objective quantitative results that ‘speak for themselves’. Discussing the benefits of using the CA approach to help produce a better understanding of key issues in this area Garcia notes that earlier work had lacked this interactional perspective and that her approach allows the research to show the specifics of how mediation works in context rather than dealing with abstractions. These contrasting studies which end the chapter show the rich diversity of potential research on the spoken form and how it lends itself to a multiplicity of real-world questions as well as being at the heart of some of the most contentious and fundamental areas of linguistic theory.

KEY READINGS Carter, R. and M. McCarthy (1995), ‘Grammar and the Spoken Language’, Applied Linguistics, 16 (2): 141–58. Chafe, W. and J. Danielewicz (1987), ‘Properties of Spoken and Written Language’, in R. Horowitz and S. J. Samuels (eds), Comprehending Oral and Written Language, 83–113, San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Hughes, R. and B. S. Reed (2016), Teaching and Researching Speaking, London: Taylor and Francis. Reed, B. S. (2011), Analysing Conversation: An Introduction to Prosody, London: Macmillan International Higher Education. Sidnell, J. and T. Stivers (eds) (2012), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, Malden: WileyBlackwell.

REFERENCES Achimova, A., K. Syrett, J. Musolino and V. Déprez (2017), ‘Children’s Developing Knowledge of wh-/quantifier Question-Answer Relations’, Language Learning and Development, 13 (1): 80–99. Altmann, L. J. P., L. J. Lombardino and C. Puranik (2008), ‘Sentence Production in Students with Dyslexia’, International Journal of Language and Communication Disorders, 43 (1): 55–76.

122

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Auer, P. and S. Pfänder (eds) (2011), Constructions: Emerging and Emergent, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Brown, M. F. (2018), ‘Musings on Comparative Directions for Situated Cognition’, Comparative Cognition and Behavior Reviews, 13: 21–24. Carter, R. and M. McCarthy (2006), The Cambridge Grammar of English, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carter, R. and M. McCarthy (2017), ‘Spoken Grammar: Where Are We and Where are We Going?’, Applied Linguistics, 38 (1): 1–20. Chen, Y. N., D. Hakanni-Tür, G. Tur, A. Celikyilmaz, J. Guo and L. Deng (2016), ‘Syntax or Semantics? Knowledge-guided Joint Semantic Frame Parsing’, IEEE Spoken Language Technology Workshop (SLT), 348–55. Chomsky, N. (1965), Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Close, J. and B. Aarts (2010), ‘Current Change in the Modal System of English: A Case Study of Must, Have to and Have Got To’, in H. Sauer and G. Waxenberger (eds), The History of English Verbal and Nominal Constructions, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 165–82. Couper-Kuhlen, E. (2012), ‘Turn Continuation and Clause Combinations’, Discourse Processes, 49 (3–4): 273–99. Couper-Kuhlen, E. and M. Selting (2017), Interactional Linguistics: Studying Language in Social Interaction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Everett, D. L. (2017), ‘Grammar Came Later: Triality of Patterning and the Gradual Evolution of Language’, Journal of Neurolinguistics, 43: 133–65. Fox, B. A., S. A. Thompson, C. E. Ford and E. Couper-Kuhlen (2012), ‘Conversation Analysis and Linguistics’, in J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis, 726–40, Chichester, UK: John Wiley and Sons. Garcia, A. C. (2000), ‘Negotiating Negotiation: The Collaborative Production of Resolution in Small Claims Mediation Hearings’, Discourse and Society, 11 (3): 315–43. Gatto, M. (2014), Web as Corpus: Theory and Practice, London and New York: Bloomsbury. Ha, K. P., S. Ebner and M. Grice (2016), ‘Speech Prosody and Possible Misunderstandings in Intercultural Talk: A Study of Listener Behaviour in Standard Vietnamese and German Dialogues’, Speech Prosody, 801–5. Huettig, F. and M. J. Pickering (2019), ‘Literacy Advantages beyond Reading: Prediction of Spoken Language’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23 (6): 464–75. Hughes, R. (2004), ‘Testing the Visible: Literate Biases in Oral Language Testing’, Journal of Applied Linguistics, 1 (3): 295–309. Hughes, R. and B. Szczepek-Reed (2011), ‘Learning about Speech by Experiment: Issues in the Investigation of Spontaneous Talk within the Experimental Research Paradigm’, Applied Linguistics, 32 (2): 197–214. Ishi, C. T., S. Matsuda, T. Kanda, T. Jitsuhiro, H. Ishiguro, S. Nakamura and N. Hagita (2006), ‘Robust Speech Recognition System for Communication Robots in Real Environments’, 6th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots, 340–45. John, P. and B. Brooks (2014), ‘Lingua franca and Its Grammar Footprint: Introducing an Index for Quantifying Grammatical Diversity in Written and Spoken Language’, Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, 21 (1): 22–35. Jakubíček, M., V. Kovář, P. Rychlý and V. Suchomel (2020), ‘Current Challenges in Web Corpus Building’, Proceedings of the 12th Web as Corpus Workshop, 1–4. Kilgarriff, A., S. Reddy, J. Pomikálek and P. V. S. Avinesh (2010), ‘A Corpus Factory for Many Languages’, LREC2010, 904–10.

SPOKEN DISCOURSE

123

Labov, W. (2006), The Social Stratification of English in New York City, New York: Cambridge University Press. Latif, S., R. Rana, S. Khalifa, R. Jurdak and J. Epps (2019), ‘Direct Modelling of Speech Emotion from Raw Speech’, arXiv preprint arXiv:1904.03833. Larsen-Freeman, D. (2007), ‘Reflecting on the Cognitive–Social Debate in Second Language Acquisition’, The Modern Language Journal, 91 (supplement 1): 773–87. Leech, G. (2000), ‘Grammars of Spoken English: New Outcomes of Corpus-oriented Research’, Language Learning, 50 (4): 675–724. Levy, E. S. and W. Strange (2008), ‘Perception of French Vowels by American English Adults with and without French Language Experience’, Journal of Phonetics, 36 (1): 141–57. Liu, Y., F. Meng, J. Zhang, J. Zhou, Y. Chen and J. Xu (2019), ‘CM-Net: A Novel Collaborative Memory Network for Spoken Language Understanding’, arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.06937. Merlo, S. and P. A. Barbosa (2010), ‘Hesitation Phenomena: A Dynamical Perspective’, Cognitive Processing, 11 (3): 251–61. Mori, J. (2007), ‘Border Crossings? Exploring the Intersection of Second Language Acquisition, Conversation Analysis, and Foreign Language Pedagogy’, The Modern Language Journal, 91 (supplement 1): 849–62. Neeleman, A. (2013), ‘Comments on Pullum’, Mind and Language, 28 (4): 522–31. Nielsen, M. F. and J. Wagner (2007), ‘Continuity and Diversity in Conversation Analysis’, Journal of Pragmatics, 39 (3): 441–4. Ochs, E. and B. B. Schieffelin (2016), Acquiring Conversational Competence, London: Routledge. Pearce, W. M. and C. Williams (2013), ‘The Cultural Appropriateness and Diagnostic Usefulness of Standardized Language Assessments for Indigenous Australian Children’, International Journal of Speech-language Pathology, 15 (4): 429–40. Pekarek Doehler, S. (2018), ‘Elaborations on L2 Interactional Competence: The Development of L2 Grammar-for-interaction’, Classroom Discourse, 9 (1): 3–24. Price, P. (1990), ‘Evaluation of Spoken Language Systems: The ATIS Domain’, Speech and Natural Language: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at Hidden Valley, Pennsylvania, 24–27 June, 91–5. Salter, C., R. Holland, I. Harvey and K. Henwood (2007), ‘“I Haven’t Even Phoned My Doctor Yet.” The Advice Giving Role of the Pharmacist during Consultations for Medication Review with Patients Aged 80 or More: Qualitative Discourse Analysis’, British Medical Journal, 334 (7603): 1101. BMJ, published 20 April 2007, doi: 10.1136/bmj.39171.577106.55. Sikveland, R. O. (2019), ‘Failed Summons: Phonetic Features of Persistence and Intensification in Crisis Negotiation’, Journal of Pragmatics, 150: 167–79. Stirling, L., J. Fletcher, I. Mushin and R. Wales (2001), ‘Representational Issues in Annotation: Using the Australian Map Task Corpus to Relate Prosody and Discourse Structure’, Speech Communication, 33 (1–2): 113–34. Svartvik, J. (ed.) (1990), The London Corpus of Spoken English: Description and Research, Lund Studies in English 82, Lund: Lund University Press. Syrett, K. and V. Gor (2019), ‘The Perils of Interpreting Comparatives with Pronouns for Children and Adults’, in D. Altshuler and J. Rett (eds), The Semantics of Plurals, Focus, Degrees, and Times, 185–216, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. Ten Bosch, L., N. Oostdijk and J. P. de Ruiter (2004), ‘Durational Aspects of Turn-taking in Spontaneous Face-to-face and Telephone Dialogues’, Text, Speech and Dialogue (Lecture Notes in Computer Science), Berlin: Springer, 563–70. Wegerif, R. (2019), ‘Towards a Dialogic Theory of Education for the Internet Age’, in N. Mercer, R. Wegerif and L. Major (eds), The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Dialogic Education, London: Routledge, 14–26.

124

CHAPTER NINE

Academic discourse KEN HYLAND

WHAT IS ACADEMIC DISCOURSE? Academic discourse refers to the ways of thinking and using language which exist in the academy. Its significance, in large part, lies in the fact that complex social activities like educating students, demonstrating learning, disseminating ideas and constructing knowledge rely on language to accomplish. Textbooks, essays, conference presentations, dissertations, lectures and research articles are central to the academic enterprise and are the very stuff of education and knowledge creation. But academic discourse does more than enable universities to get on with the business of teaching and research. It simultaneously constructs the social roles and relationships which create academics and students, and which sustain the universities, the disciplines and the creation of knowledge itself. Individuals use language to write, frame problems and understand issues in ways specific to particular social groups, and in doing these things they form social realities, personal identities and professional institutions. Discourse is at the heart of the academic enterprise; it is the way that individuals collaborate and compete with others, to create knowledge, to educate neophytes, to reveal learning and define academic allegiances. The academy cannot be separated from its discourses and could not exist without them. No new discovery, insight, invention or understanding has any significance until it is made available to others and no university or individual will receive credit for it until it has seen the light of day through publication. At one level then, the study of academic discourse is interesting for what it can tell us about the accomplishment of academic life. But beyond the university, the languages of the academy have quietly begun to insert themselves into every cranny of our lives, colonizing the discourses of technocracy, bureaucracy, entertainment and advertising. Academic discourses have reshaped our entire worldview, becoming the dominant mode for interpreting reality and our own existence. We find traces of it not just in popular science periodicals but in the Sunday broadsheets and the TV documentary; it is the language of the pharmaceutical bottle and the toothpaste advertisement, the psychotherapist and the recycling leaflet. It is the carrier of expertise and prestige – the badge of those who possess knowledge and of those who wish to. As Halliday and Martin (1993: 11) put it: ‘The language of science has become the language of literacy.’ There are therefore good reasons for taking academic discourse seriously, and in this chapter I will seek to show why academic discourse is important, something of what is known about it, and how it is studied, finishing up with a sample study which illustrates these issues.

126

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

WHY IS ACADEMIC DISCOURSE IMPORTANT? The current interest in academic discourse, and particularly academic writing in English, is largely the result of three major developments over the past twenty years: changes in higher education which have resulted in greater interest given to the importance of writing; the growth of English as the international language of research and scholarship; and the emergence of theoretical perspectives which recognize the centrality of academic discourses in the construction of knowledge. First, many countries in Europe, Asia and Australasia have witnessed a huge expansion of Higher Education as a result of greater social inclusion policies. This expansion has been accompanied by increases in full fee-paying international students to compensate for cuts in government support, and by the rapid rise in refugee populations around the world with a consequent increase in international migration. Together these factors have created a student body which is far more culturally, socially and linguistically heterogeneous than ever before. Additionally, students now take a broader and more eclectic mix of subjects. The ‘academicization’ of practice-based disciplines such as nursing, social work and marketing and the growth of modular and inter-disciplinary degrees means that students have to learn to negotiate a complex web of disciplinary specific text-types, assessment tasks and presentational modes (both face-to-face and online) to graduate. So while writing continues to be the way in which students both consolidate and demonstrate their understanding of their subjects and are socialized into academic practices, students, including native English speakers, must take on new roles and engage with knowledge in new ways when they enter university. An important result of these changes is that learners bring different identities, understandings and habits of meaningmaking to a more diverse range of subjects, so that tutors cannot assume their students will possess the understandings and learning experiences that will equip them with the literacy competencies traditionally required in university courses. As a result, greater emphasis is now placed on academic literacy and on EAP programmes to help students meet the demands of their courses. Academic discourses have been extensively studied to inform this pedagogic agenda. A second reason for this growing interest in academic discourse has been the power it wields in the careers of individual academics. Publishing is the main means by which academics establish their claims for competence and climb the professional ladder. Moreover, as pressures on academics to publish increase, so does the demand that this should be done in English. Research shows that academics all over the world are increasingly less likely to publish in their own languages and to find their English language publications cited more often. There are well over 70,000 peer-reviewed academic journals in the world (Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory 2019) and 2.4 million articles were published in 2013 (Plume and van Weijen 2014), the vast majority in English, and this number has been increasing by 4 per cent annually. With publishers encouraging libraries to subscribe to online versions of journals, the impact of English becomes self-perpetuating, since it is in these journals where authors will be most visible on the world stage and receive the most credit. The number of non-native English speakers has outnumbered native English speakers publishing in international journals for some years now (Hyland 2015). This drives the demand for writing for publication courses and the emergence of a new field: English for Research Publication Purposes (e.g. Englander and Corcoran 2019). The study of academic discourse has become central to pedagogy.

ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

127

A third major incentive for studying academic discourse originates in challenges to positivist views of knowledge which see academic discourse as an objective demonstration of absolute truth. Critics working in the Sociology of knowledge argue that scientific proof does not lie in the application of impartial methodologies but in academic arguments (e.g. Bruffee 1986, Richards 1987). Texts cannot be seen as accurate representations of ‘what the world is really like’ because there is always more than one possible interpretation of data. In Rorty (1979: 170) words, knowledge is ‘the social justification of belief’. These competing explanations shift attention from the laboratory or clipboard to the ways that academics argue their claims. We have to look for proof in the textual practices for producing agreement. At the heart of academic persuasion, then, are writers’ attempts to anticipate possible negative reactions to their claims and to do this they use the discourses of their disciplines. Analysts seek to discover how people use discourse to get their ideas accepted and at the same time how this works to construct knowledge and sustain and change disciplinary communities. This is a key issue of academic discourse analysis and of the study of human interaction more generally, as Stubbs (1996: 21) observes: The major intellectual puzzle in the social sciences is the relation between the micro and the macro. How is it that routine everyday behaviour, from moment to moment, can create and maintain social institutions over long periods of time? In this enterprise discourse analysis, particularly text-based forms of genre analysis, has become established as the most widely used and productive methodology.

HOW IS ACADEMIC DISCOURSE STUDIED? Discourse analysis comprises a range of methods for studying language in action. In academic contexts, unlike in many social science studies, it is a methodology which has tended to focus on texts, or talk around texts, rather than institutional social practices. In particular, researchers have been interested in describing common academic genres such as the research article, conference presentation and student essay. Genres are the repeated uses of more-or-less conventionalized texts through which individuals develop relationships, establish communities and get things done using language. They can be seen as a tacit contract between writers and readers, influencing the decisions of text producers and the expectations of receivers. By focusing on mapping typicality, genre analysts seek to show what is usual in collections of texts and so highlight salient features for teaching and reveal underlying ideologies (Gee 1999). In EAP, genre approaches are influenced by (a) Halliday’s (Halliday and Matthiessen 2013) view of language as a system of choices which link patterns of lexicogrammatical and rhetorical features to particular contexts and (b) Swales’s (1990) observation that these recurrent choices are related to the activities of particular discourse communities. As a result, genre analysis sees texts as representative of wider rhetorical practices and so has the potential to offer descriptions and explanations of both texts and the communities that use them. Analysing the lexicogrammatical regularities of particular genres has provided useful information about the ways texts are constructed and how we recognize coherence in texts. Some of this research has followed the move analysis work pioneered by Swales (1990) which seeks to identify the moves or rhetorical steps which

128

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

writers or speakers routinely use to develop their social purposes and so which typically structure genres. Work on academic genres has produced descriptions of genres as varied as dissertation acknowledgements (Hyland 2004), chemistry research articles (Stoller and Robinson 2013) and student personal statements (Ding 2007). While analysing move structures has proved a useful way of looking at texts, analysts are aware of oversimplifying their interpretations by assuming blocks of texts to be mono-functional and ignoring writers’ varied purposes and ‘private intentions’ (Bhatia 1999). There is also the problem of validating analyses to ensure they do not simply reflect the analyst’s intuitions. Identifying the ways lexicogrammatical decisions signal transitions from one rhetorical move to another has proved difficult and so attention has turned to look at particular features of genres rather than moves. These features might be grammatical, such as circumstance adverbials in student presentations (Zareva 2009), functional, like ‘evaluative that’ in research articles (Hyland and Jiang 2018), or rhetorical, such as evaluation in book reviews (Hyland and Diani 2009). Corpora are increasingly used in this endeavour, with recent studies exploring the common fourword collocations, or lexical bundles, which are typical in many professional and student academic genres (Hyland 2012b). Discourse analysis is not only the linguistic analysis of texts. In academic contexts the study of both texts and users has begun to grow in recent years to establish the ways that texts are firmly embedded in the cultures and activities in which their users participate. One example is Li and Casanave (2012) study of two first-year undergraduates at a Hong Kong university doing the same writing assignment using sources. Drawing on textual comparisons between student texts and source texts, interviews with the students and their teachers, and observation notes, they explored the students’ understanding of plagiarism, their strategies for composing and the lecturer’s assessment of their work. They provide an in-depth account of the ways students negotiated the task and the difficulties they encountered using sources. In another study, Na and Hyland (2018) show how three ‘text mediators’ employed their different expertise and processes to a manuscript written by a Chinese PhD student. Examining textual changes and the advice given, they show how a successful text can crucially depend on the relationship between the participants. Ethnographic-oriented studies have also explored the literate cultures of academics themselves. Perhaps the best known of these is Swales (1998) ‘textography’ of his building at the University of Michigan. Swales makes greater use of analyses of texts and systems of texts in his approach than many ethnographies, combining discourse analyses with extensive observations and interviews. Together these methods provide a richly detailed picture of the professional lives, commitments and projects of individuals in three diverse academic cultures working in the building: the computer centre, the Herbarium and the university English Language Centre. The interplay of different types of data allows us to see how the multiple influences of academic practices, peers, mentors and personal experiences all contribute to their texts and experiences as academic writers (Paltridge, Starfield and Tardy 2016). Finally, studies conducted from a Critical perspective have focused on how social relations, identity, knowledge and power are constructed through written and spoken texts in disciplines, schools and classrooms. Distinguished by an overtly political agenda, CDA has attempted to show that the discourses of the academy are not transparent or impartial means for describing the world but work to construct, regulate and control knowledge, social relations and institutions. Particular literacy practices possess authority because they represent the currently dominant ways of depicting relationships and

ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

129

realities and these authorized ways of seeing the world exercise control of academics and students alike. Lillis and Curry (2010), for instance, show how this can create tensions for students in coping with university literacy demands.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT ACADEMIC DISCOURSE? Together these different approaches aim at capturing descriptions of language use in the academy, producing a rich vein of research findings which continues to inform both teaching and our understanding of disciplinary knowledge-making. The scale of this research is difficult to summarize, but we can identify four main findings: 1. that academic genres are persuasive and systematically structured to secure readers’ agreement; 2. that these ways of producing agreement represent disciplinary specific rhetorical preferences; 3. that language groups have different ways of expressing ideas and structuring arguments; and 4. that academic persuasion involves interpersonal negotiations as much as convincing ideas.

(i) Academic texts are structured for persuasive effect All academic texts are designed to persuade readers of something: of a knowledge claim in a research article or dissertation; of an evaluation of others’ work in a book review; or of one’s understanding and intellectual autonomy in an undergraduate essay. To accomplish these various purposes, writers tend to draw on the same repertoire of linguistic resources for each genre again and again. This is, in part, because they seem to work. Writing is a practice based on expectations. The process of writing involves creating a text that the writer assumes the reader will recognize and expect the process of reading involves drawing on assumptions about what the writer is trying to do. Hoey (2001) says that this is like dancers following each other’s steps, each assembling sense from a text by anticipating what the other is likely to do by making connections to prior texts. While writing, like dancing, allows for creativity and the unexpected, established patterns form the basis of any variations. This schema of prior knowledge, acquired through formal learning and repeated experiences with texts, allows writers and speakers to express themselves effectively by drawing on conventions for organizing messages so that their readers can recognize their purpose and follow their ideas. The research article, for instance, is a genre which restructures the processes of thought and the research it describes to establish a discourse for scientific fact-creation. Language is almost a form of technology in this highly refined genre as it presents interpretations in persuasive ways. Persuasion has been studied in a range of spoken and written academic genres in recent years. Undergraduate assignments (Gardner and Nesi 2013b), academic blogs (Zou and Hyand 2020, Macintosh-Murray 2007) and grant proposals (Flowerdew 2016) have all been examined for how they achieve persuasive goals. Research also demonstrates how particular purposes and audiences lead writers to employ very different rhetorical choices. Table 9.1, for example, compares frequencies for different features in 240 research articles and fifty-six textbooks.

130

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

TABLE 9.1  Selected features in research articles and textbooks (Hyland 2017).

Per 1,000 words

Hedges

Self-mention

Citation

Transitions

Research articles

15.1

3.9

6.9

12.8

University textbooks

8.1

1.6

1.7

24.9

We can see considerable genre variation in these features. The greater use of hedging underlines the need for caution and opening up arguments in the research papers compared with the authorized certainties of the textbook, while the removal of citation in textbooks shows how statements are presented as facts rather than claims grounded in the literature. The greater use of self-mention in articles points to the personal stake that writers invest in their arguments and their desire to gain credit for claims. The higher frequency of transitions, which are conjunctions and other linking signals, in the textbooks is a result of the fact that writers need to make connections far more explicit for readers with less topic knowledge.

(ii) Academic texts represent discipline-specific modes of argument A second finding of research is that successful academic writing depends on control of the conventions of a discipline, simply: what counts as appropriate evidence and argument differs across fields. Research on disciplinary language variation is now one of the more fruitful lines of research in EAP (e.g. Hyland and Bondi 2006, Hyland and Jiang 2019). The idea of discipline is rather nebulous but captures how individuals use and respond to language as members of communities. Challenged by post-modernism, institutional demands for interdisciplinary research and the emergence of modular degrees, the notion of discipline is often questioned (e.g. Moore 2011). But while boundaries are never stable, discipline is a notion with remarkable persistence. Disciplinary distinctiveness, however, can be informed by study of rhetorical practices. This is because successful academic writing depends on writers’ projections of a shared professional context as they seek to embed their writing in a particular social world which they reflect and conjure up through approved discourses. Essentially, we can see disciplines as language using communities and this helps us join writers, texts and readers together. Communities provide the context within which we learn to communicate and to interpret each other’s talk, gradually acquiring the specialized discourse competencies to participate as members. So we can see disciplines as particular recognized and familiar ways of doing things – particularly of using language to engage with others. Speakers and writers thus make language choices to gain support, express collegiality and resolve difficulties in ways which fit the community’s assumptions, methods and knowledge. Wells (1992: 290) puts this succinctly: Each subject discipline constitutes a way of making sense of human experience that has evolved over generations and each is dependent on its own particular practices: its instrumental procedures, its criteria for judging relevance and validity, and its conventions of acceptable forms of argument. In a word each has developed its own modes of discourse.

ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

131

So disciplines structure research within wider frameworks of beliefs and provide the conventions and expectations that make texts meaningful. In the sciences new knowledge is accepted through experimental proof. Science writing reinforces this by highlighting a gap in knowledge, presenting a hypothesis related to this gap and then reporting experimental findings to support this. The humanities, on the other hand, rely on case studies and narratives while claims are accepted on strength of argument. The social sciences fall between these poles because in applying scientific methods to less predictable human data they have to give more attention to explicit interpretation. In other words, academic discourse helps to give identity to a discipline and analyses of texts help reveal the distinctive ways disciplines have of asking questions, addressing a literature, criticizing ideas and presenting arguments. Research has discovered considerable disciplinary variation across a range of features in genres such as PhD applications (Samraj and Monk 2008), student assignments (Gimenez 2009) and research articles (Hyland and Jiang 2019). One example of how language differs across fields is the use of hedges such as possible, might, probably, etc. These withhold complete commitment to a proposition, implying that a claim is based on plausible reasoning rather than certain knowledge. They indicate the degree of confidence the writer thinks it might be wise to give a claim while opening a discursive space for readers to dispute interpretations (Hyland 2004). Because they represent the writer’s direct involvement in a text, something that scientists generally try to avoid, they are twice as common in humanities and social science papers than in hard sciences. One reason for this is there is less control of variables, more diversity of research outcomes and fewer clear bases for accepting claims than in the sciences. Writers can’t report research with the same confidence of shared assumptions, so papers rely far more on recognizing alternative voices and arguments must be expressed more cautiously. In the hard sciences, positivist ideas mean that the authority of the individual is subordinated to the authority of the text and facts are meant to ‘speak for themselves’. Writers therefore often disguise their interpretative activities behind linguistic objectivity, suggesting that results would be the same whoever conducted the research. The less frequent use of hedges is one way of accomplishing this.

(iii) Different cultures have different language schemata Academic discourse analysis has also pointed to cultural specificity in rhetorical preferences (e.g. Connor 2018). Although a controversial term, culture can be seen as a historically transmitted and systematic network of meanings which allows us to understand, develop and communicate our knowledge and beliefs about the world. Culture is inextricably bound up with language, so that cultural factors have the potential to influence how people learn, how they see things, how they understand language and how they communicate. Although it is not conclusive, discourse analytic research suggests that L2 and L1 writers differ in their preferred ways of sequencing material and constructing arguments, in anticipating what readers expect in a text and in the extent they believe readers need information spelt out or not (Belcher and Nelson 2013, You 2013). A considerable body of work has focused on student genres and sought to identify differences in first and second language writing. Critics point out, however, that much of this research starts from an assumption of difference, so that it has ‘tended to look at L2 writing … mainly as a problem of negative transfer of L1 rhetorical patterns to L2 writing’ (Casanave 2004: 41). Intercultural Rhetoric (IR), unlike earlier versions of this approach,

132

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

is more circumspect about implying strong links between cultural thought patterns and how people write and are reluctant to suggest negative interlingua transfer. Japanese students, for example, are perfectly capable of using deductive organisational patterns as well as delaying the main point for politeness reasons. The problem in identifying cultural causes of writing is that it is difficult to untangle the influence of cultural preferences from students’ proficiencies, their knowledge of L1-specific rhetorical patterns and their educational experiences. The contrastive study of writing, however, is a major area of research and has contributed a great deal to what we know of features that characterize genres within and across languages. Theorists now attempt to avoid what Atkinson (2004) calls a ‘received view of culture’ which unproblematically identifies cultures with countries and emphasizes a consensus within cultures and differences across them. However, it is fair to say that, compared with many languages, academic writing in English tends to: ●●

●●

be more explicit about its structure and purposes; employ specific ways of grabbing readers attention and orienting them to a topic;

●●

employ more, and more recent, citations;

●●

be less tolerant of digressions;

●●

●●

be more cautious in making claims, with considerable use of mitigation and hedging; and use more sentence connectors to show explicitly how parts of the text link together.

While we cannot simply predict the ways people are likely to write on the basis of assumed cultural traits, discourse studies have shown that students’ first language and prior learning come to influence ways of organizing ideas and structuring arguments when writing in English at university.

(iv) Academic argument involves interpersonal negotiations As noted in (i) above, academic writing is a persuasive activity, and an important aspect of this is how language is used to acknowledge, construct and negotiate social relations. Persuasion, at least in part, involves writers in offering a credible representation of themselves and their work by asserting solidarity with readers, evaluating their material and acknowledging alternative views. Interaction in academic writing thus involves ‘positioning’, or adopting a point of view in relation to both the issues discussed in the text and to others who hold points of view on those issues. To be persuasive, writers must display a competence as disciplinary insiders which is, at least in part, achieved through a writer-reader dialogue which situates both their research and themselves. Considerable attention has turned to the features which help realize this interpersonal and evaluative dimension of academic texts. Genres such as undergraduate lectures, conference monologues and book reviews have been explored from this perspective. Several frameworks have been proposed to analyse the linguistic resources employed in this way, with research conducted under labels such as ‘evaluation’ (Hunston and Thompson 2000), ‘appraisal’ (Martin and White 2005), metadiscourse (Hyland 2005a) and stance and engagement (Hyland 2005b). The sample study below elaborates the concept of academic interaction.

ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

133

A SAMPLE STUDY: INTERACTIONS IN ACADEMIC BLOGS This section describes a study by Zou and Hyland (2020) into interactions in blogs. Academic blogs are becoming increasingly frequent, visible and important in academic communication, offering a space for scholars to disseminate their work to new and wider audiences of experts and lay people. This digital medium, however, also brings challenges to writers in the form of a relatively unpredictable readership and immediate, public and potentially hostile criticism. To explore the ways academics recontextualize in blogs work which they have recently published in journal articles, the authors compiled two corpora of thirty blog posts (from the London School of Economics Impact Blog of social science posts) and thirty articles with the same authors and on the same topics. The authors explored these corpora using Hyland’s (2005b) stance and engagement framework where stance is an attitudinal dimension which refers to the ways writers present themselves and their commitments, and Engagement is an alignment dimension where writers acknowledge and connect to readers by focusing their attention and including them as participants. Thus, the model sees writers as taking a stance to convey their attitudes and credibility through evidentiality, affect and presence, and engaging readers by explicitly bringing them into the discourse, mainly by reader-mentions, directives and questions. The features which construct stance and engagement are shown in Figure 9.1. Zou and Hyland used AntConc to search the corpora using Hyland’s (2005b) list of most common interactive features in academic writing, then concordanced each item in the corpora to confirm it was a target feature. They found nearly 2,500 devices in the blogs and 10,200 in the longer articles. When normed for text length, this shows a statistically significant difference (Table 9.2). First, stance features. Hedges, which signal the writer’s commitment to a statement, modifying its scope, relevance or certainty, was the most common stance marker in both genres, but all features were more frequent in the blogs. The fact hedges are significantly more frequent in the blogs than articles reflects the more interactive and evaluative nature

FIGURE 9.1  Key resources of academic interaction.

TABLE 9.2  Interactive features (per 1,000 words)

Blogs

RAs

Stance

68.7

50.1

Engagement

10.8

6.6

Total

79.5

56.7

134

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

of blogs and perhaps acknowledges that readers can respond, publicly, immediately and often harshly, below the post. Blog commenters have a reputation for rudeness, and this can be true in academic blogs too (Luzón 2013). Interestingly, boosters, which indicate certainty, are also significantly more frequent in the blogs. This is because blog authors cannot assume their readers are familiar with both the literature and with disciplinary argument conventions in the same way that journal readers are. Relevance and importance may have to be boosted with words like extremely, undoubtedly and certainly, to get attention. Writers also express their attitudes to what they are discussing far more in blogs than in journal articles with 80 per cent more cases per 1,000 words. These indicate the writer’s personal response to things, pointing out what is important and encouraging readers to engage with the topic. While attitude in articles signals the writer’s link to shared disciplinary values, in blogs they help to promote an informal and accessible tone. Self-mention, however, makes up only 15 per cent of stance features in blogs, the lowest proportion of any marker. But it does seem useful in giving a sense of the author’s reflection and allowing writers to speak directly to the reader, adding an informality to the text and exploiting the connection blogs have with conversational sharing. In this way, self-mention helps present information through personal experience and trustworthiness rather than based on research findings or experiments. Second, Zou and Hyland also found far greater use of engagement in the blogs than in the articles, with 61 per cent more features. Reader mention and questions were the most frequent forms in the blogs and directives and shared knowledge markers were more common in the journal articles. Reader pronouns are the most explicit ways of bringing readers into a discourse and account for nearly half of all engagement markers in the blogs, being over twice as frequent as in the articles. Use of You is a strategy which, again, borrows from more personal forms of interaction, creating greater intimacy and proximity with readers, while inclusive we evokes shared understandings between writers and an uncertain audience, creating a bond of likeness. Directives, in contrast, are significantly less frequent in the blogs, probably because they instruct the reader to perform an action or to see things in a way determined by the writer and so risk undermining proximity with an audience and alienating readers. Personal asides have very low frequencies in both genres and appeals to shared knowledge are significantly more common in articles. Questions, however, are significantly more frequent in blogs where the more egalitarian, personal context provides an environment in which questions seem more natural and less manipulative. Almost all were rhetorical, allowing writers to offer answers immediately, but questions are less forceful than a blunt assertion as they allow researchers to move away from a monologue and turn a monologue into something like a debate. The study shows that writers are aware they need to signal a stance towards their topic and engagement with their readers when writing in the two genres. It also shows that the academic blog is a hybrid genre, situated between academic and journalistic writing, and how writers’ interactional choices help define different rhetorical contexts.

CONCLUSION Discourse studies have provided analysts with insights into the ways academics and students actively engage in knowledge construction as members of professional groups, revealing something of how their discoursal decisions are socially grounded in their disciplines.

ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

135

As this research continues to grow, we can anticipate an ever-increasing broadening of studies beyond texts to the talk and contexts which surround their production and use, beyond the verbal to the visual, and beyond tertiary to school and professional contexts.

KEY READINGS Biber, D. (2006), University Language: A Corpus-Based Study of Spoken and Written Registers, Amsterdam: Benjamins. Gardner, S. and H. Nesi (2013a), ‘A Classification of Genre Families in University Student Writing’, Applied Linguistics, 34 (1): 25–52 Hyland, K. (2004), Disciplinary Discourses, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Hyland, K. (2012), Disciplinary Identities, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

REFERENCES Atkinson, D. (2004), ‘Contrasting Rhetorics/Contrasting Cultures: Why Contrastive Rhetoric Needs a Better Conceptualization of Culture’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 3 (4): 277–89. Belcher, D. and G. Nelson (2013), Critical and Corpus-based Approaches to Intercultural Rhetoric, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Bhatia, V. K. (1999), ‘Integrating Products, Processes, and Participants in Professional Writing’, in C. N. Candlin and K. Hyland (eds), Writing: Texts, Processes and Practices, 21–39, Harlow: Longman. Bruffee, K. (1986), ‘Social Construction: Language and the Authority of Knowledge. A Bibliographical Essay’, College English, 48, 773–9. Casanave, C. (2004), Controversies in Second Language Writing, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Connor, U. (2018), ‘Intercultural Rhetoric’, The TESOL Encyclopaedia of English Language Teaching, Wiley Online Library. Ding, H. (2007), ‘Genre Analysis of Personal Statements: Analysis of Moves in Application Essays to Medical and Dental Schools’, English for Specific Purposes, 26 (3): 368–92. Englander, K. and J. Corcoran (2019), English for Research Publication Purposes: Critical Plurilingual Pedagogies, London: Routledge. Flowerdew, L. (2016), ‘A Genre-Inspired and Lexico-grammatical Approach for Helping Postgraduate Students Craft Research Grant Proposals’, English for Specific Purposes, 42: 1–12. Gardner, S. and H. Nesi (2013b), ‘A Classification of Genre Families in University Student Writing’, Applied Linguistics, 34 (1): 25–52. Gee, J. P. (1999). An Introduction to Discourse Analysis Theory and Method, 2nd edn, New York: Routledge. Gimenez, J. (2009), ‘Beyond the Academic Essay: Discipline-specific Writing in Nursing and Midwifery’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 7 (3): 151–64. Halliday, M. A. K. and C. Matthiessen (2013), An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 3rd edn, Oxford: Routledge. Halliday, M. A. K. and J. R. Martin (1993), Writing Science: Literacy and Discursive Power, London: Falmer Press. Hoey, M. (2001). Textual Interaction, London: Routledge.

136

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Hunston, S. and G. Thompson (eds) (2000), Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hyland, K. (2004), ‘Graduates’ Gratitude: The Generic Structure of Dissertation Acknowledgements’, English for Specific Purposes, 23 (3): 303–24. Hyland, K. (2005a), Metadiscourse, London: Continuum. Hyland, K. (2005b), ‘Stance and Engagement: A Model of Interaction in Academic Discourse’, Discourse Studies, 7: 173–92. Hyland, K. (2012), ‘Bundles in Academic Discourse’, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 32: 150–69. Hyland, K. (2015), Academic Publishing: Issues and Challenges in the Production of Knowledge, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hyland, K. (2017), ‘Learning to Write for Academic Purposes: Specificity and Second Language Writing’, in J. Bitchener, N. Storch and R. Witte (eds), Teaching Writing for Academic Purposes to Multilingual Students: Instructional Approaches, 24–41, London: Routledge. Hyland, K. and M. Bondi (eds) (2006), Academic Discourse Across Disciplines, Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Hyland, K. and K. Jiang (2018), ‘We Believe That…: Changes in an Academic Stance Marker 1965–2015’, Australian Journal of Linguistics, 38 (2): 139–61. Hyland, K. and K. Jiang (2019), Academic Discourse and Global Publishing: Disciplinary Persuasion in Changing Times, London: Routledge. Hyland, K. and P. Tse (2007), ‘Is There an “Academic Vocabulary”?’, TESOL Quarterly, 41 (2): 235–54. Hyland, K. and G. Diani (eds) (2009), Academic Evaluation: Review Genres in University Settings, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Li, Y. and C. Casanave (2012), ‘Two First-year Students’ Strategies for Writing from Sources: Patchwriting or Plagiarism?’, Journal of Second Language Writing, 21 (2): 165–80. Lillis, T. and M. J. Curry (2010), Academic Writing in a Global Context, London: Routledge Luzón, M. J. (2013), ‘Public Communication of Science in Blogs: Recontextualizing Scientific Discourse for a Diversified Audience’, Written Communication, 30 (4): 428–57. Macintosh-Murray, A. (2007), ‘Poster Presentations as a Genre in Knowledge Communication: A Case Study of Forms, Norms, and Values’, Science Communication, 28 (3): 347–76. Martin, J. and P. White (2005), The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Moore, R. (2011), ‘Making the Break: Disciplines and Interdisciplinarity’, in F. Christie and K. Maton (eds), Disciplinarity: Functional Linguistic and Sociological Perspectives, London: Continuum. 87–105. Na, L. and K. Hyland (2018), ‘Intervention and Revision: Expertise and Relationship in Text Mediation’, Written Communication, 34 (4): 414–40. Paltridge, B., S. Starfield and C. Tardy (2016), Ethnographic Perspectives on Academic Writing, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Richards, S. (1987). Philosophy and Sociology of Science: An Introduction, 2nd edn, Oxford: Blackwell. Rorty, R. (1979). Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Plume, A. and D. van Weijen (2014), Publish or Perish? The Rise of the Fractional Author…. Research Trends, 38. www.researchtrends.com (Accessed 06 April 2021). Samraj, B. and L. Monk (2008), ‘The Statement of Purpose in Graduate Program Applications: Genre Structure and Disciplinary Variation’, English for Specific Purposes, 27 (2): 193–211.

ACADEMIC DISCOURSE

137

Stoller, F. and M. Robinson (2013), ‘Chemistry Journal Articles: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Move Analysis with Pedagogical Aims’, English for Specific Purposes, 32 (1): 45–57. Stubbs, M. (1996), Text and Discourse Analysis, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Swales, J. (1990), Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swales, J. (1998), Other Floors, Other Voices: A Textography of a Small University Building, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory™ (57th edn) (2019), Proquest.Com. Wells, G. (1992), ‘The Centrality of Talk in Education’, in K. Norman (ed.), Thinking Voices: The Work of the National Oracy Project, 283–310, London: Hodder & Stoughton. You, X. (2013), ‘The Arts of Dwelling Places: Building Ethos in an Online Community’, in D. Belcher and G. Nelson (eds), Critical and Corpus-based Approaches to Intercultural Rhetoric, 47–71, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Zareva, A. (2009), ‘Informational Packaging, Level of Formality, and the Use of Circumstance Adverbials in L1 and L2 Student Academic Presentations’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 8 (1): 55–68 Zou, H. and K. Hyand (2020), ‘“Think about How Fascinating This Is”: Engagement in Academic Blogs across Disciplines’, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 43: 10089.

138

CHAPTER TEN

Researching workplace discourse JANET HOLMES

INTRODUCTION Research on workplace discourse has increased considerably in the last two decades. Early research focused on doctor–patient interaction, and legal language, especially courtroom discourse, and these remain areas of interest for many researchers (see Halkowski this volume; Olsson this volume). But the scope of workplace discourse research has broadened and now encompasses many different institutional and noninstitutional contexts, as well as a range of aspects of interaction, such as the construction of professional identities, including leadership identities, features of interaction in meetings, the role of humour, small talk and narrative at work, and the contribution of digital communication to workplace interaction. While recognizing that valuable work has been undertaken on written discourse in workplace contexts (e.g. Gunnarsson 2009), this chapter focuses on talk at work. The next section discusses a selection of current qualitative research on spoken workplace discourse (for quantitative approaches, see Pickering, Friginal and Staples (2016)). Some of the concepts discussed are illustrated in the third section with a brief sample study from the corpus of the Wellington Language in the Workplace Project (LWP). The chapter ends with reflections on future directions for the analysis of workplace discourse.

CURRENT RESEARCH ON SPOKEN WORKPLACE DISCOURSE Following a brief note on methodology, I discuss examples of workplace discourse research organized into three broad categories: firstly, different types of workplace interaction; secondly, two broad sociolinguistic dimensions of analysis – power and solidarity; and thirdly, two areas of social variation – gender and ethnicity in the workplace.

METHODOLOGY While ethnographic approaches involving participant observation and interviews often provide supplementary data, the prevailing data collection methodology in workplace discourse research involves recording naturally occurring talk in authentic situations. Early researchers used a predominantly CA approach (see Zhang Waring, this volume) to

140

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

analyse audio-recorded relatively formal interactions such as job interviews, interactions between health professionals and clients, and service encounters (e.g. Drew and Heritage 1992). Others collected audio recordings and sometimes video recordings of workplace meetings (e.g. Bargiela-Chiappini and Harris 1996). Gradually, the scope of recording expanded, and Clyne (1994) describes a project where factory workers from diverse ethnolinguistic backgrounds carried microphones recording their everyday workplace talk. This methodology has since been adapted for a wide range of different workplaces (Holmes and Stubbe 2015) and is currently the predominant approach in collecting workplace interaction (see Vine 2018). In terms of analysis, current research exemplifies a variety of approaches, ranging from qualitative ethnographic and interactional sociolinguistics approaches, through micro-level description of the details of talk provided by CA approaches and multimodal analysis (e.g. Mondada 2014) to the politically motivated framework adopted by Critical Discourse Analysts (CDA), and the more quantitative approach of corpus analysts (e.g. Pickering et al. 2016). Some of these are discussed in greater detail elsewhere in this volume. This chapter concentrates instead on giving readers a sense of the range of contexts and the dimensions of analysis that qualitative researchers in workplace spoken discourse have found useful. One distinction which has proved valuable is that between the transactional (or referential) dimension and the relational (or interpersonal/affective) dimensions of meaning in talk. Analysts emphasize that the distinction is simply a useful heuristic tool since every interaction has elements of both dimensions of meaning. In current research, the distinction facilitates the analysis of the complexities of a range of different kinds of workplace interaction, such as small and large meeting discourse and talk in service encounters, as well as the construction of aspects of social identity, such as gender, ethnic and professional identity, including leadership and expert identity. Some of this complexity will emerge in the discussion which follows.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF TALK AT WORK In this section, research on workplace interaction in different social and cultural settings is discussed with a focus on meetings, probably the most extensive area of workplace discourse analysis. White-collar professionals spend a large proportion of their time in meetings. Different studies (involving different methods of calculation) indicate that meetings occupy anything between 25 and 80 per cent of the work time of the white-collar workforce. Consequently, discourse analysts have devoted a good deal of attention to meeting talk, examining the discursive strategies used in meeting management (e.g. Bargiela-Chiappini and Harris 1996), and the complexities of how things get accomplished interactionally through meeting talk (e.g. Geyer 2008, Sarangi and Roberts 1999), including multimodal communication (e.g. Svennevig 2012). More specifically, those using a CA approach have identified patterns which help define a meeting, such as the structure of the opening and closing phases and the distribution of turns (Boden 1994, Mirivel and Tracy 2005), while others have discussed discursive ways in which topics are demarcated in meetings (Bargiela-Chiappini and Harris 1996, Svennevig 2012). More recently, Angouri and Mondada (2017) revisited issues of definition, as well as exploring the complexities which characterize intercultural meeting talk (see also Angouri 2018, Schnurr and Zayts 2017). Conventions for formal meeting openings and closings often differ for different cultural groups, and this may influence workplace meeting norms, as was evident in the

RESEARCHING WORKPLACE DISCOURSE

141

Māori workplaces researched in New Zealand (Holmes, Marra and Vine 2011). Analyses of meetings between Chinese and British business people (Spencer-Oatey and Xing 2003), between Chinese- and English-speaking Westerners (Bilbow 1998) and between Japanese and American business people (Yamada 1997) identify culturally significant contrasting patterns in appropriate ways of interacting in such meetings. Chinese business meetings generally maintain a relatively high level of formality and the opportunity to deliver a formal speech stating one’s position is considered important, and a sign of respect. By contrast, Western business meetings often favour informality; ‘dispensing with formalities’ is regarded positively as a sign of good rapport. Transgressions can result in offence in intercultural meetings and led to a significant communication breakdown in the case study documented by Spencer-Oatey and Xing (2003). The importance of the relational dimension in meeting talk has been given explicit attention by some discourse analysts (e.g. Holmes and Stubbe 2015, Mirivel and Fuller 2018). In many sociocultural contexts, for example, meeting openings tend to be preceded by solidarity-building social talk as people wait for the meeting participants to assemble (e.g. Mirivel and Tracy 2005). But relational aspects of interaction are often pervasively evident throughout meeting talk on predominantly transactional issues, as Geyer (2008) illustrates in her analysis of facework in six teacher meetings in Japanese secondary schools. She conceptualizes ‘face’ as a ‘speaker’s interactional social image’ (2008: 6) and examines how ‘an interlocutor ascribes and is ascribed multiple discursive and social identities which in turn can invoke multiple faces’ (2008: 6–7). Meetings are also sites for constructing facets of professional identity (e.g. Kim and Angouri 2019). Especially in large meetings, the role of the chair provides opportunities for asserting status and ‘doing power’, since the chair has the right to declare the meeting open, to move discussion to new agenda items, to summarize progress, to ratify decisions and to close the meeting (e.g. Bilbow 1998, Holmes and Stubbe 2015, but see Halvorsen and Sarangi (2015) for a nuanced analysis of decision making as a joint production based on organizational role-responsibility and expertise).

POWER AND SOLIDARITY IN WORKPLACE INTERACTION These two dimensions of analysis provide a framework for considering many aspects of workplace interaction, including how people perform leadership at work, and the role of humour and narrative in workplace interaction. There is a huge literature on leadership, but the ‘turn to discourse’ in this area has been relatively recent. The research of the LWP team has been seminal in this area (see www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/lwp). Our discourse analyses support claims by leadership scholars that effective leadership talk demonstrates a range of diverse competencies, including transactional skills oriented to achieving workplace objectives, and relational skills which take account of interpersonal aspects of communication, such as establishing rapport with colleagues and nurturing collegiality among team members. Social constructionist approaches emphasize the complexities and ambiguities associated with accomplishing leadership, and the importance of discourse in managing meaning (e.g. Aritz et al. 2017, Wodak, Kwon and Clarke 2011). Effective leaders draw from a varied discursive repertoire, selecting appropriate strategies in response to particular interactional contexts and juggling different and competing subject positions to fulfil a range of business goals. Baxter (2010) argues that female leaders have added demands to sustain a credible set of professional identities. Gender in workplace discourse research is discussed further below.

142

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Research on speech functions such as directives also involves consideration of the power dimension (e.g. Saito and Minegishi Cook 2018). Good management entails getting people to do things at work. Vine (2004) examines the range of ways in which directives are expressed in the interactions of four senior employees in a government department. The force of any directive, and especially its interpersonal or relational impact, is greatly influenced by its precise discursive positioning in a specific social context, with the relevant context sometimes extending over several meetings. Similar conclusions have resulted from the analysis of workplace disagreement, conflict and negotiation (e.g. Geyer 2008, Koester 2018, Richards 2006). A related strand of speech function research has focused on the challenges for those from other cultures in appropriately expressing problematic or challenging speech acts such as refusals and complaints, especially when these are directed upwards to those in more powerful positions (e.g. Clyne 1994, Riddiford and Holmes 2015). Turning to the solidarity dimension, humour has attracted much attention from workplace discourse analysts (see Mak (2018) and Schnurr (2009) for reviews). Early research often argued that workplace humour benefitted employment relationships by increasing job satisfaction, creativity and even productivity. In contexts as diverse as hospitals, hotel kitchens and police departments, humour was shown to have beneficial effects. An interesting study of the use of humour by Indonesian female and male managers to enhance collegiality shows how discourse analysis can provide insights into economic and social change (Petraki and Ramayanti 2018). Looking at the ‘darker side’ of workplace humour, some argue that it can be used manipulatively, as a control mechanism, for example, by the chair in white-collar business meetings (e.g. Mullany 2007) or by the management in a factory to encourage conformity. Alternatively, humour can be construed as a strategy for expressing resistance (e.g. Rodrigues and Collinson 1995). Humour has also been considered as a distinguishing component of workplace culture (e.g. Holmes and Stubbe 2015, Schnurr 2009) or of the interactions of particular workplace teams and communities of practice. IT companies, for instance, are often characterized by a distinctively masculine, contestive and challenging style of interactive humour (Plester 2016). Research on workplace narratives has similarly examined their contribution to the construction of complex professional identities (e.g. Clifton, Schnurr and Van de Mieroop 2020, Ladegaard 2018). While most researchers have focused on the construction of workplace identities through individual’s narratives, some have shown how groups (often jointly) use stories to construct themselves as a productive and professional team, or a competitive squad, as a ‘family business’ or streamlined organization (e.g. Richards 2006). Conversely, like humour, narrative provides a subtle means of contesting or subverting the prevailing organizational ethos or workplace culture through stories which present an alternative reality. Narrative can also make an important contribution to gendered discourse, reinforcing stereotypical constructs of masculinity, such as dominance, competitiveness, aggression and goal-oriented action, or normatively feminine dimensions such as egalitarianism, collaboration and cooperation (Baxter 2010, Holmes 2006). A rare foray into a blue-collar work context demonstrated how three white, working-class, male builders constructed their professional identities through collaborative narratives while travelling in a truck between different building sites (Baxter and Wallace 2009). Finally there is also considerable work by interactional sociolinguists on intercultural communication, concentrating especially on the significance for migrants of miscommunication in crucial work contexts such as job and promotion interviews (e.g. Campbell and Roberts 2007, Zhu 2018). The next section focuses explicitly on gender and ethnicity in workplace discourse.

RESEARCHING WORKPLACE DISCOURSE

143

GENDER AND ETHNICITY IN THE WORKPLACE As suggested above, sociocultural norms inevitably influence workplace interaction, whether individuals conform to them or contest them. The gender order (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 2013) and the culture order (Holmes 2018) hegemonically prescribe socially and culturally appropriate behaviour, including linguistic behaviour. This may take the form of expectations about which language is regarded as appropriate in particular types of interaction, such as service encounters or formal meetings, or whether women or men are regarded as most suitable representatives of a company in interactions with clients or as spokesperson for a group (Holmes 2020). In workplaces where Māori ways of doing things are respected, formal meetings typically open with a Māori karakia (a ‘prayer’ or traditional chant), and clients often expect a Māori rather than a Pākehā (European) negotiator (Holmes, Marra and Vine 2011). The challenges faced in constructing an appropriate gender identity while enacting one’s workplace role may involve conflicting sets of norms for speaking, and the pervasive power of gender norms is particularly evident when the spotlight is turned on those contesting them in some way (Holmes 2020). So, for example, the policewomen observed and interviewed by McElhinny (1995) commented that they deliberately repressed any emotional (normatively feminine) response when dealing with stressed citizens and assumed a demeanour they considered appropriate to their professional role. Discourse also contributes to the construction of gendered workplaces. Many occupations such as IT and engineering (and their corresponding workplaces) are still male-dominated, while areas such as education, care-giving and nursing tend to employ more women, with consequences for the discursive norms constructed in these areas, and the challenges faced by men in such professions (Holmes, Vine and Marra 2020, McDowell 2018). Focusing on a non-Western cultural and linguistic context, Philips (2007) analyses how women’s place in Tongan society as well as within a global economy is dynamically constructed and reinforced through both their work and their talk. Few studies have explicitly focused on ethnicity as a component in workplace discourse. Adopting a social constructionist lens, ethnicity is regarded as a dynamic and active process enacted in ongoing interaction, with ethnic boundaries negotiated by individuals and groups in response to their evolving social roles and circumstances. While researchers in non-Western societies have undertaken valuable research within such a framework, there is little on the relevance of ethnicity in Western work contexts. However, the LWP team has undertaken work in this area in New Zealand using the concept of the ethnicized workplace or community of practice (Holmes, Marra and Vine 2011), a place where cultural values underpin the norms which influence how people interact and construct different aspects of their identity, including their ethnicity. This is illustrated in the next section which brings together a number of the concepts explored in the preceding sections.

A SAMPLE STUDY This section provides a brief case study of Daniel, the CEO of an ‘ethnicized community of practice’, a Māori workplace with transactional goals related to producing goodquality policy advice, and explicitly committed to furthering Māori objectives and promoting Māori values. Daniel provides an interesting contrast to Quentin, the Māori leader used as a case study in my contribution to the previous edition of this collection. Although their leadership style has a number of features in common, Quentin’s style is

144

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

more traditional, while Daniel is what could be designated a ‘contemporary’ Māori leader who has integrated knowledge of Western commercial and economic imperatives gained from a US business degree with deeply rooted experience in Māoridom and immersion in contexts where Māori language and values were predominant. Both leaders open larger meetings involving senior staff with a formal Māori mihi (greeting or welcome) in the form of a karakia, but Quentin also uses a karakia to begin even small team meetings. The components of these karakia derive from the much more elaborate and formal rituals of encounter on the marae (the traditional Māori meeting space). They typically include reference to the specific people present, as well as to team members who are sick, and to any recent deaths in the family of employees. In one meeting opening, for example (analysed in detail in Holmes, Marra and Vine 2011: 73–4), Daniel mentions the recent death of the sister of one of the members of the organization. Thus, like Quentin, Daniel typically enacts leadership in a way that is consistent with traditional Māori cultural values such as spirituality, respect for the dead, and concern for family and relationships, whilst also being responsive to dynamic aspects of the context such as precisely who is present, where the meeting is taking place and the specific purpose of the meeting. However, Quentin and Daniel also contrast in aspects such as their self-presentation, their styles of humour and in the way they respond to Pākehā dominant norms with their underlying assumptions about the normativity of Western ways of doing things. I illustrate these points with a brief analysis of aspects of Daniel’s leadership style. In interview Daniel portrays himself as a tough, decisive leader who does not tolerate time-wasting or excessive power plays (see Holmes, Marra and Vine 2011: 140–1). He describes how, when appointed CEO, he re-structured and pared down a top-heavy senior management team to create a much smaller ‘elite group’, and then proceeded to dramatically change the prevailing inefficient ways of interacting between the Board and the management team. In face-to-face interaction with his team members, however, he constructs a much more tolerant and informal leadership identity. He uses swear words relatively freely, and the informal tag eh (strongly associated initially with Māori males (Meyerhoff, 1994, Vine and Marsden 2016)) occurs frequently in his speech as illustrated in Excerpt 1. Excerpt 1: Daniel and his Human Resources Manager, Caleb, in their regular weekly mentoring meeting. (See end for transcription conventions.) 1. Daniel: 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

but it’s also an indication that you don’t have to wear ties here any more eh you don’t have to but don’t wear rags [laughs] [laughs] you know here are what you can wear eh …. I don’t wear ties any more I’m hōhā [‘fed up’] with it eh um and so nobody else feels they have to wear them either eh

Daniel expresses his preference for a more casual style of dress and emphasizes this attitude by his use of the casual tag eh (lines 2, 5, 7, 8) as well as the informal Māori word hōhā. The tag indexes solidarity and mateship and is consistent with the egalitarian ethos which is so pervasive in New Zealand society (e.g. Holmes, Marra and Vine 2012), as well as emphasizing Daniel’s identity as a good (Kiwi/New Zealand) bloke (Holmes 2017).

RESEARCHING WORKPLACE DISCOURSE

145

Frequent use of witty humour is another feature of Daniel’s informal style of interaction with his staff as illustrated in Excerpt 2. Excerpt 2: Daniel is discussing with his Finance Manager, Frank, the naïve belief of one of their staff that if he aims to become a manager he won’t need to devote much time to developing his writing skills. 1. Daniel: yeah you have to show people 2. that you know what you’re doing 3. before they’ll let you stop [laughs] + mm Daniel’s witty aphorism succinctly distils his experience as CEO. He identifies an apparent illogicality: typically, one must demonstrate certain skills before being appointed to a position, but once in the position, ironically, those skills may no longer be required. The example illustrates how workplace humour may simultaneously address both relational and transactional goals; Daniel makes a serious point in an amusing way. Even in large meetings, Daniel uses humour to manage with a light hand, though the humour is often challenging, with a great deal of teasing and jocular abuse as illustrated in Excerpt 3 from a senior management meeting. Excerpt 3: During a senior management meeting, Hinerau’s mobile rings with a loud musical tone. 1. Hinerau: oh sorry 2. Daniel: well turn it up 3. Hinerau: [indignantly]: sorry: [Hinerau leaves the room to answer the call] Daniel here comments on the disruptive noise created by Hinerau’s cell phone by sarcastically suggesting she increase the noise. In another instance he skilfully combines self-mockery and jocular insult in a comment to Hari that he should accompany Daniel to a formal meeting with an external group: so I don’t look like the dumbest guy there. The reporting style of Steve, a Pākehā accountant, is the butt of this quip from another meeting: Catherine will get everyone back awake after Steve’s had a go on the accounting side. Daniel’s humour is a distinctive aspect of the relaxed informal leadership style which he deliberately nurtures. Finally, it is interesting to note that Daniel embodies a relatively new self-confidence among Māori in challenging Pākehā values and expectations and culturally insensitive norms (Holmes, Vine and Marra 2020). A humorous excerpt (analysed in Holmes, Marra and Vine 2011: 102–3) shows Māori members of Kiwi Consultations, encouraged by Daniel, poking fun at Pākehā who in the current political climate see strategic advantage in getting on-side with Māori, and specifically with their new Māori neighbours in well-to-do suburbs. As one of the group wittily remarks, Māori is the new black eh?, a comment that humorously signals awareness of the increased respect for Māori ways of doing things which has developed in New Zealand society over the last few decades. In sum, Daniel uses his extensive discursive skills to achieve his organization’s transactional goals while attending to relational aspects of interaction, playing down hierarchy through humour and an informal, but thoughtfully grounded trust-based approach to interactions with members of his management team. In the process, he constructs a contemporary hybridized ethnic identity, deftly walking the line between

146

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

the demands of the Pākehā culture order and those of the Māori culture order. Daniel thus provides an example of a successful professional negotiating a complex identity in a multicultural world.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN WORKPLACE DISCOURSE RESEARCH As indicated in the previous sections, workplace discourse research has developed considerably in terms of theoretical frameworks, data collection sites, methodology and approaches to analysis over the last thirty years. In this section, just a few areas where further developments seem likely are identified. Dynamic constructionist approaches now represent the dominant paradigm in workplace discourse research and, unsurprisingly, compatible concepts have developed to accommodate them. Lave and Wenger’s (1991) community of practice (CofP) concept, for instance, has gained considerable traction in workplace discourse research. (See King (2019) for a review of the development of the concept and debates around its scope and use in workplace discourse studies, and see Vine (2018) for a range of workplace research using the concept.) Researchers have broadened the focus to encompass hospitals, classrooms, eldercare facilities, commercial teams, government departments and building sites. The concept will undoubtedly continue to be debated, developed and adapted to further research. Transitions and boundary marking are also concepts proving fruitful in this area. Research involving employees at the margins of workplace communities, whether positioned there voluntarily or involuntarily, examines their trajectories to and from linguistic, geographical and spatial centres to multiple peripheries (Angouri, Marra and Holmes 2017) and the discursive barriers that may keep them there, rather than assisting them to integrate and develop a sense of ‘belonging’ (Kirilova and Angouri 2018). Blue-collar worksites present a challenge since they tend to be noisy and often uncomfortable places for academics, but there is a woeful lack of research on the interactional norms of both unskilled labourers and skilled workers such as plumbers, painters, electricians and builders (but see Theodoropoulou 2020). Moreover, the definition of what counts as a workplace would benefit from further reflection, perhaps expanding to encompass more mobile sites such as the workspaces of sports teams, takeaway vans and travelling salespeople. Research on the use of digital resources at work is another growth area. Email has displaced fax for sending documents, and applications such as Google Docs and Dropbox now facilitate faster joint production of documents. Linguistic and discursive features of email, texting, Facebook and tweeting have attracted analytic attention, with the dangers of tweeting, posting or responding too hastily noted by a number of researchers (e.g. Edelson et al. 2015, Girginova 2015: 400). Online chat rooms, blogs, and call centre discourse (e.g. Hui 2018, Lockwood et al. 2008) have also been the focus of discourse analysis, and these areas of research will inevitably expand (e.g. Darics and Gatti 2019). Corpus analysis as valuable background for more detailed qualitative analysis seems certain to increase with the expansion of corpora and development of sophisticated analytical tools. Multilingual workplaces also seem likely to attract increasing attention,

RESEARCHING WORKPLACE DISCOURSE

147

along with concomitant issues such as intercultural communication, code-switching or translanguaging, and the challenge of studying mobile workforces (e.g. Chui, Liu and Mak 2016). As noted in the methodology section, multimodal approaches are steadily increasing, with CA researchers currently making greatest use of them (e.g. Clifton et al. 2018, Mondada 2014). As technology improves, such approaches seem destined to become standard. Relatedly, interdisciplinary teams are likely to burgeon as the expertise required for data collection and analysis becomes more specialized. Finally, the relationship between researchers and practitioners has become much more integrated over the last decade with a range of models of engagement and expertisesharing developing (Mullany 2020), an aspect compatible with the increasing evidence of critical and self-reflexive approaches, and attention to metapragmatic information and the ideologies to which this provides access (Holmes, Vine and Marra 2020). This seems an appropriate place to finish, since the rationale for the earliest analyses of workplace discourse (Clyne 1994, Gumperz, Jupp and Roberts 1979) was to inform materials designed to improve the effectiveness of workplace communication.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to Emily Greenbank for assistance with the literature review for this revised chapter, to Bernadette Vine for valuable comments and to Matilda Neyland for checking and formatting the references. I would also like to thank Brian Paltridge and Ken Hyland for useful feedback and editing suggestions.

KEY READINGS Bhatia, V. and S. Bremner (eds) (2014), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Professional Communication, London: Routledge. Candlin, C. and S. Sarangi (eds) (2011), Handbook of Communication in Organisations and Professions, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Holmes, J. and M. Stubbe (2015), Power and Politeness in the Workplace, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. Koester, A. (2010), Workplace Discourse, London: Continuum. Spencer-Oatey, H. and J. Xing (2008), ‘Issues of Face in a Chinese Business Visit to Britain’, in H. Spencer-Oatey (ed.), Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport Through Talk, 391–416, London: Continuum. Vine, B. (ed.) (2018), The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, London: Routledge.

TRANSCRIPTION CONVENTIONS [laughs] :    + … …

Paralinguistic features and other information in square brackets, colons indicate start/finish Pause of up to one second Section of transcript omitted

  All names, including names of organisations, are pseudonyms.

148

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

REFERENCES Angouri, J. (2018), Culture, Discourse and the Workplace, London: Routledge. Angouri, J. and L. Mondada (2017), ‘Meetings’, in R. Wodak and B. Forchtner (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Politics, 468–87, London: Routledge. Angouri, J., M. Marra and J. Holmes (eds) (2017), Negotiating Boundaries at Work: Talking and Transitions, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Aritz, J., R. Walker, P. Cardon and L. Zhang (2017), ‘Discourse of Leadership: The Power of Questions in Organisational Decision Making’, International Journal of Business Communication, 54 (2): 161–81. Bargiela-Chiappini, F. and S. Harris (1996), ‘Interruptive Strategies in British and Italian Management Meetings’, Text, 16 (3): 269–97. Baxter, J. (2010), The Language of Female Leadership, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Baxter, J. and K. Wallace (2009), ‘Outside In-group and Out-group Identities? Constructing Male Solidarity and Female Exclusion in UK Builders’ Talk’, Discourse and Society, 20 (4): 411–29. Bilbow, G. (1998), ‘Look Who’s Talking: An Analysis of “Chair-talk” in Business Meetings’, Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 12 (2): 157–97. Boden, D. (1994), The Business of Talk: Organizations in Action, Cambridge: Polity Press. Campbell, S. and C. Roberts (2007), ‘Migration, Ethnicity and Competing Discourses in the Job Interview: Synthesising the Institutional and the Personal’, Discourse and Society, 18 (3): 243–71. Chui, H. L., Y. Liu and B. C. N. Mak (2016), ‘Code-switching for Newcomers and Veterans: A Mutually-constructed Discourse Strategy for Workplace Socialization and Identification’, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 26 (1): 25–51. Clifton, J., D. Van De Mieroop, P. Sehgal and A. Bedi (2018), ‘The Multimodal Enactment of Deontic and Epistemic Authority in Indian Meetings’, Pragmatics, 28 (3): 333–60. Clifton, J., S. Schnurr and D. Van De Mieroop (2020), The Language of Leadership Narratives, London: Routledge. Clyne, M. (1994), Inter-cultural Communication at Work: Cultural Values in Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Darics, E. and M. C. Gatti (2019), ‘Talking a Team into Being in Online Workplace Collaborations: The Discourse of Virtual Work’, Discourse Studies, 21 (3): 237–57. Drew, P. and J. Heritage (1992), ‘Analyzing Talk at Work: An Introduction’, in P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds), Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, 3–65, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eckert, P. and S. McConnell-Ginet (2013), Language and Gender, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edelson, S. A., P. Kim, R. Scott and J. M. Szendrey (2015), ‘What Did I Just Tweet?!: The Need to Address Digital Emotional Literacy in Corporate Communications’, in E. Darics (ed.), Digital Business Discourse, 189–207, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Geyer, N. (2008), Discourse and Politeness: Ambivalent Face in Japanese, London; New York: Continuum. Girginova, K. (2015), ‘Social CEOs: Tweeting as a Constitutive Form of Organizational Communication’, in E. Darics (ed.), Digital Business Discourse, 40–60, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Gumperz, J. J., T. Jupp and C. Roberts (1979), Crosstalk, London: National Centre for Industrial Language Training.

RESEARCHING WORKPLACE DISCOURSE

149

Gunnarsson, B.-L. (2009), Professional Discourse, London: Continuum. Halvorsen, K. and S. Sarangi (2015), ‘Team Decision-making in Workplace Meetings: The Interplay of Activity Roles and Discourse Roles’, Journal of Pragmatics, 76: 1–14. Holmes, J. (2006), Gendered Talk at Work: Constructing Gender Identity through Workplace Discourse, New York; Oxford: Blackwell. Holmes, J. (2017), ‘Leadership and Change Management: Examining Gender, Cultural and “Hero Leader” Stereotypes’, in S. Schnurr and C. Ilie (eds), Challenging Leadership Stereotypes: Discourse and Power Management, 15–43, New York: Springer. Holmes, J. (2018), ‘Negotiating the Culture Order in New Zealand Workplaces’, Language in Society, 47 (1): 33–56. Holmes, J. (2020), ‘“Until I Got a Man in, He Wouldn’t Listen”: Evidence for the Gender Order in New Zealand Workplaces’, in C. R. Caldas-Coulthard (ed.), Innovations and Challenges in Language and Gender: Women and Sexism, 93–112, London: Routledge. Holmes, J. and M. Stubbe (2015), Power and Politeness in the Workplace: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Talk at Work, London: Longman. Holmes, J., M. Marra and B. Vine (2011), Leadership, Discourse and Ethnicity, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Holmes, J., M. Marra and B. Vine (2012), ‘Politeness and Impoliteness in New Zealand English Workplace Discourse’, Journal of Pragmatics, 44: 1063–76. Holmes, J., B. Vine and M. Marra (2020), ‘Contesting the Culture Order: Contrastive Pragmatics in Action’, Journal of Contrastive Pragmatics, 1: 1–27. Hua, Z. (2018), Exploring Intercultural Communication: Language in Action, London: Routledge. Hui, J. S. Y. (2018), ‘Call Centre Discourse’, in B. Vine (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 175–86, New York: Routledge. Kim, K. and J. Angouri (2019), ‘“We Don’t Need to Abide by That!” Negotiating Professional Roles in Problem-solving Talk at Work’, Discourse & Communication, 13 (2): 172–91. King, B. W. (2019), Communities of Practice in Language Research: A Critical Introduction, London: Routledge. Kirilova, M. and J. Angouri (2018), ‘You Are Now One of Us: Negotiating “Fitting In” in the Workplace’, in A. Creese and Adrian Blackledge (eds), Handbook on Language and Superdiversity, 345–60, London: Routledge. Koester, A. (2018), ‘Conflict Talk’, in B. Vine (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 272–83, New York: Routledge. Ladegaard, H. J. (2018), ‘Workplace Narratives’, in B. Vine (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 242–57, New York: Routledge. Lave, J. and E. Wenger (1991), Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lockwood, J., G. Forey and H. Price (2008), ‘English in Philippine Call Centers and BPO Operations: Issues, Opportunities and Research’, in M. L. S. Bautista and K. Bolton (eds), Philippine English: Linguistic and Literary Perspectives, 219–42, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Mak, B. and C. Nam (2018), ‘Humour in the Workplace’, in B. Vine (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 228–41, New York: Routledge. McDowell, J. (2018), ‘Men’s Talk in Women’s Work: Doing Being a Nurse’, in B. Vine (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 361–72, New York: Routledge. McElhinny, B. S. (1995), ‘Challenging Hegemonic Masculinities: Female and Male Police Officers Handling Domestic Violence’, in K. Hall and M. Bucholtz (eds), Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self, 217–43, London: Routledge.

150

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Meyerhoff, M. (1994), ‘Sounds Pretty Ethnic, Eh?: A Pragmatic Particle in New Zealand English’, Language in Society, 23 (3): 367–88. Mirivel, J. C. and K. Tracy (2005), ‘Premeeting Talk: An Organizationally Crucial Form of Talk’, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 38 (1): 1–34. Mirivel, J. C. and R. Fuller (2018), ‘Relational Talk at Work’, in B. Vine (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 216–27, New York: Routledge. Mondada, L. (2014), ‘Instructions in the Operating Room: How the Surgeon Directs Their Assistant’s Hands’, Discourse Studies, 16 (2): 131–61. Mullany, L. (2007), Gendered Discourse in the Professional Workplace, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Mullany, L. (ed.) (2020), Professional Communication: Consultancy, Advocacy, Activism, London: Palgrave. Petraki, E. and I. Ramayanti (2018), ‘Navigating the Indonesian Workplace Hierarchy: Managers’ Use of Humour as a Rapport Building Strategy’, Journal of Pragmatics, 134: 199–209. Philips, S. U. (2007), ‘Symbolically Central and Materially Marginal: Women’s Talk in a Tongan Work Group’, in B. S. McElhinny (ed.), Words, Worlds, and Material Girls: Language, Gender, Globalization, 41–75, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Pickering, L., E. Friginal and S. Staples (eds) (2016), Talking at Work: Corpus-based Explorations of Workplace Discourse, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Plester, B. (2016), Complexity of Workplace Humour, Heidelberg: Springer. Richards, K. (2006), Language and Professional Identity: Aspects of Collaborative Interaction, Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Riddiford, N. and J. Holmes (2015), ‘Assisting the Development of Sociopragmatic Skills: Negotiating Refusals at Work’, System, 48: 129–40. Rodrigues, S. B. and D. L. Collinson (1995), ‘Having Fun? Humour as Resistance in Brazil’, Organization Studies, 16 (5): 739–68. Saito, J. and H. M. Cook (2018), ‘Directives in Workplace Discourse’, in B. Vine (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, 203–15, New York: Routledge. Sarangi, S. and C. Roberts (1999), ‘The Dynamics of Interactional and Institutional Orders in Work-related Settings’, in S. Sarangi and Celia Roberts (eds), Talk, Work and Institutional Order, 1–60, Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Schnurr, S. (2009), Leadership Discourse at Work: Interactions of Humour, Gender and Workplace Culture. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Schnurr, S. and O. Zayts (2017), Language and Culture at Work, London: Routledge. Spencer-Oatey, H. and J. Xing (2003), ‘Managing Rapport in Intercultural Business Interactions: A Comparison of Two Chinese-British Welcome Meetings’, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 24 (1): 33–46. Svennevig, J. (2012), ‘Interaction in Workplace Meetings’, Discourse Studies, 14 (1): 3–10. Theodoropoulou, I. (2020), ‘Blue-collar Workplace Communicative Practices: A Case Study in Construction Sites in Qatar’, Language Policy, 19: 363–87. Vine, B. (2004), Getting Things Done at Work: The Discourse of Power in Workplace Interaction, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Vine, B. (ed.) (2018), The Routledge Handbook of Language in the Workplace, New York: Routledge. Vine, B. and S. Marsden (2016), ‘Eh at Work: The Indexicality of a New Zealand English Pragmatic Particle’, Intercultural Pragmatics, 13 (3): 1–23.

RESEARCHING WORKPLACE DISCOURSE

151

Wodak, R., W. Kwon and I. Clarke (2011), ‘“Getting People on Board”: Discursive Leadership for Consensus Building in Team Meetings’, Discourse and Society, 22 (5): 592–644. Yamada, H. (1997), ‘Organization in American and Japanese Meetings: Task Versus Relationship’, in F. Bargiela-Chiappini and S. Harris (eds), The Languages of Business: An International Perspective, 117–35, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

152

CHAPTER ELEVEN

News discourse ROBERTA FACCHINETTI

WHAT IS NEWS DISCOURSE? To understand news discourse, first we need to grasp the very concept of ‘news’. In traditional journalistic terms, ‘news’ is a new fact that has happened or is about to happen and that is sufficiently intriguing, shocking or offbeat to have a significant impact on the community. Conventionally, ‘hard news’ refers to stories of a timely nature about accidents, crimes, conflicts, discoveries, announcements and other unscheduled events, while ‘soft news’ largely refers to facts that entertain or inform, for example, about celebrities, fashion or gossip, with an emphasis on human interest and with less immediacy than hard news. News is observed, selected, researched and recorded during the ‘news-gathering process’; then it is encoded for publication or broadcast and disseminated in newspapers, radio, TV and/or online through the ‘newsmaking process’. Historically, since the early stages of press journalism, the most typical textual type related to news has been the ‘report’, that is, evidence-based writing on a new event; news stories may also trigger features and commentaries, which, along with the report, are the other two pillars of journalistic writing. Features expand or explain (news) items in an insightful way, profile interesting/famous people, provide analysis, give practical advice, amuse or entertain and, overall, add insight and/or perspective. In turn, commentaries are opinionated texts, presenting either the point of view or the angle of the writer/news outlet/organization. In the twentieth century, broadcast news has become mainstream via radio or TV, each medium having its own preferences, protocols, verbal repertoires and discursive practices, especially in news bulletins, presentations and interviews. While radio news relies on the interplay between words and sound, in TV news discourse words interplay with visuals as well; in both cases presenters, correspondents, interviewers and interviewees share a crucial role to purvey the overall result. Such cruciality has reached its finest over the last few decades, when the idea of news being produced within organized journalistic institutions has been disrupted by the impact of digital technologies and most of all by the internet, causing a radical communicative and sociocultural change. Indeed, the traditional format of the text-dominated news ‘piece’ has now frequently been substituted by a multimodal combination of verbal text with images, videos, sound and graphics that co-occur to capture and hold the consumers’ attention and together create a ‘news package’. Moreover, users themselves – be they viewers, hearers, readers or all the three together – have turned into content producers

154

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

and distributors, who exploit the different channels available and tailor news to fit their personal preferences and practices. Finally, news producers now employ algorithmically governed news gathering and dissemination schemes which anticipate and may even orient news consumers’ views and interests. Bearing all this in mind, we may more properly define ‘news discourse’ as a type of discourse pertaining to the production, dissemination and analysis of news, accessible either via traditional media (e.g. newspapers, radio and TV) or via digital media (e.g. online news, podcasts, bulletins, blogs and feeds), in either a monomodal or a multimodal form.

HOW HAS NEWS DISCOURSE DEVELOPED INTO ITS PRESENT FORM(S)? The need for transmitting news and information appears to have pervaded all civilizations since the dawn of humankind; such need has taken different shapes according to times and places: from the earliest hieroglyphics on cave walls to daily official notices carved on stone or metal during the Roman Empire, to word-of-mouth spread from town to town by Renaissance merchants, sailors and travellers and, finally, to the multimodal news packages of the present age. Long before the first newspapers, two inventions – typography for the text and engraving for the images – led to the integration of text and graphics; by the end of the fifteenth century, pictures, numbers and letters were all amenable to reproduction and repeatability. Against this backdrop, modern (professional) newswriting took its first steps in sixteenth-century Europe, when the news pamphlets and gazettes published between Italy, Germany and Holland mainly focussed on international wars, natural disasters, crimes and extraordinary facts. When news became more and more available, content systematically increased and diversified; so, seventeenth-century newspapers tackled both hard and soft news, along with national and local events on social and economic life, as well as fiction, religion, sport, fashion, politics and satire. Soon abundance of facts and increasing competition imposed novel strategies for presenting news to attract the readers’ attention and persuade them to read on; so headlines started to be placed above the main text and by the end of the eighteenth century the so-called top-down/invertedpyramid structure had taken shape, whereby a one-sentence-long introduction (called ‘intro’ in the UK and ‘lead’ in the United States) answers some if not all the five key questions (‘the five Ws’) referring to WHAT happened, WHO is/was involved, WHERE, WHEN and WHY, while the rest of the text expands on the facts in descending order of importance, from necessary to peripheral. Meanwhile, articles were increasingly accompanied by picture sketches and woodblock engravings, which in turn were soon ousted by photographs and accompanied by formulae and (scientific) diagrams. Indeed, the verbal text interplayed so much with infographics that multimodality in news reports may be claimed to have been born long before the current digital age. Furthermore, the invention of the telegraph in the 1830s and 1840s revolutionized long-distance communication and launched the spreading of information worldwide; the telegraph itself was the apex of a set of breakthroughs that provided the framework within which current information systems and knowledge dissemination services still operate and, to some extent, it may be qualified as nineteenthcentury internet: by allowing newspapers to receive and distribute information much faster and from longer distances than before, it boosted news agencies, which soon wired the world.

NEWS DISCOURSE

155

By the end of the nineteenth century, illustrated journalism had become a prominent feature of newspapers and when photography ousted engravings, perspective seemed to lose ground in favour of the objectivity of facts, although it soon became clear that technological innovations were no guarantee for objectivity; on the contrary, they could aid subjectivity as much as neutrality, putting professional journalistic trustworthiness at risk and accountability at stake. The twentieth century took further technological steps that newsmakers profited from; colour was embedded in news reports more and more, leading to a transformation in output that would necessarily affect customer perception as well; in turn, fibre-optic cables replaced telegraph lines and permitted transmission over long distances and at higher bandwidths. Hence, all sorts of hard and soft news started to hit the headlines around the globe at the blink of an eye; this opened the door to the internet, which quickened the process of dematerialization of text and gave a further boost to new ways of transmitting news, with the information coming to the user, rather than the user having to travel to the information. Most recently ‘immersive journalism’ has also emerged, whereby 360-degree videos and virtual reality technology allow people to gain first-person experiences of the events described in news stories and feel part of them, as if they were truly there, thus leading them to react within that virtual environment as they would do in the physical world. News discourse has continually adapted to this constant flow of changes and has reshaped itself so that stories have gradually shifted not only from language-dominated ‘news pieces’ to ‘news packages’, but also from ‘reportage’ to ‘webportage’ and from monodirectional information to ‘transmedial interactive storytelling’, with stories no longer mediated or reported exclusively by professional journalists but narrated across multiple delivery channels and through different eyes. This new environment has even put into question the traditional ‘inverted pyramid structure’ mentioned above; indeed, with digital media the hypertext is central to allow consumers to expand information and delve into those aspects of the story that are of interest to them. Hence, a ‘lying down pyramid’ structure has been suggested for news provided in the digital environment, where information develops horizontally, from less to more, on each of the five Ws of the news story, so that users can choose the reading path they prefer (Paíno Ambrosio and Rodríguez Fidalgo 2019). Finally, the widespread use of social media is having enormous impact on society, culture and business, along with potentially positive and negative effects on newsmaking and dissemination; this is why ‘first generation’ social media channels like blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and WikiLeaks, among others, constituting the landscape of unmediated journalism, are now paralleled by their ‘second generation’ homologues, developed to filter through facts and check fake news; Storyful, for example, qualifies itself as a prominent ‘guardian of the net’ scanning the digital ecosystem to source, verify and authenticate user-generated information for news organizations, governmental, nongovernmental and industrial organizations around the globe. At present no linearity, grassroots information, multimodality and interactivity are central features of (online) news discourse: the headline can be clicked to take readers to a separate page for further details; text may be either contained in one single block or broken up into several connected links; while infographics may comprise logo, drawings and different types of visuals, including photo slide shows, animations and even interactive games. To some extent, as in light white is the sum of all colours, similarly, in present-day journalism each modality integrates and converges with the others to create ‘news discourse’.

156

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

WHAT DO WE STUDY IN NEWS DISCOURSE? Traditionally, the study of news discourse has largely concentrated on the news output delivered to the general public, be it written or broadcast on TV, on the radio or online. Recently newswriting has started to be addressed in a more holistic way, focusing on the newsmaking process as well and bearing in mind all its contributing actors, from the writers to the subeditors, from the editors to the publishers, from the sources to the consumers. With reference to output, since until recently the staple product of journalism has been the report, the linguistic text has been prioritized in news discourse studies, with a focus on its lexicogrammatical, syntactic, pragmatic and stylistic features. The following is only a selection of the wide-ranging topics tackled in this field: 1. structure of news reports from headlines and body copy (Isani 2011, Van Dijk 1988) to the use of quotations and sources (Jullian 2011); 2. analysis of news discourse bearing in mind social factors and political ideologies (Conboy 2007, Fowler 1991); 3. short-/long-term diachronic development of news discourse (Brownlees 2006, Palander-Collin et al. 2017); 4. comparison of news discourse across languages, thus leading to lingua-cultural research (Elewa 2019); and 5. similarities and differences between the language of news and non-journalistic textual types (Ungerer 2000). As anticipated, over the last two decades, technological breakthroughs have led scholars to abandon the notion of the news report as the exclusively linguistic output of the newsmaking process and have grasped the key role played by other co-textual elements starting, for example, from the intratextual linguistic markers of Twitter, which exploits a set of typographic conventions indexing specific moves within the community, the most common being ‘@’, ‘RT’ and ‘#’; these hashtags function as inline metadata calling other twitters to participate. Shifting from the intra- to the intertextual, scholarly studies are now focusing more and more on multimodal aspects, particularly the interrelation between language and other co-occurring modalities. Attention has been largely dedicated to: 1. if and to what extent technological advancements are reshaping the language of the press (Thurlow and Mroczek 2011), particularly with reference to the convergence of modalities in conveying the overall semiotic value of the news output (Kolodzy 2013, Machin and Polzer 2015); 2. comparison between the strategies enacted by different news outlets online and offline to foreground and frame an event (Connell 1998, Jiménez-Martínez 2020); 3. comparison between online news discourse and other non-journalistic web documents (Biber and Egbert 2018); 4. if and how the lingua-cultural context affects the correlation between modalities (Tsai and Kender 2017); and 5. whether or not a cross-cultural genre-specific visual grammar for online news discourse is emerging/has emerged (Knox 2007).

NEWS DISCOURSE

157

Moving from the text to the process as the primary focus of scholarly studies on news discourse, research has been carried out paying attention to press agencies, journalists, freelance contributors, subeditors, editors and readers as active participants in the process of news entextualization and contextualization. The following is a selection of the studies carried out in this trend of research: 1. how practitioners choose stories, introduce them into the newsroom, conceptualize and produce them (Cotter 2010); 2. focus on press releases and the social and textual practices that surround their transformation into reports (Jacobs et al. 2008); 3. how news discourse is structured and shaped by news outlets during the writing and editorial process (Catenaccio et al. 2011, Perrin 2015); 4. how news discourse is shared, updated and re-shaped by consumers (DeWerthPallmeyer 1997, Wenzel 2019), bearing in mind the role of social media as well (Welbers and Opgenhaffen 2019); 5. the role of translation when transferring, reformulating and transediting news texts (Brook 2012, Valdeón 2014); and 6. focus on news values, which may differ depending on culture and society (Bednarek and Caple 2017). Both when focusing on the news output and when dealing with the newsmaking process, all the above-mentioned research topics can be tackled from different methodological perspectives, the most typical of which will be illustrated in the following section.

WHICH ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES CAN BE APPLIED TO THE STUDY OF NEWS DISCOURSE? News discourse can be studied through qualitative and/or quantitative research methods. The former largely rely on non-numeric information, that is, interviews, video and sound recordings and text documents, to analyse content, co(n)text and the many-sided aspects of language. In turn, the latter calculate raw numbers and frequencies to find evidence supporting or disclaiming hypotheses. The three approaches illustrated here – namely Ethnographic perspectives, Corpus Linguistic methodologies and (Critical) Discourse Analysis – have been chosen to exemplify either one or the other perspective (or both), since they are among the most common analytical frameworks currently exploited in news discourse studies.

Ethnographic Perspectives This methodology views discourse as one of the elements of social practice; thus, it integrates sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and linguistic anthropology in a crossdisciplinary way, to identify and analyse the patterns, social roles and cultural norms that underlie news communication, along with how practice and process shape the language of news. Focusing on the participants who contribute to newsmaking and news-dissemination and tying down ethnography to concrete situated instances of practice, scholars who apply this methodology concentrate largely on (a) the role of the practitioners in the production of news discourse, along with the actions and decisions that are taken for its

158

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

construction (Merminod and Burger 2020), and (b) the sociolinguistic constraints that influence journalistic practice and consumer perceptions (Scollon 1998, Van Hout 2015). Research data are gathered preferably by means of (a) participant observation and fieldwork, (b) interviews with practitioners, (c) surveys where feedback is provided which may then be stored and studied by means of computer-assisted techniques and (d) analysis of various texts like trade journals, internal memos, textbooks, style guides circulating preferably within the community of journalists. For example, surveyed participants may be given a set of news reports accompanied by graphics that communicate different aspects, to check which modality is more successful at conveying the message and at increasing interest (Fagerlin et al. 2017). Alternatively, by means of participant observation and fieldwork, scholars may study how a story makes its way into the newsroom, onto the reporters’ computer screens and into the newspaper, along with the impact of professional ideologies on the manner in which news is represented.

Corpus Linguistics Analysing news discourse from this perspective implies quantifying textual features and deriving meaning from this. Data are gleaned from computerized corpora, which are collections of texts in digital form exploited for synchronic or diachronic studies (see Gray and Biber, this volume). At present there are huge databases that cover the full archive of newspapers and magazines; they may be monolingual, like Lexis-Nexis and the TIME Corpus, or may encompass more than one language, like the PLECI Corpus (Poitiers-Louvain Échange de Corpus Informatisés) and the newspapers made available by the CLARIN-ERIC infrastructure (European Research Infrastructure Consortium); they may be finite or constantly updated with new data from a wide variety of sources such as newspapers, magazines, websites, journals, books, television and radio; and their texts may be raw or tagged, parsed or aligned for translation purposes as well. Along with the traditional monomodal corpora (mostly either spoken or written), the early twenty-first century has seen the development of multimodal corpora providing data for a fruitful set of intersemiotic analyses of news discourse. These corpora require annotating the data for sound, visual and verbal content, paying attention to the underlying principles of their organization and the transitions that hold between them. The proliferation and diversification of corpora and technological advancements have led to the consequent boost and specialization of corpus browsing systems and search software; indeed, software tools can provide output in a customizable format on a number of aspects in news discourse, particularly with reference to its output: from the concordance to the co-occurrence of words, from collocations, phrases and parts of speech tags to wordlists and keywords, from semantic networks to syntactic parsing of aligned stretches of speech, to name only the most typical ones.

Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis ‘Discourse Analysis’ offers interpretations of the meaning of text and talk without necessarily relying on quantitative/statistical data and focusing particularly on the tenet that news discourse is constructed through the interaction between producer, message and consumer. Teun Van Dijk (1988) has developed an analytical framework for the description of news discourse where micro-linguistic dimensions (sounds, words, sentences, meanings), macro-structural dimensions (syntactic and semantic), global structures (topics, themes), stylistic dimensions (authorial choices), pragmatic dimensions

NEWS DISCOURSE

159

(speech acts) and rhetorical features (figurative and persuasive) operate at different levels in the actualization of the overall message. Within Discourse Analysis, ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’ calls into place social practice and focuses in particular on how text embodies and is affected by power. Scholars applying this perspective start from a set of implications, most notably entailments, presuppositions, suggestions and assumptions, and look for consistent patterns of discursive features that imply or signal them in news schemata and in the stylistic choices of authors and news outlets; their final aim is to pinpoint opinions of the reporter/news organization about news actors and events, as well as possible social and ideological implications related to the communicative situation and the group memberships of the speakers. Norman Fairclough (1995), in particular, delves into discourse as the result of three intertwined dimensions: text, discursive practice and social practice; within this framework he illustrates how news discourse can be scrutinized to reveal the unsaid and identify possible bias and underlying ideologies. (Critical) Discourse Analysis techniques may also address news values, that is, the criteria employed by journalists to determine the stories which merit dissemination and in which order of importance they should emerge. To do so, they may scrutinize one single text or more than one in either monomodal or multimodal form. In this regard, Bednarek and Caple (2018) consider not only how the news is ‘sold’ and made newsworthy to audiences through the semiotic resources of language and image, but also how it is produced through a set of texts (including press releases, interviews and published stories among others) that construct the newsworthiness of an event, issue or news actor through language, layout and visuals. Undoubtedly, the above-mentioned methodological perspectives can be either applied in isolation or intertwined with each other, thus leading to diversified and wide-ranging types of research and calling into question not only news practitioners and linguists, but also sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists and data analysts, to name only a few of the many experts in the fields touched on by news discourse studies.

A SAMPLE STUDY: NEWS-RELATED BLOGS I will now illustrate a study where quantitative and qualitative methodologies are merged to shed light not only on the news output but also on its authors, bearing in mind their (professional) background and the current world of unmediated journalism. The focus of study is news-related blogs, which by now have been endorsed both by mainstream news outlets and by non-professionals; my main research question is: are the blog posts written by professional journalists, by independent professionals and by ordinary citizens affected by the background of their authors in terms of structural and linguistic choices? To address this question, a corpus was compiled out of the news-related blogs published online on an international event occurred in August 2008, that is, the Russo-Georgian war in the Caucasus region (Facchinetti 2015). When selecting the data, the news event was regarded as the criterion for retrieving the posts and the ‘blog post’ was taken as the unit of analysis. Posts were collected through keyword search on the main countries directly involved in the conflict – ‘Abkhazia’, ‘Georgia’, ‘Russia’ and ‘South Ossetia’ – and keywords were searched in English on specialized search engines for blogs, on blog portals/providers, on English language news websites and by following the links to other blogs on any blog retrieved.

160

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

All blog entries posted from 1 to 31 August 2008 resulting from the search were included; the search resulted in a total of 705 posts, published in 65 different blogs, totalling 424,129 words. Then, the blogs retrieved were categorized in three different groups: 1. ‘Mainstream media News Blogs’ (MNB): blogs published on the websites of news media organizations operating also offline, such as print newspaper companies and TV news broadcasters; 2. ‘Independent News Blogs’ (INB): blogs that portray themselves as a form of independent journalism, being authored either by freelance professional journalists or by bloggers organized as an online independent media outlet; and 3. ‘Citizen News Blogs’ (CNB): blogs published by bloggers who are not professional journalists. The categorization yielded the quantitative results reported in Table 11.1. The raw figures testify to a discrepancy among the three subcorpora, due to the fact that the web yielded much more data from INB than from CNB and even less from MNB. Hence, frequencies needed to be normalized per 10,000 words to ensure data comparability. What follows is a snapshot of some of the quantitative and qualitative findings. Structurally, each post was preliminarily analysed bearing in mind the three traditional textual types of written news discourse, namely news reports, features and commentaries. The data show that no category of bloggers sticks to any of these three formats, which coexist in the posts with great variability and freedom, as shown in (1) and (2) written by a professional and by an independent journalist respectively: (1) Russia At War? It’s getting nasty in the Caucasus. The latest from our Moscow correspondent: Georgian President Saakashvili says 30 Georgians have been killed (mostly military); Ossetia’s president says 1,400 Ossetians have been killed; Russia says that 10 Russian peacekeepers have been killed. (MNB) (2) Don’t blame Georgia for being pro-American. The battle had started from the ethnic cleaning of the Ossetians in South Ossetia who received support from Russia against Georgians, but South Ossetia was also designated as an autonomous region by Lenin and Stalin without any notice to Georgians. Georgia, which was an independent authority regardless of the feudal kingdom of Persia in the 19th century, became a protectorate of the Russian Army

TABLE 11.1  Number of blogs, posts and tokens retrieved

Blogs

Posts

Tokens

MNB

26

104

63,620

INB

21

343

250,548

CNB

18

258

109,961

Total

65

705

424,129

NEWS DISCOURSE

161

and later it was included in Russia. It’s not just the problem of Ossetia. Georgia also lost some land after independence. […] Before South Ossetia tried to unify with North Ossetia and was unified with Russia, Georgia and Ossetia have stayed together without any conflict. But why did the Ossetians suddenly betray friends of several decades? 90  per cent of the population of South Ossetia is Russian. […] If you know history, you can’t just blame Georgia.[…] Who is supporting imperialism? (INB) In (1) the news on civilian casualties is introduced by a comment (‘It’s getting nasty’) and then developed with the parallel structure ‘X says + have been killed’, more typical of the rhetorical-argumentative text than of a news story. In (2) the author alternates comments and subjective remarks (‘don’t blame Georgia’) to information on the historical and political background of the conflict, with the in-depth perspective typical of features. So, this preliminary structural analysis would suggest that news bloggers – be they depending on a mainstream news outlet, independent professionals or citizen bloggers – share the same degree of freedom from traditional structural and linguistic canons of news writing. However, further analysis carried out on each post highlighted some linguistic specificities that lead to posit differences between the three subcorpora, possibly deriving from the professional background of the bloggers. In particular, a high degree of selfreferentiality and a low level of interactivity by the MNB emerged as opposed to a high level of interactivity and a low degree of self-referentiality resulting from the posts of CNBloggers, as well as less use of citations through direct speech. Among other aspects, such differences can be seen in the use of mental state verbs and in the choice of personal pronouns.

Mental state verbs The differences between MNB and CNB are evident in use of the three most common ‘mental verbs’ see, know and think, which are considered the most frequent lexical verbs in English (Biber et al. 1999: 378) and turn out to be even the most frequent in the corpus. The data confirm that MNB and CNB position themselves at the two opposite ends, since they highlight different results in the frequency of verbs, with see and know being the most frequent in the MNB subcorpus and less frequent in CNB, while think is the most frequent in CNB. Finally, INB appears to be a mixed category, being halfway between the two poles. To fully understand this discrepancy in use, a semantic analysis of each occurrence was necessary. In all three types of blogs, the most common and most recorded use of see is that which indicates visual ability in both present and past forms. The considerable use of

TABLE 11.2  Frequency/10000 of see, know and think.

MNB

INB

CNB

See

19.8

17.9

7.0

Know

10.8

9.6

7.9

Think

9.9

8.9

11.8

40.6

36.4

26.7

TOTAL

162

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

see in MNB (19.8) is understandable since the analysis has shown that MNBloggers tend to narrate facts that they have experienced personally as reporters. In CNB, however, see is used more frequently to indicate a mental state: (3) Are either Iraq or Afghanistan seen as successful in any way? (CNB) In turn, know is a verb directly related to the knowledge of facts and situations and, as such, occurs more frequently in MNB and INB than in CNB: (4) We do not yet know who is behind the world record real estate deal. (MNB) Finally, think, which is the opinion verb par excellence, is used less frequently in MNB (9.9) and INB (8.9), largely to quote the opinion of others; instead, it is more frequent in CNB (11.8) to express the blogger’s point of view: (5) Shall The West Recognize An Independent Chechnya? Not, mind you, that I think it would be a good idea – but if Russia is correct in recognizing breakaway areas of Georgia as independent, shouldn’t the rest of the world recognize the independence of those who don’t want to be under Moscow’s thumb? (CNB) So, the semantic analysis portrays three different attitudes, with citizen bloggers favouring opinion sharing, while professional bloggers aiming at recounting and describing personal experiences.

Personal pronouns Similar data are gleaned from the analysis of personal pronouns (Facchinetti 2015). All three types of blogs use the first-person singular pronoun reference more frequently than the other forms, which is indicative of the personal style of the blog as a genre and which might also suggest a move of professional journalists towards a more personalized register when they blog. However, overall, Table 11.3 shows that CNB and INB behave differently from MNB, exhibiting a lower frequency of first-person singular pronouns I (40.2 and 40.6 respectively, compared to 45.9 of MNB) and me (4.7 and 7.8) and, in turn, a higher frequency of second-person you (17.7 and 15.7) and first-person plural us (27.8 and 18.1). This would indicate that CNB and INB are less self-referential and more participative/interactive than MNB. More in detail, in CNB I and me are almost exclusively used to express the blogger’s personal opinion, in collocation with present tense verbs or in phrases such as ‘it seems to

TABLE 11.3  Frequency of first- and second-person pronouns/10,000 words.

MNB

INB

CNB

Total

45.9

40.6

40.2

126.7

Me

8.6

7.8

4.7

21.1

We

42.8

28.5

29.3

100.6

Us

12.9

18.1

27.8

58.8

You

12.6

15.7

17.7

46.0

122.8

110.7

119.7

353.2

I

Total

NEWS DISCOURSE

163

me’, ‘for me’ or ‘I (do) believe/think/bet/can say/wonder/(don’t) know’ and again ‘I am’ followed by opinion adjectives, like sure, alarmed, glad. In turn, both we and us often instantiate ‘inclusive we/us’, generally referring to writer and reader together. Moreover, CNBloggers use us partly in quotations, to report excerpts from interviews of political leaders or ordinary people from the involved regions, but mostly to show the bloggers’ emotional sharing of the civilians’ plight and their calling for universal values, as in (6); more significantly, you is used extensively by CNBloggers (17.7 as opposed to 12.6 of MNB) and almost exclusively when addressing readers, as in (7). (6) … for every one of us is entitled to defending their own country and leadership (CNB) (7) You have to wonder how far the US is prepared to take this – they aren’t going to commit troops and, no matter how much Saakashvili may wish it, NATO is not going to overstretch itself even further. (CNB) In contrast, MNB exhibit a high degree of self-referentiality, insofar as the authors refer more to themselves and less to their interlocutors; here the bloggers act often as travel feature writers, and particularly in MNB we witness a high frequency of verbs referring to past situations or past actions carried out by the bloggers, who report their personal experiences once back from the conflict zones. Unlike in CNB, here the use of you hardly shows any indication of interactivity and is rather a different way of expressing the writer’s experience, where this pronoun is used impersonally. As for we, in MNB it is often found in quotations from political leaders or military officials and also, interestingly, as an ‘inclusive we’ referring not so much to the bloggers and readers, but rather to the bloggers as embodying the voice of their mastheads. In turn, INB place themselves somehow in between the two extremes, since this type of blog shares features both with CNB and with MNB. Indeed, on the one hand, ‘if you want’ and ‘do you think’ – exhibiting direct interaction between blogger and reader – are the most recurrent clusters with first- and second-person pronouns in both INB and CNB; on the other hand, INB also exhibit a high use of I/me where the blogger mostly refers to him/herself as reporting his/her experience in the region of the conflict, just as in MNB. Overall both the use of mental state verbs and the choice and collocations of personal pronouns lead to conclude that while all three types of blogs are open access on the web and consequently share the same potential audience, still their diversification with reference to their (professional) background and the channel from which they write, be it institutional or not, leads to different linguistic choices in their news discourse.

CONCLUSION The shift from print to digital and from offline to online has reduced the distance between journalists and their recipients; as has been illustrated in my case study as well, nonprofessional writers can now act as newsmakers and news-disseminators, thus contributing to the shaping and sharing of news and perspective in their own way. Indeed, in this time of transition from a coherent industry of mainstream journalism to a highly varied range of practices, the ways in which the news message is produced and consumed have been substantially affected. Similarly, the blurring of the boundaries between professional and amateur journalism, between news and non-news spaces, between news reception and news production necessarily affects the study of discourse as well; the exploitation of diversified analytical

164

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

perspectives is certainly of help to appreciate news discourse in its current polychromatic, polyhedric, polyfunctional nature and maybe now, more than in the past, to fully grasp its nature, we need to interrogate news not only in its textual form but also – and mostly – in all of its contextual and sociocultural complexity.

KEY READINGS Bednarek, M. and Caple, H. ([2012] 2018), News Discourse, London: Bloomsbury Academic. Facchinetti R., N. Brownlees, B. Bös and U. Fries (2015), News as Changing Texts: Corpora, Methodologies and Analysis, 2nd edn, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Fairclough, N. (1995), Media Discourse, London: Edward Arnold. van Dijk, T. A. (1988), News as Discourse, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

REFERENCES Bednarek, M. and H. Caple (2017), The Discourse of News Values: How News Organizations Create ‘Newsworthiness’, New York: Oxford University Press. Biber, D. and J. Egbert (2018), Register Variation Online, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad and E. Finegan (1999), Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, London: Longman. Brook, J. (2012), The Role of Translation in the Production of International Print News. Three Case Studies in the Language Direction Spanish to English, PhD dissertation, Auckland: ResearchSpace. Brownlees, N. (2006), News Discourse in Early Modern Britain, Bern: Peter Lang. Catenaccio P., C. Cotter, M. De Smet, G. Garzone, G. Jacobs, F. Macgilchrist, L. Lams, D. Perrin, J. E. Richardson, T. Van Hout and E. Van Praet (2011), ‘Towards a Linguistics of News Production’, Journal of Pragmatics, 43 (7): 1843–52. Conboy, M. (2007), The Language of the News, New York: Routledge. Connell, I. (1998), ‘Mistaken Identities: Tabloid and Broadsheet News Discourse’, Javnost – The Public, 5 (3): 11–31. Cotter, C. (2010), News Talk: Investigating the Language of Journalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DeWerth-Pallmeyer, D. (1997), The Audience in the News, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Elewa, A. (2019), ‘A Critical Discourse Analysis of Ideological Translations of Arabic Quotations in English Language Newspapers’, Language and Intercultural Communication, 19 (5): 393–406. Facchinetti R. (2015), ‘News Writing from the 1960s to the Present Day’, in R. Facchinetti, N. Brownlees, B. Bös and U. Fries (eds), News as Changing Texts: Corpora, Methodologies and Analysis, 2nd edn, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 145–97. Fagerlin, A., T. S. Valley, A. M. Scherer, M. Knaus, E. Das and B. J. Zikmund-Fischer (2017), ‘Communicating Infectious Disease Prevalence through Graphics: Results from an International Survey’, Vaccine, 35 (32): 4041–7. Fowler, R. (1991), Language in the News: Discourse and Ideology in the Press, London; New York: Routledge. Isani, S. (2011), ‘Of Headlines & Headlinese: Towards Distinctive Linguistic and Pragmatic Genericity’, ASp, 60: 81–102.

NEWS DISCOURSE

165

Jacobs, G. H. Pander Maat, T. Van Hout (2008), ‘The Discourse of News Management’, special issue of Pragmatics, 18 (1): 1–8. Jiménez-Martínez, C. (2020), Media and the Image of the Nation during Brazil’s 2013 Protests, London: Palgrave. Jullian, P. M. (2011), ‘Appraising through Someone Else’s Words: The Evaluative Power of Quotations in News Reports’, Discourse & Society, 22 (6): 766–80. Knox, J. (2007), ‘Visual-Verbal Communication on Online Newspaper Home Pages’, Visual Communication, 6 (1): 19–53. Kolodzy, J. (2013), Practicing Convergence Journalism: An Introduction to Cross-media Storytelling, New York: Routledge. Machin, D. and L. Polzer (2015), Visual Journalism, London: Palgrave. Merminod, G. and M. Burger (2020), ‘Narrative of Vicarious Experience in Broadcast News: A Linguistic Ethnographic Approach to Semiotic Mediations in the Newsroom’, Journal of Pragmatics, 155: 240–60. Palander-Collin M., M. Ratia and I. Taavitsainen (eds) (2017), Diachronic Developments in English News Discourse, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Paíno Ambrosio, A. and M.I. Rodríguez Fidalgo (2019), ‘Proposal for a new communicative model in immersive journalism’. Journalism, 1–18 (online). Perrin, D. (2015), ‘Multimodal Writing in the Newsroom: Paradigmatic, Syntagmatic, and Navigational Variants’, in A. Archer and E. Breuer (eds), Studies in Writing: Vol. 30, Multimodality in Writing, Leiden: Brill, 117–35. Scollon, R. (1998), Mediated Discourse as Social Interaction: A Study of News Discourse, London: Routledge. Thurlow, C. and K. Mroczek (eds) (2011), Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tsai, C. and J. Kender (2017), ‘Detecting Culture-Specific Tags for News Videos through Multimodal Embedding’, Proceedings of the on Thematic Workshops of ACM Multimedia 2017, ACM, 68–74. Ungerer, F. (ed.) (2000), English Media Texts, Past and Present: Language and Textual Structure, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Valdeón, R. A. (2014), ‘From Adaptation to Appropriation: Framing the World through News Translation’, Linguaculture, 5 (1): 51–62. Van Hout T. (2015), ‘Balance Text and Social Practice: Balancing Linguistics and Ethnography in Journalism Studies’, in F. Copland, S. Shaw and J. Snell (eds), Linguistic Ethnography: Interdisciplinary Explorations, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 71–89. Welbers, K. and M. Opgenhaffen (2019), ‘Presenting News on Social Media’, Digital Journalism, 7 (1): 45–62. Wenzel, A. (2019), ‘Public Media and Marginalized Publics: Online and Offline Engagement Strategies and Local Storytelling Networks’, Journalism Practice, 13 (8): 906–10.

166

CHAPTER TWELVE

Discourse and intercultural communication CAROLIN DEBRAY AND HELEN SPENCER-OATEY

WHAT IS INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION? This chapter focuses on the analysis of discourse as it pertains to intercultural communication. It is important therefore to start by considering what counts as ‘intercultural’ communication. The word ‘intercultural’ literally means ‘between cultures’ and so that immediately brings us to a preliminary question – what is meant by culture. Definitions of culture have been proposed by numerous theorists from many different disciplinary backgrounds (e.g. anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics), resulting in a huge number of versions, most of which are contested by others. Within the discourse field, Scollon, Scollon and Jones (2012: 3) propose that culture can be seen as ‘a way of dividing people up into groups according to some feature of these people which helps us to understand something about them and how they are different from or similar to other people’. Here, as with most definitions, culture is linked with social groups; yet as these authors point out, this leads immediately to some fundamental problems, such as what criteria can be used to divide people into groups, and how far such categorization masks differences within each group. There are no straightforward answers to these questions, especially since everyone belongs to multiple types of social groups. Some authors (e.g. Bremer et al. 1996, Kecskes 2014) have used language as the key dividing criterion for intercultural communication, while others (e.g. Sarangi 1994b) have regarded this as too essentialist. Yet others have emphasized that the key is the perception of the interactants concerned, rather than a hard and fast discourse external criterion. For instance, Spencer-Oatey and Kádár (2021), drawing on work by Žegarac (2007) and Spencer-Oatey and Franklin (2009: 3), propose the following definition of ‘intercultural’: An intercultural situation is one in which the cultural distance between the participants is significant enough to have an effect on interaction/communication that is perceived in some way by at least one of the parties. We explore some of these conceptual challenges further in the next section. The notion of perception by one or more of the participants is an important element that we discuss further when considering intercultural discourse data. A key theme that runs throughout this chapter is the following question raised by Scollon et al. (2012: 2): ‘What good

168

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

does it do to see a given moment of communication as a given moment of intercultural communication?’ In other words, what insights and benefits can we gain by analysing discourse in this way? Before we can explore these issues, though, we first need to examine how culture can be theorized in relation to intercultural discourse.

THEORIZING CULTURE IN INTERCULTURAL DISCOURSE Attempts to theorize culture in intercultural discourse not only need to address the challenge of deciding what constitutes a cultural group, but also need to conceptualize what members of that cultural group have in common (and thus make it into a cultural group) and how those facets are manifested in (linguistic) behaviour. Traditionally in cross-cultural psychology and organizational behaviour, culture has been conceptualized in terms of dimensions of fundamental values, such as individualism– collectivism and high–low power distance (e.g. Hofstede 2001, Triandis 1994). Nations have been compared for their average scores on such dimensions, and behavioural differences explained in this way. However, there are many problems with such an approach, which some psychologists themselves have pointed out. For example, experts such as Shalom Schwartz (2011) have emphasized the importance of distinguishing values held at societal level from values held at the individual level, explaining that it is invalid to move between the two levels. In addition, recent research has drawn attention to the large amount of individual variation within national groups as well as across them, with the former sometimes being greater than the latter (Fischer and Schwartz 2011). As a result, current work in psychology is exploring how culture can be conceptualized in additional ways, including social norms (e.g. see the special issues edited by Zou and Leung (2015) and by Lefringhausen, Spencer-Oatey and Debray (2019)). This move towards norms brings us a little closer to a discourse approach to conceptualizing the role of culture. A key early figure working on this issue is John Gumperz. Gumperz (e.g. 1982, 1992) was particularly concerned about the ways in which ethnic minority workers were being discriminated against by managers and interviewers as a result of lack of shared awareness of patterns of interaction. The following extracts explain his approach: A general theory of discourse strategies must […] begin by specifying the linguistic and socio-cultural knowledge that needs to be shared if conversational involvement is to be maintained, and then go on to deal with what it is about the nature of conversational inference that makes for cultural, subcultural and situational specificity of interpretation. (Gumperz 1982: 3) I use the term ‘contextualization’ to refer to speakers’ and listeners’ use of verbal and non-verbal signs to relate what is said at any one time and in any one place to knowledge acquired through past experience, in order to retrieve the presuppositions they must rely on to maintain conversational involvement and assess what is intended. (Gumperz 1992: 230) As can be seen from these two quotations, Gumperz argues that shared linguistic and sociocultural knowledge is vital for successful interpretation during conversations. The implication of this is that if interlocutors do not have that shared knowledge, successful communication will be more difficult. Gumperz further maintains that the contextualization cues that interlocutors need to be able to jointly interpret cover features such as prosody (e.g. intonation and stress), paralinguistic signs (e.g. tempo,

DISCOURSE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

169

pausing and hesitation), code choice, choice of lexical forms, and use of formulaic expressions. Using this approach, he analysed discourse data involving migrant workers in a range of contexts and argued that they were being discriminated against as a result of misunderstandings that derived from a lack of shared awareness of the contextualization cues the dominant host interlocutors were using and expecting their listeners to be able to interpret. Gumperz’s work drew much-needed attention in the 1980s and 1990s to issues of workplace discrimination. However, Sarangi (1994a) criticizes Gumperz’s discourse approach from several angles, maintaining the following: 1. It avoids fundamental issues of (a) the power of the host interlocutors and (b) the existence of ‘institutional racism’. 2. It looks at linguistic evidence in an isolated way, excluding the wider discoursal context, and yet seeks to explain misunderstandings by referring to that wider context. 3. It pays insufficient attention to the impact of the type of communicative activity. 4. It ignores the discoursal choices that individuals can and do make, and the coconstructed nature of misunderstandings. A much more comprehensive theorization of culture in intercultural discourse has been proposed by Scollon et al. (2012). They explain their overall position as follows: Most cross-cultural research takes as its unit of analysis cultural systems of meaning or behaving or thinking, and these systems are also important in our approach. But they are only important insofar as they affect how people do things with other people. Thus, our unit of analysis will not be just systems of culture by themselves nor just the individual person by herself or himself, but rather ‘people doing things’ using these systems of culture. (Scollon et al. 2012: 5) They go on to argue that people ‘do things’ with sets of cultural tools, which include not only physical things like clothes or chopsticks, but also abstract phenomena like language, conventional ways of treating people, social institutions and structures, and concepts such as freedom and justice. They use the term ‘discourse system’ to refer to this ‘cultural toolkit’ and maintain that it has four main elements: 1. Ideologies or systems of thinking that comprise assumptions about what is true or false, good or bad, right or wrong, and normal or abnormal. 2. Conventional ways of treating other people that are affected by factors such as power, face systems (involvement and independence), concept of the self and ingroup–outgroup relationships. 3. Forms of discourse, such as cognitive schemas and scripts, intonation and timing, inductive and deductive organizational patterns. 4. Method of learning of the discourse system, such as through education, socialization, enculturation and acculturation. Scollon et al. (2012) apply their discourse system approach to corporate and professional discourse, generational discourse, and gender and sexuality discourse, although somewhat surprisingly their explication of the four elements of their discourse system uses primarily cross-national examples. The authors maintain that their discourse system approach

170

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

reduces the risk of inappropriately regarding culture as having a deterministic impact. However, they also acknowledge that there can still be a ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality. This is because members of a particular discourse system become comfortable interacting with each other and feel a sense of solidarity and security, and this then can lead to a boundary with non-members, leading to ingroup–outgroup orientations. Another comprehensive theorization of culture in intercultural discourse has been put forward by Spencer-Oatey and Kádár (2021). They argue that cultural meaning systems ‘frame’ interlocuters’ perceptions and performance of behavioural encounters. These cultural meaning systems derive primarily from membership of multiple social groups (and the associated formal and informal socialization) and comprise the following: 1. Cultural group identities and intergroup orientations a. Ingroup–outgroup, Insider–outsider 2. Cultural patterning a. Cultural norms (interactional norms and interpersonal norms) b. Cultural schemas (conceptualizations of situational contexts, such as communicative activities and role responsibilities) c. Cultural perspectives (values and attitudes) There are many links between this framework and that of Scollon et al. (2012). The method of learning is not included in Spencer-Oatey and Kádár’s conceptualization because they did not take a developmental approach. On the other hand, they apply their framework much more extensively and in greater detail to actual examples of discourse, both brief and extended. In the next section we identify studies that have explored the various ways in which culture can impact on interactional discourse, and consider how the concepts and frameworks discussed in this section can be applied analytically.

THE IMPACT OF CULTURE IN INTERCULTURAL INTERACTION Research on intercultural discourse is wide-ranging, covering inter alia interactions in social and institutional settings, across different language proficiencies, and from a small number of interlocutors to large-scale societal discourses, for example, in the areas of intercultural politics or crisis communication (e.g. Diers-Lawson 2017, Falkheimer and Heide 2006), and also across social media groups (Smith Pfister and Soliz 2011, Sobré-Denton 2016). Covering this variety of settings, activity types and participants, it has resulted in very different – sometimes contradictory – insights into the way culture can impact on interactions. Much research has investigated misunderstandings, but there are also important implications for interpersonal relationships, discrimination and personal growth. These four areas of enquiry are by no means separate issues but are in fact tightly interwoven as we will show in the following sections.

Misunderstandings and miscommunication Research on intercultural communication has traditionally focused significantly on misunderstandings, in that intercultural communication has often been seen as

DISCOURSE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

171

inherently more vulnerable to misunderstandings and miscommunication due to the assumption that interlocutors share less common ground than in intracultural communication (Kecskes 2014). This perspective has, however, been criticized by many. Sarangi (1994b), for example, has demonstrated that misunderstanding is often not the ‘fault’ of the ‘outsider’, which is a deficit orientation, but rather is co-constructed by all the interlocutors. Furthermore, recent research has increasingly questioned whether misunderstandings are as prevalent in intercultural communication as originally thought (Kaur 2016, Mauranen 2006, Meierkord 2002). Many researchers have pointed to a generally positive and collaborative spirit in intercultural interactions, particularly in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) interactions (Kecskes 2014, Meierkord 2002). Here, interlocutors were found to use a number of supportive strategies to promote understanding. In light of these strategies, Mustajoki (2017) even concludes that intercultural interactions are actually less prone to misunderstandings than interactions with very familiar others. This has prompted a research shift, with attention less directed at the failure of intercultural interactions, and more on the successful ways with which understanding is achieved (e.g. Bührig and ten Thije 2006). Table 12.1, which combines insights from Bremer et al. (1996), Firth (1996) and our own thinking, provides an overview of some of the strategies to promote successful communication that have been found to characterize much intercultural discourse, especially ELF discourse. At the same time, it appears that many of these more positive findings are made in research on interactions where participants may have self-selected to engage with linguistic and cultural others. The picture looks slightly different if we look to intercultural communication in institutional settings, such as studies from workplaces (Clyne 1994, Günthner 2008), education (Haugh 2016, Lin 2017, Tyler 1995), job interviews (Birkner and Kern 2008, Campbell and Roberts 2007, ReissnerRoubicek 2012), health care encounters (Dalby Landmark et al. 2017; Pilnick and Zayts 2019, Roberts et al. 2005) or interviews with asylum seekers (Grazia Guido 2004) where problematic incidents seem more frequent. Coupland, Wiemann and Giles (1991) provide a very helpful multilevel model for analysing the source of the misunderstanding that interlocutors attribute it to, for example, presumed personal

TABLE 12.1  Strategies for mutual understanding.

Problem-preventive Strategies Type of strategy

Focus

Example

Linguistic strategies

Phonetics & phonology

Speak more slowly, more clearly, with more pauses, etc.

Lexis

Choose easier vocabulary, avoid slang, etc.

Grammar

Use shorter sentences

Topic choice

Choose easier topics

Structuring

Use discourse markers, e.g. firstly, secondly

Explicitness

Explain things fully and directly

Discourse/pragmatic strategies

172

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Problem-focused strategies Type of strategy

Strategy

Gloss with example

Own performance problem-related strategies

Comprehension check

Ask questions to check that the other person can understand; e.g. Do you follow what I mean?

Other performance problem-related strategies

Repetition request

Ask for repetition of something not heard or understood properly; e.g. Pardon?

Clarification request

Ask for further explanation of something that is not clear, e.g. What do you mean by … ?

Confirmation check

Ask for confirmation that one has heard or understood something correctly, e.g. Do you mean … ?

Let it pass

Ignore the problem.

deficiencies or cultural differences in norms. Others (e.g. Kasper 1992, Žegarac and Pennington 2008) have analysed the impact of an infelicitous pragmatic transfer of a discourse strategy that is either wholly inappropriate or evaluated less positively than is likely intended by the speaker.

Interpersonal relations A number of the studies reported above commented not only on ‘message misunderstandings’ but also on the negative impact they had on interlocutor relations. For instance, in Tyler’s (1995) study, an American student became extremely angry with a Korean teaching assistant, although much of it stemmed from an initial language interpretation problem (see the discussion in Žegarac and Pennington 2008). Sometimes it is not so much language code issues that underlie the problem as different normative expectations over ‘acceptable behaviour’, for instance, what counts as ‘suitable’ phatic talk in workplaces (Béal 1992) or in initial informal encounters (Günthner 2008). In these cases, the interlocutors held differing norms as to how communication in these contexts ‘should’ or ‘should not’ take place (see Spencer-Oatey and Kádár (2021) for an in-depth discussion). Attitudes towards others can also play a significant role (e.g. Lindemann 2002). We would not, however, want to attribute the whole explanation to differing normative patterns and interpersonal attitudes. Intercultural encounters are not isolated interactions but are embedded in larger political, social and economic discourses, and these also frame interlocutor perception and evaluation. Holmes (2018: 33) explains this as follows: In many, perhaps all, societies the relative social status of different social and cultural groups results in hegemonic relationships or an ‘order’ manifested as sets of takenfor-granted unmarked societal norms which influence behavior, including linguistic behavior.

DISCOURSE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

173

Holmes further suggests that most frequently these ‘culture orders’ are dominated by the cultural norms of the majority group and are usually only felt by the minority group members, who are required to adjust their behaviour to the dominant culture order. Holmes draws on interactions in Māori workplaces, making the different possibilities of norms visible that otherwise are taken for granted. Intercultural exchanges and relations are therefore often constructed on uneven ground and include subtle power differences between interlocutors and in whose interactional norms are treated as more valid and appropriate in a given context.

Prejudice and discrimination One criticism of the focus on misunderstandings is that benign claims of misunderstanding or an inability to communicate may in fact mask uglier issues such as prejudices. The early work by researchers such as Gumperz (1982) and Roberts, Davies and Jupp (1992) demonstrated this clearly. It can also be seen in discursive phenomena such as hate (Assimakopoulos, Baider and Millar 2017) and linguistic aggression (Mugford 2018), as well as in so-called micro-aggressions that minorities can be confronted with. In a study on subtle discrimination in the workplace, Van Laer and Janssens (2012) report on seemingly innocent questions that migrant employees were regularly confronted with that were not designed to get to know them as an individual, but to confirm preexisting stereotypes and to expose cultural differences and to reduce the individual to only some aspects of their cultural identities. A number of studies (Debray and Spencer-Oatey 2019, Piekkari et al. 2015, RogersonRevell 2008) have shown how turn-taking practices can result in the sidelining of participants, with the result that they are not able to contribute fully to discussions and decisions. Similarly, Tenzer, Pudelko and Harzing (2014), in a study of intercultural teams in the German automobile industry, found that language competence was strongly conflated with technical competence. However, not only was trust in technical issues affected, but so was the ascription of personal integrity. Insecurity of having to switch languages in meetings also resulted in avoidance and discriminatory behaviour, as nonGerman-speaking employees were not invited to important meetings, and less-proficient members self-excluded from attending meetings where they may be forced to speak their L2. Inadvertent discrimination can also take place when infelicitous pragmatic transfers affect gatekeeping judgements (Birkner and Kern, 2008, Grazia Guido 2004). It should be noted that many of these examples could not be explained without the prevalence of monolingual ideologies that underpin the culture order in the contexts they occur in. This together with discursive mismatches and stereotypes result in the marginalization and discrimination of interlocutors perceived as culturally different.

Intercultural learning and growth Research in fields such as international business has identified many positives from intercultural interaction (DiStefano and Maznevski 2000; Tjosvold, Wong and Chen, 2014); yet despite the concern that too many intercultural studies have focused on the negative, there has been little intercultural discourse research into the positives of intercultural learning and growth. While there are occasional exceptions (e.g. Grieve 2010), there is a clear need for more research in this area. We follow up on this at the end of the chapter.

174

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

A SAMPLE STUDY We will now turn to some data examples to explore some of the features described as characterizing intercultural discourse and to return to some of the questions we raised in the beginning. The following excerpts stem from a longitudinal study on interactions in an MBA student team and both are taken from breaks during team meetings. The team was assembled by course coordinators in an attempt to make it as diverse as possible – a fact not lost to the team and the source of some jokes. Within the encounters of this team, we find many of the features we have discussed above: the creation of intercultural friendships, intercultural learning and growth, but also the darker sides including marginalization, stereotyping and even discrimination – sometimes between the same two interlocutors. What type of interactions and relationships are constructed and foregrounded in specific situations is therefore highly variant and depends on the context and the activity members are engaged in. Excerpt 1 occurs after reference was made to a female lecturer being attractive. Bruno ends the sequence by sharing a German proverb which roughly means that it is okay to look admiringly at other people but that you can only engage in sexual activity with your partner. Excerpt 1 1

Bruno:

in German there is a way to say (.) In Germany/in Germany we say you can get hungry outside the house but eaten you do at home

2

David:

Hhhhhh

3

Bruno:

this is very subtle

4

Akshya:

what what what? Say that again

5

Bruno:

you can get hungry outside the house but eat do it in house

6

Jay:

£BUT/what if you’re REALLY hungry?£=

7

Bev:

8

Akshya:

eaten?

9

Bruno:

eaten yeah (.) you can get hungry

10

Akshya:

hungry okay/but you eat at home okay

11

Bruno:

you eat at home yeah exactly

12

Jay:

yeah you might wanna munch or nibble or something

=yeah?

Bruno jocularly introduces a German proverb into the conversation. This is clearly appreciated by the other team participants and constitutes the basis of laughter and some further jokes. Bruno’s translation of the German proverb into English is grammatically incorrect, but – apart from Akshya, who seems to actually struggle to understand – no one picks up on that and most team members, all of them highly proficient English speakers, seem to apply the ‘let it pass’-principle (see Table 12.1). Akshya herself asks first for a repetition of the utterance (line 4) and then repeats the meaning back to Bruno in line 10 providing the correct verb form. In this she now explicitly indicates understanding by repeating ‘okay’ twice, which also functions to structure the different components of the utterance. Bruno picks up the right verb form and repeats it back to her in line 11, confirming that this is the right interpretation.

DISCOURSE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

175

The conversation is in general quite collaborative, with team members joking and supporting each other in achieving understanding and in the completion of their jokes (e.g. line 7). Jay in particular spins the humour further by continuing to draw on the underlying metaphor of ‘eating is having sex’. While team members come from three different continents, speak very different first languages and have had very different life experiences, including in countries that are much more conservative in regard to sexual innuendos than in the UK (where the team is located), all of them seem to grasp the underlying metaphor easily and can find humour in the utterance, while being slightly transgressive together, which fuels good relationships (Coupland and Jaworski 2003). While all this is jocular and light-hearted, cultural knowledge and values are exchanged and negotiated here quite explicitly, especially by Bruno who introduces the ‘German’ take on having or not having an affair. This also constitutes clear boundary marking in regard to acceptable behaviour and social norms within the team. In Excerpt 2 team members similarly are taking a break from their meeting in their team room. All six team members are present, but only three participate in this interaction. Jay is sitting next to the plate with biscuits and is asked by David to pass him one. Excerpt 2 1

David:

can you chuck me a Bourbon please?

2

Jay:

hm?

3

David:

could you chuck me a Bourbon biscuit please [[slightly funny pronunciation]]

4

Jay:

mhm

5

David:

Bourbon [[funny pronunciation]]

6

Jay:

[[chewing]] which one/Bourbon/the chocolate or the

7

David:

chocolate biscuit (.) [[funny pronunciation]] the one that says Bourbon at the top (.) for future reference

8

Akshya:

hhh

9

Jay:

yeah?

10

David:

they say Bourbon:on

11

Jay:

yeah I know that.

12

Akshya:

Bourbonon?

13

David:

but you just ask which one was a Bourbon biscuit

14

Jay:

no no I asked which Bourbon the chocolate or the the white one (.) Cause there are two different

15

David:

OH SORRYY I misunderstood

16

Jay:

cause I love Bourbons

17

Akshya:

yeah we get them in India

The interaction again starts quite humorously with David joking – mostly to himself – about the pronunciation of ‘bourbon biscuit’; however, it unfolds very differently to Excerpt 1. Miscommunication occurs after Jay’s question in line 6, which David interprets erroneously as indicating Jay’s lack of knowledge of the nature of the required biscuit. If we take this as ‘lack of world knowledge’ as it is often called in research on misunderstandings,

176

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

we could argue that culture was not in fact playing any role in the exchange and that this could equally happen in intracultural interaction. Even if we judge David’s joke in line 7 that the name is written at the top as slightly patronizing and wonder at the forcefulness of his response, and at the passion with which Jay declares his love for Bourbon biscuits, but still continue to treat it as an everyday miscommunication that could happen anywhere. We would argue, however, that throughout the interaction, a ‘culture order’ aids in positioning the participants at unequal footings throughout and privileges David, the white L1 speaker in the team, who alone is native to the teams location base, the UK. His language jokes on the pronunciation of ‘Bourbon biscuits’ would be interpreted differently by anyone who did not ‘own’ the language, neither could his explanation in line 7 be given by someone who does not fully ‘own’ and embody the culture. Akshya’s comment in line 17 functions to make this visible by making their different national backgrounds explicit. Her utterance ‘we get them in India’ suggests that she perceives a subtext to be present, one in which David’s misunderstanding of Jay’s question is not accidental but is driven by his assumptions about Jay’s national cultural identity. Culture is rarely discussed explicitly in the team, nor are cultural stereotypes. In many interactions, culture may appear invisible to the point that a focus on the team as an intercultural team may appear as an analyst’s imposition on the data – yet the sheer amount of data we have viewed from this one team reveals that the culture order, in the form of cultural assumptions, appear at many different points and impact the exchanges and relationships overall. Certain forms of marginalization and privilege in the team (Debray 2020, Debray and Spencer-Oatey 2019) would simply be impossible to explain without monolingual ideologies of speaking and without cultural stereotypes fuelling evaluations of each other as people and of each other’s competence. At the same time, as we could see in Excerpt 1 much of the interactions were also very positive, including many possibilities for building friendships and for fostering mutual learning.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS IN INTERCULTURAL DISCOURSE RESEARCH Much previous work has pointed to the crucial real-world implications that research in intercultural discourse can have for social justice and fair and equal societies. Yet, it appears that after some very crucial studies in the 1980s and 1990s, debates about the definition of culture, and of how culture can be located in interactions, have diminished the attractiveness of this topic for many discourse scholars. Current debates on intercultural communication are dominated by scholars from psychology, business studies, foreign language teaching and pragmatics. Given the fascinating insights discourse studies have yielded, we want to urge scholars to engage in more research on intercultural communication. The different studies presented here have all used creative methodologies, including attitude tests, longitudinal data and post-event interviews to deal with ‘the problem’ of culture and research has pointed to the fact that even the perception of cultural differences has huge impacts on interactions. A particularly under-researched area is intercultural learning and growth. We are aware that investigating this is by no means a simple endeavour: such a focus requires a longitudinal approach; yet, this can also address the challenge of demonstrating ‘culture’ in a single discourse segment, as we have shown with the excerpts from our study. Given that intercultural communication has become a routine, everyday phenomenon, additional expertise on how to navigate stereotypes and discrimination, and how to improve relations and make personal adjustments are urgently necessary.

DISCOURSE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

177

TRANSCRIPTION KEY Symbol

Meaning

/

Intonation unit boundary

?

Rising intonation

:

Lengthened sound

(.)

Short pause, below one second

=

Unit of pause follows another with no discernible interval

CAPS

Louder voice

____

Word emphasised

hh

Laughter

££

Laughing voice

[[]]

Description of additional features

KEY READINGS Debray, C. and H. Spencer-Oatey (2019), ‘“On the Same Page?” Marginalisation and Positioning Practices in Intercultural Teams’, Journal of Pragmatics, 144: 15–28. Holmes, J. (2018), ‘Negotiating the Cultural Order in New Zealand Workplaces’, Language in Society, 47 (1): 33–56. Scollon, R., S. W. Scollon and R. H. Jones (2012), Intercultural Communication. A Discourse Approach, 3rd edn, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Sarangi, S. (1994b), ‘Intercultural or Not? Beyond Celebration of Cultural Differences in Miscommunication Analysis’, Pragmatics, 4 (3): 409–427. Spencer-Oatey, H. and D. Z. Kádár (2021), Intercultural Politeness: Managing Relations across Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

REFERENCES Assimakopoulos, S., F. H. Baider and S. Millar (eds) (2017), Online Hate Speech in the European Union: A Discourse-analytic Perspective, Berlin: Springer. Béal, C. (1992), ‘Did You Have a Good Week-end? or Why There Is No Such Thing as a Simple Question in Cross-cultural Encounters’, Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15 (2): 23–52. Birkner, K. and F. Kern (2008), ‘Impression Management in “Intercultural” German Job Interviews’, in H. Spencer-Oatey (ed.), Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 241–57, London: Continuum. Bremer, K., C. Roberts, T. Vasseur, M. Simonot and P. Broeder (1996), Achieving Understanding. Discourse in Intercultural Encounters, London: Longman. Bührig, K. and J. D. Ten Thije (eds) (2006), Beyond Misunderstanding, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Campbell, S. and C. Roberts (2007), ‘Migration, Ethnicity and Competing Discourses in the Job Interview: Synthesizing the Institutional and the Personal’, Discourse and Society, 18 (3): 243–71. Clyne, M. (1994), Intercultural Communication at Work, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

178

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Coupland, N., J. M. Wiemann and H. Giles (1991), ‘Talk as “Problem” and Communication as “Miscommunication”: An Integrative Analysis’, in N. Coupland, H. Giles and J. M. Wiemann (eds), ‘Miscommunication’ and Problematic Talk, 1–17, Newbury Park: Sage. Coupland, J and A. Jaworski (2003), ‘Transgression and Intimacy in Recreational Talk Narratives’, Research on Language & Social Interaction, 36 (10): 85–106. Dalby Landmark, A. M., J. Svennevig, J. Gerwing and P. Guldbranden (2017), ‘Patient Involvement and Language Barriers: Problems of Agreement or Understanding?’, Patient Education and Counseling, 100 (7): 1092–102. Debray, C. (2020), ‘Dealing with “The Elephant in the Room”: Managing Rapport amidst Interpersonal Conflict in Work Teams’, in D. Archer, K. Grainger and P. Jagodziński (eds), Politeness in Professional Contexts, 129–50, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Debray, C. and H. Spencer-Oatey (2019), ‘“On the Same Page?” Marginalisation and Positioning Practices in Intercultural Teams’, Journal of Pragmatics, 144: 15–28. Diers-Lawson, A. (2017), ‘A State of Emergency in Crisis Communication: An Intercultural Crisis Communication Research Agenda’, Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 46 (1): 1–54. DiStefano, J. and M. Maznevski (2000), ‘Creating Value with Diverse Teams in Global Management’, Organizational Dynamics, 29 (1): 45–63. Falkheimer, J. and M. Heide (2006), ‘Multicultural Crisis Communication: Towards a Social Constructionist Perspective’, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 14 (4): 180–9. Firth, A. (1996), ‘The Discursive Accomplishment of Normality: On “Lingua Franca” English and Conversation Analysis’, Journal of Pragmatics, 26: 237–59. Fischer, R. and S. H. Schwartz (2011), ‘Whence Differences in Value Priorities? Individual, Cultural, or Artifactual Sources’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42 (7): 1127–44. Grazia Guido, M. (2004), ‘Cross-cultural Miscommunication in Welfare Officers’ Interrogations’, in C. N. Candlin and M. Gotti (eds), Intercultural Aspects of Specialized Communication, 127–45, Bern: Peter Lang. Grieve, A. (2010), ‘“Aber ganz ehrlich”: Differences in Episodic Structure, Apologies and Truth-orientation in German and Australian Workplace Telephone Discourse’, Journal of Pragmatics, 42: 190–219. Gumperz, J. (1982), Discourse Strategies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gumperz, J. (1992), ‘Contextualization and Understanding’, in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds), Rethinking Context. Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, 229–52, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Günthner, S. (2008), ‘Negotiating Rapport in German-Chinese Conversation’, in H. SpencerOatey (ed.), Culturally Speaking. Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 207–26, London: Continuum. Haugh, M. (2016), ‘Complaints and Troubles Talk about the English Language Skills of International Students in Australian Universities’, Higher Education Research & Development, 35 (4): 272–740. Hofstede, G. (2001), Culture’s Consequences: Comparing Values, Behaviors, Institutions, and Organizations across Nations, 2nd edn, London: Sage. Holmes, J. (2018), ‘Negotiating the Cultural Order in New Zealand Workplaces’, Language in Society, 47 (1): 33–56. Kasper, G. (1992), ‘Pragmatic Transfer’, Second Language Research, 8 (3): 203–31. Kaur, J. (2016), ‘Intercultural Communication in English as a Lingua Franca: Some Sources of Misunderstanding’, in P. Holmes and F. Dervin (eds), The Cultural and Intercultural Dimensions of English as a Lingua Franca, 93–116, Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

DISCOURSE AND INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

179

Kecskes, I. (2014), Intercultural Pragmatics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lefringhausen, K., H. Spencer-Oatey and C. Debray (2019), ‘Culture, Norms and the Assessment of Communication Contexts: Multidisciplinary Perspectives’, Journal of CrossCultural Psychology, 50 (10): 1098–111. Lin, S. (2017), ‘To Speak or Not to Speak in the New Taiwanese University: Class Participation and Identity Construction in Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Graduate Classrooms’, Language and Intercultural Communication, 18 (2): 184–203. Lindemann, S. (2002), ‘Listening with an Attitude: A Model of Native-speaker Comprehension of Non-native Speakers in the United States’, Language in Society, 31 (3): 419–41. Mauranen, A. (2006), ‘Signaling and Preventing Misunderstanding in English as Lingua Franca Communication’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 177: 123–50. Meierkord, C. (2002), ‘“Language Stripped Bare” or “Linguistic Masala”? Culture in Lingua Franca Conversation’, in K. Knapp and C. Meierkord (eds), Lingua Franca Communication, 109–33, Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Mugford, G. (2018), ‘Critical Intercultural Impoliteness: “Where are You Located? Can You Please Transfer Me to Someone Who is American?”’, Journal of Pragmatics, 134: 173–82. Mustajoki, A. (2017), ‘Why Is Miscommunication More Common in Everyday Life than in Lingua Franca Conversation?’, in I. Kecskes (ed.), Current Issues in Intercultural Pragmatics, 55–74, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Piekkari, R., L. Oxelheim and T. Randøy (2015), ‘The Silent Board: How Language Diversity May Influence the Work Processes of Corporate Boards’, Corporate Governance: An International Review, 23 (1): 25–41. Pilnick, A. and O. Zayts (2019), ‘The Power of Suggestion: Examining the Impact of Presence or Absence of Shared First Language in the Antenatal Clinic’, Sociology of Health & Illness, 41 (6): 1120–37. Reissner-Roubicek, S. (2012), ‘“The Guys Would Like to Have a Lady”: The Co-construction of Gender and Professional Identity in Interviews between Employers and Female Engineering Students’, Pragmatics. Special Issue: The Interplay Between Professional Identities and Age, Gender and Ethnicity, 22 (2): 231–54. Roberts, C., E. Davies and T. Jupp (1992), Language and Discrimination. London: Longman. Roberts, C., B. Moss, V. Wass, S. Sarangi and R. Jones (2005), ‘Misunderstandings: A Qualitative Study of Primary Care Consultations in Multilingual Settings, and Educational Implications’, Medical Education, 39: 465–75. Rogerson-Revell, P. (2008), ‘Participation and Performance in International Business Meetings’, English for Specific Purposes, 27: 338–60. Sarangi, S. (1994a), ‘Accounting for Mismatches in Intercultural Selection Interviews’, Multilingua, 13 (1/2): 163–94. Sarangi, S. (1994b), ‘Intercultural or Not? Beyond Celebration of Cultural Differences in Miscommunication Analysis’, Pragmatics, 4 (3): 409–27. Schwartz, S. H. (2011), ‘Values: Cultural and Individual’, in F. J. R. Van de Vijver, A. Chasiotis and S. M. Breugelmans (eds), Fundamental Questions in Cross-Cultural Psychology, 463–93, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scollon, R., S. W. Scollon and R. H. Jones (2012), Intercultural Communication. A Discourse Approach, 3rd edn, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Smith Pfister, D. and J. Soliz (2011), ‘(Re) conceptualizing Intercultural Communication in a Networked Society’, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 4 (4): 246–51.

180

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Sobré-Denton, M. (2016), ‘Virtual Intercultural Bridgework: Social Media, Virtual Cosmopolitanism, and Activist Community-building’, New Media and Society, 18 (8): 1715–31. Spencer-Oatey, H. and P. Franklin (2009), Intercultural Interaction. A Multidisciplinary Approach to Intercultural Communication, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Spencer-Oatey, H. and D. Z. Kádár (2021), Intercultural Politeness: Managing Relations across Cultures, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tenzer, H., M. Pudelko and A.-W. Harzing (2014), ‘The Impact of Language Barriers on Trust Formation in Multinational Teams’, Journal of International Business Studies, 45: 508–35. Tjosvold, D., A. S. H. Wong and N. Y. F. C. Chen (2014), ‘Constructively Managing Conflicts in Organizations’, Annual Review or Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1: 545–68. Triandis, H. C. (1994), Culture and Social Behavior, New York: McGraw Hill. Tyler, A. (1995), ‘The Coconstruction of Cross-cultural Miscommunication’, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 17 (2): 129–52. Van Laer, K. and M. Janssens (2012), ‘Ethnic Minority Professionals’ Experiences with Subtle Discrimination in the Workplace’, Human Relations, 64 (9): 1203–27. Žegarac, V. (2007), ‘A Cognitive Pragmatic Perspective on Communication and Culture’, in H. Kotthoff and H. Spencer-Oatey (eds), Handbook of Intercultural Communication, 31–53, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Žegarac, V. and M. C. Pennington (2008), ‘Pragmatic Transfer’, in H. Spencer-Oatey (ed.), Culturally Speaking. Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, 141–63, London: Continuum. Zou, X. and A. K.-Y. Leung (2015), ‘Enriching Cultural Psychology with Research Insights on Norms and Intersubjective Representations’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 46 (10): 1238–44.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Discourse and gender PAUL BAKER

INTRODUCTION Robin Lakoff’s 1975 book Language and Women’s Place perhaps marks the start of a coherent field of language and gender research, although earlier, more isolated tracts like Jespersen’s (1922) chapter on ‘The Woman’ are sometimes used as shockinghilarious examples of conceived wisdom of the time, a sexist view of women’s language use as deficient to men’s. Lakoff’s central argument, based mainly on observations of her own peer group, was that men use language to dominate women. Her research could be criticized for making over-generalizations but can be credited for inspiring others to carry out further investigations, seeking to confirm, discredit or improve on her views. A later position advocated by popular self-help writer and interactional sociolinguist Deborah Tannen (1990), that men and women use language differently (whether due to socialization or other reasons), avoided accusing men of being bullies and women of being victims, but fell open to criticisms of an apolitical perspective. However, all three positions, deficit, dominance and difference, are founded on the same over-generalizing principle – that males and females are different from each other. These approaches have tended to focus the area of language and gender around questions about usage (e.g. do men say word ‘x’ more than women) or about changing language to make it less sexist (see Kramer et al. 1978: 638). The very nature of such questions forces one to think in terms of differences and large binary categories that are made to appear fixed. Since the 1990s, a position which takes into account diversity considers how particular women and men use language in specific settings, and the complex ways that gender interacts with other identity categories (Eckert and McConnnell-Ginet 1992) have arisen. Such an approach has helped to formulate an alternative set of research questions, which focus more on how language use helps to create, reflect and challenge discourses around gender. It could be argued that discourse has been the most influential concept in the area of language and gender in the past thirty years, altering the field beyond recognition from its beginnings in the 1970s. This chapter begins by outlining the ways that discourse has permeated language and gender research, giving an overview of recent research. It then moves on to give a sample study, based around analysing discourses surrounding the concept of the ‘cougar’, an identity category that has been used to describe women who have younger male partners.

182

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Finally, the chapter briefly addresses potential ways that the focus on discourse could help to develop the field of language and gender.

THE TURN TO DISCOURSE As mentioned above, studies which have discourse as a central concept have become extremely popular in the field of language and gender over the past thirty years. As Gill (1993: 166) describes, language became a central concern across the social sciences due to the ‘influence of post-structuralist ideas which stressed the thoroughly discursive, textual nature of social life’. Cameron (1998: 947) notes that in fact, this ‘linguistic’ turn was mainly a turn to discourse analysis. An illustration of the ‘turn’ can be demonstrated from an analysis of the 193 academic papers published in issues 1–13 (between 2007 and 2019) of the journal Gender and Language. One hundred and seventy-five (90.6 per cent) of these papers mention the word discourse or its plural (not including examples in the references section of the articles). For those papers which did refer to discourse(s), the average number of citations across them was twenty-four mentions of the word per paper. Cameron (1998: 947) notes, however, that ‘the popularity of this approach has produced competing varieties of feminist discourse analysis, based on what seem at times to be incommensurable assumptions and definitions of the term discourse’. The book Gender and Language Research Methodologies (Harrington et al. 2008) showcases some of the approaches in the field. Of its seven sections, three directly appear to address discourse: discursive psychology (DP), critical discourse analysis (CDA) and feminist poststructuralist discourse analysis (FPDA). However, orientation to the discourse approach is present in the other sections of the book. For example, in my chapter on corpus linguistics approaches, I show how large reference corpora can be exploited in order to uncover gendered discourses surrounding the terms bachelor and spinster (Baker 2008a), while Leap’s (2008) chapter in the section on queer theory analyses different discursive constructions of gay masculinity and Mullany’s (2008) chapter which takes an ethnographic, sociolinguistic approach examines manager’s discourse in workplace settings. The above paragraph should help to demonstrate the different conceptualizations of discourse which Cameron refers to. Some gender and language studies have used discourse in a mainly neutral, descriptive way which approximates terms like genre, register or text type (see Gray and Biber this volume; Martin this volume; Tardy this volume). For example, Aijón Oliva and Serrano (2016: 241) write of ‘women’s discourse’ while Cashman and Raymond (2014: 313) refer to ‘broadcast discourse’. The former suggests that what is under study is the language (use and practices) of women, whereas the latter could mean language use occurring in the domain of broadcasting. However, Besnier (2007: 73) writes of ‘homophobic discourse’ inspired by American fundamentalist Christian organizations. Here we are still dealing with a type of language, but an explicit, critical judgement is made, and the implication is that we are not merely considering homophobic language in terms of words like ‘faggot’, but also the production of ‘meanings, metaphors, representations, images, stories, statements and so on that in some way together produce a particular version of events’ (Burr 1995: 48). Such language use may not actually involve any pejorative terms and still count as ‘homophobic discourse’. More ambiguously, Zimman (2009: 75) refers to ‘coming out discourse’, which could indicate both the language and practices that occur when someone ‘comes out’ (discloses their sexuality), or the language and practices that surround the topic of coming out.

DISCOURSE AND GENDER

183

DISCOURSE-BASED APPROACHES IN GENDER AND LANGUAGE RESEARCH One of the ways that discourse tends to be referred to most frequently in current writing in the field is via the term ‘gendered discourse’. This is sometimes, but not always, linked to Jane Sunderland’s (2004) approach which is focused on identifying gendered discourses via traces in language use: People do not… recognise a discourse… in any straightforward way… Not only is it not identified or named, and is not self-evident or visible as a discrete chunk of a given text, it can never be ‘there’ in its entirety. What is there are certain linguistic features: ‘marks on a page’, words spoken or even people’s memories of previous conversations… which – if sufficient and coherent – may suggest that they are ‘traces’ of a particular discourse. (Sunderland 2004: 28) Sunderland’s approach moves discourse away from genres of language use, instead focusing on the concept of discourse as ways of representing the world. Such discourses, when identified, are named (although the naming is at the discretion of the namer and, as such, is a highly subjective process). For example, Sunderland (2004: 50) lists specific discourses such as ‘permissive discourse’, ‘equal opportunities discourse’ and ‘God’s will discourse’, noting also that discourses can be categorized in terms of their function, such as conservative, resistant, subversive or damaging. Another central facet of Sunderland’s approach is in identifying relationships between discourses, for example, pointing out that two discourses may be competing or mutually supportive or one may be dominant and the other subordinate. This relational aspect of discourse is one of the central concepts of Sunderland’s approach, helping to explain why people can appear to be inconsistent in their positions (they may be drawing on conflicting discourses). Related to Sunderland’s approach is FCDA (Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis), essentially a linking together of CDA and feminist linguistics, which is used perhaps more explicitly to critique ‘discourses which sustain a patriarchal social order: that is, relations of power that systematically privilege men as a social group and disadvantage, exclude and disempower women as a social group’ (Lazar 2005: 5). FCDA is thus concerned with taking the analytical tools developed in CDA in order to critique the ways that language use sustains unequal gender relations, for the purposes of emancipation and transformation. While FCDA also has the remit of showing how taken-for-granted assumptions around gender can be negotiated and contested as well as (re)produced, a third approach, offered by Judith Baxter, puts negotiation at its centre. Baxter’s FPDA ‘suggests that females always adopt multiple subject positions, and that it is far too reductive to constitute women in general, or indeed any individual woman, simply as victims of male oppression’ (Baxter 2003: 10). Instead, FPDA involves close, qualitative analyses of texts (often detailed transcripts of conversations) to show how participants (particularly those who may be conceived of as relatively powerless) can experience ‘moments of power’, whereas powerful people can be positioned as powerless. Baxter acknowledges that her poststructuralist approach, in rejecting ‘grand narratives’ and an overarching liberationist agenda, could be seen as nihilistic, although she argues that poststructuralist forms of analysis are well-placed to give voices to minority or oppressed groups, allowing them

184

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

to be heard clearly alongside the more dominant majority groups (2003: 37). All of the above approaches place emphasis on intertextuality, interdiscursivity and self-reflexivity, with the researcher needing to acknowledge their own theoretical positions and practices ‘lest these inadvertently contribute towards the perpetuation, rather than the subversion, of hierarchically differential treatment of women’ (Lazar 2005: 15). A further discourse-oriented approach (or set of approaches) to gender and language research is found in DP which combines a number of disciplines including conversation analysis (CA), ethnomethodology and rhetorical social psychology in order to critique ways that traditional psychological research understands concepts like attitudes, accounts and memory (Edwards and Potter 1992, Potter and Wetherell 1987). Through detailed analysis of transcripts, discursive psychologists show how speakers often produce inconsistent or conflicting versions or accounts. Some researchers working in gender and language have taken DP and introduced elements of poststructuralist theory or CDA, for example, the work on young men’s talk about fatherhood by Edley and Wetherell (1999). Other researchers have shown how techniques used in CA can be adopted for feminist research (e.g. Kitzinger 2008), which, while not focusing on discourse explicitly, are able to show how ‘gender – or sexuality, or power, or oppression – is produced and reproduced in interaction’ (Kitzinger 2008: 136). So while the approaches briefly described above may differ in terms of data collection and analysis, or underlying aims, they have all tended to place discourse as a central, if not the central, component of their research.

A SAMPLE STUDY: COUGARS Considering the range of different discourse-analysis-based approaches to the field of gender and language, it is difficult to offer an example of analysis which is able to cover all perspectives. However, I have tried to draw on and combine various aspects from some of the approaches outlined above in order to examine the discursive construction of the cougar, an identity which was popularized in 2009 by an American situation comedy series called Cougar Town starring Courtney Cox who plays a divorced woman who embarks on relationships with younger men. The fact that such a group was identified at all is of interest to researchers of gender and language – up until that point, there did not seem to have been a single popular term to refer to such women. There are many existing words which refer to older women in the English language, most of them ranging from patronizing to very offensive (crone, hag, biddy, old dear, bag, mare, witch, etc.) although they rarely refer to such women in a sexually active sense (most of these nouns imply sexual unattractiveness). An explanation (although by no means a justification) for such terms is that society places a high price on a woman’s child-bearing potential, and once she is unable to have children, she is no longer viewed as desirable. Traditionally, relationships between younger women and older men have been seen as more usual or acceptable (with a term like sugar daddy to describe much older men). Gibson (2014: online), in a guide for older women dating younger men, defines a cougar in the following way: She’s the new breed of single, older woman – confident, sophisticated, desirable and sexy, she knows exactly what she wants. What she wants is younger men and lots of great sex. What she doesn’t want is children, cohabitation or commitment. It’s an irresistible combination for younger men who are more-than-willing to meet these

DISCOURSE AND GENDER

185

sleek and sexy single women. So, if you’re a cougar (at any age) get ready to find out how to meet, catch and enjoy the perfect younger man and make them, and you, purr with pleasure! In many ways this description could be characterized as positive – cougars are described with the adjectives confident, sophisticated, desirable, sleek, irresistible and sexy (twice). The fact that cougars do not want children, cohabitation or commitment is not viewed by the author as problematic, but instead presented as part of the reason why such women are irresistible. Gibson, therefore, redefines the concept of the older woman who has relationships with younger men as an empowered identity, eschewing conservative discourses that women should want commitment and children. The book is written in a humorous style, and accordingly the term cougar also appears to be used somewhat humorously; for example, Gibson offers advice on how to ‘pounce back when [a relationship] ends’. An interesting aspect of emerging identity terms, however, is that they can often serve as the focal point for competing discourses. Consider, for example, the changes in meaning of the word gay. While the word was claimed by men and women who had same-sex relationships in the 1960s and 1970s as a positive identity term (to replace the more clinical-sounding homosexual), in the last decade or so, the word has undergone a further semantic shift, now being used to refer to anything which is viewed as lame or pathetic. This new use of gay is especially popular among young people, and while it could be argued that it is a separate meaning from the same-sex sexual identity category, this seems to be unlikely – rather, the ‘lame’ usage seems to have developed as a result of over-extension of gay being used with derogatory intent on people who experience same-sex desire. I would argue that the newer meaning of gay both reflects and propagates homophobic discourse, but it also indicates how simply inventing a new ‘positive’ term for a stigmatized group will not resolve that group’s problems if the underlying stigmatizing discourses are not also addressed. The term cougar is slightly different though, in that there is no existing popular negative word that it is replacing. I was thus interested in determining whether the positive cougar discourse which Gibson had developed would be accepted, or whether it would be contested, and if so, in what ways.

Locating the data In order to do this I looked for texts which contained references to cougars from a range of different sources. These included large-scale corpora or archives of public texts (newspaper articles, transcripts of television chat shows, fiction, etc.) such as the COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English), as well as the searchable online newspaper database LexisNexis. I also carried out searches of the internet in general, using Google, and I watched episodes of Cougar Town. All of these sources gave up numerous examples of people talking about cougars (or in some cases, cougars talking). In fact, many of the examples of cougar that I found did not refer to older women at all, but either to actual animals or other uses such as cars, sports teams, places or people. These examples told me something about some of the original meaning of cougars. For example, cougars as animals are often the subject of attacking verbs like ambush, attack, claw, corner, drag, entice, hunt, kill, loom, lunge, pounce, stalk, thrust. We are thus already primed with a set of associations about cougars (as predatory wild animals) when we hear the word, and these associations carry over when the word is used on older

186

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

women (see discussion of semantic preference, semantic prosody and discourse prosody in Louw (1993) and Stubbs (2001)). In total, I found 426 examples of cougar or cougars referring to women, from a wide variety of sources. My analysis then involved reading through these citations of cougar and their surrounding context, in order to identify how cougars were being represented via language use. I began to identify similarities between different types of representations, which enabled me to start to create a classification system. I initially simply classified the different representations in terms of whether the discourses in them were positive, negative or neutral, although unsurprisingly, there were cases where it was difficult to do this, as some citations could be interpreted as containing multiple and sometimes conflicting discourses. In addition, there is potentially more than one way that a discourse can be positive or negative. Rather than trying to quantify whether the overall discursive construction is positive or negative (with 426 cases it is difficult to draw conclusions, especially as multiple citations came from the same texts), instead, here I have chosen a single text which focuses on discussing the new phenomenon of cougars. This text was interesting to analyse as it contained a number of discourses which were found to be common elsewhere. For the purposes of providing a short example of discourse analysis, it is therefore a reasonably good representative text to use. The text is a spoken transcript that was found in the Corpus of Contemporary American English, taken from The Today Show on the American television channel NBC (2007). In the transcript, speakers 1 and 2 are female, while speaker 3 is male. 1. Speaker 1: All right, we’re going to move on now to today’s relationships. We’re talking about cougars. We’re not talking about the animals, we are talking about the 40 or 50-something women and the men they go after. Demi Moore, Kim Cattrall, and Jerry Hall; these are some of Hollywood’s well known cougars. So what’s in the cougar? Well, it’s not exactly what you think. 2. Speaker 2: Today’s cougar woman is someone who’s strong and independent. She’s intelligent, she’s witty, she’s fun, she’s charming. 3. Speaker 1: Cougar women aren’t just in Hollywood. More and more women in their 40s and 50s are challenging the way we think about older women. 4. Speaker 2: I’m constantly, constantly following the trends of haircuts, makeup, and clothing. Presentation is everything. I do not leave my house without stiletto heels, ever. 5. Speaker 1: Younger men are taking notice and going after the mature women. And some may wonder what the attraction is between an older woman and a younger man? 6. Speaker 3: I think for some women, they want a lot out of life. Men their age are seeming tired, maybe very stuck in their ways, not very flexible. So they’re looking to younger men to sort of inject more energy, more excitement. 7. Speaker 2: It’s not that I’m not attracted to men my own age either, it’s just that they’re not the ones who are approaching me. And it seems that the younger men are actually pursuing me. This short example (actually only the start of the full segment on cougars) helps to demonstrate some of the different ways that discourse analysis could be carried out on a

DISCOURSE AND GENDER

187

text where gender plays a central role. An initial analysis might want to focus on linguistic markers in the text, particularly asking a question like – how are cougars represented via language? Most readers would probably immediately notice the string of positive-sounding adjectives that the presenter uses to describe cougars in line 2 (strong, independent, intelligent, witty, fun, charming). This is coupled with the assertion that cougar women are on the increase, with the implicature that because this is a popular phenomenon (and one initially associated with glamorous, trend-setting Hollywood actresses) it must be a good one (line 3). The overall tone of the piece on cougars is light-hearted, with the presenters appearing interested at outlining this new phenomenon. In this sense then, there appears to be a positive discourse surrounding cougars and what they represent. The discussion also acknowledges, less explicitly, that the positive discourses they are creating around cougars are in opposition to something else, possibly more negative. In line 1, the interviewer asks ‘what’s in the cougar’ and answers her own question ‘Well, it’s not exactly what you think.’ And in line 3, the same speaker refers to how ‘women in their 40s and 50s are challenging the way we think about older women’. Here there is a presupposition that there is a way we have of thinking about older women, which is implied to need challenging. Thus, one of the characteristics of the positive discourse of cougars is that it is constructed as already oppositional to a negative discourse about older women, the implication being that older woman has not normally been characterized as strong, independent, fun and so on. Such a discourse is thus positive (even if there is an interdiscursive reference to the older negative discourse). However, it could be argued that as the interview continues, the discourse moves away from a view of cougars as strong and independent, and instead (perhaps inadvertently) draws on a third discourse – which positions the cougar as obsessed with physical appearance and fashion ‘presentation is everything’ (line 4). In this sense, it is by dressing in trendy clothes, wearing makeup and stiletto heels that the cougar becomes empowered, which results in them being noticed by younger men (line 5). From a feminist perspective, this could be argued as being problematic. The cougar is implied to be a sexual competitor (with younger women), but also a somewhat passive one – note how it is ‘younger men’ who are shown to be agents in line 5. They are the ones who are ‘taking notice and going after’ the ‘mature women’ who take the more passive object position. While the television piece thus accesses what could be called a ‘sex-positive discourse’ and acknowledges female desire, at the same time it positions cougars as primarily interested in attracting younger men and needing to dress in the latest fashions and high heels in order to do so. The text also positions men in different ways. Younger men are constructed (lines 5–6) as desirable, whereas older men are described in opposition more negatively as ‘tired, stuck in their ways, not very flexible’. Thus while women are able to escape the problems associated with old age (primarily by altering their appearance), the later part of the interview seems to confirm aspects of the original older discourse – that youth is attractive and being old is not. Interestingly then, while this text appears on the surface to be offering an empowered view of older women, there are some conflicting or ambivalent aspects to it. What aspects of this text would the different forms of discourse analysis described above focus on, and what conclusions would they reach? A feminist critical discourse analyst might emphasize the subtle gender hierarchy that seems to be implied in the text: young men appear to be placed at the top as they are viewed as physically desirable but also the ones who have the agency to pursue others. Cougars, while framed as attractive, are somewhat further down the hierarchy – they must work at being desirable by following

188

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

fashions and even then become objects of desire rather than the more active participants (this construction seems to be at odds with the original meaning of cougars as predatory wild animals). Finally, older men are at the bottom of the hierarchy, being constructed as unacceptable partners. Interestingly, younger women are not referred to explicitly. The fact that this hierarchy appears to be constructed by the female presenters, of which one appears to identify implicitly at least as a cougar herself (line 4), could be viewed as a form of complicity in terms of Connell’s (1995) framework of hegemonic masculinity. On the other hand, an FPDA approach might focus on the range of ways that cougars are positioned in the text, noting that some are empowering while others are not. One aspect of FPDA is its reflexivity, which could involve getting the analyst to ask a range of other people to conduct discourse analysis on the same text, and noting the different possible interpretations. The term cougar, originating in North America, is clearly a very Western conceptualization of female sexuality. What would discourse analysts from other cultures notice about the text, which I (as a white, gay, cis, male, middle-class, liberal, 40-something Westerner) may have missed? Other analysts may, for example, focus on the heteronormative aspects of the text, which in its discussion of male–female relationships seems to ignore the existence of same-sex desire and how that may relate to older women. For example, in line 6, the speaker seems to imply that women only ever consider men as partners. Alternatively, taking Sunderland’s gendered discourses approach, we might want to focus on giving specific names to the gendered discourses that the text seems to refer to, for example, ‘older women can be attractive’, ‘older men as tired/inflexible’, ‘men chase, women allure’, ‘women must dress to please’, noting the relationships or conflicts between such discourses and how they may relate to more general ‘higher-order’ gendered discourses (such as ‘gender differences’) or potential non-gendered discourses in the text such as ‘youth is desirable’ or ‘Hollywood leads society’. This would only be the beginning of any analysis, however. Only a small part of the segment on cougars is included here – the full transcript would need to be considered. Later in the programme, for example, the female participants describe the attraction of young men in ways which position cougars as somewhat more sexually predatory and patronizing: ‘Have you looked at any [young men] recently? Besides the hard body, which is totally a perk, the passion, I mean, they’re still following their dreams … They’re a little eager, like puppies … They’re trainable.’ Additionally, we might want to consider the way that this item related to other items in the general structure of the television programme. Is the item positioned as a ‘light-hearted’ segment, suggesting that this is not a topic that we should be expected to take too seriously? Also, who is the typical audience of this segment? Generally, ‘relationship’ items tend to be aimed at women and thus help to reinforce an expectation that women should be interested in relationships (and subsequently men should be less interested). A full analysis would need to consider other texts which discussed cougars in order to determine whether the combination of discourses here was also found in other contexts. The fact that this text occurred on daytime American television places restrictions on what can and cannot be said due to the diverse public audience. On a campus internet forum where the participants were young, male and relatively anonymous, I found cougars being discussed in much more explicitly sexualized (although also passivized) terms: ‘I’m gonna fuck the shit out of it I want me some cougar tail.’ Another strand of analysis could involve considering more closely the origins of the term cougar, and other associations around it. Valerie Gibson claims to have traced it back to bars in Vancouver (a city where

DISCOURSE AND GENDER

189

cougars in their animal form are found in the surrounding mountains). Apparently the term was used by young heterosexual men: ‘as a put-down for older women … who would go home with whoever was left at the end of the night’, and it was only later that it was picked up by older women who engaged in a process of reclaiming. (From an ABC News item called ‘Are more younger women with older men’ (5 May 2005). See http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Health/ story?id=731599 (last accessed on 24 February 2020).) From the onset then, the discourses surrounding the term have been contested, reflecting a continuing ambivalence that society has with female agency, female desire and ageing (particularly for women).

FUTURE DIRECTIONS The field of gender and language is always changing, often in response to the ways that societies frame gender relations. It could be argued that earlier feminist critiques of sexist language use have helped to create a climate where people are more sensitive regarding issues of gender inclusivity and representation. On the other hand, sexist discourses have not vanished – instead, at times they have simply become more sophisticated and thus more difficult to attack. Mills (1998: 247–8) argues, If texts are overtly sexist, they are easier to deal with, since overt sexism is now very easy to identify… It is clear that feminist pressure around the issue of sexism has had a major effect on the production and reception of texts. Sexism has not been eradicated but its nature has been transformed into this more indirect form of sexism. What is necessary now is a form of feminist analysis which can analyse the complexity of sexism … now that feminism has made sexism more problematic. As sexist discourses grow more subtle, discourse-based approaches must also develop. It is clear that gender and language research has never forced its practitioners to hold a single shared opinion about the ideal way to do research or even about research goals. While most feminist researchers wish to inspire social change for the better, some take a position which focuses more on improving the situation for women or other groups who are viewed as disadvantaged. Others may view everyone as potentially limited in various ways by gendered discourses. Some research tends to be concerned with pointing out power inequalities; other research is more aligned with positioning everyone as potentially powerful or powerless depending on context. Rather than attempting to predict what the next ten years will bring, I will instead try to summarize what the most recent trends in the field have been, as it is likely that they will influence the next decade, even if they do not result in continuations of such work. There have been a number of recent publications, for example, which have explored issues around consent, harassment and sexual violence (Ehrlich, 2019, McLoughlin 2019). Such research is important and timely, particularly in light of the recent #metoo movement against sexual harassment/assault and the #gamergate controversy around sexism and harassment in video game culture. A further trend involves research on gender and language in non-Western contexts, particularly concerning the Global South (Glapka 2018), the Middle East (Baxter and

190

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Al-A’ali 2014) and Asia (Kang and Chen 2017) as well as research considering gender and language within the context of globalization (Besnier 2007). Using reflexivity, Lazar (2005: 19) notes the ‘marked inclusion’ in the ways that such research has been conceptualized in the recent past. She shows, for example, that Western research tends to be constructed as unmarked (and thus mainstream) in gender and language conferences, whereas anything from other cultures is positioned and marked as such. Hopefully we are moving towards a position where this distinction is lost, and all gender and discourse research is formulated with the same degree of markedness. And as part of the now wellestablished move towards focusing on different types of gendered identities, rather than considering a simple male/female binary, some researchers have become to explore the relationship between gender, sex and sexuality in more detail (Baker 2008b, Cameron and Kulick 2003, 2006, Morrish and Sauntson 2007). Research on discourses of and around queer, non-binary and trans-identities has become popular in the last decade (Corwin 2017, Coady 2018, Gray 2018). Such research has opened up debate about definitional terminology (e.g. what is a woman?), the fixedness of identity categories and ways of referring to gender (e.g. use of gender-neutral pronouns or the practice of making one’s preferred pronouns explicit). These recent forms of research show how far the field of language and gender has moved away from Lakoff’s observations of her peer group (mainly white, American, middle-class, heterosexual people in relationships) to consider a much broader definition of language and gender. The concept of intersectionality (Crenshaw 1991) is used to consider how gender interacts with other identity characteristics like ethnicity, sexuality, age and social class (e.g. Cashman 2018), resulting in ongoing debates relating to notions like privilege and unconscious bias. Such a focus indicates a field which is growing in size and scope, becoming more inclusive but also reflecting potential schisms, such as contention over whether transwomen ought to be defined as women. What should also be clear from this chapter is the important role that the concept of discourse (in its somewhat numerous forms, but especially those which are critical and reflexive) will continue to play in the area of gender and language in the coming years.

KEY READINGS Baxter, J. (2003), Positioning Gender in Discourse: A Feminist Methodology, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Cameron, D. (1998), ‘Gender, Language and Discourse: A Review Essay’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 23: 945–73. Harrington, K., L. Litosseliti, H. Sauntson and J. Sunderland (eds) (2008), Gender and Language Research Methodologies, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lazar, M. (ed.) (2005), Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Sunderland, J. (2004), Gendered Discourses, London: Palgrave.

REFERENCES Aijón Oliva, M. A. and M. J. Serrano (2016), ‘A Matter of Style: Gender and Subject Variation in Spanish’, Gender and Language, 10: 240–69.

DISCOURSE AND GENDER

191

Baker, P. (2008a), ‘“Eligible” Bachelors and “Frustrated” Spinsters: Corpus Linguistics, Gender and Language’, in K. Harrington et al (eds), Gender and Language Research Methodologies, 73–84, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Baker, P. (2008b), Sexed Texts, London: Equinox. Baxter, J. (2003), Positioning Gender in Discourse: A Feminist Methodology, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Baxter, J. and H. Al-A’ali (2014), ‘“Your Situation Is Critical…”: The Discursive Enactment of Leadership by Business Women in Middle Easter and Western European Contexts’, Gender and Language, 8: 91–116. Besnier, N. (2007), ‘Language and Gender Research at the Intersection of the Global and the Local’, Gender and Language, 1: 67–78. Burr, V. (1995), An Introduction to Social Constructionism, London: Routledge. Cameron, D. (1998), ‘Gender, Language and Discourse: A Review Essay’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 23: 945–73. Cameron, D. and D. Kulick (2003), Language and Sexuality, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cameron, D. and D. Kulick (eds) (2006), The Language and Sexuality Reader, London: Routledge. Cashman, H. R. (2018), ‘Narrating the Intersection: Body, Time, Space and Transition in One Queer Life’, Gender and Language, 12: 416–36. Cashman, H. R. and C. W. Raymond (2014), ‘Making Gender Relevant in Spanish-language Sports Broadcast Discourse’, Gender and Language, 8: 311–40. Coady, A. (2018), ‘The Origin of Sexism in Language’, Gender and Language, 12: 271–93. Connell, R. W. (1995), Masculinities, Oxford: Polity Press. Corwin, A. I. (2017), ‘Emerging Genders Semiotic Agency and the Performance of Gender among Genderqueer Individuals’, Gender and Language, 11: 255–77. Crenshaw, K. (1991), ‘Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color’, Stanford Law Review, 43 (6): 1241–99. Eckert, P., and S. McConnell-Ginet (1992), ‘Think Practically and Look Locally: Language and Gender as Community-based Practice’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 21: 461–90. Edley, N. and M. Wetherell (1999), ‘Imagined Futures: Young Men’s Talk about Fatherhood and Domestic Life’, British Journal of Social Psychology, 38: 181–4. Edwards, D. and J. Potter (1992), Discursive Psychology, London: Sage. Ehrlich, S. (2019), ‘“Well, I Saw the Picture”: Semiotic Ideologies and the Unsettling of Normative Conceptions of Female Sexuality in the Steubenville Rape Trial’, Gender and Language, 13: 251–69. Gibson, V. (2014), Cougar: A Guide for Older Women Dating Younger Men, 2nd edn, Hunter Group. Gill, R. (1993), ‘Justifying Justice: Broadcasters’ Accounts of Inequality in Radio’, in E. Burman and I. Parker (eds), Discourse Analytic Research, 75–93, London: Routledge. Glapka, E. (2018), ‘Postfeminism – for Whom or by Whom? Applying Discourse Analysis in Research on the Body and Beauty (the Case of Black Hair)’, Gender and Language, 12: 242–68. Gray, J. (2018), ‘“Entre el alivoy el palo’: A Spanish Trans Man’s Narrative of Transitioning Middle Age’, Gender and Language, 12: 437–58. Harrington, K., L. Litosseliti, H. Sauntson and J. Sunderland (eds) (2008), Gender and Language Research Methodologies, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

192

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Jespersen, O. (1922), Language, Its Nature, Development and Origin, London: Allen and Unwin. Kang, M. A. and K. J. Y. Chen (2017), ‘Gender Stereotype as a Vehicle for Social Change? The Case of the Kong Girl’, Gender and Language, 11: 460–81. Kitzinger, C. (2008), ‘Conversation Analysis: Technical Matters for Gender Research’, in K. Harrington et al. (eds), Gender and Language Research Methodologies, 119–38, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kramer, C., B. Thorne and N. Henley. (1978), ‘Perspectives on Language and Communication’, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 3: 638–51. Lakoff, R. (1975), Language and Woman’s Place, New York: Harper and Row. Lazar, M. (ed.) (2005), Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology in Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Leap, W. L. (2008), ‘Queering Gay Men’s English’, in K. Harrington et al. (eds), Gender and Language Research Methodologies, 283–96. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Louw, B. (1993), ‘Irony in the Text or Insincerity in the Writer? The Diagnostic Potential of Semantic Prosodies’, in M. Baker, G. Francis and E. Tognini-Bonelli (eds), Text and Technology, 157–76, Amsterdam: Benjamins. McLoughlin, L. (2019), ‘The Nirbhaya Who Lived: Conflicting Discourses and Shifting Ideologies in Femina’s Linguistic Representations of Rape victims and Their Perpetrators’, Gender and Language, 13: 202–23. Mills, S. (1998), ‘Post-feminist Text Analysis’, Language and Literature, 7 (3): 235–53. Morrish, L. and H. Sauntson (eds) (2007), New Perspectives on Language and Sexual Identity, Basingstoke, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Mullany, L. (2008), ‘Negotiating Methodologies: Making Language and Gender Relevant in the Professional Workplace’, in K. Harrington et al. (eds), Gender and Language Research Methodologies, 43–70, Basingstoke: Palgrave. Potter, J. and M. Wetherell (1987), Discourse and Social Psychology. Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour, London: Sage. Stubbs, M. (2001), Words and Phrases: Corpus Studies of Lexical Semantics, London: Blackwell. Sunderland, J. (2004), Gendered Discourses, London: Palgrave. Tannen, D. (1990), You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation, London: Virago. Zimman, L. (2009), ‘“The Other Kind of Coming Out”: Transgender People and the Coming Out Narrative Genre’, Language and Gender, 3: 53–80.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Discourse and race ANGEL M. Y. LIN AND RYUKO KUBOTA

INTRODUCTION Many researchers have investigated the idea of ‘race’ as something constructed in discourse (i.e. a discursive construction), how discourse pigeon-holes people into racial categories (i.e. racialization processes), and the perpetuation and reproduction of racial stereotypes and discrimination of marginalized groups in society. In this body of work, researchers have often drawn on cultural studies, critical race theory and postcolonial studies, apart from the analytical tools of different approaches to discourse analysis. In this chapter we outline key studies which have contributed to this topic. Instead of attempting to be exhaustive, we aim at highlighting intellectual milestones in this area and pointing towards some directions for future research.

DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF RACE: PRODUCTION OF ‘SELF’ AND ‘OTHER’ Early critical studies have exposed the historical emergence of the ideology of racism by analysing how the white European colonialist discourse of race was formed both in conjunction with and in support of the slave trade and slavery institutions. Frey (1984), in his book on Black history, documented and critiqued the discourses of key figures in the colonialist era in the development of the ideology of racism. He pointed out: Once the English slave trade, English sugar-producing plantation slavery, and English manufacturing industry had begun to operate as a trebly profitable interlocking system, the economic basis had been laid for all those ancient scraps of myth and prejudice to be woven into a more or less coherent racist ideology: a mythology of race. (Frey 1984: 134) Cultural theorists Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy are two key figures in problematizing the discursive construction of ‘the West and the Rest’ (Hall 1992: 276), and the concept of ‘race’ (Gilroy 2002: 36). Hall pointed out that ‘the West’ is not a fact of geography, but a historical construct discursively produced and reproduced in colonialist discourses and it functions to classify societies and people into different simplified and fixed (i.e. essentialist) categories. It produces knowledge about the superior (White) West and the inferior (non-White) Rest; it discursively constructs both the binary categories of cultural ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ and binary sets of knowledge about them (e.g. the civilized, advanced, superior West vs the uncivilized, primitive, inferior Rest).

194

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Similarly, ‘race’ is also a concept constructed in these colonialist discourses. As Gilroy (2002) observed: Accepting that skin “color”, however, meaningless we know it to be, has a strictly limited basis in biology, opens up the possibility of engaging with theories of signification which can highlight the elasticity and the emptiness of “racial” signifiers as well as the ideological work which has to be done in order to turn them into signifiers in the first place. This perspective underscores the definition of “race” as an open political category, for it is struggle that determines which definition of “race” will prevail and the conditions under which they will endure or wither away. (Gilroy 2002: 36) Gilroy’s point is that racial terms (i.e. ‘racial signifiers’) do not have biological basis but are politically constructed in ideological discourses to denigrate and label groups of people marginalized in society. Edward Said’s (1985) Orientalism, a key text in postcolonial theory, shows how the colonialist discourse on the Orient – Orientalism – has constructed a knowledge of the East and power–knowledge relations privileging the West. ‘The Orient was a European invention’, and ‘the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience’ (Said 1985: 1–2). Drawing on Saussure’s linguistic theory (1974) on how signs gain their meanings not through representation of external facts, but through the setting up of internal contrasts (e.g. black vs white; primitive vs civilized), postcolonial theorists argue that the colonialist has to construct an inferior cultural and racial/ethnic Other in order to know or define who he/she is (Self): This necessity of the Other to the self, this inscription of identity in the look of the other finds its articulation profoundly in the ranges of a given text. And I want to cite one which I am sure you know but will not remember necessarily, though it is a wonderful, majestic moment in Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, when he describes himself as a young Antillean, face to face with the white French child and her mother. And the child pulls the hand of the mother and says, ‘Look, Mama, a black man.’ And he said, ‘For the first time, I knew who I was. For the first time, I felt as if I had been simultaneously exploded in the gaze, in the violent gaze of the other, and at the same time, recomposed as another.’ (Hall 2019: 70) Hall (1991, 2019) launched a deconstruction of identity and difference in a poststructuralist and post-identity move to do away with essentialist constructions of race and ethnicity and of Self and Other altogether, and to focus on positionality. This has been echoed by critiques of Whiteness studies, and arguments for non-essentialist conceptualization of whiteness in critical education projects (Trainor 2002), as will be discussed in the next section.

WHITENESS STUDIES AND ITS CRITIQUES Whiteness studies was initiated as scholars began to focus on whiteness as discursively and socially constructed and to problematize its link to power and privilege. Works include White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness by sociologist Ruth

DISCOURSE AND RACE

195

Frankenberg (1993), Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by writer and literary critic Toni Morrison (1992) and The Wages of Whiteness by historian David Roediger (1991). However, in recent years, Whiteness studies has been critiqued, chiefly for its ‘difficulty in moving against or away from the master narrative rooted in white supremacy’ (Kubota 2004: 42) and in a condescending mode of charity (Hook 2011). Another critique is that there is the danger of essentializing whiteness which is as worrying as the danger of essentializing blackness. As Trainor (2002) points out: (There is) the need to help students articulate anti-essentialist identities as whites and to work through the paradoxes of constructing an antiracist white identity. We need to be more aware of the rhetorical frames our pedagogies provide for students as they structure identity … Without such examination, we risk promoting a devastatingly unintended consequence: the development of a conscious, essentialized, and angry white identity predicated on reactionary political values. (647) More worrying is the tendency in popular cultural texts to further essentialize blackness and whiteness through linguistic representations. Bucholtz and Lopez (2011) analyse two Hollywood films, Bulworth and Bringing Down the House, which ‘portray their protagonists as hyper-white and hence maximize the linguistic and cultural divide between blackness and whiteness, as well as how they position African American English as inferior to standard English, even as the variety serves as the vehicle for standard English speaking white male characters to achieve self-actualization’ (701). Essentialist constructions of race/ethnicity, and of Self and Other, however, seem to characterize not only earlier colonialist discourses, popular cultural discourses, but also elite discourses, which constitute our topic in the next section.

ELITE DISCOURSE AND RACISM Key research conducted by T. A. van Dijk uses both linguistic and social psychological approaches to the critical analysis of racist discourses of the White ruling elites in European, British, Australian, New Zealand, North American, Latin American and South African societies (van Dijk 1993, 2005, Wodak and van Dijk 2000). Van Dijk’s classic 1993 study critically analysed racist discourses from all key domains: political discourse, corporate discourse, academic discourse, educational discourse and media discourse. In this important volume, van Dijk both integrated and theoretically elaborated his earlier research on racism and the press (van Dijk 1991) and ethnic prejudice in thought and talk (van Dijk 1987). Van Dijk differentiated between elite racism and popular racism and argued that it is the racist discourses of the elites in different domains of society that provide both the cognitive frameworks and the discursive resources for the reproduction of ethnic stereotypes in everyday talk and thought of the masses. Drawing on Bourdieu (1984, 1988), van Dijk saw these elites as playing an important role in the authorization and legitimation of racist policies and everyday racist practices. Almost outperforming their earlier colonial predecessors, contemporary elites employ a range of sophisticated forms of discourse to legitimate their own social, political, language and economic policies that safeguard their elite status and privilege in society. In line with the thinking of cultural theorists and postcolonial critics who have written earlier on the discursive construction of Self and Other (e.g. Hall 1991, 2019, Said 1985),

196

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

van Dijk (1991), working from his interdisciplinary perspectives informed in particular by linguistic analysis and cognitive schemata theory, saw it as an important empirical project of the discourse analyst to systematically gather the data and analytically demonstrate the discursive and cognitive processes through which racialized Self and Other are constructed both in elite discourses and everyday texts and conversations. While cultural theorists and postcolonial critics are important in providing the insightful observations about the intimate connection between racism and discourse, it is the empirical discourse analyst who systematically gathers and analyses the discourse data to show the many different ways in which language is recruited and shaped into recurrent, complex formats or patterns that mediate, perpetuate and reproduce racialization and racism in both high and low domains of society. In his methodology, van Dijk drew on different linguistic and research traditions that include: theories of style, rhetoric, narrative, argumentation and conversation, pragmatics, ethnography, and the cognitive and social psychology of text and talk. To illustrate the range of research procedures of such an interdisciplinary approach, van Dijk’s data collection and analysis methods employed in his study on racism and the press might be useful to the reader (see van Dijk 1991: 8–10). In this study, the main data corpus consisted of all types of news discourse that appeared in the British press between 1 August 1985 and 31 January 1986 as well as in the first six months of 1989. This corpus included all news reports, background and feature articles, columns and editorials about ethnic affairs, from both quality press and popular press. A total of 2,700 articles were analysed. All news articles were coded for genre type, size, presence and size of photographs, and overall subject matter (e.g. immigration, race relations, education or crime). Finally, they were coded in terms of a number of propositions formulated in simple clauses (e.g. ‘The Home Secretary said that the riots were criminally inspired’). Then, to study the hypothesized effects of racist reporting on the public, in-depth interviews among 150 newspaper readers (all white people) in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities were also conducted. Van Dijk adopted a sophisticated theoretical framework to inform his analysis which took into account the structures of media discourse, cognitive strategies of news text comprehension and memorization, and the structures and strategies of social representations of the readers.

EVERYDAY DISCOURSE AND THE NEW RACISM Apart from critical analysis of elite discourse of racism, another important tradition of research in this area is the analysis of (re)production of racial formations and racist ideologies in everyday discourse, in particular, ordinary, mundane conversations and interactions. Without attempting to be exhaustive, three studies will be reviewed here to illustrate the range of theoretical frameworks and methodological tools in this area of study. Whereas earlier colonialist discourses drew on biology to construct racial and ethnic categories, the New Racism (Barker 1981) discourses draw on culture to universalize and essentialize a superior Cultural Self and an inferior Cultural Other. Durrheim and Dixon (2000) analysed how the discourses of White South African holidaymakers justified racial segregation and criticized social reforms by asserting universal theories of humans as cultural beings to naturalize everyday racist practices. Through a qualitative analysis of the informal interview talk of these holidaymakers, Durrheim and Dixon (2000: 103–4) identified the rhetorical features of lay ontologies of culture.

DISCOURSE AND RACE

197

Apart from lay theories about ‘natural’, ‘universal’ human nature, everyday racist discourses are also found to be (re)producing linguistic hierarchies. Anderson (2008) analysed the race talk in her data of ten interviews with women in a large southeast US university town. The interviewees were asked to identify the racial identity of prerecorded voices. Not only did she find that her interviewees formulated links between speech styles and racial identities, but she also found that they accorded differential values to these speech styles and used this linguistic hierarchy to justify their hegemonic attitudes towards different racial groups. The New Racism discourse (Barker 1981) continues to circulate in contemporary society and gets reproduced in everyday interactions. Pagliai’s study (2009) drew on conversation analysis (CA) (see Zhang and Waring this volume) methods in analysing how people engage in repeated conversational agreement to co-construct a racialized image of immigrants in Italy. Pagliai argued that this deployment leads to reinforcement of the racist stances expressed in the conversation itself, and possibly beyond it. The conversationists’ (re)production of ‘the category of the Other’ who are assumed to share the same set of beliefs and actions (e.g. those of a terrorist) is part of an essentializing ‘process of racial formation that can be seen operating at various levels, from everyday conversations, to public political discourse, to the mass media, both in Italy and elsewhere in Europe’ (Pagliai 2009: 568) and is part of the New Racism discourses that draw on culture and religion to construct a separate ‘race’ (e.g. ‘Arab/Muslims’). Pagliai thus argued that educational programmes created to reduce racist attitudes among the general public should pay attention to not only racist state policies (i.e. elite racism) but also the processes through which racist discourses are (re)produced and circulated in ordinary conversations (i.e. everyday racism). With the global spread of the internet, everyday racist discourses in the new media environment have become a rising concern. In the next section, we shall include excerpts from a study (Lin and Tong 2009) to illustrate how positioning theory and storyline analysis can be used as one of the discourse analysis approaches to analyse how Hong Kong-based TV drama fans co-construct a superior cultural/ethnic Self (Chinese) and an inferior cultural/ethnic Other (Japanese) on an internet fan forum of a Korean TV drama, Dae Jang Geum (the name of a Chosun Dynasty medicine woman). As in the New Racism, culture and ethnicity – two intertwined terms – are proxy for the idea of race (Kubota 2012, Kubota and Lin 2009).

A SAMPLE STUDY: POSITIONING THEORY AND STORYLINE ANALYSIS OF RACIST ONLINE DISCOURSES1 In this study, Lin and Tong (2009) draw on positioning theory (Davies and Harré 1990, Harré and Langenhove 1999) to analyse weblog messages to see how different participants use discourse to construct cultural Self and Other. In typical colonial encounters, the colonizer discursively positioned the colonized as a cultural, ethnic and linguistic ‘other’, establishing binary separation of the colonizer and the colonized and asserting the naturalness and primacy of the former (Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 1998). In both our daily conversations and public discourses such discursive construction of Self and Other and of different subject positions for Self and Other routinely occurs. Positioning theory (Davies and Harré 1990) proposes that such subject positions are linked to our discursively constructed storylines which are constantly being negotiated by different parties. For instance, a speaker can position other speakers by adopting a

198

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

storyline that incorporates a certain interpretation of cultural stereotypes to which other speakers are invited to conform, if they are to continue to interact with the first speaker in a cooperative manner (Davies and Harré 1990). The construction of storyline is central to the establishment and articulation of collective and personal identities, which involves assigning different subject positions (or ‘characters’) to different people in a certain context according to a storyline projected by one’s discourse. By giving others parts in a story, a speaker makes available a subject position that the other speaker normally would take up (Davies and Harré 1990). In projecting storylines, people routinely draw on culturally available stereotypes (or recurring storylines) as resources to position themselves and others. Stereotypes are not pre-existing mental entities or inevitable outcomes of human cognitive functioning; instead, they are rhetorical devices that people can use to position themselves and others (Langenhove and Harré 1999). The study focuses on a TV drama fangroup website arising from the Korean TV drama Dae Jang Geum. As positioning involves the process of the ongoing construction of the Self through talk (Davies and Harré 1990, Harré and Langenhove 1999), the discursive practices of these fans show their discursive strategies and tactics in constructing their different/multiple identities with several collective storylines that they co-constructed and sometimes contested. The web discussion forum of Dae Jang Geum. In this study, activities of the Hong Kong Television Broadcasting’s (TVB) web-based discussion forum of Dae Jang Geum were observed regularly from January 2005 to May 2005. All messages related to cultural and national topics, and construction of identities and storylines are selected for in-depth textual analysis. Although the age of individual members is not specified in their profiles, based on their messages, it is inferred that most of them (approximately 80 per cent) are young students from Hong Kong. The web forum discussion is not confined to Dae or Korean TV dramas. In the following subsections, the textual messages of the members are analysed to understand their discursive acts of constructing Self and Other, and their discursive moves in drawing and shifting boundaries of different subject positions within the ‘storylines’ they created/ offered. With some exceptions, almost all of the original messages analysed were written in Chinese characters and they have been translated into English for this study. Viewing rates (number of times the message is read by clicking the topic title) of each message are shown to indicate its popularity. Re-constructing/re-producing historical narratives of a Strong Cultural China as the Centre of Cultural Civilization. Dae Jang Geum is set in the political backdrop of Chosun being sandwiched between two strong aggressive powers, China and Japan. These dramatically encoded historical cultural memories and encounters might make popular audience reception difficult in modern-day Mainland China and Japan. However, in the consumption practices of Hong Kong viewers, they seem to exercise selective attention to the dramatic texts and choose to focus on those aspects that they can readily identify with culturally and emotionally. Here is an opening message for the topic: ‘Stella, there are things which you do not know, Chosun is greatly influenced by Chinese culture, Chosun people have been … ’ 「Stella，你有所不知，朝鮮深受中國文化影響，朝鮮人一直 ( … 」). This message shows the writer’s Sino-centric attitudes towards the ‘Great China’ in history. This reproduces and reaffirms the common discourse among Chinese people that China has been historically influencing Korea with its relatively strong and superior culture and loaded with this discourse seems to be the speaker/writer’s sense of cultural

DISCOURSE AND RACE

199

pride. When one of the members discovered that the Korean writing used in the dramas looks ‘exactly like the Mandarin characters’, another member called Aviao replied in this way: Yeah, (I) noticed that too. Not really sure but back in those days, China was considered ‘the centre of the world’ so a lot of countries in the vicinity adopted Chinese ways. That’s how Confucianism got spread to Korea and Japan. And I think the writing too. Even the current Japanese writing still incorporates Chinese characters. (Posted on 25/1/2005, viewing ratesparties probably don’t like you either< hh

8.

(0.6)

9. Gar:  I guess so. ↑OH NO. (0.8) people always like 10.

someone they can saddle up to:

11.

(2.1)

12. Gar:  talk to, there’s at least someone in the corner 13.

they can talk to °(you know)°

While Gary initially agrees with these criticisms, he then goes on to offer an account for why he does not talk so much, namely, that it allows other people to talk more (lines 9–13). In the following example taken from an initial interaction between two Taiwanese speakers of Mandarin Chinese, which is taken from the Mandarin Conversation Dialogue Corpus (MCDC) (Tseng 2008), we can observe the same pattern. The excerpt is transcribed using the same conventions as above, but a translation into English also follows the original excerpt. In addition, utterance-final particles that are difficult to translate directly into English, such as la, ye and a, are indicated through italics. (2) MCDC09 1. 張: 他現在上課就是游泳啦:: 2. 王:

hhe-[hehh]

3. 張:    [畫畫]啦:: (.) 然後那個什麼4. 王: → 當你的兒子也很累耶 (.) [我覺得啦] 5. 張:          [所以我就]覺得 6.

他們很累啊=

7. 王:

=嘿啊 (.) 其實很多其實都是父母給他的,

8.

因為你們就- 就會有那種觀念啊

1. Chang:

the lessons he takes now are swimming

2. Wang:

hhe- [he heh]

3. Chang:    4. Wang: →

[painting] la:: and then-

being your sons is also tiring ye (.) [I think la]

5. Chang:                   [hence I] think 6.

they are tired a=

7. Wang:

=right (.) actually, a lot are given by parents,

8.

because you- there is that kind of mindset

226

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

In this example, Chang has been talking about the various after-school activities in which his sons are involved. In line 4, a barb arises when Wang suggests it must be tiring to be Chang’s sons. Chang responds, in lines 5–6, by redoing this negative evaluation as an upshot of what he is saying, and Wang subsequently offers an account for why children are pushed so much in modern Taiwanese society (lines 7–8). What is important to note here is that while the same speech act, criticism, regularly occasions the same response in first conversations amongst both (Australian) speakers of English and (Taiwanese) speakers of Mandarin Chinese, Haugh and Chang (2019) argue, drawing on extant ethnographic studies, that they do not have the same meaning or ‘indexical value’ in each case. In example (1), the criticism could be evaluated as ‘impolite’ or ‘rude’ by Gary, not only because it threatens Gary’s positive face (Brown and Levinson 1987), but also because Natalie is claiming moral authority to judge and reproach Gary for being a poor conversationalist. In the case of example (2), however, it is less clear that this would be evaluated as meilimao (‘impolite’). Instead, what Wang appears to be doing here is claiming epistemic authority about how to best raise children and, by so doing, makes a claim to mianzi (‘face’) for herself, as well as indexing shuxi (‘familiarity’) with Chang. In other words, criticizing in this context is a means of showing closeness with others. What this sample study illustrates, then, is that we can draw a distinction between a sequential analysis through which we can identify recurrent patterns of behaviour, and an indexical analysis through which we can identify the cultural meaning(s) of those patterns of behaviour. When studying politeness in face-to-face discourse, we arguably need to draw from both.

SAMPLE STUDY (2): METAPRAGMATIC TALK ABOUT CONSIDERATION Metapragmatics involves the analysis of the ways in which users of language display awareness about their use of language, that is, when we use language to refer to our use of language (Verschueren 2000). This is arguably important in the case of politeness research because we are interested in the understandings of participants. In the following sample study, I examine metapragmatic talk about ‘consideration’ in two varieties of English using data from the Corpus of Global Web-based English (GloWbE).3 A common touchpoint in both first-order (lay, participant) and second-order (scientific, analyst) definitions of politeness is that it involves showing ‘consideration’ for others (e.g. Ide et al. 1992, Sifianou 1992, Watts 2003). However, it is less clear from such studies what ‘consideration’ encompasses. One way in which we can tap into the conceptualization of notions such as ‘consideration’, and other relevant ones like ‘respect’, ‘attentiveness’, ‘impoliteness’, ‘rudeness,’ ‘offence’ and so on, is through corpus-based metapragmatic studies of the ways in which people use such terms (Haugh 2018b). While such studies can involve comparisons of analogous terms from different languages, politeness researchers also study the use of the same term in different varieties of the same language (e.g. Culpeper and Haugh 2020, Culpeper, O’Driscoll and Hardaker 2019). In one study (Haugh 2019), for instance, I compared what actions are implemented through metapragmatic comments involving reference to ‘consideration’ by Australian and New Zealand speakers of English. I first identified mentions of considerate and inconsiderate that occurred in the Australian and New Zealand domains of the Corpus

DISCOURSE AND POLITENESS

227

TABLE 16.2  Occurrences of considerate and inconsiderate in GloWbE (Haugh 2019: 219).

Frequency

Normalized frequency (/million words)

Australian Considerate Inconsiderate

344 150

2.32 1.01

New Zealand Considerate Inconsiderate

177 36

2.17 0.44

of Global Web-based English (GloWbE). The raw frequency was then normalized in order to ensure the comparison was not distorted by the fact that the sample taken from Australian webpages (148 million words) is larger than that taken from New Zealand webpages (81 million words), as can be seen in Table 16.2. One difference across the two sub-corpora of GloWbE is that while considerate occurs at approximately the same normalized frequency in both, inconsiderate occurs twice as frequently in the Australian domain. There are various methods for assessing whether this is a statistically significant difference, but one simple test that can be used is the Log-likelihood test.4 Running this test confirms that the difference in the occurrence of inconsiderate in Australian and New Zealand webpages is indeed statistically significant. One question this finding raises is what might account for this difference. While it might be simply that Australians like to complain more about inconsiderate people than New Zealanders (at least in online discussion boards, blogs and the like), or favour the use of that term over others, closer examination of what users are doing through these mentions of inconsiderate indicates that there may also be something else going on here. One way in which to tease out possibilities is to examine the kinds of social actions accomplished through these metapragmatic comments. Close inspection of all 213 occurrences using a concordance program indicated that they fell into three main categories: criticisms, refuting/denying criticisms, and moralizing. An example of each type is illustrated in examples (1)–(3) respectively. (1) one is lazy, the other inconsiderate of belongings. Tissues all over the place, dirty clothes … (AUS05) [criticism] (2) he disagreed that his visit was inconsiderate and told me I only had my son to blame … (NZ03) [refuting criticism] (3) people love to give suggestions on how to handle inconsiderate people … (NZ06) [moralising] A sample of thirty instances from both sub-corpora were then coded by carefully inspecting the original discourse context in which they appeared. The results of that coding are reported in Table 16.3. While the results were broadly the same, a potentially interesting difference that emerged was that criticisms in the Australian sub-corpus were more frequently made

228

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

TABLE 16.3  Comparison of actions accomplished through mentions of inconsiderate in Australian and New Zealand subsets of GloWbE (Haugh 2019: 221).

Australia

New Zealand

26 18 8

26 8 18

Refuting criticism

0

2

Moralizing

4

2

30

30

Criticizing Interpersonal encounters Public encounters

Total

about interpersonal encounters, while in the New Zealand sub-corpus they were more frequently made about public encounters, in particular, when driving. Of course, a larger dataset is needed to ascertain whether that constitutes a robust finding or is simply a function of a particular snapshot in time. However, what this shows, at least in principle, is that we can start to sketch a systematic picture of politenessrelated terms across different varieties of English using corpus-based discourse analytic techniques. This focus on larger datasets, and the potentially more generalizable findings that corpus-based studies enable, arguably complements the more granular picture that emerges from qualitatively driven studies of politeness in discourse.

CONCLUSION In this chapter, we have seen that the shift in how politeness is theorized over the past two decades has been accompanied by a move towards anchoring the analysis of politeness in discourse. From these studies a number of key findings have emerged. We have learned, for instance, that politeness is not something that should be attached to single utterances, but ‘can be dynamically constructed by multiple participants over the course of longer stretches of discourse’ (van der Bom and Mills 2015: 182–3). The dynamic nature of politeness in discourse is what drives, in part, variability in evaluations of politeness amongst users and observers. We have also learned that we need to systematically examine not only whose understanding of politeness we are examining, but also on what grounds those understandings arise. Different approaches to discourse analysis enable us to tap into these moral dimensions of politeness in mutually complementary ways. A focus on the moral dimensions of politeness also enables us to offset the charge that discourse analytic approaches lead to ‘an over-emphasis on what is dynamic and local about the process of meaning-making rather than on what is social and shared about the process’ (Christie 2015: 363). However, while various forms of discourse analysis are essential in politeness research, it is important to bear in mind that they can only take us so far in advancing our overall understanding of politeness. In this chapter, the focus has been on discourse analytic approaches, but it would be fair to say that other methods, including experimental approaches (see Holtgraves and Bonnefon 2017), also have much to offer politeness research. While the natural home of politeness is discourse, there are clearly multiple different ways in which we can approach the study of it.

DISCOURSE AND POLITENESS

229

TRANSCRIPTION KEY []

overlapping speech

(0.5)

gap (in tenths of a second)

(.)

micropause

.

falling or final intonation

,

‘continuing’ intonation

=

latched utterances

?

rising intonation

↓ ↑

sharply falling/rising intonation

underlining contrastive stress or emphasis :

elongation of vowel or consonant sound

-

word cut-off

CAPS

markedly louder

° °

markedly soft

.hhh

in-breathing

(hh)

interpolated laughter/aspiration

> <

talk is compressed or rushed

< >

talk is markedly slowed or drawn out

KEY READINGS Blitvich, P. and M. Sifianou (2019), ‘Im/politeness and Discursive Pragmatics’, Journal of Pragmatics, 145: 91–101. Brown, P. (2017), ‘Politeness and Impoliteness’, in Y. Huang (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics, 383–99, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haugh, M. and J. Culpeper (2018), ‘Integrative Pragmatics and (Im)politeness Theory’, in C. Ilie and N. Norrick (eds), Pragmatics and Its Interfaces, 213–39, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Kádár, D. and M. Haugh (2013), Understanding Politeness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Locher, M. (2015), ‘Interpersonal Pragmatics and Its Link to (Im)politeness Research’, Journal of Pragmatics, 86: 5–10.

NOTES 1

2

3

The research reported in this chapter was supported through a grant from the Chiang Chingkuo Foundation (RG029-P-25). I would also like to thank the editors for their very helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter. Interactional pragmatics should be differentiated from approaches that advocate undertaking politeness research within the CA research paradigm (e.g. Karafoti 2015, Kasper 2009; cf. Ogiermann 2019). The Corpus of Global Web-based English (GloWbE) is available at https://www.englishcorpora.org/glowbe/.

230

4

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

A brief explanation of the test and an online calculator is available at http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/ llwizard.html.

REFERENCES Arundale, R. (2010), ‘Constituting Face in Conversation: Face, Facework and Interactional Achievement’, Journal of Pragmatics, 42: 2078–105. Blitvich, P. (2010), ‘A Genre Approach to the Study of Im-politeness’, International Review of Pragmatics, 2: 46–94. Blitvich, P. and M. Sifianou (2019), ‘Im/politeness and Discursive Pragmatics’, Journal of Pragmatics, 145: 91–101. Brown, P. (2017), ‘Politeness and Impoliteness’, in Y. Huang (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Pragmatics, 383–99, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, P. and S. Levinson (1987), Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Christie, C. (2015), ‘Epilogue. Politeness Research: Sociolinguistics as Applied Pragmatics’, Journal of Politeness Research, 11: 355–64. Christie, C. (2018), ‘The Indexical Scope of Adios: A Relevance Theoretic Analysis of Discursive Constructions of Gender and Institutions and Their Impact on Utterance Interpretation’, Journal of Politeness Research, 14: 97–119. Culpeper, J. (2011), Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Culpeper, J. and M. Haugh (2020), ‘The Metalinguistics of Offence in (British) English. A Corpus-based Metapragmatic Approach’, Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict. Online first. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00035.cul Culpeper, J., M. Haugh and D. Kádár (eds) (2017), The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Culpeper, J., J. O’Driscoll and C. Hardaker (2019), ‘Notions of Politeness in Britain and North America’, in E. Ogiermann and P. Blitvich (eds), From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness. Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives, 175–200, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, B. (2018), ‘Evaluating Evaluations: What Different Types of Metapragmatic Behaviour Can Tell Us about Participants’ Understandings of the Moral Order’, Journal of Politeness Research, 14: 121–51. Davies, B., A. Merrison and M. Haugh (2011), ‘Epilogue’, in B. Davies, M. Haugh and A. Merrison (eds), Situated Politeness, 270–77, London: Continuum. Diani, G. (2015), ‘Politeness’, in K. Aijmer and C. Rühlemann (eds), Corpus Pragmatics. A Handbook, 169–91, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eelen, G. (2001), A Critique of Politeness Theories, Manchester: St. Jerome. Grainger, K. (2018), ‘“We’re Not in a Club Now”: A Neo-Brown and Levinson Approach to Analyzing Courtroom Data’, Journal of Politeness Research, 14: 19–38. Haugh, M. (2011), ‘Humour, Face and Im/politeness in Getting Acquainted’, in B. Davies, M. Haugh and A. Merrison (eds), Situated Politeness, 165–84, London: Continuum. Haugh, M. (2013), ‘Im/politeness, Social Practice and the Participation Order’, Journal of Pragmatics, 58: 52–72. Haugh, M. (2015), Im/politeness Implicatures, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Haugh, M. (2018a), ‘Theorising (Im)politeness’, Journal of Politeness Research 14: 153–65.

DISCOURSE AND POLITENESS

231

Haugh, M. (2018b), ‘Corpus-based Metapragmatics’, in A. Jucker, K. Schneider and W. Bublitz (eds), Methods in Pragmatics, 619–43, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Haugh, M. (2019), ‘The Metapragmatics of Consideration in (Australian and New Zealand) English’, in E. Ogiermann and P. Blitvich (eds), From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness, 201–25, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haugh, M. and W. Chang (2019), ‘Indexical and Sequential Properties of Criticisms in Initial Interactions: Implications for Examining (Im)politeness across Cultures’, Russian Journal of Linguistics, 23: 904–29. Heritage, J. (1984), Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology, Cambridge: Polity Press. Holmes, J. and M. Stubbe (2003), Power and Politeness in the Workplace, London: Longman. Holmes, J. and S. Schnurr (2005), ‘Politeness, Humour and Gender in the Workplace: Negotiating Norms and Identifying Contestation’, Journal of Politeness Research, 1: 121–49. Holtgraves, T. and J. Bonnefon (2017), ‘Experimental Approaches to Linguistic (Im)politeness’, in J. Culpeper, M. Haugh and D. Kádár (eds), Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im) politeness Research, 381–401, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ide, S., B. Hill, Y. Carnes, T. Ogino and A. Kawasaki (1992), ‘The Concept of Politeness: An Empirical Study of American English and Japanese’, in R. Watts, S. Ide and K. Ehlich (eds), Politeness in Language. Studies in Its History, Theory and Practice, 281–97, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Jaspers, J. (2012), ‘Interactional Sociolinguistics and Discourse Analysis’, in J. Gee and M. Handford (eds), Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, 135–46, London: Routledge. Jucker, A. and L. Staley (2017), ‘(Im)politeness and Developments in Methodology’, in J. Culpeper, M. Haugh and D. Kádár (eds), Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness Research, 403–29, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kádár, D. (2017), Politeness, Impoliteness and Ritual: Maintaining the Moral Order in Interpersonal Interaction, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kádár, D. and M. Haugh (2013), Understanding Politeness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Karafoti, E. (2015), ‘Absent Second Pair Parts and Their Relevance for (Im)politeness’, in S. Ruhi and Y. Akşan (eds), Exploring (Im)politeness in Specialized and General Corpora, 82–104, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press. Kasper, G. (2009), ‘Locating Politeness in Interaction’, Studies in Pragmatics, 11: 21–41. Locher, M. (2006), ‘Polite Behaviour within Relational Work: The Discursive Approach to Politeness’, Multilingua, 25: 249–67. Lorenzo-Dus, N., P. Blitvich and P. Bou-Franch (2011), ‘On-line Polylogues and Impoliteness: The Case of Postings Sent in Response to the Obama Reggaeton YouTube Video’, Journal of Pragmatics, 43: 2578–93. Mills, S. (2003), Gender and Politeness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mills, S. (2017), English Politeness and Class, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Driscoll, J. (2018), ‘Dances with Footings: A Goffmanian Perspective on the Soto Case’, Journal of Politeness Research, 14: 39–62. Ogiermann, E. (2019), ‘Researching Im/politeness in Face-to-Face Interactions: On Disagreements in Polish Homes’, in E. Ogiermann and P. Blitvich (eds), From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness: Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives, 146–74, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ogiermann, E. and P. Blitvich (2019), ‘Im/politeness between the Analyst and Participant Perspective: An Overview of the Field’, in E. Ogiermann and P. Blitvich (eds), From Speech

232

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness: Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives, 1–24, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Price, H. and J. Wilson (2018), ‘Applying Politeness Research: An Introduction to the Soto Data’, Journal of Politeness Research, 14: 1–17. Ruhi, S. and Y. Akşan (eds) (2015), Exploring (Im)politeness in Specialized and General Corpora, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press. Sifianou, M. (1992), Politeness Phenomena in England and Greece, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2011), ‘Conceptualising the “Relational” in Pragmatics: Insights from Metapragmatic Emotion and (Im)politeness Comments’, Journal of Pragmatics, 43: 3565–78. Terkourafi, M. (2002), ‘Politeness and Formulaicity: Evidence from Cypriot Greek’, Journal of Greek Linguistics, 3: 179–201. Terkourafi, M. (2005), ‘An Argument for a Frame-based Approach to Politeness. Evidence from the Use of the Imperative in Cypriot Greek’, in R. Lakoff and S. Ide (eds), Broadening the Horizons of Linguistic Politeness, 99–116, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Terkourafi, M. (2019), ‘Im/politeness: A 21st Century Appraisal’, Foreign Language and Foreign Language Teaching, 6: 1–17. Tseng, S. (2008), ‘Spoken Corpora and Analysis of Natural Speech’, Taiwan Journal of Linguistics, 6: 1–26. van der Bom, I. and S. Mills. (2015), ‘A Discursive Approach to the Analysis of Politeness Data’, Journal of Politeness Research, 11: 179–206. Verschueren, J. (2000), ‘Notes on the Role of Metapragmatic Awareness in Language Use’, Pragmatics, 10: 439–56. Watts, R. (2003), Politeness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wilson, J. and H. Price (2018), ‘Courtroom Data and Politeness Research: A Case for NeoPeircean Semiotics in Interpersonal Pragmatics’, Journal of Politeness Research, 14: 63–95.

PART THREE

new directions in discourse analysis

234

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Discourse analysis and ethnography DWIGHT ATKINSON, HANAKO OKADA AND STEVEN TALMY

This chapter begins by locating discourse analysis and ethnography in their historical contexts, foregrounding ethnography because discourse analysis is discussed throughout this volume. Second, it recounts a historical controversy between ethnographers and practitioners of conversation analysis – one major form of discourse analysis (Zhang Waring, this volume) – which illustrates how these different forms of knowledge-making had to come to terms before they could work together cooperatively. Third, three hybrid approaches to discourse analysis and ethnography are reviewed. Fourth and finally, we show in detail how another ethnographic approach – critical ethnography – was productively combined with conversation analysis to yield a discourse-based critical study in US education.

LOCATING ETHNOGRAPHY The term ‘ethnography’ originated in anthropology, signifying the up-close, intensive, long-term, holistic study of small-scale, non-Western societies. From the early-to-midtwentieth century, ethnographers lived with those they studied, seeking to comprehend their lives emically – as understood by the participants themselves. Sociologists then adapted this approach to studying large-scale Western societies. Due to the intensiveness of their work, ethnographers studying large-scale societies usually focused on smaller social units, for example, minoritized subcultures and local community life, albeit approaching them in holistic ways. Ethnographers began studying education around the mid-twentieth century, entailing further downsizing of the ethnography concept. By the last quarter of the century, educational ethnographic research often focused on single schools or even single classrooms. Erickson (1977) stated that classroom ethnographies are holistic because they treat classrooms as analytic wholes, while simultaneously embedding them in larger social practices/institutions. Educational ethnographic studies usually focus on how inequitable power arrangements negatively impact the educational experience of minoritized groups. Watson-Gegeo (1997) defined ethnography as the ‘long-term, holistic, intensive study of people’s behavior in ongoing settings …, [in order to] understand the social organization and culturally-based perspectives and interpretations that underlie knowledge and guide behavior in a given social group’ (134). Geertz (1973) influentially argued that ethnography is a viewpoint rather than a method, emphasizing: (1) the complexity and particularity

236

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

of the social scene studied, (2) understanding that scene from an emic/insider perspective and (3) the researcher’s awareness that they are a constitutive part of the scene. Geertz summarized these points in the oft-used (and abused) term, ‘thick description’. Since the 1970s, ethnographic research has come under intense critique, especially concerning its ability to provide truthful descriptions of human lifeways, for reasons ranging from its inevitably partial, subjective, ideological nature to current conditions of globalization and postmodernity. Those who want to save the term/concept have also made trenchant criticisms, centring on its promiscuous overuse and concomitant loss of meaning, and/or lack of clear definition vis-à-vis other qualitative research approaches (e.g. Hammersley 2018). There is a danger, however, in defining ethnography too precisely: if its object of study – the fundamentally open-ended, innovative nature of human social existence – eludes precise definition, then the tools used to study this object must be open-ended too (Atkinson 2005).

LOCATING DISCOURSE ANALYSIS The concept of discourse analysis was originally developed by linguists seeking to analyse language beyond its basic units, or language beyond the sentence. A later tradition views discourse as language in the world – as it functions in potentially all forms of life, often by actively constructing those life-forms rather than simply reflecting them. This tradition is highly interdisciplinary, confirming the complex and diverse nature of human discourse, as fully reflected in this volume. Other discourse-analytic traditions move beyond language. First, those influenced by poststructuralism examine how language functions within more encompassing social practices, or Discourses, defined by Foucault (1972) as ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’ (49). Participation in Discourses functions to create and transform human beings in socially identifiable ways – for example, within dominant educational Discourses, as ‘gifted’, ‘at-risk’, ‘illiterate’ or ‘ESL’ (e.g. Gee 2015a, Pennycook 1994). Second, multimodal discourse analysis (O’Halloran, this volume) treats language as an integral part of semiotic systems comprising heterogeneous modes and media of communication like images, gaze, gesture, material objects, internet technologies and social arrangements, because communication is inherently multimodal.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY: A CONTROVERSY Historically, ethnographers collected little interactional data; doing so was virtually impossible before the advent of portable tape recording. Where they treated language, they almost always focused on ritualized and/or monologic forms. From the 1970s, however, ethnographers began studying spoken interaction in the ethnography of communication framework (Hymes 1964), seeking to investigate the particular linguistic practices of sociocultural groups. A related innovation was microethnography, first developed for use in classroom ethnography (Erickson 1992). Both approaches are reviewed in the next section. From the 1960s, sociologists developed conversation analysis (or ‘CA’– Zhang Waring, this volume), a powerful form of discourse analysis seeking to uncover principles of social organization ‘bottom-up’ – that is, within moment-to-moment social interaction – rather than through externally imposed ‘top-down’ conceptual lenses like culture, gender and

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY

237

social class. A central tenet of CA is that the only way to know what a speaker means by a particular utterance is to see how their interlocutor responds to it – that is, its meaning to the interlocutor. Conversation analysts therefore made two main charges against ethnographic studies. First, the latter depended on a priori categories and assumed contextual influences – for example, cultural norms, socioinstitutional identities (e.g. doctor, female, second language speaker) and local factors (e.g. personal relationships) – to explain social behaviour, instead of basing their findings directly on interactional data. Second, ethnographic data were ‘retrospective’, ‘derived’ or ‘secondary’ – based largely on observational accounts and interviews – rather than ‘primary’ – the language participants actually used in the course of authentic social interaction (e.g. Maynard 1989, Schegloff 1992). Ethnographers countered, first, that CA’s self-limitation to ‘primary’ data provided vanishingly little information regarding the identities, social relationships and contextual background needed to understand in-situ social behaviour – information ethnographers specialize in collecting. Second, they argued that CA’s emphasis on interactional structure led to arid, overly technical accounts of social behaviour wherein form was privileged over meaning. Third, they suggested that the long-term nature of ethnographic studies yielded knowledge which conversation analysts, who tended to focus on fleeting moments of interaction, had no access to (e.g. Cicourel 1992, Duranti 1997, Moerman 1988). This debate has been substantially resolved in that there is now a history of combining these approaches in highly effective ways (e.g. Goodwin 1990, Moerman 1988). To ethnography, CA can contribute: (1) fine interactional detail providing valuable material for sociocultural analysis because ‘interaction is central to the organization of culture’ (Goodwin 1990: 1) and (2) solutions to the problem of attaining emicity by studying participants’ own orientations to the interactive behaviours of their interlocutors. To CA (particularly in its applied version – Antaki 2011), ethnography can contribute: (1) rich longitudinal descriptions of social life and language use among particular groups which can flesh out fine-grained analysis of verbal interaction and (2) immediate contextual details, such as pre-existing personal and social relationships between interlocutors, or the larger activities engaged in during talk. From these perspectives, combining CA and ethnography can only enhance the effectiveness of sociocultural description.

THREE APPROACHES TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY This section presents – roughly in birth order – three traditions of language research in which discourse analysis and ethnography are substantially integrated: ethnography of communication, microethnography and linguistic ethnography. In each case, we provide basic descriptions while trying to avoid reductive ‘cookbook’ portrayals.

Ethnography of communication Ethnography of communication studies how language is used in sociocultural contexts for sociocultural purposes. It was originally developed from the 1960s by the linguistic anthropologist Dell Hymes, partly in response to Chomsky’s view that, in order to understand language scientifically, it must be abstracted from its contexts of use and examined as a mind-internal, rule-governed system. While confirming the importance of linguistic form, Hymes saw the need to study it in social context: ‘[Ethnography of communication] cannot take linguistic form, a given code, or speech itself as frame of reference. It must take as context a community, investigating its communicative habits

238

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

as a whole, so that any given use of channels and code takes its place as but part of the resources upon which the members of the community draw’ (1964: 2–3). In order to understand how language is employed in systematic, rule-governed ways to perform social action, Hymes proposed that researchers describe what was linguistically expected of individuals in particular speech communities (Bhatia, Flowerdew and Jones 2008) and what they could actually do. Ethnography of communication was developed as a common theoretical framework for such descriptions. Ethnography of communication’s primary unit of analysis is the speech event, a conventionalized communicative activity composed of one or more speech acts – minimal units of communicative action like requests or declarations – set in a contextual frame. Speech events are constituted through language – that is, they cease to exist minus their characteristic language – yet they do not reduce merely to language since they incorporate conventionalized configurations of settings, participants, purposes, etc. Friendly conversations, blog posts and academic presentations are examples of speech events, whereas social activities not constituted primarily through language – soccer games, lovemaking, etc. – are not. As a hybrid combination of contextual components and linguistic form, the notion of speech event (or communicative event – Hymes 1964, Saville-Troike 2003) licenses the marriage of ethnography and discourse analysis in the ethnography of communication. Hymes (1972) criticized earlier research on speech community-based language use for not attending to linguistic form, as well as form-focused studies of language which insufficiently explored its contextual nature. Hymes’s own SPEAKING model of contextual components of language use provides a broad (if non-emic) grid for identifying influences on linguistic form; here, SPEAKING is an acronym representing Setting, Participants, Ends, Act sequence, Key, Instrumentalities, Norms of interaction and Genres (see Hymes (1972) for definitions, and Kamberelis and Dimitriadis (2005) for examples). A classic ethnography of communication is Shirley Brice Heath’s Ways with Words: Language, Life, and Work in Communities and Classrooms (1983). In this decade-long study, Heath examined how children from two working-class communities in the US South – one black and one white – learned language at home, and how this adversely affected learning ‘mainstream’ literacy practices at school. Tracing the children’s language learning/use to community-specific patterns of behaviour, Heath found striking differences between the two communities, as well as vis-à-vis the local ‘mainstream’ middle-class culture. Her findings cast light on the rich cultural diversity of language development, and its consequences for inequality in schooling and work, where practices based on tacit middle-class norms were enforced. These results could not have been obtained without deep, long-term involvement with the communities, as well as careful analysis of the discourse data collected. In related work, Heath (e.g. 1982) focused even more closely on particular ‘ways of speaking’ across these communities.

Microethnography Also known as the ethnographic microanalysis of interaction, microethnography was developed by the educational anthropologist Frederick Erickson and colleagues starting in the 1970s. Microethnography examines face-to-face interaction – often but not always classroom language use – through meticulous analysis of video recordings. It is an interdisciplinary approach which draws on the research traditions of context analysis, ethnography of communication, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis (Garcez 2008).

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY

239

Whereas the ethnography of communication can be characterized as long-term, holistic and employing both macro- and micro-analysis, microethnography has a narrower focus, examining ‘slices’ of activity covering short periods of time. This is done through intensive, repetitive, rigorous and fine-grained micro-analysis of video-recorded data. This is not to say, however, that microethnography ignores larger issues (see below), but they are accessed ‘bottom-up’ – through careful and intensive micro-analysis of smaller events, such as interactions in a single classroom. Microethnography has thus been used to study ‘behavior, activities, interaction and discourse in formal and semi-formal educational settings’ (Watson-Gegeo 1997: 135), and how these (re)produce unequal social relationships, particularly between teachers and students. Microethnography has also shown how culturally aligned pedagogies, typically taught by a community insider, empower minoritized children (e.g. Au and Mason 1983). According to Erickson (1992: 204), education-oriented microethnography aims to: (1) describe educational processes more precisely than standard ethnographic practice allows; (2) test the claims of traditional ethnographic research and (3) detail the exact means by which interaction is organized. It is a means of specifying the learning environments and processes of social influence as they occur in face-to-face interaction. It is especially appropriate when such events are rare or fleeting in duration or when the distinctive shape and character of such events unfolds moment by moment, during which it is important to have accurate information on the speech and nonverbal behavior of particular participants in the scene. It is also important when one wishes to identify subtle nuances of meaning that occur in speech and nonverbal action …. Verification of these nuances of meaning – especially of implicitly or cryptically expressed meaning – can help us see more clearly the experience in practice of … learners, teachers, administrators. (204–5) Major contributions to microethnography include Erickson and Shultz’s (1982) analysis of academic counselling interviews in two US two-year colleges. They focused on how counsellors and students actively performed social roles and identities, co-membership and participation structures in interaction. To do so they simultaneously examined verbal and non-verbal ‘tracks’ in the interactions, highlighting proxemic (i.e. physical coorientation) and kinesic (i.e. individual movement) analysis in the latter. They found that interaction between counsellors and students from different ethnic backgrounds reflected the subtle yet powerful ‘communicative consequences of ethnicity’ (ix), in terms of both how ethnicity affected interactive alignment and how the resulting alignments affected institutional gatekeeping.

Linguistic ethnography Over the last quarter century, an ‘idiosyncratic approach to linguistics and ethnography’ (Pérez-Milans, 2016: 86) has developed among British applied linguists. Known as linguistic ethnography, this approach combines elements from many of the approaches described so far, particularly ethnography of communication. Rampton (2007) called linguistic ethnography ‘neo-Hymesian linguistic ethnography’ (584), describing it as an ‘umbrella’ term for British discourse-analytic ethnography and explaining that, unlike North America, England historically had no homegrown tradition of language-focused ethnography to rely on. British applied linguists therefore borrowed extensively from existing traditions combining ethnography and discourse analysis in order to enrich the latter.

240

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Rampton, Maybin and Roberts (2015) described three features of linguistic ethnography which may differentiate it somewhat from other such approaches. Philosophically, it is heavily influenced by poststructuralism, which highlights issues like human ‘agency, fragmentation and coherence’ and the construction of scientific knowledge. Institutionally, it views concepts like ‘“society,” “nation,” “community,” “gender,” and “ethnicity” … [as] social constructions, produced in discourse and ideology’. In terms of processes, it studies ‘material real-world changes associated with globalisation, … massively increased population mobility, and rapid developments in communication technology’ (19) characterizing the twenty-first century. Other authors add identity, language and power, race, class, neoliberalism, outsourcing, and superdiversity to the agenda (some of these topics, it should be noted, have also been treated extensively by ethnographically oriented discourse analysts from other traditions). Additionally, linguistic ethnographers sometimes locate themselves in dialectical relation to discourse-analytic approaches, for example, critical discourse analysis (Wodak, this volume) and systemic-functional linguistics (Martin, this volume), which, while taking them onboard, they view as impoverished without contextual supplementation. Finally, linguistic ethnography includes studies in the New Literacy Studies framework (e.g. Gee 2015b), as does the ethnography of communication, and shares a dominant interest in educational processes with substantially all the approaches mentioned so far.

CRITICAL ETHNOGRAPHY AND DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Critical ethnography is a form of ethnography with antecedents in neo-Marxist critical theory (May 1997). Its primary objective is to unveil the unequal distribution of power in society and change it for the better. Critical ethnography thus differs from the previous approaches in its broader focus and direct ‘critical’ and emancipatory intent, although, as already noted, substantially all ethnographic approaches reviewed here concern themselves with social inequality. As with ethnography in general, critical ethnography depends on long-term, intensive, emically oriented analysis of particular social situations. However, its ‘openly ideological’ (Lather 1986) commitments entail rather different empirical foci: how social structure is (or is not) instantiated, accommodated, resisted and/or transformed in the micropolitics of everyday life; its interests in ideology and hegemony; its rigorous approach to reflexivity; and its aim of implementing equitable social change in collaboration with research participants. As it does with other ethnographic approaches, discourse analysis adds substance and rigour to critical ethnography. The most common discourse-analytic approach within a critical ethnographic framework is critical discourse analysis (CDA) (Wodak, this volume). Like critical ethnography, CDA focuses on exposing inequality and injustice, in this case through analysing language as a means of naturalizing unequal social structures and relations (Bhatia et al. 2008). In the following section, we provide an extended example of critical ethnography combined not with CDA per se but rather CA-oriented discourse analysis. This example concretely illustrates: (1) the specific nature of discourse-oriented critical ethnography; (2) the combined use of discourse analysis and ethnography in general – the main topic of this chapter and (3) the basically open-ended nature of ethnographic practice.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY

241

A SAMPLE STUDY The Tradewinds study (Talmy 2008) concerned the production of English as a Second Language (ESL) as a stigmatized identity category at Tradewinds High School (a pseudonym), a large public high school in Hawai‘i. In North American public schools, ESL is often perceived as a remedial programme, intended for students who ‘are dumb … and … have to learn English before they can learn anything else’ (Johnson 1996: 34). Similar evaluations of ESL were widespread at Tradewinds, just as positive attributes were associated with ‘mainstream’ students; these oppositions were conceptualized as a relational status differential between the two categories, which disadvantaged students identified as ESL. The Tradewinds study focused on how the stigma of ESL was in part generated in the high school in terms of: (1) school-sanctioned cultural productions of the ESL student and (2) oppositional productions of the ESL student, as generated by ‘oldtimer’ (Lave and Wenger 1991) ‘Local ESL’ students in the ESL programme.

Method The study consisted of 625 hours of observation in 15 classrooms over 2.5 years. Observational data were generated in fieldnotes and supplemented by 158 hours of audio-recorded classroom interaction. Over fifty interviews were recorded with teachers and students, and site artefacts were collected for analysis. As in ethnographic studies generally, analysis commenced with data generation and was recurrent throughout fieldwork and writing. Analysis employed a participant-relevant framework informed in part by applied CA (Antaki 2011). While CA and critical ethnography are seldom integrated, there is no reason they cannot be used together, so long as there is consideration of necessary points of theoretical divergence and agreement. In fact, if the primary record includes interactional data, as the Tradewinds study did in abundance, it is ill-advised to dismiss such a powerful analytic affordance out of hand. As the abbreviated analyses in the next section suggest, close analysis of interaction can effectively warrant and elaborate ethnographic claims.

The school-sanctioned productions of ESL Although the ESL population was large and diverse at Tradewinds, the category of ‘ESL student’ was institutionally constructed via administrative practice, curriculum and instruction as essentially the same. This was evident in ESL placement policy, which used length of enrolment at Tradewinds rather than educational needs or L2 expertise to determine students’ course placement. It was also evident in an undifferentiated ESL curriculum, in which students received identical materials, assignments and activities. The curriculum was structured around popular juvenile literature, which was below the students’ age- and grade-level, and which often had tangential relevance to academic or English learning. Another curricular mainstay was reception and orientation assignments, which introduced newcomers to the culture, customs and holidays of the United States. In short, the school-sanctioned productions of ESL constructed ESL students as an undifferentiated group of recently arrived foreigners with beginning L2 expertise and little knowledge of the United States or Hawai‘i.

Local ESL students’ oppositional productions of ESL Local ESL students’ responses to the school-sanctioned productions of ESL were largely negative. These responses included: public displays of distinction from lower-proficient

242

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

and newcomer ESL classmates; refusal to participate in instructional activities; leaving materials ‘at home’ and other oppositional practices that undermined the schoolsanctioned productions of ESL.

Classroom interaction data The data are from a class consisting of roughly thirty ninth-to-eleventh-grade students with English language expertise that ranged from beginning to advanced. The teacher, Mr Day, had little experience teaching ESL. Jennie, featured in Extract 1, was a Local ESL ninth-grader from Korea who had been in the United States for 2.5 years. At this point in the lesson, students were to have completed two grammar worksheet exercises, and to have been working on ‘bookwork’ assignments from the children’s novel Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes (Coerr 1977). However, Jennie was among the majority who had not brought her materials to class. Five minutes prior to this interaction, Mr Day had directed Jennie to stop playing cards with classmates and begin working on the bookwork assignment (see Zhang Waring, this volume, for transcription conventions). Extract 1: Mr. Day and Jennie (Talmy 2009: 187–99)

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY

243

Mr Day displays a clearly disapproving stance towards the activities that Jennie is (not) engaged in: not having her bookwork out, not having her book and not following directions. This is evident in his topicalization of these matters (lines 01, 06, 10, 13 and 19), his pursuit of more elaborated accounts (lines 04, 06, 10 and 13) and in Jennie’s orientation to being censured (e.g. lines 05 and 14). In negatively evaluating her conduct, Mr Day makes relevant his criteria for evaluation and thus implies activities that students in the class expectably should be doing: bringing their copies of Sadako to class, doing assigned work from it, working throughout the class and following instructions. In other words, good students are those who accede to and comply with the governing language (learning) ideologies about ESL students and ESL (e.g. that below-grade-level juvenile fiction is appropriate for L2 learning) as manifest in curriculum and instruction. By not participating in activities associated with the school-sanctioned productions of ESL, Jennie generates an oppositional identity which indexes a lack of investment in the class. The most striking utterance is at line 11, when Jennie answers Mr Day’s question about what she expects to do in class with ‘nothing’. This contrasts with her answer to Mr Day’s follow-up question about what she does in her ‘other’ (i.e. non-ESL) classes, where she states that she ‘works’. The utterances invoke a category contrast between ‘student in ESL class’ and ‘student in other (non-ESL) classes’; they disclose Jennie’s acceptance of her candidacy as a ‘bad’ ESL student and her rejection of candidacy as a ‘bad’ student in other classes (where she ‘works’), thereby shifting the problem of not working in ESL from some deficiency attributable to her to a problem with the ESL class (since she does ‘work’ in ‘other classes’). Extract 2 involves Mr Day and Laidplayer, a ninth-grade Local ESL student from Palau. Here, Mr Day attempts to encourage Laidplayer, for the third time in this class session, to complete a bookwork assignment from the children’s novel Shiloh (Naylor 1991). Utterances accompanied by italicized English translations were spoken in Pidgin (Hawai‘i Creole), the Local language of Hawai‘i. Extract 2: Mr. Day and Laidplayer (from Talmy 2008: 627–31)

244

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Similar to Extract 1, Mr Day enumerates or implies activities that constitute a particular ESL student identity: someone who has completed the assigned reading of Shiloh so s/he can do the assignment, and is complying with Mr Day’s instructions in the larger activity of doing ESL coursework. This is, in other words, a student who is complying with the production of a school-sanctioned ESL student identity. Clearly, Laidplayer’s actions do not produce this identity to Mr Day’s satisfaction, as his initiation of the interaction indicates. Whereas earlier (not shown), Mr Day had reproached Laidplayer for not doing the assignment, in lines 23–24 he displays a notably different stance, cajoling Laidplayer to complete the assignment now rather than censuring him. With his line 25 utterance, ‘It’s so easy, I just’, Laidplayer abandons an account (in Pidgin) for his conduct. However, the overlap, the amplified volume and the sentenceinitial placement of the intensifier ‘so’ shift the responsibility of not doing the assignment from some deficiency in him to what goes unmentioned: that is, the book, Shiloh, which is ‘so easy’. Significantly, Mr Day’s repeated ‘so do it now’ utterances in lines 27 and 29 do not challenge Laidplayer’s assessment. Indeed, the discourse marker ‘so’ that prefaces both turns marks a ‘fact-based result relation’ (Schiffrin 1987: 201–4), meaning Mr Day not only concurs with Laidplayer’s assessment, but uses it as an incentive for the student to ‘do it now’. Laidplayer’s refusal to participate in the acts, stances and activities that comprise the school-sanctioned ESL student identity is constitutive of the production of an alternative ESL student identity. He is a student whose disaffiliative actions index resistance to, difference from and lack of investment in the school-sanctioned productions of ESL. Similarly, his expert use of Pidgin points to his affiliations with Local communities beyond ESL.

Ethnographic claims and discourse data These two brief analyses hint at how discourse analysis can inform, warrant and elaborate ethnographic claims. Interactions like those just analysed helped to generate, ground and warrant claims from the larger critical ethnography concerning: (1) the respective statuses ascribed to students institutionally identified as mainstream and ESL; (2) the school-sanctioned productions of ESL; (3) the oppositional, Local ESL productions of ESL; and (4) displays of distinction and other social practices that Local ESL students engaged in. Additionally, although any claim concerning the scope of these phenomena cannot be supported by analysis of only two interactions, discourse analysis worked to elaborate these claims using primary data, adding accountability to the analysis as well as contextual nuance and elaboration – ‘thickening’ the thick description – in ways that a straightforward summary, thematic analysis or other non-discourse-analytic approach to ethnographic analysis would have precluded.

CONCLUSION In this chapter, we have sought to describe the contributions of ethnographic research to discourse analysis and to some extent vice versa. Traditionally, ethnography was based substantially on observational accounts and interviews, although monologic linguistic products were also studied. Over the past fifty years discourse analysis has found a place in ethnographic studies, an innovation led by technology which has clearly enriched

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY

245

ethnographic description with fine-grained linguistic detail. The developments described here also suggest the open-ended nature of ethnographic practice – its continuing efforts to more fully and faithfully address the unconstrained meaning-making potential of human beings, including that most basic of all human meaning-making processes, faceto-face interaction.

KEY READINGS Atkinson, P. (2015), For Ethnography. London: Sage. Bloome, D. and S. Carter (2014), ‘Microethnographic Discourse Analysis’, in P. Albers and T. Holbrook (eds), New Methods in Literacy Research, 3–18, New York: Routledge. Copland, F. and A. Creese (2015), Linguistic Ethnography: Collecting, Analysing and Presenting Data, London: Sage. Noy, C. (2017), ‘Ethnography of Communication’, in J. Matthes, C. Davies and R. Potter (eds), The International Encyclopedia of Communication Research Methods, 1–11, Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118901731.iecrm0089 Silverman, D. (2019), Interpreting Qualitative Data, 6th edn, London: Sage. Taylor, S. (2013), What Is Discourse Analysis?, London: Bloomsbury. Tusting, K. (ed) (2020), The Routledge Handbook of Linguistic Ethnography, Oxford: Routledge. Weingar-Kaplan, J. and C. Ullman (2015), Methods for the Ethnography of Communication: Language in Use in Schools and Communities, New York: Routledge.

REFERENCES Antaki, C. (ed.) (2011), Applied Conversation Analysis: Intervention and Change in Institutional Talk, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Atkinson, D. (2005), ‘Situated Qualitative Research and Second Language Writing’, in P. K. Matsuda and T. Silva (eds), Second Language Writing Research: Perspectives on the Process of Knowledge Construction, 49–64, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Au, K. and J. Mason (1983), ‘Cultural Congruence in Classroom Participation Structures: Achieving a Balance of Rights’, Discourse Processes, 6: 145–67. Bhatia, V., J. Flowerdew and R. Jones (2008), ‘Approaches to Discourse Analysis’, in V. Bhatia, J. Flowerdew and R. Jones (eds), Advances in Discourse Studies, 1–17, London: Routledge. Cicourel, A. (1992), ‘The Interpenetration of Communicative Contexts: Examples from Medical Encounters’, in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds), Rethinking Context, 291–310, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coerr, E. (1977), Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, New York: Putnam. Duranti, A. (1997), Linguistic Anthropology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Erickson, F. (1977), ‘Some Approaches to Inquiry in School/Community Ethnography’, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 8: 58–69. Erickson, F. (1992), ‘Ethnographic Microanalysis of Interaction’, in M. LeCompte, W. Millroy and J. Preissle (eds), The Handbook of Qualitative Research in Education, 201–25, New York: Academic. Erickson, F. and J. Shultz (1982), The Counselor as Gatekeeper: Social Interaction in Interviews, New York: Academic. Foucault, M. (1972). Archaeology of Knowledge; and the Discourse on Language, New York: Pantheon.

246

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Garcez, P. (2008), ‘Microethnography in the Classroom’, in N. Hornberger (ed.), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Vol. 10: Research Methods in Language and Education, 257–70, New York: Springer. Gee, J. (2015a), Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideology in Discourses, 5th edn, Oxford: Routledge. Gee, J. (2015b), ‘The New Literacy Studies’, in J. Rowsell and K. Pahl (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Literacy Studies, 35–48, Oxford: Routledge. Geertz, C. (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books. Goodwin, M. (1990), He-Said-She-Said: Talk as Social Organization mong Black Children, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Hammersley, H. (2018), ‘What Is Ethnography? Can It Survive? Should It?’, Ethnography and Education, 13: 1–17. Heath, S. (1982), ‘Questioning at Home and at School: A Comparative Study’, in G. Spindler (ed.), Doing the Ethnography of Schooling, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 102–31. Heath, S. (1983), Ways with Words: Language, Life and Work in Communities and Classrooms, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hymes, D. (1964), ‘Introduction: Toward Ethnographies of Communication’, American Anthropologist, 66: 1–34. Hymes, D. (1972), ‘Models for the Interaction of Language and Social Life’, in J. Gumperz and D. Hymes (eds), Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, 35–71, New York: Holt. Johnson, K. (1996), ‘The Vision Versus the Reality: The Tensions of the TESOL Practicum’, in D. Freeman and J. Richards (eds), Teacher Learning in Language Teaching, 30–49, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kamberelis, G. and G. Dimitriadis (2005), On Qualitative Inquiry: Approaches to Language and Literacy Research, New York: Teachers College Press. Lather, P. (1986), ‘Issues of Validity in Openly Ideological Research: Between a Rock and a Hard Place’, Interchange, 17: 63–84. Lave, J. and W. Wenger (1991), Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. May, S. (1997), ‘Critical Ethnography’, in N. Hornberger and D. Corson (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Vol. 8: Research Methods in Language and Education, 197–206, Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer. Maynard, D. (1989), ‘On the Ethnography and Analysis of Discourse in Institutional Settings’, in J. Holstein and G. Miller (eds), New Perspectives on Social Problems, 127–46. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Moerman, M. (1988), Talking Culture: Ethnography and Conversation Analysis, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Naylor, P. (1991), Shiloh, New York: Atheneum. Pennycook, A. (1994), ‘Incommensurable Discourses?’, Applied Linguistics, 15: 115–38. Pérez-Milans, M. (2016), ‘Language and Identity in Linguistic Ethnography’, in S. Preece (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Identity, 83–97, London: Routledge. Rampton, B. (2007), ‘Neo-Hymesian Linguistic Ethnography in the United Kingdom’, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 11: 584–607. Rampton, B., J. Maybin and C. Roberts (2015), ‘Theory and Method in Linguistic Ethnography’, in J. Snell, S. Shaw and F. Copland (eds), Linguistic Ethnography: Interdisciplinary Explorations, 14–50, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Saville-Troike, M. (2003), Ethnography of Communication, 3rd edn, Oxford: Blackwell.

DISCOURSE ANALYSIS AND ETHNOGRAPHY

247

Schegloff, E. (1992), ‘In Another Context’, in A. Duranti and C. Goodwin (eds), Rethinking Context, 191–227, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,. Schiffrin, D. (1987), Discourse Markers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, S. (2008), ‘The Cultural Productions of the ESL Student at Tradewinds High: Contingency, Multidirectionality, and Identity in L2 Socialization’, Applied Linguistics, 29: 619–44. Talmy, S. (2009), ‘Resisting ESL: Categories and Sequence in a Critically “Motivated” Analysis of Classroom Interaction’, in H. Nguyen and G. Kasper (eds), Talk-in-interaction: Multilingual Perspectives, 191–227, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i, National Foreign Language Resource Center. Watson-Gegeo, K. (1997), ‘Classroom Ethnography’, in N. Hornberger and D. Corson (eds), Encyclopedia of Language and Education, Vol 8: Research Methods in Language and Education, 135–45, Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer.

248

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Multimodal discourse analysis KAY L. O’HALLORAN

INTRODUCTION Multimodal discourse analysis (henceforth MDA) has become a major paradigm in discourse studies that extends the study of language per se to the study of language in combination with other resources, such as images, scientific symbolism, gesture, action, music and sound. As Tan, O’Halloran and Wignell (2020) explain, interest in multimodal approaches to discourse analysis has surged over the past two decades (e.g. Bateman, Wildfeuer and Hiippala 2017, Jewitt 2014b, Jewitt, Bezemer and O’Halloran 2016, Kress 2010, O’Halloran and Smith 2011). Despite the increased interest, terminology in MDA is still used somewhat loosely. For example, language and other resources which integrate to create meaning in ‘multimodal’ (or ‘multisemiotic’) phenomena (e.g. print materials, videos, websites, three-dimensional objects and day-to-day events) are variously called ‘semiotic resources’, ‘modes’ and ‘modalities’. MDA itself is referred to as ‘multimodality’, ‘multimodal analysis’, ‘multimodal semiotics’ and ‘multimodal studies’. For the purpose of clarity, in this chapter semiotic resource is used to describe the resources (or modes) (e.g. language, image, music, gesture and architecture) which integrate across sensory modalities (e.g. visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, kinesthetic) in multimodal texts, discourses and events, collectively called multimodal phenomena. Following Halliday (1978: 123), semiotic resources are ‘system[s] of meanings that constitute ‘the “reality” of the culture’. The medium is the means through which the multimodal phenomena materialize (e.g. newspaper, television, computer or material object and event). In what follows, the major concerns of MDA, the reasons for the emergence of this field in linguistics and the variety of approaches which have been developed are discussed, before concepts specific to MDA are examined in more detail and a sample multimodal analysis is presented. Lastly, recent developments in digital approaches to multimodal analysis are discussed. MDA is concerned with theory and analysis of semiotic resources and the semantic expansions which occur as semiotic choices combine in multimodal phenomena. The ‘inter-semiotic’ (or inter-modal) relations arising from the interaction of semiotic choices, known as inter-semiosis, are a central area of multimodal research (e.g. Jewitt 2014a). MDA is also concerned with the design, production and distribution of multimodal resources in social settings, and the resemiotization of multimodal phenomena which takes place as social practices unfold (e.g. Iedema 2003, O’Halloran, Tan and Wignell

250

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

2016, van Leeuwen 2008). The major challenges facing MDA include the development of theories and frameworks for semiotic resources other than language, the modelling of social semiotic processes (in particular, inter-semiosis and resemiotization) and the interpretation of the complex semantic space which unfolds within and across multimodal phenomena. Computational approaches are increasingly being explored as means for handling the multidimensional complexity of multimodal analysis. There are several reasons for the paradigmatic shift away from the study of language alone to the study of the integration of language with other resources. First, discourse analysts attempting to interpret the wide range of human discourse practices have found the need to account for the meaning arising from multiple semiotic resources deployed in various media, particularly digital media. Second, technologies to develop new methodological approaches for MDA, for example, multimodal annotation tools (e.g. Cassidy and Schmidt 2017), have become available and affordable. Lastly, interdisciplinary research has become more common as scientists from various disciplines seek to solve similar problems. From ‘an age of disciplines, each having its own domain, its own concept of theory, and its own body of method’, the twentieth century has emerged as an ‘age of themes’ (Halliday 1991: 39) aimed at solving particular problems. MDA is an example of this shift, given its potential to contribute to the search and retrieval of information.

APPROACHES TO MDA Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen (2006) and Michael O’Toole (2011) provided the foundations for multimodal research in the 1980s and 1990s, drawing upon Michael Halliday’s (2014) social semiotic approach to language to model the meaning potential of words, sounds and images as sets of interrelated systems and structures. Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) explored images and visual design, and O’Toole (2011) applied Halliday’s systemic functional model to a semiotic analysis of displayed art, paintings, sculpture and architecture. Halliday’s (Halliday 1978, Halliday and Hasan 1985) concern with both text and context, instance and potential, is reflected in these foundational works. That is, Kress and van Leeuwen (2006) adopt a (top-down) contextual approach with a particular orientation to ideology, deriving general principles of visual design which are illustrated via text analysis, while O’Toole (2011) develops a (bottom-up) grammatical approach by working closely with specific ‘texts’ (i.e. paintings, architectural designs and sculptures) to derive frameworks which can be applied to other works. Subsequent research has built upon these two approaches and extended them into new domains. For example, contextual approaches have been developed for speech, sound and music, 3D spaces and objects (including architecture and buildings), online media (e.g. websites, blogs, social media), action and gesture, disciplinary knowledge (e.g. mathematics, science and history) and educational research (e.g. see Tan et al. 2020). In addition, grammatical approaches to mathematics (O’Halloran 2015), hypermedia (Djonov 2007) and a range of other multimodal texts (e.g. Bednarek and Martin 2010, Dreyfus, Hood and Stenglin 2011, Unsworth 2008) have resulted in an approach which has been called systemic-functional multimodal discourse analysis (SF-MDA). Jewitt (2014a: 32–6) classifies contextual and grammatical approaches as ‘social semiotic multimodality’ and ‘multimodal discourse analysis’, respectively. These approaches provide complementary perspectives, being derived from Michael Halliday’s social semiotic approach to text, society and culture (see Iedema 2003), which

MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

251

grounds social critique in concrete social practices (e.g. van Leeuwen 2008) through three fundamental principles: (1) Tri-stratal conceptualization of meaning which relates low-level features in the text (e.g. images and sound) to higher-order semantics through sets of interrelated lexicogrammatical systems, and ultimately to social contexts of situation and culture. (2) Metafunctional theory which models the meaning potential of semiotic resources into three distinct ‘metafunctions’: ●●

Ideational meaning (i.e. our ideas about the world) involves: – Experiential meaning: representation and portrayal of experience in the world. – Logical meaning: construction of logical relations in that world.

●●

Interpersonal meaning: enactment of social relations.

●●

Textual meaning: organization of the meaning as coherent texts and units.

(3) Instantiation models the relations of actual choices in text to the systemic potential, with intermediate subpotentials – registers – appearing as patterns of choice in text-types (e.g. casual conversation, debate and scientific paper). Multimodal research has rapidly expanded as systemic linguists and other language researchers became increasingly interested in exploring the integration of language with other resources. There was an explicit acknowledgement that communication is inherently multimodal and that literacy is not confined to language. Further approaches to multimodal studies have evolved. These include Ron Scollon, Suzanne Wong Scollon and Sigrid Norris’s multimodal interactional analysis (Norris 2004, Norris and Jones 2005, Scollon 2001, Scollon and Wong Scollon 2004), developed from mediated discourse analysis which has foundations in interactional sociolinguistics and intercultural communication, and Charles Forceville’s (Forceville and Urios-Aparisi 2009) cognitive approach to multimodal metaphor based on cognitive linguistics (Lakoff and Johnson 1980). In addition, critical discourse approaches have been developed (Machin 2007, van Leeuwen 2008), based on social semiotics and other critical discourse analysis traditions (see Djonov and Zhao 2014). A variety of distinct theoretical concepts and frameworks continue to emerge in multimodal studies (Jewitt 2014b), but most have some relationship to one or more of these paradigms. The increasing popularity of MDA is evidenced by the growth in recent publications from what have been traditionally distinct areas of discourse studies. Tan et al. (2020) provide a comprehensive overview of the trends in multimodal research, showing how the different approaches have addressed the complex issues arising from the study of integration of language with other resources. Unsurprisingly, there is much debate about the nature of the field. While multimodality can be characterized as ‘a domain of enquiry’ (Kress 2009: 54) (e.g. visual design, displayed art, mathematics, hypermedia, education and so forth), theories, descriptions and methodologies specific to MDA are clearly required (O’Halloran and Smith 2011) and frameworks and tools have indeed been developed (e.g. see Bateman et al. 2017). As a domain of enquiry, multimodal studies encourage engagement and crossfertilisation with other disciplines which have the same object of study. Incorporating knowledge, theories and methodologies from other disciplines poses many problems,

252

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

however, not least being the provision of adequate resources for research to be undertaken across traditional disciplinary boundaries. The development of theories and practices specific to MDA, on the other hand, will potentially contribute to other fields of study, including linguistics. In this sense, MDA ‘use[s] texts or types of text to explore, illustrate, problematise, or apply general issues in multimodal studies, such as those arising from the development of theoretical frameworks specific to the study of multimodal phenomena, or methodological issues’ (O’Halloran and Smith 2011: 3). This chapter deals with MDA precisely in this way as a field of study which requires specific theoretical and methodological frameworks and tools which in turn may be applied across other disciplines and domains.

THEORETICAL AND ANALYTICAL ISSUES IN MDA Theoretical and analytical issues in MDA include: (a) Modelling semiotic resources which are fundamentally different to language. (b) Modelling and analysing inter-semiotic expansions of meaning as semiotic choices integrate in multimodal phenomena. (c) Modelling and analysing the resemiotization of multimodal phenomena as social practices unfold. These issues are considered in turn. (a) Modelling semiotic resources which are fundamentally different to language. Following Halliday, language can be modelled as sets of interrelated systems in the form of system networks, which are metafunctionally organized according to taxonomies with hierarchical ranks (word, word groups, clauses, clause complexes and paragraphs and text) (see Martin 2021). The grammatical systems link words to meaning on the semantic stratum (see Martin 2011). Systems which operate on the expression plane (i.e. graphology and typography for written language and phonology for spoken language) are also included in Halliday’s model. Most semiotic resources are fundamentally different to language, however, with those having evolved from language (e.g. mathematical symbolism, scientific notation and computer programming languages) having the closest relationship in terms of grammaticality. Images differ, for example, in that parts are perceived as organized patterns in relation to the whole, following Gestalt laws of organization. Furthermore, following Charles Sanders Pierce’s categorization of signs, language is a symbolic (arbitrary) sign system which has no relationship to what is being represented (i.e. it is conventional and culturally specific), while images are iconic because they represent something through similarity. Therefore, analytic approaches and frameworks based on linguistic models have been questioned (e.g. Machin 2009). Nevertheless, models adapted from linguistics such as O’Toole (2011) have been widely and usefully applied to mathematical and scientific images, cities, buildings, museums and displayed art. In O’Toole’s model, the theoretical basis is Gestalt theory where images are composed of interrelated parts in the composition of the whole. O’Toole (2011) draws visual overlays of systemic choices on the image, suggesting a visually defined grammar as a possible way forward.

MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

253

Gestalt theory provides the basis for other approaches to visual analysis, including computational approaches to visual perception involving geometrical structures (e.g. points, lines, planes and shapes) and pattern recognition (e.g. Desolneux, Moisan and Morel 2008) and visual semantic algebras (e.g. Wang 2009). Perhaps one key to such descriptions is the provision of an abstract intermediate level, where low-level features are related to semantics via systemic grammars. However, the problem is that hierarchically organized categorical systems such as those developed for language have limitations when it comes to resources such as images, gestures, movement and sound which are topological in nature (Lemke 1998, 1999). Van Leeuwen (1999, 2009) proposes modelling systems within multimodal semiotic resources (e.g. colour, font style and font size for typography, and volume, voice quality and pitch) as sets of parameters with gradient values rather than categorical taxonomies ordered in terms of delicacy (i.e. subcategories with more refined options). In some cases, the existence of an intermediate grammatical level for resources such as music has been questioned (see van Leeuwen 1999). (b) Modelling and analysing inter-semiotic expansions of meaning as semiotic choices integrate in multimodal phenomena. The interaction of semiotic choices in multimodal phenomena gives rise to semantic expansions as the meaning potential of different resources is accessed and integrated, for example, in text–image relations (e.g. Bateman 2014), gesture and speech (Martinec 2004) and language, images and mathematical symbolism (Lemke 1998, O’Halloran 2015). This semantic expansion is also related to the materiality of the multimodal artefact, including the technology or other medium involved (e.g. book, interactive digital media) (Jewitt 2006, Levine and Scollon 2004, van Leeuwen 2005). Semantic integration in multimodal phenomena may be viewed metafunctionally whereby experiential, logical, interpersonal and textual meaning interacts across elements at different ranks (e.g. word group and image). The resulting multiplication of meaning (Lemke 1998) leads to a complex multidimensional semantic space where there may be a compression of meaning and divergent (even conflicting) meanings (e.g. Liu and O’Halloran 2009). Indeed, there is no reason to assume a coherent semantic integration of semiotic choices in multimodal phenomena. The processes and mechanisms of semantic expansion arising from inter-semiosis have yet to be fully theorized. It may be that inter-semiotic systems beyond the sets of inter-related grammatical systems for each resource, operating as ‘metagrammars’, are required. These inter-semiotic systems would have the potential to link choices across the hierarchical taxonomies for each resource, so that a word group in language, for example, is resemiotized as a component of a complex visual narrative or vice versa. One major problem for multimodal discourse analysts is the complexity of both the inter-semiotic processes and the resulting semantic space, particularly in dynamic texts (e.g. videos) and hyper-texts with hyperlinks (e.g. internet). As discussed in the sample analysis which follows, this has resulted in the development of software tools which are capable of coding an analysis and visualizing the results.

254

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

(c) Modelling and analysing the resemiotization of multimodal phenomena as social practices unfold. MDA is also concerned with the resemiotization of multimodal phenomena across place and time: ‘Resemiotisation is about how meaning making shifts from context to context, from practice to practice, or from stage of a practice to the next’ (Iedema 2003: 41). Iedema (2003: 50) is concerned with resemiotization as a dynamic process which underscores ‘the material and historicised dimensions of representation’. Resemiotization takes place within the unfolding multimodal discourse itself (as the discourse shifts between different resources) and across different contexts as social practices unfold (e.g. how a policy document is enacted). Indeed, resemiotization is the basis of cultural communication and change. From a grammatical perspective, resemiotization necessarily involves a reconstrual of meaning as semiotic choices change over place and time. In many cases, resemiotization involves introducing new semiotic resources, and may result in metaphorical expansions of meaning as functional elements in one semiotic resource are realized using another semiotic resource: for example, the shift from language to image and mathematical symbolism in unfolding mathematics discourse. This process takes place as linguistic configurations involving participants (i.e. who or what is involved, typically realized by nouns), processes (i.e. happenings or states of affairs, typically realized through verbs) and circumstances (i.e. additional information about how, what or where things are happening, typically realized by adverbs or prepositions), for example, are visualized as entities. Resemiotization necessarily results in a semantic shift, as choices from different semiotic resources are not commensurate (e.g. Lemke 1998). Processes specific to MDA, such as inter-semiosis and resemiotization of multimodal phenomena, add to the complexity of the semantic space which must be modelled and analysed. Indeed, managing this complexity lies at the heart of MDA.

SAMPLE MDA TEXT ANALYSIS1 Concepts specific to MDA, namely semiotic resource, inter-semiosis and resemiotization, are illustrated through the analysis of an extract from a television multiparty debate, Episode Two of the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s (ABC) television show ‘Q&A: Adventures in Democracy’ broadcast on Thursday 29 May 2008. The moderator is senior journalist Tony Jones and the panel consists of Tanya Plibersek (then Minister for Housing and the Status of Women in Kevin Rudd’s Federal Labor Government), Tony Abbott (then Opposition Liberal Party front-bencher) and Bob Brown (then Leader of the Australian Green Party). Other participants in the panel discussion, although not considered here, are Warren Mundine (Indigenous Leader and former president of the Australian Labor Party) and Louise Adler (then CEO and Publisher-in-Chief of Melbourne University Publishing). The extract is concerned with interactions between Tony Jones, Tanya Plibersek and Tony Abbott about leaked cabinet documents regarding a Government Cabinet decision in favour of a Fuel-Watch scheme to combat rising petrol prices, and reservations about this scheme as revealed through the leaked documents. (Note: * indicates overlap.) The multimodal analysis includes the interactions between the spoken language, kinetic features (including gaze, body posture and gesture) and cinematography effects (including

MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

255

Tanya Plibersek

… The reason that cabinet documents are confidential is that so senior public servants feel comfortable giving frank advice to the government of the day.

Tony Jones

Alright. Tony Abbott, you’ve been in the trenches. That’s fair enough isn’t it.

Tony Abbott:

Ah, yes it is, but the interesting thing is that the new government is already leaking Tony. I mean normally it takes many years *before a – before – before a government … well I -

Tony Jones:

* yes a little – a little bit like the coalition. Leaking going on all round.

Tony Abbott:

Tired old governments leak. New, smart, clever, intelligent governments aren’t supposed to leak, and the fact that this government is leaking so badly so early is a pretty worrying sign

camera angle and frame size). The multimodal analysis presented here is for illustrative purposes only. A more comprehensive linguistic analysis could have been presented, in addition to the inclusion of other semiotic resources (e.g. studio lighting, clothing, proxemics, seating arrangement and so forth). Semiotic choices are first presented in a static table (see Table 18.2), followed by an analysis of the video segment using multimodal analysis software which permits the combinations of multimodal choices to be visualized and interpreted. Halliday’s (Halliday and Greaves 2008) systemic functional model for language (including intonation) and Tan’s (2005, 2009) systemic model for gaze and kinetic action (Figure 18.1) and camera angle, camera movement and visual frame (Table 18.1) are drawn upon for the analysis, as is van Leeuwen’s work on the semiotics of speech rhythm

FIGURE 18.1  Systemic networks for gaze and kinetic action vectors (Tan 2005: 45).

256

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

(e.g. 1999). Comprehensive descriptions of these models are found elsewhere and thus are not repeated here. The multimodal analysis of the extract with key salient frames is presented in Table 18.2. The following analysis reveals how the multimodal choices Tony Abbott makes, particularly with respect to linguistic choices, intonation, gesture and body posture, work closely together to reorientate the discussion about the leaked documents from being a legal issue to a political issue in order to criticize and undermine

TABLE 18.1  Camera angle, camera movement and visual frame (Tan 2009: 179).

TABLE 18.2  Multimodal analysis of ‘leaked cabinet documents’ (Q&A Session, ABC Thursday, 29 May 2008).

MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

257

FIGURE 18.2  Tony Abbot’s use of Tone 4 (Halliday and Greaves 2008) in ‘It IS…’ (Image produced using Praat software).

Kevin Rudd’s (then Australian Prime Minister) Labor government. Following this, Tony Abbott’s choices are contrasted with those made by Tony Jones and Tanya Plibersek. Tony Jones puts forward to Tony Abbott a proposition with the tag ‘isn’t it’ (which explicitly signals that a particular kind of response is required) with respect to Tanya Plibersek’s defence of her government’s handling of the leaked documents: ‘That’s fair enough isn’t it?’ The (exaggerated) tone 4 (fall-rise) of Tony Abbott’s reply ‘Ah, yes it is…’ (displayed in Figure 18.2) adds reservation to this proposition and is an interpersonally focused reply, both in the sense of having the information focus on the Finite ‘is’ – the negotiatory element of the clause – but also in that there is no addition of experiential meaning (in terms of content), until Tony Abbott continues with ‘but the interesting thing is that the new government is already leaking Tony’. Tony Abbott thus concedes (via polarity) the proposition as put, but enacts reservation (via intonation) with respect to another field of discourse, that of politics: that the new government is already leaking. Thus, for him the legal issue is not what is at stake here, rather there is a shift to the leaking of the documents as a political issue, resulting in a new sub-phase in the Leaked Cabinet Documents phase (see Table 18.2 and Figure 18.3a). He moves the battle to a new ground, and then proceeds to elaborate on his point. This shifting of the field of discourse is a characteristic of political discourse (well known as ‘politicians not answering the question’), but in this case, it is possible to see how Tony Abbott effectively employs a range of multimodal resources which function inter-semiotically to change the field of discourse, displayed in Table 18.2 and Figure 18.3b–3c. These resources include clause grammar (adversive conjunction ‘but’); information unit grammar (use of the ‘reserved’ key, realized through falling-rising

258

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

FIGURE 18.3 (a)–(c)  Tony Abbott’s leaking documents as political issue.

MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

259

tone 4); gesture (holding up his hand in a ‘wait on’ movement, which then becomes the preparation for a series of gesture strokes to emphasize the points made, see Figure 18.3b); body posture (first, sitting back and then leaning forward as he makes his point about the new government leaking); and interpersonal deixis (Vocative ‘Tony’ enacting solidarity). Following this, Tony Abbott continues speaking as he sits back and then engages successively with the studio audience, Tony Jones and Tanya Plibersek through gaze and angled body posture, while expanding his hand gesture somewhat (see Figure 18.3b–3c). He also briefly but directly engages with the viewer with a straight body posture with both hands raised and palms facing outwards to further engage the viewer, before turning his attention back to the panelists Tanya Plibersek and Tony Jones and the studio audience. Tanya Plibersek’s ‘nonplussed’ response in the form of gaze and facial expression (Frame 9 in Table 18.2, also see second last frame in Figures 18.3a–3c) is a study in itself: she makes no other significant semiotic sign, but is clearly quite familiar with her political opponent’s stratagems. Note that the camera is deployed as a semiotic resource here, in the choice to frame her at this point, setting up a dialogic context between Tony Abbott and herself, despite the fact that it was Tony Jones who asked the question. Figure 18.3 (a)–(c) Tony Abbott’s leaking documents as political issue. Tony Abbott uses gesture and speech rhythm to emphasize lexical items, raising the textual status of both the individual words themselves and the overall point and thereby creating a form of a graduation in emphasis (Martin and White 2005). The use of gesture and accent together provides a more delicate range of textual gradience, organizing the flow of information into varying degrees of prominence – a semiotic expansion arising from the combined visual and aural gradience of the bandwidths of gestural stroke and accent. At this critical point Abbott establishes a crucial intertextual reference to the whole discourse of the previous Federal election in Australia, when his Liberal government of eleven years was soundly defeated by an opposition which projected itself as being fresh and ‘clever’ by contrast with the ‘tired, old’ incumbent government. He does this primarily through rhythm: up to the point where he says ‘tired, old governments leak’ he sets up a distinct temporal patterning of accents, which is then disturbed at the point between ‘clever’ and ‘intelligent’ in ‘New, smart, clever, intelligent governments aren’t supposed to leak’. Abbott thus plays ironically here on this recent electioneering discourse – and his direct gaze (see Frame 8 in Table 18.2) also takes on a semiotic rendering of the ironic satirical tone as a visual signal of ‘playing it straight’. There are many other opportunities to demonstrate how multimodal resources function inter-semiotically to achieve the agenda of the involved parties, including the producers who use camera shots to create a dialogue between the participants. For example, while Tony Jones engages Tanya Plibersek in a critical dialogue about a Government environmental policy initiative, the camera view changes to include Bob Brown, Leader of the Australian Green Party, who is seen to raise his eyebrows, nod his head, lick his lips and shake his head from side to side, which gestures, afforded by choice of camera shot, entirely recontextualizes the dialogue of which Brown at this point is not (verbally) a part (see Figure 18.4). Multimodal Analysis Video software1 is used to code these multimodal choices in a slightly longer segment of the panel discussion, as displayed in Figure 18.5 (see O’Halloran, Tan and E (2017) and Jewitt et al. (2016: 30–57) for a detailed description

260

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

FIGURE 18.4  Camera: Visual frame.

FIGURE 18.5  Multimodal analysis of the Q&A video segment.

of the software functionalities). The horizontal strips contain time-stamped annotations for Phases, Sub-phases and Shots, and system choices for Gaze (Gaze Direction; Interpersonal Engagement; Directionality), Kinetic Features (Body Posture; Gesture) and Cinematography (Camera – Horizontal Perspective; Vertical Angle; and Frame Size). The annotations are stored in a database, enabling a dynamic visualization of the combinations of the multimodal choices, as displayed in Figures 18.6a and 18.6b. This ‘state-transition’ diagram reveals that Tony Abbott’s multimodal choices (in terms of tone, gaze direction, interpersonal engagement, directionality of engagement, posture, gesture and camera perspective) unfold in quite a distinct manner from those exchanges involving Tanya

MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

261

FIGURE 18.6a  Tony Abbott: ‘Ah, yes it IS … ’

FIGURE 18.6b  Tony Abbott: ‘… is a pretty worrying sign’.

Plibersek (at the start of the video segment) and Tony Jones (when addressing a question to Warren Mundine in the final part of the video segment). Thus, it is possible to see how Tony Abbott uses multimodal choices to command and maintain attention as he directs criticism towards the Labor Party. The entire Q&A session itself is resemiotized on the Q&A website (Figure 18.7) where the notion of political debate as sport is evoked in the opening paragraph (‘Tony, Tanya

262

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

FIGURE 18.7  Q&A website: Adventures in democracy: ‘Tony, Tanya and Bob’.2

and Bob. Thursday, 29 May. Tony Abbott and Tanya Plibersek are back in the boxing ring for Q&A’s second episode. Joining them are Bob Brown, Warren Mundine and Louise Adler for their first grilling by the Q&A punters’). But the ‘spectators’ – the audience – are encouraged to participate, through interactive blog forums arrayed under each of the show’s questions where website members may post comments (‘Have your say’), another resemiotization of the issues debated during the show (from expert to public opinion), as well as post questions for the show itself (including ‘live’ questions during the show). A mathematical chart post-show also gives some (limited) analytical information about the time devoted to the topics under discussion, and further down the website the panelists are introduced via photos and short writeups. The above discussion shows clearly that context is an essential part of any analysis, not just the immediate context of situation (the Q&A event and subsequent resemiotizations of that event), but the context of culture in general, including in this case the intertextual references which are made to the recent elections in Australia and its discourse and to Australian democratic culture in general. MDA reveals how instances of multimodal semiotic choices function inter-semiotically in ways which ultimately create and answer to larger patterns of social context and culture.

NEW DIRECTIONS IN MDA The major challenge to MDA is managing the detail and complexity involved in annotating, analysing, searching and retrieving multimodal semantic patterns within and across complex multimodal phenomena. The analyst must take into account inter-semiotic and

MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

263

resemiotization processes across disparate timescales and spatial locations. In addition, different media may require different theoretical approaches, for example, video and film analysis may draw upon insights from film studies and other fields (Bateman et al. 2017). MDA of online media gives rise to added difficulties, given the complexity involved (i.e. text, images, videos, hyperlinks, etc.). One method for managing the complexity involves the development of interactive digital media platforms specifically designed for MDA, such as the purpose-built multimodal analysis video software demonstrated above. The development of such software as a metasemiotic tool for multimodal analysis becomes itself a site for theorizing about and developing MDA itself. Furthermore, recent research involves the development of multimodal approaches to big data analytics (e.g. O’Halloran et al. 2018, O’Halloran et al. 2021, O’Halloran, Pal and Jin 2021). In this case, the path forward must necessarily involve interdisciplinary collaboration if the larger goals of understanding patterns and trends in technologies, text, context and culture are to be achieved.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My sincere thanks to Bradley Smith and Sabine Tan, former Research Fellows in the Multimodal Analysis Lab, Interactive and Digital Media Institute (IDMI) at the National University of Singapore for their significant contributions to the Q&A analysis. Also, thanks to Bradley Smith for providing the Q&A extract and Figure 18.2. This research was supported by Media Development Authority (MDA) in Singapore under the National Research Foundation’s (NRF) Interactive Digital Media R&D Program (NRF2007IDMIDM002-066) (PI: Kay O’Halloran) in 2008-2012. 1. http://multimodal-analysis.com/products/multimodal-analysis-video/index.html 2. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s2255680.htm

KEY READINGS Bateman, J., Wildfeuer, J. and Hiippala, T. (2017). Multimodality Foundations, Research and Analysis – A Problem-Oriented Introduction, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978), Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning, London: Edward Arnold. Jewitt, C. (ed.) (2014), Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. Jewitt, C., Bezemer, J. & O’Halloran, K. L. (2016). Introducing Multimodality. London: Routledge. Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2006), Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. O’Toole, M. (2011), The Language of Displayed Art, 2nd edn, London: Routledge.

REFERENCES Bateman, J. (2014), Text and Image: A Critical Introduction to the Visual/Verbal Divide, London: Routledge. Bateman, J., J. Wildfeuer and T. Hiippala (2017), Multimodality Foundations, Research and Analysis – A Problem-oriented Introduction, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.

264

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Bednarek, M. and J. R. Martin (eds) (2010), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation, London: Continuum. Cassidy, S. and T. Schmidt (2017), ‘Tools for Multimodal Annotation’, in N. Ide and J. Pustejovsky (eds), Handbook of Linguistic Annotation, 209–27, Dordrecht: Springer. Desolneux, A., L. Moisan and J.-M. Morel (2008), From Gestalt Theory to Image Analysis: A Probabilistic Approach, New York: Springer. Djonov, E. (2007), ‘Website Hierarchy and the Interaction between Content Organization, Webpage and Navigation Design: A Systemic Functional Hypermedia Discourse Analysis Perspective’, Information Design Journal, 15 (2): 144–62. Djonov, E. and S. Zhao (eds) (2014), Critical Multimodal Studies of Popular Discourse, London: Routledge. Dreyfus, S., S. Hood and M. Stenglin (eds) (2011), Semiotic Margins: Meaning in Multimodalities, London: Continuum. Forceville, C. J. and E. Urios-Aparisi (eds) (2009), Multimodal Metaphor, Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978), Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning, London: Edward Arnold. Halliday, M. A. K. (1991), ‘Towards Probabilistic Interpretations’, in E. Ventola (ed.), Trends in Linguistics Studies and Monographs 55: Functional and Systemic Linguistics Approaches and Uses, 39–61, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Halliday, M. A. K. (2014), Introduction to Functional Grammar, 4th ed, London: Edward Arnold (revised by C. M. I. M. Matthiessen). Halliday, M. A. K. and R. Hasan (1985), Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic Perspective, Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press (Republished by Oxford University Press 1989). Halliday, M. A. K. and W. S. Greaves (2008), Intonation in the Grammar of English, London: Equinox. Iedema, R. (2003), ‘Multimodality, Resemiotization: Extending the Analysis of Discourse as a Multisemiotic Practice’, Visual Communication, 2: 29–57. Jewitt, C. (2006), Technology, Literacy and Learning: A Multimodal Approach, London: Routledge. Jewitt, C. (2014a), ‘Different Approaches to Multimodality’, in C. Jewitt (ed.), Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 31–43, London: Routledge. Jewitt, C. (ed.) (2014b), The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. Jewitt, C., J. Bezemer and K. L. O’Halloran (2016), Introducing Multimodality, London: Routledge. Kress, G. (2009), ‘What Is Mode?’, in C. Jewitt (ed.), Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 54–67, London: Routledge. Kress, G. (2010), Multimodality: A Social Semiotic Approach to Contemporary Communication, London: Routledge. Kress, G. and T. van Leeuwen (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson (1980), Metaphors We Live By, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Lemke, J. L. (1998), ‘Multiplying Meaning: Visual and Verbal Semiotics in Scientific Text’, in J. R. Martin and R. Veel (eds), Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science, 87–113, London: Routledge.

MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

265

Lemke, J. L. (1999), ‘Typological and Topological Meaning in Diagnostic Discourse’, Discourse Processes, 27 (2): 173–85. Levine, P. and R. Scollon (eds) (2004), Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Liu, Y. and K. L. O’Halloran (2009), ‘Intersemiotic Texture: Analyzing Cohesive Devices between Language and Images’, Social Semiotics, 19 (4): 367–87. Machin, D. (2007), Introduction to Multimodal Analysis, London: Hodder Arnold. Machin, D. (2009), ‘Multimodality and Theories of the Visual’, in C. Jewitt (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 181–90, London: Routledge. Martin, J. R. (2021), ‘Systemic Functional Linguistics’, in K. Hyland, B. Paltridge and L. Wong (eds), Bloomsbury Handbook to Discourse Analysis 2nd ed, London: Bloomsbury, 79–95. Martin, J. R. and P. R. R. White (2005), The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Martinec, R. (2004), ‘Gestures that Co-concur with Speech as a Systematic Resource: The Realization of Experiential Meanings in Indexes’, Social Semiotics, 14 (2): 193–213. Norris, S. (2004), Analyzing Multimodal Interaction: A Methodological Framework, London: Routledge. Norris, S. and R. H. Jones (eds) (2005), Discourse in Action: Introducing Mediated Discourse Analysis, London: Routledge. O’Halloran, K. L. (2015), ‘The Language of Learning Mathematics: A Multimodal Perspective’, The Journal of Mathematical Behaviour, 40 (Part A): 63–74. O’Halloran, K. L. and B. A. Smith (2011), ‘Multimodal Studies’, in K. L. O’Halloran and B. A. Smith (eds), Multimodal Studies: Exploring Issues and Domains, 1–13, London: Routledge. O’Halloran, K. L., S. Tan and E. Marissa Kwan Lin (2017), ‘Multimodal Analysis for Critical Thinking’, Learning, Media and Technology, 42 (2): 147–70. doi:10.1080/17439884.2016. 1101003 O’Halloran, K. L., S. Tan D.-S. Pham, J. Bateman and A. Vande Moere (2018), ‘A Digital Mixed Methods Research Design: Integrating Multimodal Analysis with Data Mining and Information Visualization for Big Data Analytics’, Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 12 (1): 11–30. doi:10.1177/1558689816651015 O’Halloran, K. L., S. Tan and P. Wignell (2016), ‘Intersemiotic Translation as Resemiotization: A Multimodal Perspective’, in J. Fontanille, M. Sonzogni and R. Troqe (eds), Signata: Special Issue on Translating Signs, Texts, Practices, 199–229. O’Halloran, K. L., P. Wignell and S. Tan (2021), ‘Big Data and Managing Multimodal Complexity’, in D. Caldwell, J. Martin and J. Knox (eds), Developing Theory: A Handbook in Appliable Linguistics and Semiotics, London: Bloomsbury. O’Halloran, K. L., Pal, G. & Jin, M. (2021). Multimodal Approach to Analysing Big Social and News Media Data. Discourse, Context and Media (40) https://doi.org/10.1016/j. dcm.2021.100467 O’Toole, M. (2011) The Language of Displayed Art, 2nd edn, London: Routledge. Scollon, R. (2001), Mediated Discourse: The Nexus of Practice, London: Routledge. Scollon, R. and S. Wong Scollon (2004), Nexus Analysis: Discourse and the Emerging Internet, London: Routledge. Tan, S. (2005), A Systemic Functional Approach to the Analysis of Corporate Television Advertisements, Singapore, MA: National University of Singapore. Tan, S. (2009), ‘A Systemic Functional Framework for the Analysis of Corporate Television Advertisements’, in E. Ventola and A. J. M. Guijjaro (eds), The World Told and The World Shown: Multisemiotic Issues, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 157–82.

266

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Tan, S., K. L. O’Halloran and P. Wignell (2020), ‘Multimodality’, in A. D. Fina and A. Georgakopoulou (eds), Handbook of Discourse Studies, 263–81, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Unsworth, L. (ed.) (2008), Multimodal Semiotics: Functional Analysis in Contexts of Education, London: Continuum. van Leeuwen, T. (1999), Speech, Music, Sound, London: Macmillan. van Leeuwen, T. (2005), Introducing Social Semiotics, London: Routledge. van Leeuwen, T. (2008), Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis, Oxford: Oxford University Press. van Leeuwen, T. (2009), ‘Parametric Systems: The Case of Voice Quality’, in C. Jewitt (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Multimodal Analysis, 68–77, London: Routledge. Wang, Y. (2009), ‘On Visual Semantic Algebra (VSA): A Denotational Mathematical Structure for Modeling and Manipulating Visual Objects and Patterns’, International Journal of Software Science and Computational Intelligence, 1 (4): 1–16.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Discourse and English as a lingua franca BARBARA SEIDLHOFER

WHAT IS ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA? In the Bloomsbury Companion to Discourse Analysis, the 2013 precursor to this present Handbook, there was no chapter on English as a lingua franca (ELF). So why, one might ask, is there one here? What is it about ELF that now warrants its inclusion? What kind of discourse is it? It has become increasingly recognized over the intervening years that the extended networks of worldwide interaction that globalization has brought about have resulted in the communicative use of language that transcends the borders of different named languages conventionally associated with separate linguacultural communities. The significant increase in multilingual encounters due to developments in digital communication and international mobility has also increased the need for a lingua franca that speakers in all parts of the world can make use of to communicate across many different L1s. More often than not, this lingua franca is ELF. The use of ELF as a means of communication has become indispensable in a number of diverse domains of activity, including youth culture, academia, science and technology, international business, conflict resolution and peace keeping, migration, and tourism. Thus ELF use figures prominently in the discourses of the workplace, academia, computermediated communication and social media treated in separate chapters in this handbook, inextricably tied to globalization as these are. Likewise, the exponential increase in tertiary and even secondary English-medium instruction that we have witnessed globally over recent years constitutes a de facto increase in the use of ELF – although this is not usually acknowledged. ELF is the first truly global lingua franca, which of course does not mean that everybody in the world has access to it, far from it. But more people across the globe and across social strata make use of it than of any other lingua franca (such as Latin) before: ELF pervades the daily lives of millions of people – Bangladeshi IT specialists and Brazilian indigenous activists, the Vienna Boys’ Choir and Jakarta hip hoppers, Australian tourists and Nigerian asylum seekers in Italy. Recent decades have thus seen an unprecedented spread of ELF as both consequence and driving force of globalization, resulting in a fast-growing field of research that is concerned with the use of ELF as a naturally adaptive means of communication and with its sociolinguistic as well as applied linguistic implications. ELF as an area of enquiry now

268

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

figures increasingly in university courses in English departments alongside the longerestablished study of English as a native language (ENL) and World Englishes (WE), with a significant number of PhD projects completed and underway at universities all around the world. With ELF communication, we are concerned with a use of language that is no longer confined within native-speaker (NS) communities – the setting which has generally been the focus of study in linguistics: the communicative use of ELF, by definition, transcends linguacultural borders. But since ELF speakers draw on the resources of ‘English’,1 a language with powerful traditional native-speaker communities on all continents, the situation for ELF is different from the lingua franca use of Latin, centuries after it had ceased to be an L1, and from artificially constructed languages such as Esperanto or Ogden’s Basic English (Ogden 1930; see Seidlhofer 2011, Chapter 7): there are always associations with the communal life of English native speakers to contend with. But if ELF is to serve a lingua franca function, it can only do so by being dissociated from ENL communities. This dissociation calls for a quite radical reconceptualization and poses a considerable challenge for linguists and laypersons alike since it goes against the grain of the well-entrenched assumption that a language is inextricably bound up with communal, even national identity. So there is an understandable resistance to accepting the fact that English can only be international as a lingua franca if it is denationalized. But to describe English as international in terms of its communicative function is not the same as to describe it in terms of its range of linguistic occurrence as represented by Kachru’s well-known concentric circle model (Kachru 1985, 1992). This shows how different manifestations of the language are geographically distributed across the world in different predefined communities. The English of the Inner Circle is English as a native language (ENL), that of the Outer Circle the second language of (largely) postcolonial nations (ESL). Beyond that is the Expanding Circle, where English is taught and learnt as a foreign language (EFL). The Englishes of the Inner and Outer Circles take the form of distinct varieties, each associated with a community of speakers. So Singapore English or Nigerian English, for example, are just as legitimate versions of the language as Inner Circle British, American or Australian varieties, all of them World Englishes (WE) in their own right. And recognizing this right is to acknowledge that Outer Circle varieties are endonormative and linguistically independent and representative of the independence of the communities that speak them. The English in the Expanding Circle has, of course, no such status as a communal variety and is often taken to be equivalent to learner English (Granger et al 2015, Swan and Smith 2005). Since ELF is thus not formally defined as a kind of English, it cannot be identified with any of the Kachruvian circles: it does not constitute a variety associated with a local community, nor is its occurrence confined to the Expanding Circle. On the contrary, through its function as a means of inter-communal communication it cuts across all three circles. ELF interactions can take place in, and involve speakers from, any of the three circles: to use the title of the book in which Kachru’s model first appeared (Quirk and Widdowson 1985), ELF is English in the world but not a World English. It is ‘any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option’ (Seidlhofer 2011: 7). It is, then, the expedient use of the language as a communicative resource by people from different communities, not a kind of usage characterized by its linguistic features.

DISCOURSE AND ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA

269

ELF TEXT AND DISCOURSE In reference to the distinction proposed in Widdowson (e.g. 2004, 2007), the study of ELF, then, is concerned not primarily with the linguistic forms of the text that its users produce, but with how these forms function as communication in the discourse process. As Widdowson puts it, discourse is what the first person text producer means by the text, and what the second person makes of it. Texts are only a partial record of the intended discourse since, in their design, assumptions will be made about a shared context of knowledge and belief, and recognition of purpose on the part of presumed recipients that do not need to be made linguistically explicit. (Widdowson 2020: 8) As with any language use, it is, of course, the text that is manifested in ELF communication that is most immediately apparent and accessible for description. And it is its frequent textual non-conformities that have often been taken as its ‘distinctive features’. Since ELF communication involves speakers from different linguacultural backgrounds, these texts are frequently hybrid and variable and can take very diverse forms depending on speaker constellations, situations and purposes of interaction. To the extent that these forms diverge from what are taken to be the accepted conventionalized norms of ENL usage, they are particularly noticeable, and have indeed been noticed and described, especially in ELF research in the early 2000s. The point of such descriptions of textual features has, however, been not to delineate ELF as a ‘lectal variety’ but to provide evidence of their discourse function, of how ELF users are capable of communicating effectively without conforming to the rules and conventions which are said to define ‘real’ English as described in ENL grammars and dictionaries, and which are prescribed as learning targets in EFL classrooms worldwide. These are targets which have to be met for passing any of the big ‘international’ tests of English such as IELTS (International English Language Testing System) or TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). The underlying assumption here is that conformity to ENL norms is a prerequisite for effective communication. The analysis of ELF data in, for example, the corpora VOICE, the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English and ACE, the Asian Corpus of English, provides compelling empirical evidence of what most people know from their own experience: that the capability to communicate does not necessarily depend on such conformity, though there are of course contexts where it may be communicatively appropriate to conform. So what does capability to communicate depend on? What evidence can be inferred from the textual data about how ELF users manage to relate to each other to achieve their communicative purposes, how they position themselves and negotiate understanding in the course of an interaction – in other words about how they enact their discourse across linguacultural community boundaries?

SAMPLE STUDIES The following examples are taken from VOICE, the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English. This is an open-access online corpus of transcriptions (and, partly, also sound files) of naturally occurring, non-scripted face-to-face spoken interactions via ELF among

270

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

speakers of forty-nine different L1 backgrounds, in various domains (professional, educational, leisure) in the shape of a variety of speech event types such as conversations, meetings and service encounters (VOICE 2013). The first extract is taken from an interaction among Austrian and Dutch businesspeople: Extract 1a Aart: yeah Berta told us that i–it was a great taste so we had to do that Doris: ah Christel: and she knows it Aart: i was fully against it but er Berta: i i just give advices Aart: yeah i was fully against it but they are you know Berta: the the ball is in your corner Doris: so it’s really it’s a big difference Christel: yeah (VOICE 2013: PBmtg414, 2125–36; modified, with pseudonyms replacing speaker names) Of course, if we only have a snippet of text that has been removed from co-text and context, a transcription of the text produced in the interaction – the actual words uttered (and fillers such as ‘ah’ and ‘er’) – we can never expect to get more than a vague idea as to what the interactants are talking about. Take the expression in Aart’s first utterance here ‘it was a great taste so we had to do that’ followed by Christel’s ‘ … and she knows it’ followed by Aarts’ ‘ … i was fully against it’. The pronoun ‘it’ occurs in all three utterances, but we cannot know what it is being used to refer to. We cannot even tell whether Christel’s ‘it’ is intended to make anaphoric reference to what had a ‘great taste’ or the ‘that’ Aarts says he ‘had to do’ – nor do we know what the pronoun ‘that’ is meant to refer to. But quite apart from reference, nor can we know from the mere text of the interaction what illocutionary force or perlocutionary effect the participants intend their utterances to have, how they are positioning each other to achieve their purposes in engaging in the interaction – that is, what Widdowson (2004, 2020) refers to as their pretext. In short, without information about context and pretext we are in the dark about the discourse that is being enacted here. Furthermore, if this extract were a transcript of, say, part of a video-recorded role play in a business English class as an example of the discourse of business transactions, its context and pretextual purpose would be provided and the teacher might then comment that this seems to have been a successful meeting. However, the teacher would most likely also point out that Berta made a ‘mistake’ when she said ‘advices’: ‘advice’ is what is called a mass noun, or uncountable noun, which in Standard English only occurs in the singular, and that when Berta said ‘the ball is in your corner’ this was probably a misremembered wording of the intended idiom ‘the ball is in your court’. So if we describe this ELF interaction as text, we can point out some of its linguistic features as non-conformities, either negatively as deviations from, or positively as what Mauranen (2012) calls ‘approximations’ to Standard English or ENL norms of usage. Possibly we also detect traces of other languages (such as the pluralization of ‘advice’, which is possible for, for example, the German equivalent, Ratschläge) and so in a sense recognize transference from L1 and thus its formal resemblance to learner English.

DISCOURSE AND ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA

271

So how do we go about inferring discourse features from the textual data of the sample? A more detailed transcript of the kind we actually find in the VOICE corpus and the event description in the header of this speech event helps us interpret ‘what is actually going on’ to develop a more emic understanding of the speech events in the corpus: what the purpose of the interaction is, what the relationships are between the speakers – in short, ‘to figure out what the devil they think they are up to’ (Geertz 1983: 58). So here is the extract as it actually appears in VOICE, with detailed mark-up and annotation of the data: Extract 1b: Business meeting about the sales of products Duration of recording: 01:56:00 Setting: meeting room at company Activity: looking at presentation materials, statistics and figures Speaker Information: Power relations: fairly symmetrical Acquaintedness: acquainted ID S2 S3 S4 S5

Sex male female female female

Age 35–49 50+ 35–49 35–49

L1 dut-NL ger-AT dut-NL ger-AT

Occupation employee of distribution company sales representative of food company employee of distribution company sales representative of food company

The extract starts with utterance 2125, roughly in the middle of the meeting. 2125 S2 [Aart]: yeah [S3] told us that i–it was a great taste so we had to do that 2126 S5 [Doris]: a:h 2127 SS: @@@@@@@@@@ 2128 S3 [Berta]: @@@@@@@ @@@ @@@@@@@@@@@ 2129 S4 [Christel]: and she knows it 2130 S2 [Aart]: i was fully against it but e:r 2131 S3 [Berta]: i i just give advices @@@@ @@@@@@ 2132 S2 [Aart]: yeah i was fully against it but they are you know {parallel conversation between S4 and S5 starts} (1) 2133 S3 [Berta]: the the ball is in your corner @@ 2134 SS: @@@@@@@@@@@ {parallel conversation between S4 and S5 stops} 2135 S5 [Doris]: so it’s really it’s: (.) a big difference 2136 S4 [Christel]: yeah (VOICE 2013: PBmtg414, voice style) From the VOICE event description of PBmtg414 we learn that this business meeting takes place at [org1]. S3 and S5 are employees of [org1]. S2 and S4 are employees of a distribution company which distributes, markets and sells the products of [org1] abroad. S2 and S4 are visiting [org1] and the meeting happens at the occasion of this visit. S2 and S4 have brought some presentation materials with sales statistics of [org1]’s products … S2 adds some comments with regard to the current

272

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

circumstances of selling the product in shops and supermarkets. … There is a very friendly and humorous atmosphere and the content of the meeting often leads to jokes and laughter and humorous remarks. The frequent occurrence of laughter is transcribed by @-symbols, and the many overlaps of speaker turns (marked by figures in pointed brackets such as ‘ … ’) and the parallel conversation between S4 [Christel] and S5 [Doris] indicate the speakers’ high involvement in the interaction as they are discussing presentation materials and sales figures. The more detailed transcript makes it easier to imagine the atmosphere of the meeting and the pace and tone of the interaction – more akin to the sound recording available to the researcher. Thus the observer can get ‘drawn into’ the interaction and get a feeling of what it is like to take part in this discourse. In this process, the way the interactants get their business done and position themselves vis-à-vis each other takes precedence over the actual linguistic forms they produce. They use whatever language is communicatively expedient. The problem with pronouns referred to earlier is no problem for them – they just use them as contextually convenient in getting their meaning across. They do not overtly orient to S3’s [Berta’s] expression ‘the ball is in your corner’ as a malformed idiom or ‘I just give advices’ as a grammatical error. They do not seem to notice formal features of the text as such – their focus is on what they make of them pragmatically in the discourse process. In a detailed analysis of this very passage, Pitzl (2018a) explains what strike her as the primary discourse functions of Berta’s non-conventional phrase ‘the ball is in your corner’, namely humour and mitigation: The creative expression the ball is in your corner is produced in a rather relaxed and jocular atmosphere … the lexical substitution in … the ball is in your corner does not seem to affect intelligibility and communicative effectiveness of the newly created expression. S3’s utterance (u 2133) is immediately followed by joint laughter (u 2134) and clearly adds a humorous note to the business interaction. In addition to being uttered jokingly in order to create a pleasant and communal atmosphere, the ball is in your corner may also have had a mitigating effect on what was said before. In utterance 2125, S2 states that S3 recommended a product and so, he (i.e. S2) says exaggeratingly, they had to do that, by which he means they had to order the product produced by the Austrian company to sell it in the Netherlands. To this, all speakers (SS) react with laughter (u 2127). Particularly S3 (Austrian) continues laughing, which leads S4 (Dutch) and S2 (Dutch) to add further comments. S4 says that she (i.e. S3) knows it and S2, having stopped laughing, voices that he was fully against it, i.e. introducing the product to the Dutch market. (Pitzl 2018a: 141) What of the other example of non-conformist English usage in this sample, the plural form ‘advices’? Here is another instance of its occurrence in VOICE: the extract is from a discussion at a student conference, with participants from Albania, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Slovakia, Sweden and Switzerland: Extract 2: Workshop discussion on issues related to students and citizenship S11 [L1=fre-CH]: … they said okay we are on the project but our communication is not good. (.) come on listen to us and tell us what could we do. what we can do. and

DISCOURSE AND ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA

273

we went … we listened we analyzed and we said okay … maybe you could do this or try this or (1) become aware that (.) communication is not exactly what you thought? and language is not always so. we gave some advices. and it was for free … it took three days with the analysis that’s all. S1 [L1= fre-FR]: erm (.) h- how did it happen. (.) i mean HOW did you know that they needed the: kind of advices (VOICE 20113: EDwsd499, my highlighting) Note that S11 and S1 are both French L1 speakers so the occurrence of the plural form ‘devices’ here might be explained as a transference from their L1 (conseils) just as Berta’s usage in the previous extract might be explained as a transference from German (Ratschläge). We cannot of course know whether S1 knows the Standard English form, but we might surmise that he takes up the non-standard form as a way of accommodating to S11. This translingual grafting is quite common in ELF interactions, as of course it is in learner English, where however it is seen as interference. But there is no evidence of any communicative interference. On the contrary, we often find that these non-standard forms are taken up to enhance communication. The following is another occurrence of a mass noun being treated as countable, taken from an EU press conference and this time involving speakers of different languages, one Romance and the other Slavic (S2: L1 Portuguese, EU politician; S4: L1 Bulgarian, journalist). The extract comes from the final minutes of a half-hour press conference on the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union: Extract 3 S4: … i’m a bulgarian journalist from [org1] my name is [S4/last] mister [S2/last] my question is addressed to you (.) i would like to know you mentioned that e:r last month you received an important information concerning bulgaria … could you e- enumerate some actions that … er convinced you (.) e:r in your report to: recommend the accession thank you. (.) S2: it was not just a single information? i have been (1) kept informed (.) almost on a day by day if not a week by week (.) or maybe a week by ba- week basis by: commissioner [S3/last] (.) on all the progress achieved … and we said that’s what we have still to do some kind of (.) e:rm action plan (.) for (.) er these remaining er obstacles … so it was NOT one single information that made (.) let’s say our decision (VOICE 2013: POprc558, my highlighting) Hülmbauer and Seidlhofer (2013: 393) comment: In this extract of an interaction during a press conference, S4 makes a claim about one particular piece of information, referring to it as an important information. Not only is his use of the term information as a count noun immediately taken up by his interlocutor, S2 also additionally stresses the singular by uttering a single information and later not one single information. By this he confirms S4’s usage and accommodates towards it. At the same time this linguistic behaviour establishes cohesion within the interaction and fosters mutual intelligibility between the participants. Information in its usage as a count noun becomes the participants’ ‘known-in-common resource’ (Firth 1996). … The use of these items is clearly motivated since the communicative content necessitates an explicit differentiation between one and more pieces of information. The way this is expressed, namely by using information as a count noun,

274

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

might not conform to convention, but it perfectly conforms to considerations of clarity. There is an obvious analogy to the regular English noun morphology. Through the participants’ readiness to both adapt the language for their specific purposes and thereby also accommodate to each other, a process of meaning negotiation and joint deployment of an effective resource can take place. So the fact that the items by which accommodation manifests itself most prominently here are not encoded in Standard English is illustrative of how language is used as a resource for meaning making beyond the confines of conventional encodings (cf. Giles (2016) for communication accommodation theory generally and e.g. Jenkins (2000), Cogo (2009) and Seidlhofer (2009) for accommodation in ELF talk). However, this ‘process of meaning negotiation and joint deployment of an effective resource’ is not what is generally focused on in the teaching and testing of English as a foreign language (EFL), even though the predominant role of English globally is that of a lingua franca. Consequently, the (fairly marginal) feature of Standard English discussed above, the ‘uncountability’ of mass nouns, tends to be given a great deal of attention in EFL. To take one example: McCarthy (2016), when reporting on ‘errors with uncountable nouns’ at different levels of the CEFR (Council of Europe 2018), identifies information and advice as ‘the front runners in error-prone uncountable nouns’, commenting that ‘problems with their grammatical form persist, with information remaining the number one error-prone noun right up to level C1. Advices remains fossilised right up to C2 level’. He concludes that teaching materials based on the evidence of learner data clearly need to recycle particular nouns even if the general category of countability is deemed to have been satisfactorily dealt with in the materials and in the classroom at a much earlier stage. (McCarthy 2016: 106f) McCarthy is clearly attributing considerable significance to learners getting this grammar feature ‘right’, and when they do treat mass nouns as countable although they have been taught not to, this is presented as a problem in urgent need of eradication. However, in the light of the extracts from ELF interactions discussed above, the opposite conclusion can be drawn from McCarthy’s data: that insistence on correctness according to Standard English norms is incommensurate with the evident lack of communicative significance of this grammatical feature, at least in certain contexts. Approaching ELF data from a discourse perspective can thus help us to look beyond the textual forms prominently prescribed in textbooks and tests to focus on their functions in actual communicative use.

DISCOURSING IN ELF What we see, then, in these examples of ELF interactions is that interactants do not just employ the elements of the ‘English’ they have learned, often ‘imperfectly’ at school to construct texts out of them as they have been taught to do with the aim of being as ‘correct’ as possible. Rather, they draw on ‘their multi-faceted multilingual repertoires in a fashion entirely motivated by the communicative purpose and the interpersonal dynamics of the interaction’ (Seidlhofer 2011: 108). In these ELF exchanges, interlocutors ‘are focused on the interactional and transactional purposes of the talk and on their interlocutors as

DISCOURSE AND ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA

275

people rather than on the linguistic code itself’ in a creative process in which ‘the code is treated as malleable and adjustable to the requirements of the moment’ (Seidlhofer 2011: 98; see also Cogo and Dewey 2012, Mauranen 2012, Pitzl 2018a). ELF research over the last two decades has shown that in this respect, ELF speakers engage in discourse as all language users do, by making expedient use of whatever linguistic resource is available to them to get their meanings across and position themselves in relation to their interlocutors as best they can to achieve their communicative purposes. As with all other language users, they have to make tactical adjustments to what they say and how they say it so as to take adaptive account of a range of factors that impinge on the accessibility and acceptability of their discourse in respect of clarity, time constraints and online processability, available repertoires, memory, social relationships and shared knowledge. What goes on in these ELF interactions has been described as languaging, or rather translanguaging (García and Li 2014, Li 2018), the harnessing of all linguistic resources that make communication happen: Jørgensen (2008: 169) observes that people ‘language with all their skills and knowledge’, employing ‘whatever linguistic features are at their disposal with the intention of achieving their communicative aims’. In so doing, ELF languagers ‘act upon, and sometimes against, norms and standards’ (op. cit.: 164). So in many ways, ELF communication, for all its textual non-conformities, is just an engagement in discourse(s) like any other, with the same kind of processes unfolding to achieve (some degree of) intersubjective understanding. However, there is an important difference when the discourse is enacted via English as a lingua franca. Discourse analysis has generally been concerned with identifying the conventions of language use and how they represent shared communal ways of thinking and customary practices. So the notion of discourse, as is evident from other contributions in this Handbook, is traditionally closely associated with that of community – with the sociocultural conventions that define the norms of intra-communal behaviour – norms for the satisfaction of speech act conditions, for example, or for the management of turn taking. These norms serve as a frame of reference for intra-communal communication in both the ‘speech communities’ of primary socialization and the ‘discourse communities’ that Swales refers to in his treatment of genre (Swales 1990, 2016). In the second of these publications Swales, in referring to the first, comments: ‘The concept of discourse community as originally conceived was overly static. While this perhaps did not matter so much in 1990, in today’s more unsettled and uncertain world, it looms larger as a problem’ (Swales 2016: 11). It is just such a problem that arises in accounting for ELF discourse. Members of communities share a knowledge of genre conventions – it is this that qualifies them for membership. With reference to the distinction made in Thomas (1983), these conventions concern not only the socio-pragmatics of discourse, but also their pragma-linguistic textual realization. Community members naturally come to recognize regularly occurring correlations between the two and so can readily infer the discourse significance of textual features. The recurrence of phraseological textual patterns enables those familiar with them to take pragmatic short-cuts. This adherence to what Sinclair (1991) calls the ‘idiom principle’ has the effect of confirming expectation and reducing processing effort – but only of course if there is such familiarity. Users of ELF have to find their own way of discoursing without being able to rely on the shared knowledge of conventions that informs intra-communal communication. The way we have come to live our globalized lives in our present ‘unsettled and uncertain world’ with the massive disruption of the established order of things means

276

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

that Hymes’s still generally accepted definition of a (speech) community as ‘a local unit, characterized for its members by common locality and primary interaction’ (Hymes 1962: 30) is, like so many other conceptual constructs, a thing of the past. The impact of digitalization, migration and socioeconomic exigency has radically changed our concept of community and accordingly has changed our customary communicative practices – who we communicate with and why and how we do it. ELF users, who by definition come from different linguacultural communities, obviously cannot rely on shared knowledge of a common language and the sociocultural customs and conventions that regulate its use, and which have been generally assumed as default conditions in mainstream work on discourse analysis. Although communication always requires some negotiation for interlocutors to converge on some common ground of understanding, this is, of course, more difficult if there is a lack of common ground to begin with. The problem for ELF interactants is essentially how to find ways of communicating with strangers.2 They obviously cannot do this by conforming to the a priori communal norms of some native speaker usage. What they seek to do, as ELF research shows very clearly, is to draw expediently on those lingual resources that have the most communicative value in getting their meaning across and achieving their communicative purpose in a particular context. The reality of globalization, and so of global ELF communication as one of its main causes and consequences, calls for a radical rethinking of traditional concepts. This is particularly obvious with the concept of communication defined in reference to established intra-communal discourses. The conventionalized correlative form-function mappings that result from it cannot account for inter-communal communication, for how members from different lingua-cultural communities manage to interact with each other. This is not to say that ELF users cannot, and do not, through common interests or professional concerns and the frequency of their interactions, create conditions for the emergence of secondary communities – what has been referred to a Communities of Practice (CoP) (Wenger 1998, Eckert and McConnel-Ginet 1992). But then the question arises as to how this emergent process of communal convergence happens. There are of course ELF interactions which take place in contexts that provide conditions for community formation and which over a period of time are recurrent enough for the process of social learning to evolve that fulfils Wenger’s CoP criteria of ‘mutual engagement’ in a ‘joint enterprise’, making use of a ‘shared repertoire’ (Wenger 1998: 72ff). There are such communities, such as academics, business people and Facebook groups, that engage in norm-building to develop discourse genres appropriate to their communicative purposes. But where ELF users are involved, this process does not involve conformity with the pragma-linguistic and socio-pragmatic conventions that define established discourse genres. There is no reason to suppose that these genres, based as they are on the customary practices of ENL communities, should determine the emergence of ELF discourses beyond these communities. But of course many ELF interactions do not meet the norm-developing conditions of genre formation. They are carried out in much shorter-term contexts, sometimes just one-off encounters, where people come together for a particular purpose, in a planned or unplanned fashion, and socialize and/or work together for a while until the group dissolves again. For such constellations and the communicative events unfolding in them, the notions of Transient International Groups (TIGs) (Pitzl 2018b, 2021) and Transient Multilingual Communities (TMCs) (Mortensen 2017) have been proposed, giving rise to further innovative approaches to the study of lingua franca communication. Again the

DISCOURSE AND ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA

277

focus is on the dynamic processes of discoursing, or languaging, rather than on the kind of discourse or genre that might get conventionalized as a result.

CONCLUSION The phenomenon of ELF as the currently most widespread lingua franca thus challenges the validity of traditional ways of conceiving of communication as associated with clearly predefined languages and communities. As an intrinsic aspect of globalization, it calls for a radical change in sociolinguistic thinking. As Blommaert puts it: I believe that globalization forces us – whether we like it or not – to an aggiornamento of our theoretical and methodological toolkit. Much as modernism defined most of the current widespread tools of our trade, the transition towards a different kind of social system forces us to redefine them. Such an exercise, however iconoclastic it may seem at first, cannot be avoided or postponed. (Blommaert 2010: xiii) It follows that many of the traditional concepts of sociolinguistics will have to be sacrificed in favour of more open and flexible ones, capable of capturing the unpredictability of sociolinguistic life in the age of globalization. (Blommaert 2010: 196, emphases added) The use of English as a lingual franca, intrinsic as it is to globalization, forces us, or should force us, into just such an aggiornamento.3 And this is what ELF researchers have actually been engaged in building on, but also going beyond mainstream work in sociolinguistics, language education, ethnography – and discourse analysis. They have been questioning the current relevance of the ‘traditional concepts’ Blommaert refers to and exploring alternative ways of thinking since the early 2000s, for instance, about the concepts of community (e.g. House 2003, Seidlhofer 2007, Dewey 2009, Pitzl 2018b), variety and competence (Seidlhofer 2011, Chapter 4, Seidlhofer and Widdowson 2017). These concepts, central to an understanding of communication, and therefore of discourse, especially as related to the contemporary use of English, stand in obvious need of critical reappraisal if they are to be ‘capable of capturing the unpredictability of sociolinguistic life in the age of globalisation’ (Blommaert 2010: 196). It is this above all that warrants the inclusion of a chapter on ELF and Discourse in this handbook.

KEY READINGS Murata, K. (ed.) (2021), ELF Research Methods and Approaches to Data and Analyses: Theoretical and Methodological Underpinnings, Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Pitzl, M.-L. (2018), Creativity in English as a Lingua Franca, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Seidlhofer, B. (2011), Understanding English as a Lingua Franca, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. (2007), Discourse Analysis, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. (2020), On the Subject of English: The Linguistics of Language Use and Learning, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, Sections 3 and 4.

278

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

NOTES 1

2 3

I am using ‘English’, ‘ELF’, ‘language’, etc. as shorthand expressions and am so refraining from following the widespread practice of putting an asterisk in front of words denoting ‘linguistic entities’ (which of course do not exist as such) in order to avoid ‘essentialising’ – since if this were done consistently it would lead to ‘infinite regress’. ‘The stranger’ is a concept in sociology worth reconsidering in the light of globalization; see, e.g. Goffman (1963), Baumann (1991), Best (2019). Italian for ‘bringing up to date’.

REFERENCES ACE. (2020), The Asian Corpus of English. Director: Andy Kirkpatrick; Researchers: Wang Lixun, John Patkin, Sophiann Subhan. https://corpus.eduhk.hk/ace/index.html (accessed 30 August 2020). Bauman, Z. (1991), Modernity and Ambivalence, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Best, S. (2019), The Stranger, London: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. Blommaert, J. (2010), The Sociolinguistics of Globalization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cogo, A. (2009), ‘Accommodating Difference in ELF Conversations: A Study of Pragmatic Strategies’, in A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings, 254–73, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Cogo, A. and M. Dewey (2012), Analysing English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-Driven Investigation. London, England: Continuum. Council of Europe. (2018), Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Companion Volume with New Descriptors. https://rm.coe.int/cefrcompanion-volume-with-new-descriptors-2018/1680787989 (accessed 30 August 2020). Dewey, M. (2009), ‘English as a Lingua Franca: Heightened Variability and Theoretical Implications’, in A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings, 60–83, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Eckert, P. and S. McConnell-Ginet (1992), ‘Think Practically and Look Locally: Language and Gender as Community-based Practice’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 21: 461–90. Firth, A. (1996), ‘The Discursive Accomplishment of Normality: On “Lingua Franca” English and Conversation Analysis’, Journal of Pragmatics, 26: 237–59. García, O. and W. Li (2014), Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Geertz, C. (1983), Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, New York: Basic Books. Giles, H. (ed.) (2016), Communication Accommodation Theory: Negotiating Personal Relationships and Social Identities across Contexts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goffman, E. (1963), Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Granger, S., G. Gilquin and F. Meunier (eds) (2015), The Cambridge Handbook of Learner Corpus Research, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. House, J. (2003), ‘English as a Lingua Franca: A Threat to Multilingualism?’, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 7 (4): 556–78. Hülmbauer, C. and B. Seidlhofer (2013), ‘English as a Lingua Franca in European Multilingualism’, in A. C. Berthoud, F. Grin and G. Lüdi (eds), Exploring the Dynamics of

DISCOURSE AND ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA

279

Multilingualism: The DYLAN Project, 387–406, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Hymes, D. (1962), ‘The Ethnography of Speaking’, in T. Gladwin and W. C. Sturtevant (eds), Anthropology and Human Behavior, 2nd edn, 13–53, Washington: Anthropological Society of Washington. Jenkins, J. (2000), The Phonology of English as an International Language. New Models, New Norms, New Goals, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jørgensen, J. N. (2008), ‘Polylingual Languaging around and among Children and Adolescents’, International Journal of Multilingualism, 5 (3): 161–76. Kachru, B. B. (1985), ‘Standards, Codification and Sociolinguistic Realism: The English Language in the Outer Circle’, in R. Quirk and H. G. Widdowson (eds), English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Languages and Literatures, 11–30, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kachru, B. B. (ed.) (1992), The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, 2nd edn, Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Li, W. (2018), ‘Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language’, Applied Linguistics, 39: 9–30. Mauranen, A. (2012), Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-native Speakers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCarthy, Michael (2016), ‘Putting the CEFR to Good Use: Designing Grammars Based on Learner-corpus Evidence’, Language Teaching, 49 (1): 99–115. Mortensen, J. (2017), ‘Transient Multilingual Communities as a field of investigation: Challenges and Opportunities’, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 27: 271–88. Ogden, C. K. (1930), Basic English. A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar, London: Kegan Paul. Pitzl, M.-L. (2018a), Creativity in English as a Lingua Franca, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Pitzl, M.-L. (2018b), ‘Transient International Groups (TIGs): Exploring the Group and Development Dimension of ELF’, Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, 7: 25–58. Pitzl, M.-L. (2021), ‘Tracing the Emergence of Situational Multilingual Practices in a BELF Meeting: Micro­diachronic Analysis and Implications of Corpus Design’, in K. Murata (ed.), ELF Research Methods and Approaches to Data and Analyses: Theoretical and Methodological Underpinnings, 97–125, Abingdon, UK: Routledge. Seidlhofer, B. (2007), ‘English as a Lingua Franca and Communities of Practice’, in S. Volk-Birke and J. Lippert (eds), Anglistentag 2006 Halle Proceedings, 307–18, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier. Seidlhofer, B. (2009), ‘Accommodation and the Idiom Principle in English as a Lingua Franca’, Intercultural Pragmatics, 6: 195–215. Seidlhofer, B. (2011), Understanding English as a Lingua Franca, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. and H. G. Widdowson (2017), ‘Competence, Capability and Virtual Language’, Lingue e Linguaggi, 24: 23–36. Sinclair, J. (1991), Corpus, Concordance, Collocation, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swales, J. (1990), Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Swales, J. (2016), ‘Reflections on the Concept of Discourse Community: Le Concept de Communauté de Discours: Quelques Réflexions’, ASp la revue du GERAS, 69: 7–19. Swan, M. and B. Smith (2005), Learner English: A Teacher’s Guide to Interference and Other Problems, 2nd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

280

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Thomas, J. (1983), ‘Cross-cultural Pragmatic Failure’, Applied Linguistics, 4 (2): 91–112. VOICE. (2013), The Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English, Version 2.0 online, Director: Barbara Seidlhofer, Researchers: Angelika Breiteneder, Theresa Klimpfinger, Stefan Majewski, Ruth Osimk-Teasdale, Marie-Luise Pitzl, Michael Radeka. http://voice. univie.ac.at (accessed 30 August 2020). Wenger, E. (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Widdowson, H. G. (2004), Text, Context, Pretext: Critical Issues in Discourse Analysis, Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. Widdowson, H. G. (2007), Discourse Analysis, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. (2020), On the Subject of English: The Linguistics of Language Use and Learning, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Discourse and computermediated communication CHRISTOPH A. HAFNER

INTRODUCTION Over time, computers and other kinds of digital devices have become ever more pervasive in people’s social and professional lives. People use these devices for work, play, love, healthcare, legal affairs, shopping and recreation among other things, and in all of these domains, they use these devices for communication. The question therefore arises: how might the use of such devices have an impact on discourses produced? What might the unique features of the discourse of such ‘computer-mediated communication’ be and how might this affect the way people use language to get things done? The aim of this chapter is to sketch some answers to these kinds of questions by providing an overview of relevant discourse analytical research. I begin with a definition of the term ‘computermediated communication’ (CMC) before considering how the discourse of CMC has been studied. Then, I provide a detailed account of findings from a sample study of the mobile messaging of migrant workers in the UK. Finally, I outline the main features of CMC discourse, with a particular focus on the way that the affordances and constraints of digital devices may affect contexts, texts and interactions, and power and ideology.

DEFINING CMC Scholars interested in the discourse of CMC use a range of terms. Some of the more prominent include: CMC (Georgakopoulou 2006, Herring 1996), computer-mediated discourse (Herring and Androutsopoulos 2015), digital communication (Georgakopoulou and Spilioti 2016, Tagg 2015), discourse and digital practices (Jones et al. 2015), the language of new media (Thurlow and Mroczek 2011) and language online (Barton and Lee 2013) to name a few. These labels draw attention to a number of defining features of CMC in the field. First, CMC refers to communication – texts and interactions – mediated by networked digital devices, whether these be computers, smartphones, tablets or other devices like smart TVs and video game consoles. Second, the focus is on both discourse and social practices. In this field, discourse, that is, ‘language in use’ (Gee 2014: 10), is increasingly studied as one component of situated digital practices embedded in mobile social contexts. In addition, discourse is increasingly seen as multimodal and multilingual, drawing on a range of semiotic resources and linguistic codes for making meaning, establishing and

282

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

maintaining relationships, and enacting recognized social identities. Third, the interest is in mediated discourse practices that cross boundaries between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ spaces as well as global and local contexts. Finally, studies of the discourse of CMC go beyond the digital communication practices themselves to examine the metadiscursive representation of such practices. For example, some studies (e.g. Thurlow 2006) critically examine the moral panics and language ideologies surrounding language in digital media contexts. Based on these observations, I offer the following definition: For the purposes of this chapter the discourse of CMC includes the multilingual and multimodal texts, interactions, and associated ideologies produced in situated, mobile, online and offline social practices that are mediated by digital communication technologies. This discourse is used by people to achieve their social goals, establish and maintain social relationships, and enact social identities. A key starting point in understanding the discourse of CMC is the notion of ‘affordances’, first introduced by Gibson (1979) in his ecological approach to visual perception. The concept was originally developed to account for physical rather than digital aspects of the environment. The affordances of any tool are those properties that provide opportunities for action, as perceived by the tool user. The concept combines the idea that particular tools allow particular actions with another idea that the actions enabled depend also on the abilities and understandings that the user brings to the situation. Tools can also constrain action, limiting the kinds of actions that can be taken. Thus, in research on the discourse of CMC, there has been an interest in understanding how digital communication tools have the potential to shape texts and interactions based on their technological affordances and constraints. As an example, the use of emoticons, combinations of punctuation features depicting facial expressions like a smiley face, developed in early CMC interactions like text messaging. This could be attributed to a constraint of the medium: being solely textbased at the time, text messaging did not allow users to employ para-linguistic resources like facial expression and, as a result, people adapted features of language used. Jones and Hafner (2021) call this a ‘media effect’. A second key point is that the language use observed in digital media also depends on the social context, including the social actions that users are trying to perform. Relevant contextual features include who the participants are, what their social goals are, what kind of social relationships they are trying to establish and what kinds of identities they are trying to enact. For example, the same person is likely to produce markedly different discourse in an email to a professional counterpart compared with a social networking status update to their friends. In addition, particular technological tools can themselves develop socially accepted ‘cultures-of-use’ (Thorne 2003) or ‘media ideologies’ (Gershon 2010). These are taken-for-granted, socially constructed behavioural rules that individuals bring to their use of digital media tools and which can vary across different cultural groups. For example, a group of students might perceive email as a highly formal medium for use with teachers and parents, while instant messaging might be considered more appropriate to interactions between same-age peers (Thorne 2003). Jones and Hafner (2021) call these kinds of social influences ‘user effects’. A useful summary of potential media effects and user effects is provided by Susan Herring. Herring (2002) used the concept of ‘socio-technical mode’ to describe CMC tools like email and instant messaging. She subsequently developed a ‘faceted classification scheme’ grouping influences of CMC into those related to ‘medium (technological) and

DISCOURSE AND COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

283

situation (social)’ (Herring 2007). Medium factors include synchronicity (i.e. whether messages are composed and sent by participants synchronously at the same time or asynchronously in sequence); message transmission (one-way vs two-way); persistence of transcript (i.e. whether a permanent transcript of the interaction is available); size of message buffer (e.g. number of characters in a single message); channels of communication (e.g. text, audio, video, graphics); anonymous messaging; private messaging; filtering; quoting; and message format (the order in which messages appear). Situation factors include participation structure (e.g. whether one-to-one or one-to-many); participant characteristics (e.g. age, gender, occupation); purpose; topic or theme; tone (e.g. serious/ playful, formal/casual); activity; norms; code (i.e. language or language variety). It’s important to note here that scholars in the field of CMC are careful to avoid the trap of technological determinism: that is, the idea that the technological features of a tool inevitably lead to particular discursive outcomes. As this section hopefully makes clear, research in the area considers both the way that people use CMC tools to communicate and the way that CMC tools can have an effect on that communication.

METHODS IN DISCOURSE STUDIES OF CMC According to Jones, Chik and Hafner (2015: 1), In order to cope with the fast-changing landscape of digital media, discourse analysts need to both draw upon the rich store of theories and methods developed over the years for the analysis of ‘analogue’ discourse, and to formulate new concepts and new methodologies to address the unique combinations of affordances and constraints introduced by digital media. Thus, the affordances of digital tools present some challenges to discourse analysts and a number of methodological approaches have been employed in an attempt to resolve them. In addition, these approaches reflect the concerns of a developing research agenda, which has progressed over the years. While early research attempted to describe the linguistic properties of CMC as a distinct language variety, such early structural analyses tended to oversimplify. More recent work goes beyond linguistic description to account for other factors: for example, the use of multimodal semiotic resources in texts and the situated, embodied nature of the communication, which might range across multiple online and offline contexts, constructed by different mobile (both human and machine) participants. In a review of research methods for discourse analysis in CMC contexts, Hafner (2018a) identifies four frequently used approaches: (1) digital ethnography; (2) computer-mediated discourse analysis; (3) corpus analysis and (4) network analysis. First, there has been a realization that discourse in CMC is just one part of larger, discursive activities crossing various digital platforms as well as online and offline spaces. This has led researchers to develop contextually sensitive, ethnographic approaches, which use techniques like participant observation as a central part of their methodology. These approaches aim to exploit a rich variety of data sources to account for discourse practices from the perspectives of the users themselves in an emic way. Some variants are referred to as ‘digital ethnography’ (Varis 2016), ‘virtual ethnography’ (Hine 2000), ‘connective ethnography’ (Leander 2008) and ‘discourse-centred online ethnography’ (Androutsopoulos 2008). Narrative approaches that draw primarily on the stories of

284

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

CMC users perform a similar function: see here the use of techno-linguistic biographies described in Page, Barton, Unger and Zappavigna (2014). Second, computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA) is an approach developed by Herring (2004), with a view to taking into account the medium and situation factors of discourse produced using ‘socio-technical modes’. According to Herring (2004: 339), ‘any analysis of online behaviour that is grounded in empirical, textual, observations is computer-mediated discourse analysis’. She recommends considering interrelated levels of discourse, namely: (1) structure; (2) meaning; (3) interaction and (4) social behaviour. Discourse analysis of online texts and interactions uses a language-focused content analysis. This could be done quantitatively by coding and counting discursive features of interest. It could also be done qualitatively, supported by ethnographic techniques. This means that the approach is compatible with the kind of digital ethnography described above. Third, quantitative methods from corpus analysis are also sometimes employed. A good example is the work of Zappavigna (2012), who compiled and analysed a corpus of Twitter posts. Corpora can now be compiled by customized software tools that interact with the APIs (Application Programming Interface) of major social media sites in order to automatically retrieve posted texts and associated metadata (Androutsopoulos and Tereick 2016). Potential issues arise as these kinds of texts are frequently multimodal, including embedded hypertext links, images and video content. Emerging methods of multimodal corpus analysis (O’Halloran et al. 2013) may go some way towards resolving some of these challenges. Finally, network analysis is also being used by some discourse analysts. Network analysis provides a large-scale quantitative mathematical description of the properties of a network. The primary units of analysis are ‘nodes’ and ‘arcs’ (Paolillo 2016). Various kinds of visualizations can be generated to illustrate the way that different nodes connect to one another and the strength (i.e. frequency) of those connections. This can, in turn, reveal general patterns of user behaviour that could inform other kinds of discourse analysis. Similarly, Page (2016) provides an interesting example of the way in which big data techniques can be combined with qualitative discourse analysis in her study of trolling behaviour on a Facebook group. Page analysed quantitative metadata, including ‘when the post was published and from which location, and whether and how the post was redistributed in the network elsewhere [i.e. ‘shared’]’ (p. 404). This allowed her to identify unusual user behaviour in one individual, the troll. Subsequently, a fine-grained discourse analysis of that user’s posts revealed the strategic use of discourse in the trolling activity.

A SAMPLE STUDY Lyons and Tagg (2019) present an analysis of mobile interaction using mobile phone messaging apps like WeChat and WhatsApp. Data were collected as part of a collaborative, ethnographic project, using what is referred to as a blended linguistic ethnography methodology. Data included interviews with participants and interactions at work and at home. The study provides an example of a situated and contextualized account of digital practices. In line with recent research, it challenges the distinction between online and offline contexts, rather seeing mobile communication as ‘deeply embedded in wider contexts, with offline and online activities intertwining and mutually supportive’ (p. 661). The study focuses on the social practice of mobile phone messaging of migrant microentrepreneurs in the UK, who use messaging apps for both personal and professional

DISCOURSE AND COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

285

purposes. In this article, Lyons and Tagg focus on two networks of key participants. The first set, based in Birmingham, were a young couple who ran a butcher’s store. Koo,  the  husband, was from Fujian, China, while Mee, the wife, was from Furong, Malaysia. The second set, based in London, was a Polish couple who ran a shop selling Polish goods on the high street in the Newnham area. Edyta, the wife, and Tadeusz, the husband, were both originally from the same town in Southeastern Poland. The affordances of mobile phone messaging play an important role in the discourse constructed. One feature of such interactions is that the participants are not usually physically co-present and may be communicating across different time zones as well. In terms of location, the mobile messaging apps allow participants to interact from a variety of physical locations which can be in flux throughout the interaction as participants move around. In terms of time, the apps allow for immediate, synchronous interaction. At the same time, the apps also afford persistent communication, with messages that are permanently recorded and can be revisited when convenient, sometimes after a delay of hours or even days. Such a practice would lead to an interaction that is more asynchronous in nature. As a result of the distance and lack of physical co-presence between participants, aspects of the context like setting frequently need to be established as part of the interaction. In this study, the concept of ‘mobile chronotope’ is used in order to make sense of the way that participants seek to establish and maintain aspects of the setting for their interaction in a negotiated way. Here, ‘chronotopes’ are defined as ‘socially conditioned configurations of time and space, which reflect and determine the historical, biographical, and social relations within a given interactive context’ (p. 658), a kind of ‘frame’ that permits some kinds of interactions and behaviours and sanctions others. The study shows how such chronotopes are socially constructed and demonstrates how this can affect the discourse of mobile messaging. A number of key findings emerge. Firstly, chronotopes are jointly constructed. Participants draw on the multimodal discursive resources available, including physical setting and shared cultural background. In Edyta’s interactions with friends in Poland, it is apparent that the expectation is for an immediate response, as can be seen in the example below (p. 667, translated from the Polish). F: I’ve just come back from [my] English [class] F: [visual] F: Where have you gone? E: Nowhere we’re having dinner and what’s up with you? E: [visual] Note that when Edyta fails to reply immediately, the expected chronotope is enforced by F who demands: ‘Where have you gone?’ We also see here the use of visual ‘stickers’ as a form of expression. In another personal communication, this time between Mee and her Chinese brother in law, Chen, we see the use of images sent as a conversational turn. Mee sends images of her daughter, which allow her to include Chen in the immediate setting, which is ‘entextualized’ (Jones 2009) by the images and can be commented on by Mee and Chen, who discuss the daughter. A second finding is that business-focused mobile chronotopes are likely to draw on different discursive resources compared to personal chronotopes. As an example, Koo

286

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

uses his mobile messaging app to receive orders for the butcher’s shop. The orders draw on a formal and specialized register with dense language and no expectation of an immediate response. Here, Koo makes use of the affordance of persistence, returning to the conversation and fulfilling the order at a time and place that are convenient to him. Thirdly, there can be chronotope shifts, where customers move from the business chronotope to the personal. An example of this comes when one of Edyta’s customers inquires whether Edyta can obtain Viagra. A relatively formal register is initially used, but this shifts to a less formal register as Edyta’s contact makes a joke to save face in a potentially embarrassing exchange. Finally, chronotopes can be contested when there are different chronotopic understandings between participants. An interesting example is when Edyta contacts her Catholic priest (FrG), with the goal of arranging for a reference for her daughter, who needs it in order to be admitted to a desirable Catholic school. The interaction proceeds as follows after Edyta uses the Polish greeting witam in her opening request (again, translated): FrG: ‘Witam’ what kind of greeting is that. Dear Ms E____ if you are practising Catholics and members of Our community, come tomorrow after the holy mass to the office. God bless fr G____ E: ‘Witam’ is a polite expression. I wanted [it] short and to the point. Please forgive a simple woman this horrific mistake she has made. We are all only human. Thank you for the information see you after the Holy Mass in ‘the office’. Lyons and Tagg point out that the usual Polish Catholic chronotope is one that ‘explicitly requires respectful behaviours during mass and in interactions with the clergy’ (p. 674), including particular forms of address and greeting. While Edyta appears to feel that this chronotope need not be adopted for the mobile messaging conversation, her priest seems to disagree. He therefore uses the first part of the reply to make it clear that he finds her greeting inappropriate and takes the implicit criticism further by subtly questioning Edyta’s Catholic practices. This attempt at imposing the communicative norms for offline interaction with clergy is in turn somewhat resisted by Edyta, who ironically begs for forgiveness. Two different chronotopic understandings come into conflict here. This study illustrates the way that medium factors combine with social factors in order to produce a distinctive discourse in mobile messaging. It challenges the idea that the discourse of CMC can be neatly described as a separate language variety for online contexts. Instead, online and offline contextual factors as well as the affordances and constraints of the medium combine in the production of the discourse. As Lyons and Tagg conclude: ‘much of the chronotopic negotiation detailed in this article stems from the medium-specific lack of co-presence or a common contextual base at the time of messaging, which requires participants to discursively co-construct shared communicative spaces’ (p. 679).

DISCOURSE FEATURES OF CMC Discourse analysts investigating CMC and digital practices tend to focus attention at a number of interrelated levels, including contexts, texts and interactions, power and

DISCOURSE AND COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

287

ideology (Hafner 2018a, Jones et al. 2015). In this section, I provide a selective review of research into the discourse of CMC. In doing so, my purpose is to draw attention to features particular to CMC discourse, especially the way in which CMC tends to complicate discourse. At the same time, I do not want to exaggerate the effect of CMC on discourse: while digital mediation can influence the discursive forms adopted, other social factors play a role as well, as we have seen.

CONTEXTS As the sample study by Lyons and Tagg (2019) shows, aspects of context can become complicated in CMC interactions, especially where conversational participants lack common coordinates in time and space. While other forms of mediated communication, like writing, share this feature, the affordances of CMC exaggerate it by making immediate, synchronous interaction possible through digital devices. In addition, Jones (2004) points out that contexts in CMC are ‘polyfocal’ with participants in instant messaging sharing their attention between different kinds of online and offline spaces: (1) the virtual environment, where the CMC interaction is represented; (2) the screen environment, where multiple other windows draw the participant’s attention and (3) the physical environment, where other ratified or unratified participants can also compete for attention. As these different spaces interact, this can have an effect on the CMC discourse produced. For example, the co-presence of someone’s parent or boss could affect the kind of message that person sends through their online chat client. A striking example of the blend of online and offline contexts can be seen in recordings of police stops, where members of the public use their mobile phone cameras to record the actions of police who have pulled them over and stopped them in their car. Jones (2020) points out that in these encounters, the camera, representing the online audience, becomes a kind of participant to the interaction that citizen and police officer must attend to in their discourse. The citizen, who is using the camera to record, is engaged in various actions: as well as the action of showing (‘look at this’) there is also the action of making the police officer aware of that showing (‘look at ‘us’ looking at you’). In addition, the citizen may turn the camera on themselves and narrate what is going on around them (‘look at me being looked at by this police officer’). Finally, the camera can be angled to catch both the citizen and the police officer, recording a performed conversation, where citizen and police officer both use that conversation in an attempt to account for their actions. They are both performing, as it were, for the online audience and narrating their own version of events, all the while carrying out a conversation with one another – a conversation that is discursively designed for both online and offline contexts. Another way that CMC can complicate context is seen in social networking sites. Marwick and boyd (2011) describe the phenomenon of ‘context collapse’. This occurs when different kinds of audiences are collected in social networking sites: friends, family, co-workers, bosses and so on. Social media users may take this wide range of audiences into account as they create their posts, carefully designing the discourse in response. An example of this kind of ‘audience design’ is when multilinguals select a particular language variety, in order to specifically target the segment of their audience who are competent users of that variety (Androutsopoulos 2014). The context of such globalized, online social networks provide a rich setting for multilingual language use (see Lee 2017) – one feature of the CMC texts and interactions that has attracted the attention of researchers.

288

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

TEXTS AND INTERACTIONS An important technological affordance of CMC is the ability to easily create and distribute multimodal texts that combine semiotic modes like writing, speaking, image, sound and so on. The significance of this multimodality in CMC texts and interactions is increasingly recognized by sociolinguists and discourse analysts (Thurlow et al. 2020). Multimodal resources are frequently deployed in online conversations like those seen in mobile messaging and social media. In such contexts, various kinds of graphical icons or ‘graphicons’ (Konrad et al. 2020), for example, emojis, stickers, gifs and memes, can function, on the one hand, to provide iconic contextualization cues that compensate for a lack of paralinguistic resources like gesture and gaze. On the other hand, they can also function to provide a kind of metadiscursive comment expressing emotion and attitude, and invoking playfulness (Dresner and Herring 2010). In addition, images or videos of the immediate physical context can be used as a conversational turn in order to include geographically distant others in the physical setting (Lyons and Tagg 2019). Other visual features of CMC that are attracting the attention of discourse analysts include memes (Aslan and Vásquez 2018) and selfies (Zappavigna and Zhao 2017). We also see increasing ‘convergence’ (Jenkins 2006) of communication channels in online platforms: that is, ‘the fusion of formerly distinct technologies and modes of communication in integrated digital environments’ (Androutsopoulos 2011: 281). A good example is the video streaming website, Twitch.tv (described in Recktenwald 2017), often used by gamers who stream their gaming sessions to massive audiences. This platform blends at least three different communication channels on the screen. Two are video channels: a screencast of the game that the gamer host is playing and a live video feed depicting the host overlayed on the screencast. The third channel is a live synchronous chat stream where viewers can compose multimodal messages. Viewers can also attract the attention of the host by making a donation, which causes a text message to appear on the video stream. All of these semiotic resources combine as the host reacts to what is going on in the game at the same time as reading and responding to comments from the chat feed and donations from viewers. Herring and Androutsopoulos (2015) point to interaction management, especially in synchronous CMC, as one of the areas where a medium effect on discourse is most visible. Compared to face-to-face conversations, a number of differences can easily be observed in online, synchronous interaction (Hafner 2018a). First, conversations are usually persistent, with contributions often preserved indefinitely. Participants in such persistent conversations may develop a sense of ‘ambient co-presence’ (Ito and Okabe 2005) with no clear sense of beginning or end to the interaction. Second, interactions may display disrupted turn adjacency (Herring 1999), with some turns unanswered or multiple different threads of conversation continuing simultaneously. Third, conversations can cross from one platform to another, as well as between online and offline settings. Fourth, the system can become a participant in the conversation, by automatically generating messages, like ‘Lindsay has joined the group’. All of these factors tend to complicate interaction, so that a different set of strategies is required in CMC compared to face-toface contexts. One final point regarding texts and interactions is that the affordances of digital media to easily copy, paste and so ‘quote’ multimodal texts have greatly facilitated intertextual and interdiscursive practices. This is seen in popular practices like memeing, where cultural resources are creatively appropriated, remixed and further circulated, as part

DISCOURSE AND COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

289

of what Lessig (2008) calls ‘remix culture’. In business and professional practices like email writing, greater reliance on intertextual relations has also been observed (Bremner and Costley 2018, Warren 2013). In addition, the ability to reach a wide, diversified audience online leads to greater hybridity in online genres, as authors make strategic use of different semiotic resources to engage readers. For example, the MySpace page of a German musician presents a hybrid space where multiple authors use multiple languages, genres and language styles (Androutsopoulos 2011). In scholarly genres like the academic blog (Luzón 2013) and the online crowdfunding proposal (Mehlenbacher 2017), hybridity is also observed as authors target a mix of specialist and non-specialist audiences. Along with such hybridity, collaborative, multiple authorship is also facilitated by digital media, potentially introducing new dimensions for analysis (Hafner 2018b, Hafner and Yu 2020).

POWER AND IDEOLOGY Critical discourse analysts are concerned with the way that the moment-to-moment discourse constructed at text level can reproduce higher-level discourses that in turn create and sustain powerful social structures. Recently, attention has turned to the way that governments and corporations can make use of digital tools in order to enhance surveillance in potentially oppressive ways. Jones (2016) argues that, in order to understand these processes, discourse analysts should turn their attention to three properties of digital texts, which he refers to as subtexts, pretexts and contexts. In essence, the argument is that surveillance is achieved through algorithmic monitoring (subtexts), with consent obtained through online forms (pretexts) served at strategic moments in interactions, and with information finally repurposed in unexpected contexts, potentially violating established norms of privacy. Similarly, discourse analysts can play a role in understanding practices of disinformation and behaviour manipulation, for example, email phishing scams, which make strategic use of framing and positioning (Blommaert and Omoniyi 2006). Ideologies can be seen to operate at various levels when it comes to language and digital media. On one level, digital tools themselves come with ‘baked in’ ideological choices about the kinds of communication and self-presentation practices that are ‘normal’ and allowable. For example, selecting a gender to display on a Facebook profile used to involve completing a form with a binary choice between ‘male’ and ‘female’. On another level, some discourse analysts go beyond the tools themselves to consider how such tools are represented in the media and how associated language ideologies are constructed. For example, Thurlow (2006) problematized language ideologies about SMS text messaging, which constructed the new technology as a kind of dumbing down, in contrast to empirical research on literacy and device use. Taking a similar approach, Selwyn (2015) considered representations of digital technologies in educational contexts, showing how values promoted by discourses of ‘digital disruption’ align with a neoliberal agenda and the marketization of education.

CONCLUSION It is impossible, in the short space available for this chapter, to provide a comprehensive account of research on the discourse of CMC. Much more could be said, for example, on the important topics of identity and community, as these have been picked up in

290

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

the literature. In addition, while initial scholarship in this area focused quite heavily on popular, vernacular contexts, there is a growing body of work that applies discourse analysis of CMC to business and professional settings as well. In spite of these limitations, I hope to have provided here a useful, initial guide highlighting some of the important issues relating to research and practice of the discourse of CMC. We are currently seeing growing reliance on digital tools in all walks of life, including worrying developments in mass surveillance, the circulation of misinformation and propaganda, and mass behaviour manipulation. In future, discourse analysts will need to turn their attention to this wide array of urgent topics.

KEY READINGS Barton, D. and C. Lee (2013), Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Georgakopoulou, A. and T. Spilioti (eds) (2016), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Herring, S. C. (ed.) (1996), Computer-mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social, and CrossCultural Perspectives, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Herring, S. C. and J. Androutsopoulos (2015), ‘Computer-mediated Discourse 2.0’, in D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton and D. Schiffrin (eds), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Jones, R. H., A. Chik, and C. A. Hafner (eds) (2015), Discourse and Digital Practices: Doing Discourse Analysis in the Digital Age, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

REFERENCES Androutsopoulos, J. (2008), ‘Potentials and Limitations of Discourse-centred Online Ethnography’, Language@Internet, 5. Androutsopoulos, J. (2011), ‘From Variation to Heteroglossia in the Study of Computermediated Discourse’, in C. Thurlow and K. Mroczek (eds), Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media, 277–97, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Androutsopoulos, J. (2014), ‘Languaging When Contexts Collapse: Audience Design in Social Networking’, Discourse, Context & Media, 4–5: 62–73. Androutsopoulos, J. and J. Tereick (2016), ‘YouTube: Language and Discourse Practices in Participatory Culture’, in A. Georgakopoulou and T. Spilioti (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, 355–70, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Aslan, E. and C. Vásquez (2018), ‘“Cash Me Ousside”: A Citizen Sociolinguistic Analysis of Online Metalinguistic Commentary’, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 22 (4): 406–31. Barton, D. and C. Lee (2013), Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Blommaert, J. and T. Omoniyi (2006), ‘Email Fraud: Language, Technology, and the Indexicals of Globalisation’, Social Semiotics, 16 (4): 573–605. Bremner, S. and T. Costley (2018), ‘Bringing Reality to the Classroom: Exercises in Intertextuality’, English for Specific Purposes, 52: 1–12. Dresner, E. and S. C. Herring (2010), ‘Functions of the Nonverbal in CMC: Emoticons and Illocutionary Force’, Communication Theory, 20 (3): 249–68. Gee, J. P. (2014), An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method, 4th ed, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

DISCOURSE AND COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

291

Georgakopoulou, A. (2006), ‘Postscript: Computer-mediated Communication in Sociolinguistics’, Journal of Sociolinguistics, 10 (4): 548–57. Georgakopoulou, A. and T. Spilioti (eds) (2016), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Gershon, I. (2010), The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Gibson, J. J. (1979), The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Hafner, C. A. (2018a), ‘Digital Discourses Research and Methods’, in A. Phakiti, P. I. De Costa, L. Plonsky and S. Starfield (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Linguistics Research Methodology, 375–90, London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hafner, C. A. (2018b), ‘Genre Innovation and Multimodal Expression in Scholarly Communication: Video Methods Articles in Experimental Biology’, Ibérica, 36: 15–41. Hafner, C. A. and C. Yu (2020), ‘Language Socialization in Digitally Mediated Collaborative Writing: Evidence from Disciplinary Peer and Teacher Feedback’, RELC Journal, 51 (1): 14–32. Herring, S. C. (ed.) (1996), Computer-mediated Communication: Linguistic, Social, and CrossCultural Perspectives, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Herring, S. C. (1999), ‘Interactional Coherence in CMC’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 4 (4). Herring, S. C. (2002), ‘Computer-mediated Communication on the Internet’, Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 36: 109–68. Herring, S. C. (2004), ‘Computer-mediated Discourse Analysis: An Approach to Researching Online Behaviour’, in S. A. Barab, R. Kling and J. H. Gray (eds), Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning, 338–76, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Herring, S. C. (2007), ‘A Faceted Classification Scheme for Computer-Mediated Discourse’, Language@Internet, 4. Herring, S. C. and J. Androutsopoulos (2015), ‘Computer-Mediated Discourse 2.0’, in D. Tannen, H. E. Hamilton and D. Schiffrin (eds), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons. Hine, C. (2000), Virtual Ethnography, London: Sage. Ito, M. and D. Okabe (2005), ‘Technosocial Situations: Emergent Structuring of Mobile E-mail Use’, in M. Ito, D. Okabe and M. Matsuda (eds), Personal, Portable, Pedestrian: Mobile Phones in Japanese Life, 257–73, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jenkins, H. (2006), Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New York: New York University Press. Jones, R. H. (2004), ‘The Problem of Context in Computer Mediated Communication’, in P. LeVine and R. Scollon (eds), Discourse and Technology: Multimodal Discourse Analysis, 20–33, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Jones, R. H. (2009), Dancing, Skating and Sex: Action and Text in the Digital Age’, Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, 6 (3): 283–302. Jones, R. H. (2016), ‘Surveillance’, in A. Georgakopoulou and T. Spilioti (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, 408–11, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Jones, R. H. (2020), ‘Towards an Embodied Visual Semiotics: Negotiating the Right to Look’, in C. Thurlow, C. Dürscheid and F. Diémoz (eds), Visualizing Digital Discourse, 19–42, Berlin: de Gruyter. Jones, R. H. and C. A. Hafner (2021), Understanding Digital Literacies: A Practical Introduction (2nd ed.), London: Routledge. Jones, R. H., A. Chik and C. A. Hafner (eds) (2021), Discourse and Digital Practices: Doing Discourse Analysis in the Digital Age, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

292

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Konrad, A., S. C. Herring and D. Choi (2020), ‘Sticker and Emoji Use in Facebook Messenger: Implications for Graphicon Change’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 25: 217–35. Leander, K. M. (2008), ‘Toward a Connective Ethnography of Online/Offline Literacy Networks’, in D. Leu, J. Coiro, M. Knobel and C. Lankshear (eds), Handbook of Research on New Literacies, 33–65, New York: Erlbaum. Lee, C. (2017), Multilingualism Online, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Lessig, L. (2008), Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, New York: Penguin Press. Luzón, M. J. (2013), ‘Public Communication of Science in Blogs: Recontextualizing Scientific Discourse for a Diversified Audience’, Written Communication, 30 (4): 428–57. Lyons, A. and C. Tagg (2019), ‘The Discursive Construction of Mobile Chronotopes in MobilePhone Messaging’, Language in Society, 48 (5): 657–83. Marwick, A. E. and d. m. boyd (2011), ‘I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Context Collapse, and the Imagined Audience’, New Media & Society, 13 (1): 114–33. Mehlenbacher, A. R. (2017), ‘Crowdfunding Science: Exigencies and Strategies in an Emerging Genre of Science Communication’, Technical Communication Quarterly, 26 (2): 127–44. O’Halloran, K. L., K. L. E. Marissa, A. Podlasov and S. Tan (2013), ‘Multimodal Digital Semiotics: The Interaction of Language with Other Resources’, Text & Talk, 33 (4–5): 665–90. Page, R. (2016), ‘Moving between the Big and Small: Identity and Interaction in Digital Contexts’, in A. Georgakopoulou and T. Spilioti (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, 403–7, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Page, R. E., D. Barton, J. W. Unger and M. Zappavigna (2014), Researching Language and Social Media: A Student Guide, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Paolillo, J. C. (2016), ‘Network Analysis’, in A. Georgakopoulou and T. Spilioti (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, 36–54, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Recktenwald, D. (2017), ‘Toward a Transcription and Analysis of Live Streaming on Twitch’, Journal of Pragmatics, 115: 68–81. Selwyn, N. (2015), ‘The Discursive Construction of Education in the Digital Age’, in R. H. Jones, A. Chik and C. A. Hafner (eds), Discourse and Digital Practices: Doing Discourse Analysis in the Digital Age, 226–40, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Tagg, C. (2015), Exploring Digital Communication: Language in Action, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Thorne, S. L. (2003), ‘Artifacts and Cultures-of-use in Intercultural Communication’, Language Learning & Technology, 7 (2): 38–67. Thurlow, C. (2006), ‘From Statistical Panic to Moral Panic: The Metadiscursive Construction and Popular Exaggeration of New Media Language in the Print Media’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11 (3): 667–701. Thurlow, C. and K. R. Mroczek (eds) (2011), Digital Discourse: Language in the New Media, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thurlow, C., C. Dürscheid and F. Diémoz (eds) (2020), Visualising Digital Discourse, Berlin: de Gruyter. Varis, P. (2016), ‘Digital Ethnography’, in A. Georgakopoulou and T. Spilioti (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, 55–68, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

DISCOURSE AND COMPUTER-MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

Warren, M. (2013), ‘“Just Spoke to … ”: The Types and Directionality of Intertextuality in Professional Discourse’, English for Specific Purposes, 32 (1): 12–24. Zappavigna, M. (2012), Discourse of Twitter and Social Media, London: Continuum. Zappavigna, M. and S. Zhao (2017), ‘Selfies in “Mommyblogging”: An Emerging Visual Genre’, Discourse, Context & Media, 20: 239–47.

293

294

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Discourse and social media MICHELE ZAPPAVIGNA

INTRODUCTION There has been an explosion of research into social media discourse across communication research fields, from linguistics to media studies. This has occurred in tandem with the increasingly significant role social media platforms are playing across many areas of social life as they integrate themselves into our daily social practices. Social media platforms are digital services that encourage users to create connections with others through sharing and evaluating texts, images, video and other multimedia. As such they have been described as ‘stance-rich environments’ (Barton and Lee 2013: 31). Examples that have been explored by discourse analysts include platforms such as Facebook (Georgalou 2017), Twitter (Zappavigna 2012), Instagram (Caple 2019, Zhao and Zappavigna 2018c), YouTube (Adami 2009, Benson 2016, Bhatia 2018, Dynel 2014) and WeChat (Zhao and Flewitt 2019). These platforms tend to foreground the recency or immediacy of communication, and to promote collective, networked participation structures (Page et al. 2014). Due to the relative ease of collecting large volumes of texts and associated metadata via the application programming interfaces (APIs) of platforms, much of the early linguistic work on social media, in particular on Twitter (Zappavigna 2012), was corpus-based. Some social media platforms have begun to restrict access to their APIs, highlighting the complex issues and ethical concerns of work involving corporate entities and public communication. Since modes other than language feature are so prominently in social media communication, more recently there has been a growth in multimodal studies, and these tend to employ qualitative methods on smaller datasets due to the complexity of the analysis. Social media platforms are both distinct microsystems and interconnected ecosystems that are sensitive to changes in other systems (Dijck 2013). Thus, it is important for the discourse analyst to be mindful of the complexity of digital ecologies in order to avoid an artificial reification of dynamic textual production and to avoid factoring out attendant issues of the fluidity of online and offline semiotic practices (Zhao and Zappavigna 2018c), and the complexity of remediation (e.g. via embedding and sharing across platforms (Adami 2014)). For example, Figure 21.1 is an instance of a social media text in the form of an Instagram post. The production of the text as a semiotic practice is embedded within the offline practice of drinking coffee while working on a laptop in a café and may be cross-posted to different platforms (e.g. Facebook). It incorporates an animated sticker of cartoon sun pouring out a cup of coffee, overlaid on a mirrored selfie (see the sample study of selfies at the end of this chapter for an explanation of this type of selfie), together

296

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

with a caption that includes various metadata components such as timestamps and social tags. Some features of the text are platform-specific and subject to templated styles, for instance, the position of the image relative to the text, the appearance of blue hyperlinks for the hashtags, the visual appearance of icons such as the heart, etc. The hashtags (e.g. #coffee) in this post generate ambient connections with a range of potential communities across coffee addicts, fitness enthusiasts and the real estate industry. As we will explore in the sample study of selfies at the end of this chapter, these connections are interwoven with the intersubjective relations at stake in the visual structure of the selfie. While social media services enable the production and proliferation of user-generated multimodal content, as platform technologies they are also governed by the neoliberal interests and values of a relatively small set of global technology corporations (Djonov and Van Leeuwen 2018, Gillespie 2010). This means that participation is ‘neither neutral, nor is it distributed evenly’(Page 2019: 182). A critical perspective on social media attempts to account for how the ideologies impacting the design and use of platforms are discursively realized and contested (Djonov and Zhao 2013). This involves considering how these platforms both enable and constrain meaning-making, for instance through accounting for the role of pre-designed features such as templates in modulating what can be construed (Jovanovic and Van Leeuwen 2018). While it may be tempting to characterize social media communication as an outpouring of free expression, it is important to note the ways in which platforms are subject to global commercial discourse (Veum and Undrum 2018). In addition, while discourse analysis has tended to focus on English language use of social media, the communication is in fact highly multilingual (Androutsopoulos 2013)

FIGURE 21.1  An example of an Instagram image, Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/ BxPhQm8AQy4/

DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

297

with users drawing on ‘multilingual repertoires’ that may incorporate a range of elements from different languages depending on the context (Tagg 2015: 139). Previous work on social media discourse has spanned a large number of concerns from construing experience through stories (Page 2013, 2018) to enacting identity (Bouvier 2012, Georgalou 2017, Seargeant and Tagg 2014, Zappavigna 2014c). Tagg and Seargeant (2016) suggest the key issues that are how identity, audiences and community are constructed in social media discourse. This chapter gives an overview of these concerns, beginning by introducing the concept of semiotic technology that has been central to how social media are positioned as objects of study. It then considers social media discourse as searchable talk, where technical affordances such as search take on linguistic functions in resources such as hashtags. Ambient affiliation as a key lens for interpreting how social media users bond through language use is then considered. The chapter concludes with a sample study of selfies that draws on the key ideas developed throughout.

SOCIAL MEDIA AS SEMIOTIC TECHNOLOGIES Social media are semiotic technologies since they are technologies ‘for making meaning’ (Van Leeuwen, Djonov, and O’Halloran 2013: 409). A semiotic technology perspective on social media involves accounting for both users’ and designers’ participation in ‘production and activities related to the use of semiotic modes on social media platforms’ (Jovanovic and Van Leeuwen 2018: 684). This perspective originates from a social semiotic approach to multimodal discourse analysis grounded in Halliday’s (1978) systemic functional conceptualization of grammar as choices in meaning that are resources rather than rules. Van Leeuwen (2005: 3) extended this idea to modes other than language, defining semiotic resources ‘as the actions and artefacts we use to communicate, whether they are produced physiologically … or by means of technologies’. The semiotic technology perspective was introduced in work on the software application PowerPoint (Zhao, Djonov and van Leeuwen 2014, Zhao and van Leeuwen 2014) which considered this software ‘as a semiotic practice encompassing three interdependent dimensions – the software’s design, the multimodal composition of slideshows and their presentation; and two semiotic artefacts – the software and the slideshow’ (Zhao and Zappavigna 2018c: 665). This approach has since been applied to practices on social media such as academic social networking on ResearchGate (Djonov and Van Leeuwen 2018), visual meaning-making and self-representation on Instagram (Poulsen 2018, Zhao and Zappavigna 2018c), and live-commenting (danmaku) on videos (Yang 2019). A semiotic technology approach to social media involves considering the particular options these technologies make available as choices in a potential configuration of semiotic resources (e.g. layout, font, animation, metadata). It also involves considering the kinds of constraints that are imposed on which resources can be used and combined. Analysing these dimensions is important to understanding the assumptions that are made in terms of design and how these impact on the meaning-making potential of users. For example, if we were to apply a semiotic technology approach to the Instagram post in Figure 21.1, we might begin by mapping out the multimodal resources that are available in the interface design of the Instagram app (and the web-based interface). We would also consider the affordance of the camera phone technology used to produce the image and its materiality. In addition, the online and offline social practices in which this textual production was embedded (in this case drinking coffee while working on a laptop in a café) would be explored. Finally the genre of the text and its particular multimodal

298

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

patterning would be investigated (for a study adopting these analytical techniques, see Zhao and Zappavigna 2018c: 665).

SEARCHABLE TALK Social media communication generates particular challenges to the discourse analyst that test our traditional analytical strategies. This is in part due to the interaction of the affordances of technical resources, such as the searchability function of electronic text, and the functions of semiotic resources. A special feature of much of the communication produced via social media is that it is searchable. Platforms incorporate different types of search through their interfaces and use different kinds of metadata, such as timestamps, location information, follower counts, etc., to enhance search capabilities and for other kinds of tracking. An exception is ephemeral media such as Snapchat or Instagram stories designed to disappear after an allotted period of time in reaction to the permanent searchability of other kinds of posts and to concerns over privacy. Page (2012: 182) suggests that searchability has a double consequence: ‘To be made searchable is at once narcissistic (enabling the self to be found by others, and gain an audience as a sign of status) and to become the subject of surveillance (scrutinized in the service of a third party’s self-promotion)’. What makes the ‘searchable talk’ (Zappavigna 2011) particularly interesting is the integration of metadata such as hashtags into the visible communication. Metadata is traditionally separated from the information it annotates, whereas in social media communication it sometimes performs functional roles in the text itself. Because of this, while metadata has traditionally been a tool of information management ‘this is the first historical period where we see it so closely tied to enacting social relations, having extended its semiotic reach as an information-organising tool to a social resource for building relationships and communities through the practice of social tagging’ (Zappavigna 2018: 3). Social tagging is the community-driven practice of appending publicly visible ‘labels’ to information objects (e.g. Flickr images (Barton 2015)) in digital environments. It relies on the shared construction of social tags, rather than the application of predefined taxonomies. Hashtags have been associated with many different types of discursive practices such as face work (Matley 2018), political commentary and critique (Ross and Bhatia 2019), expression of affect (Lee and Chau 2018) and metanarratives (Giaxoglou 2018) (for a special issue focused on social tagging see Lee 2018). The most prominent social tag is the hashtag which has itself ‘been promoted from a rather peripheral typographic resource to an emblem of social media linguistic practice’ (Heyd and Puschmann 2017: 52). Hashtags, marked with the # symbol, have a wide variety of functions from coordinating social media discussion, facilitating metacommentary, linking and referencing ideas, and cracking jokes. They inherit the reflexivity of traditional metadata but elevate this beyond information objects to ‘discourse that recognizes itself as such’ (Rambukkana 2015: 2) and as such represent ‘a way of thinking that has deeply penetrated cultural consciousness’ (Scheible 2015: 91). For example, consider the hashtags used in the Instagram post at the beginning of this chapter: #coffee #coffeecoffeecoffeecoffee #lifeiscoffee #letsgetthisdaystartednow #sunsout gunsout #thursday #thursdaymotivation #readytorealestate #realtorlife #niagarafalls #realestatewithcoffee #realestatewithcoffeebefore9

DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

299

These tags have concurrent functions that have been noted in discourse analysis of tagging practices: classifying experience, construing evaluative metacommentary, and organising the text (Page 2012, Scott 2015, Wikström 2014, Zappavigna 2015, 2018). For instance the #lifeiscoffee tag above has the experiential function of indicating that the post is about coffee, as well as an interpersonal function of invoked positive evaluation, whereby coffee is iconised as something we can rally around as a token of good living (for a study of this kind of social media discourse about coffee see Zappavigna 2014b). In addition, the tags have an interesting textual function. The # acts as a discourse marker graphologically indicating that the sting of letters following it are metadata, which in turns creates an intertextual link to other texts containing the same hashtag. This intertextuality is also inscribed through the technical affordances of search and aggregation embedded in the platform (e.g. the clickability of the tag). Hashtags may also be thought of as having an ‘audience-selecting role’ (Pavalanathan and Eisenstein 2015: 205) in terms of garnering attention within the social stream which has been interpreted in media studies as the formation of forming hashtag publics and ad hoc issue publics (Bruns and Burgess 2015). When we think about this in terms of the corporate interests governing platforms mentioned at the beginning of this chapter we might note how hashtags have the potential to be coopted into forms of discursive control, yielding the shape of our experience to ‘the logic of commerce’ (Wu 2017) in terms of what is brought to our collective attention and when.

AMBIENT AFFILIATION A central concern of social media research is how language and other semiotic resources are used for expressing stances and for social bonding around opinion and sentiment. This bonding may be enacted as ‘communion of feeling’ (Firth 1964: 112) that draws together the likeminded through expression of positive or negative (as in the case of gossip) attitudes toward a particular ideational target. Recently there has been widespread popular concern about the impact of so-called ‘filter bubbles’ where similar attitudes repeatedly resonate through particular groups on particular social platforms potentially solidifying biases and false information (Seargeant and Tagg 2019). Interestingly, while many forms of interaction for negotiating values are possible via social media platforms, often social media posts do not attract a direct reply from another user (e.g. most tweets do not receive a reply (Liu, Kliman-Silver, and Mislove 2014)). Oulasvirta et al. (2010: 244) refer to this asymmetry as a kind of ‘dilution of conversational obligations’. The concept of ‘ambient affiliation’ was developed to account for the kinds of social communion that are possible on social media and other digital environments but which do not necessarily involve direct interaction or conversation-like exchanges (Zappavigna 2011). These include mass semiotic practices such as using a shared hashtag or contributing to an iteration of an internet meme (for work on memes, see Ross and Rivers 2017, 2018, 2019). Neither of these practices require direct communication with another user; yet, both often generate mass sharing of collective feeling. Ambient affiliation has been used to explore bonding in relation to Twitter discourses about motherhood (Zappavigna 2014c), everyday life (Zappavigna 2014a, 2014b), food (Drasovean and Tagg 2015), language learning (Solmaz 2017), celebrity (Zappavigna 2013), organic farming (Kozaki and Akoumianakis 2014), feminism (Han 2015), Brexit (Zappavigna 2017, 2019a) and politics (Persson 2017, Zappavigna 2014d, 2020). For an overview of social semiotic research into social media and affiliation, see Zappavigna (2019b).

300

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Social semiotic affiliation theory developed from Knight’s (2008, 2010a, 2010b, 2013) studies of conversational humour (for a collection of such studies see Martin and Bednarek 2010). Work in this area employs Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework to explore the community-building significance of evaluative language in terms of couplings of ideation and attitude that are negotiated in discourse. For example, if we consider again the main caption in Figure 21.1, there are a number of couplings of ideation (shown underlined below) and inscribed attitude (shown in bold) that are tabled in the post: Before coffee showing, 7:30am. Coffee ordered, 8:30am. Noticed it’s sunny out and the weather is perfect and people are awesome and life is wonderful, 8:40am. These couplings are open for potential negotiation in the feed of comments that the Instagram interface makes available. They may be annotated using the convention [ideation: X/attitude: Y] developed in Martin et al. (2013) and Zappavigna & Martin (2018). For example, the coupling [ideation: life/attitude: positive appreciation] might be rallied around (e.g. I agree, life has been great!), laughed off (e.g. haha, my life sucks) or condemned (e.g. No way life is hard at the moment!). In each case the response employs a different affiliation strategy. Other couplings in this Instagram post may also be taken up through the hashtagging practices noted in the section on searchable talk. For instance in the tag #coffeeislife involves the coupling [ideation: coffee/attitude: invoked positive appreciation]. Hashtags of this kind enable users to commune around couplings without necessarily entering into dialogic exchanges. For example, at the time of writing there were 1,152,980 Instagram posts tagged #coffeeislife with captions such as: Nothing tastes better on a morning than a hot coffee #coffee #caffeine #coffeetable #coffeelovers #coffeeart #coffeeholic #igcoffee #coffeedaily #coffeeofinstagram #coffees #coffeebar #coffeequotes #bestcoffee #coffeedrinker #coffeetime #coffeeislife #coffeemaker #coffeevibes #coffeehour #Entrepreneur #Entrepreneurship #mauritius #followforfollowback #likeforlikes These posts tend to be saturated with repeated couplings of coffee with positive affect and appreciation that can be interpreted as ongoing communion around this beverage. According to Zappavigna and Martin (2018) there are three systems of meaning relevant to such communion: ●●

●●

●●

convoking – mustering community around a coupling, for instance, via naming or classifying e.g. #coffeeLovers promoting – interpersonally emphasizing a coupling, for instance, via graduation or typographic emphasis e.g. #LOVE finessing – heteroglossically positioning a coupling in relation to other potential couplings, for example, via engagement resources such as negation, for example, #notgoodcoffee

Each of these systems are concerned with the ‘alignment to the coupling’ (Han 2015: 30) that is construed, either in a social tag or in the main body of a post. A fulsome account

DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

301

of the different systems of ambient affiliation is beyond the scope of this chapter (for an overview see Logi and Zappavigna, in press), and for a more elaborate account of the above systems, see Zappavigna (2021).

SAMPLE STUDY OF SELFIES As research into social media in the field of discourse analysis has progressed, the need for multimodal has become increasingly evident given the importance of modes other than language, in particular visual meaning-making, on many social media platforms. Interactions between users on these platforms can incorporate a range of multimedia, with moves in conversation exchanges realized, for instance, as images, emoji (Parkwell 2019), gifs or other visual media (Jovanovic and Van Leeuwen 2018). This sample study draws on a series of multimodal studies that were focused on understanding selfies from a social semiotic perspective (Ross and Zappavigna 2019, Zappavigna 2016, Zappavigna and Zhao 2017, Zappavigna and Zhao 2020, Zhao and Zappavigna 2018a, 2018b, 2018c). The aim of this work was to move beyond a superficial reading of selfies as narcissistic acts of self-representation to exploring the complex nuances and shifts in visual perspective that are made possible by this semiotic practice. This sample study shows how coffee, as a popular ‘bonding icon’ (Stenglin 2008), can be used to enact ambient affiliation through different choices in visual perspective in selfies. Earlier in this chapter we explored how certain phenomena can become the ideational focus of ambient affiliation in social media discourse, whether for celebration or derision. Coffee is a frequent example of an object that serves as a bonding icon (Zappavigna 2014b). Each of the selfies in Table 21.1 includes a cup of coffee in the image. In addition, the captions to these images table positive attitudes towards four main ideational targets: coffee, life, real estate and the weather. Such is the interpersonal charge of coffee that the Instagrammer has chosen to name her business ‘Real estate with coffee’, seeming to capitalize on associations such as conviviality and productivity that are associated with coffee in the hope of fostering ambient affiliation with potential clients. Selfies are perhaps the most recognizable form of social media photography and one of the most frequent patterns apparent in visual social media. Table 21.1 shows the representational and compositional resources used in selfies, together with the intersubjective relations they tend to enact. The examples shown are all taken from the same Instagram account as the image in Figure 21.1. The most commonly recognized type of selfie is the presented selfie (row 1 Table 21.1) where the face of the photographer is explicitly represented. This type directly represents a self’s perspective on technologically mediated (via the camera on the smartphone) representation of the self (S → T → S). Table 21.1 shows the representational and compositional choices that are associated with each type of selfie and the different kinds of visual perspective that these construe. Beyond the classic presented selfie, other visual structures are possible that can be argued to be selfies. Each of these draws on particular representational and compositional resources to enact different types of intersubjective relations between the photographer and the ambient audience. For example, mirrored selfies (row 2, Table 21.1) add an additional layer of technological mediation (via the mirror) creating a meta-meta-perspective (S → T → T → S). Selfies can also use this kind of complex perspective to represent a self’s perspective on a certain phenomenon. This can be achieved in a number of ways. For example, inferred selfies (row 3, Table 21.1) include part of the photographer’s body

TABLE 21.1  Types of intersubjective relations possible with selfies, adapted from Zappavigna and Zhao (2020).

Metafunctional resources Representational

Compositional

Presented

+photographer’s image; (+other visual participants; +objects; backgrounds)

the photographer: +centred + foregrounded

Mirrored

the photographer: +photographer’s +centred mirror image + mirror; + the phone; + foregrounded (+minor images of objects; backgrounds; other visual participants)

Inferred

+ body parts (e.g. feet, legs, hand or arms); +objects, +other visual participants, or scenery

+varied composition + body parts foregrounded + other visual participants salient

Inter-subjective relations Meta-perspective

Self’s perspective on technologically (camera phone) mediated representation of the self (or group) SP → T → S

Meta-metaperspective

Self’s perspective on technologically (camera phone) mediated representation of technologically mediated (mirror) representation of the self SP → T → T → S Explicit Self’s perspective on technologically mediated representation of self’s perspective of certain phenomenon (X) SP→T→SP→X

Metafunctional resources Representational

Compositional

Implied

+objects implying the photographer; +other visual participant; +objects; scenery

+varied composition + objects implying the photographer foregrounded

Still life

+objects implying the photographer

+arranged composition; +downward/aerial angle

self-image

Inter-subjective relations

Implicit

304

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

such as their hands or feet to orient us towards a visual object. Alternatively, implied selfies (row 4, Table 21.1) draw on compositional resources such as objects in the foreground of the visual frame to suggest the photographer’s perspective. The least explicit form of this meta-meta-perspective is the still life self image (row 5, Table 21.1) where an arranged composition and aerial angle imply the photographer’s perspective. The kind of perspective that can be generated by selfies together with the ability of these visual structures to be recontextualized across different domains is part of their semiotic power. This combines with the affordances of searchable talk to extend the reach of these texts as vehicles for ambient affiliation. The visual structures in Table 21.1 have been observed in semiotic practices from areas as diverse as ‘mommy blogging’ (Zappavigna and Zhao 2017) to cycling (Ross and Zappavigna 2019), and on platforms. They have also begun to be explored in relation to the kind of perspectives that can be shared via video, for example, in Snapchat (Page 2019) and YouTube (Zappavigna 2019c) videos. These studies all suggest that reading selfies as enacting a narcissistic ‘look at me’ perspective, rather than ‘look at my perspective on X’ (where X might be from fields as varied as science to political discourse), is a naïve understanding of the meanings that can be made. This highlights the importance of close discourse analysis of social media texts and its value in countering some of the popular arguments that are made about social media practices in the absence of empirical data.

CONCLUSION This chapter has explored social media discourse, focusing on how language and other modes of communication cooperate intermodally in semiotic technologies such as Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. It has considered the technical affordances and discursive functions realized in inherent searchability of communication produced on many social media platforms. Particular focus was applied to ambient affiliation, that is, the ways social media users negotiate values and forge attitudinal alignments in digital environments. The social bonding may be considered ambient since these environments facilitate both direct interaction and forms of communion that do not require dialogic exchanges, such as hashtagging practices and the proliferation of memes. The chapter also explored emerging multimodal discourse analytic perspectives on social media communication that attempt to account for the important role that paralanguage, and modes other than language, plays in construing experience and enacting intersubjectivity.

KEY READINGS Djonov, E., and T. Van Leeuwen (2018), ‘Social Media as Semiotic Technology and Social Practice: The Case of ResearchGate’s Design and its Potential to Transform Social Practice’, Social Semiotics, 28 (5): 641–64. Page, R. (2018), Narratives Online: Shared Stories in Social Media, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zappavigna, M. (2018), Searchable Talk: Hashtags and Social Media Metadiscourse, London: Bloomsbury. Zhao, S., and M. Zappavigna (2018a), ‘Beyond the Self: Intersubjectivity and the Social Semiotic Interpretation of the Selfie’, New Media & Society, 20 (5): 1735–54.

DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

305

REFERENCES Adami, E. (2009), ‘“We/YouTube”: Exploring Sign-Making in Video-Interaction’, Visual Communication, 8 (4): 379–99. Adami, E. (2014), ‘Retwitting, Reposting, Repinning; Reshaping Identities Online: Towards A Social Semiotic Multimodal Analysis of Digital Remediation’, LEA-Lingue e Letterature d’Oriente e d’Occidente, 3: 223–43. Androutsopoulos, J. (2013), ‘Networked Multilingualism: Some Language Practices on Facebook and Their Implications’, International Journal of Bilingualism, 19 (2): 185–205. Barton, D. (2015), ‘Tagging on Flickr as a Social Practice’, in R. H. Jones, A. Chik, and C. A. Hafner (eds), Discourse and Digital Practices: Doing Discourse Analysis in the Digital Age, 48–65, London: Routledge. Barton, D. and Lee, C. (2013), Language Online: Investigating Digital Texts and Practices. London: Routledge. Benson, P. (2016), The Discourse of Youtube: Multimodal Text in a Global Context. London: Routledge. Bhatia, A. (2018), ‘Interdiscursive Performance in Digital Professions: The Case of YouTube Tutorials’, Journal of Pragmatics, 124: 106–20. Bouvier, G. (2012), ‘How Facebook Users Select Identity Categories for Self-Presentation’, Journal of Multicultural Discourses, 7 (1): 37–57. Bruns, A. and J. Burgess (2015), ‘Twitter Hashtags from Ad Hoc to Calculated Publics’, in N. Rambukanna (ed.), Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks, 13–28, New York: Peter Lang. Caple, H. (2019), ‘“Lucy Says Today She Is a Labordoodle”: How the Dogs-of-instagram Reveal Voter Preferences’, Social Semiotics, 29 (4): 427–47. Dijck, J. V. (2013), The Culture of Connectivity a Critical History of Social Media. New York: New York : Oxford University Press. Djonov, E. and S. Zhao (eds) (2013), Critical Multimodal Studies of Popular Discourse. London: Routledge. Djonov, E. and T. Van Leeuwen (2018), ‘Social Media as Semiotic Technology and Social Practice: The Case of Researchgate’s Design and its Potential to Transform Social Practice’, Social Semiotics, 28 (5): 641–64. Drasovean, A. and C. Tagg (2015), ‘Evaluative Language and Its Solidarity-Building Role on TED.com: An Appraisal and Corpus Analysis’, Language@ Internet, 12. Dynel, M. (2014), ‘Participation Framework Underlying Youtube Interaction', Journal of Pragmatics, 73: 37–52. Firth, J. R. (1964), The Tongues of Men, and Speech, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Georgalou, M. (2017), Discourse and Identity on Facebook, London: Bloomsbury. Giaxoglou, K. (2018), ‘#JeSuisCharlie? Hashtags as Narrative Resources in Contexts of Ecstatic Sharing’, Discourse, Context & Media, 22: 13–20. Gillespie, T. (2010), ‘The Politics of “Platforms”’, New Media & Society, 12 (3): 347–64. Halliday, M. A. K. (1978). Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London: Edward Arnold. Han, J. (2015), ‘“#feminism is not a Dirty Word”: Axiology, Ambient Affiliation and Dialogism in Discourses Surrounding Feminism in Microblogging’ (Honours thesis), University of Sydney. Heyd, T. and C. Puschmann (2017), ‘Hashtagging and Functional Shift: Adaptation and Appropriation of the #’, Journal of Pragmatics, 116: 51–63.

306

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Jovanovic, D. and T. Van Leeuwen (2018), ‘Multimodal Dialogue on Social Media’, Social Semiotics, 28 (5): 683–99. Knight, N. K. (2008), ‘“Still Cool…and American Too!”: An SFL Analysis of Deferred Bonds in Internet Messaging Humour’, in N. Nørgaard (ed.), Systemic Functional Linguistics in Use, Odense Working Papers in Language and Communication, 481–502, Odense: University of Southern Denmark. Knight, N. K. (2010a), Laughing our Bonds Off: Conversational Humour in Relation to Affiliation. (Doctor of Philosophy), University of Sydney, Sydney. Knight, N. K. (2010b), ‘Wrinkling Complexity: Concepts of Identity and Affiliation in Humour’, in M. Bednarek and J. R. Martin (eds), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation, 35–58, London/New York: Continuum. Knight, N. K. (2013), ‘Evaluating Experience in Funny Ways: How Friends Bond through Conversational Humour’, Text & Talk, 33 (4–5): 553–74. Kozaki, S. and D. Akoumianakis (2014), Ambient Affiliation on Twitter: A Case Study on Organic Farming 2014 International Conference on Telecommunications and Multimedia (TEMU), 196–201. 28–30 July, Heraklion, Crete, Greece Lee, C. (2018), ‘Introduction: Discourse of Social Tagging’, Discourse, Context & Media, 22: 1–3. Lee, C. and D. Chau (2018), ‘Language as Pride, Love, and Hate: Archiving Emotions through Multilingual Instagram Hashtags’, Discourse, Context & Media, 22: 21–9. Liu, Y., C. Kliman-Silver, and A. Mislove (2014), ‘The Tweets They Are a-Changin’: Evolution of Twitter Users and Behavior’, Proceedings of the Eighth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, 305–14. Logi, L. and M. Zappavigna (in press), ‘Analysing Ambient Affiliation’, in D. Caldwell, J. R. Martin and J. Knox (eds), Developing Theory: A Handbook in Appliable Linguistics and Semiotics. London: Bloomsbury. Martin, J. R. and M. Bednarek (2010), New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation. New York; London: Continuum. Martin, J. R. and P. R. R. White (2005), The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Martin, J. R. M., Zappavigna, P. Dwyer, and C. Cleirigh (2013), ‘Users in Uses of Language: Embodied Identity in Youth Justice Conferencing’, Text & Talk, 33 (4–5): 467–96. Matley, D. (2018), “This is NOT a #humblebrag, this is just a #brag”: The Pragmatics of SelfPraise, Hashtags and Politeness in Instagram Posts’, Discourse, Context & Media, 22: 30–8. Oulasvirta, A., E. Lehtonen, E. Kurvinen and M. Raento (2010), ‘Making the Ordinary Visible in Microblogs’, Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 14 (3): 237–49. Page, R. (2012), ‘The Linguistics of Self-Branding and Micro-Celebrity in Twitter: The Role of Hashtags’, Discourse & Communication, 6 (2): 181–201. Page, R. (2013), Stories and Social Media: Identities and Interaction. London: Routledge. Page, R. (2018), Narratives Online: Shared Stories in Social Media. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Page, R. (2019), ‘Group Selfies and Snapchat: From Sociality to Synthetic Collectivisation’, Discourse, Context & Media, 28: 79–92. Page, R., D. Barton, J. W. Unger, and M. Zappavigna (2014), Researching Language and Social Media: A Student Guide. London: Routledge. Parkwell, C. (2019), ‘Emoji as Social Semiotic Resources for Meaning-Making in Discourse: Mapping the Functions of the Toilet Emoji in Cher’s Tweets about Donald Trump’, Discourse, Context & Media, 30: 100307.

DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

307

Pavalanathan, U. and J. Eisenstein (2015), ‘Audience-Modulated Variation in Online Social Media’, American Speech, 90 (2): 187–213. Persson, G. (2017), ‘Love, Affiliation, and Emotional Recognition in #kämpamalmö:— The Social Role of Emotional Language in Twitter Discourse’, Social Media + Society, 3 (1): 2056305117696522. doi:10.1177/2056305117696522 Poulsen, S. V. (2018), ‘Filtered Aesthetics: A Study of Instagram’s Photo Filters from the Perspective of Semiotic Technology’, in F. Forsgren and E. S. Tønnessen (eds), Multimodality and Aesthetics, 258–73, London, New York: Routledge. Rambukkana, N. (2015), ‘#Introduction: Hashtags as Technosocial Events’, in M. Rambukkana (ed.), Hashtag Publics: The Power and Politics of Discursive Networks, 1–10, New York: Lang. Ross, A. S. and A. Bhatia (2019), ‘#secondcivilwarletters from the Front: Discursive Illusions in a Trending Twitter Hashtag’, New Media & Society, 21 (10): 2222–41. Ross, A. S. and D. J. Rivers (2017), ‘Digital Cultures of Political Participation: Internet Memes and the Discursive Delegitimization of the 2016 US Presidential Candidates’, Discourse, Context & Media, 16: 1–11. Ross, A. S. and D. J. Rivers (2018), ‘Discursive Deflection: Accusation of “Fake News” and the Spread of Mis-and Disinformation in the Tweets of President Trump’, Social Media+ Society, 4 (2): 2056305118776010. Ross, A. S. and D. J. Rivers (2019), ‘Internet Memes, Media Frames, and the Conflicting Logics of Climate Change Discourse’, Environmental Communication, 13 (7): 975–94. Ross, A. S. and M. Zappavigna (2019), ‘My Sport, My Perspectives: Intersubjectivity in Cyclist Instagram Posts’, Discourse, Context & Media, 34: 100327. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j. dcm.2019.100327 Scheible, J. (2015), Digital Shift: The Cultural Logic of Punctuation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Scott, K. (2015), ‘The Pragmatics of Hashtags: Inference and Conversational Style on Twitter’, Journal of Pragmatics, 81: 8–20. Seargeant, P. and C. Tagg (2014), The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet, Hampshire, UK: Palgrave. Seargeant, P. and C. Tagg (2019), ‘Social Media and the Future of Open Debate: A User-Oriented Approach to Facebook’s Filter Bubble Conundrum’, Discourse, Context & Media, 27: 41–8. Solmaz, O. (2017), ‘Autonomous Language Learning on Twitter: Performing Affiliation with Target Language Users through# Hashtags’, Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 13 (2): 204–20. Stenglin, M. (2008), ‘Olympism: How a Bonding Icon Gets Its “charge”’, Multimodal Semiotics: Functional Analysis in the Contexts of Education, 50–66. Tagg, C. (2015), Exploring Digital Communication: Language in Action, London: Routledge. Tagg, C. and P. Seargeant (2016), ‘Facebook and the Discursive Construction of the Social Network’, in A. Georgakopoulou and T. Spilioti (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, 339–53, London: Routledge. Van Leeuwen, T. (2005), Introducing Social Semiotics. London: Routledge. Van Leeuwen, T., E. Djonov and K. L. O’Halloran (2013), ‘“David Byrne Really Does Love Powerpoint”: Art as Research on Semiotics and Semiotic Technology’, Social Semiotics, 23 (3): 409–23. Veum, A. and L. V. M. Undrum (2018), ‘The Selfie as a Global Discourse’, Discourse & Society, 29 (1): 86–103.

308

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Wikström, P. (2014), ‘#srynotfunny: Communicative Functions of Hashtags on Twitter’, SKY Journal of Linguistics, 27: 127–52. Wu, T. (2017), The Attention Merchants: How Our Time and Attention Are Gathered and Sold. London: Atlantic Books. Yang, Y. (2019), ‘The Danmaku Interface on Bilibili and the Recontextualised Translation Practice: A Semiotic Technology Perspective’, Social Semiotics: 1–20. Zappavigna, M. (2011), ‘Ambient Affiliation: A Linguistic Perspective on Twitter’, New Media & Society, 13 (5): 788–806. Zappavigna, M. (2012), Discourse of Twitter and Social Media. London: Continuum. Zappavigna, M. (2013), ‘‘If You Do It Too Then RT And Say #idoit2’: The Co-patterning of Contingency and Evaluation in Microblogging’, in M. Taboada and R. Trnavac (eds), Nonveridicality and Evaluation: Theoretical, Computational and Corpus Approaches, 188–213, Leiden: Brill. Zappavigna, M. (2014a), ‘Ambient Affiliation in Microblogging: Bonding Around the Quotidian’, Media International Australia, 151 (1): 97–103. Zappavigna, M. (2014b), ‘Coffeetweets: Bonding Around the Bean on Twitter’, in P. Seargeant and C. Tagg (eds), The Language of Social Media: Communication and Community on the Internet, 139–60, London: Palgrave. Zappavigna, M. (2014c), ‘Enacting Identity in Microblogging’, Discourse and Communication, 8 (2): 209–28. Zappavigna, M. (2014d), ‘Enjoy your snags Australia… oh and the voting thing too# ausvotes# auspol: Iconisation and Affiliation in Electoral Microblogging’, Global Media Journal: Australian Edition, 8 (2). Zappavigna, M. (2015), ‘Searchable Talk: The Linguistic Functions of Hashtags’, Social Semiotics, 25 (3): 274–91. Zappavigna, M. (2016), ‘Social Media Photography: Construing Subjectivity in Instagram Images’, Visual Communication, 15 (3): 271–92. Zappavigna, M. (2017), ‘“Had Enough of Experts”: Intersubjectivity and Quotation in Social Media’, in E. Friginal (ed.), Studies in Corpus-Based Sociolinguistics, 321–43, London: Routledge. Zappavigna, M. (2018), Searchable Talk: Hashtags and Social Media Metadiscourse. London: Bloomsbury. Zappavigna, M. (2019a), ‘Ambient Affiliation and #Brexit: Negotiating Values about Experts Through Censure and Ridicule’, in V. Koller, S. Kopf, and M. Miglbauer (eds), Discourses of Brexit, 48–68, London: Routledge. Zappavigna, M. (2019b), ‘Language and Social Media: Enacting Identity through Ambient Affiliation’, in G. Thompson, W. Bowcher, L. Fontaine, and J. Y. Liang (eds), The Cambridge Handbook Of Systemic Functional Linguistics, 714–37, London: Cambridge University Press. Zappavigna, M. (2019c), ‘The Organised Self and Lifestyle Minimalism: Multimodal Deixis and Point of View in Decluttering Vlogs on YouTube’, Multimodal Communication, 8 (1): 1–14. Zappavigna, M. (2020), ‘“And Then He Said… No One has More Respect for Women Than I Do”: Intermodal Relations and Intersubjectivity in Image Macros’, in H. Stöckl, H. Caple, and J. Pflaeging (eds), Image-Centric Practices in the Contemporary Media Sphere, 204–225. London: Routledge. Zappavigna, M. (2021b), ‘Ambient Affiliation in Comments on Youtube Videos: Communing Around Values about ASMR’, Journal of Foreign Languages, 44(1):21–40.

DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL MEDIA

309

Zappavigna, M. and J.R. Martin (2018), ‘#Communing Affiliation: Social Tagging as a Resource for Aligning Around Values in Social Media’, Discourse, Context and Media, 22:4–12 Zappavigna, M. and S. Zhao (2017), ‘Selfies in ‘Mommyblogging’: An Emerging Visual Genre’, Discourse, Context & Media, 20: 239–47. Zappavigna, M. and S. Zhao (2020), ‘Selfies and Recontextualisation: A Social Semiotic Perspective on the Visual Structure of Instagram Images’, in M. Miles and E. Welch (eds), Photography and its Publics, 205–27, London: Bloomsbury. Zhao, S., E. Djonov and T. van Leeuwen (2014), ‘Semiotic Technology and Practice: A Multimodal Social Semiotic Approach to PowerPoint’, Text & Talk: 349–75. Zhao, S. and R. Flewitt (2019), ‘Young Chinese Immigrant Children’s Language and Literacy Practices on Social Media: A Translanguaging Perspective’, Language and Education: 1–19. Zhao, S. and T. van Leeuwen (2014), ‘Understanding Semiotic Technology in University Classrooms: A Social Semiotic Approach to Powerpoint-Assisted Cultural Studies Lectures’, Classroom Discourse, 5 (1): 71–90. Zhao, S. and M. Zappavigna (2018a), ‘Beyond the Self: Intersubjectivity and the Social Semiotic Interpretation of the Selfie’, New Media & Society, 20 (5): 1735–54. Zhao, S. and M. Zappavigna (2018b), ‘Digital Scrapbooks, Everyday Aesthetics and the Curatorial Self: Social Photography in Female Visual Blogging’, in F. Forsgren and E. S. Tønnessen (eds), Multimodality and Aesthetics, 218–35, London, New York: Routledge. Zhao, S. and M. Zappavigna (2018c), ‘The Interplay of Technologies and Genre: The Case of the Selfie’, Social Semiotics, 28: 665–82.

310

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Discourse and identity LISA J. MCENTEE-ATALIANIS

INTRODUCTION At the turn of the century – a period often referred to as ‘high/late/post-modernity’ – prominent scholars in the social sciences and humanities (e.g. Derrida, Foucault, Giddens, Hall) reframed accounts of identity. Instead of conceiving it as a stable essence, internal to and under the control of the subject, they viewed it as fragmented and fluid, brought to life via social engagement, through a process of inter-subjective interaction. It was conceived as dynamically constructed and performed in and through discourse, brought about within (rather than brought to) encounters or textual accounts, in temporary and sustained moments of realization and contact. In line with a social constructionist perspective (Berger and Luckmann 1967), the individual and the social world began to be conceived as mutually constitutive. Individual/group identities and the social world were argued to be under constant negotiation and construction, through language and other semiotic means, across a range of contexts and times (Benwell and Stokoe 2006, McEntee-Atalianis 2019). This new way of viewing identity/subjectivity means that connections between language use and personal/social categories are carefully studied by examining how they are made relevant (/expressed), managed (/negotiated) and brought about in spoken and written discourse via social practice. This has become the focus of much recent scholarship – albeit with researchers drawing on a plethora of approaches. In this chapter we briefly discuss three discursive approaches to the study of identity, considering their foci, operation, strengths and limitations. We undertake brief sample analyses using the same dataset in order to illustrate the types of issues at stake and the methods discourse analysts employ.

DISCURSIVE APPROACHES TO IDENTITY The term ‘discourse’ can mean different things. A linguistic definition refers to language use above the level of the sentence; however, a functional/sociolinguistic definition of the term refers to language in context/in social encounters, whilst a post-structuralist/critical understanding of ‘discourse(s)’ defines it/them as ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’ (Foucault 1972: 42), for example, educational discourse and media discourse. In practice, some studies of discourse and identity have combined elements of each, but for the most part the discursive turn to the study of identity has led to the development of theories and methods which have catapulted research along broadly different paths: studies which align with a post-structuralist Foucauldian viewpoint,

312

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

which adopt critical perspectives (e.g. Critical Discourse Analysis, positioning theory) and studies which favour ethnomethodological/conversation analytic perspectives. These can be schematized in terms of macro-analytic/‘top-down’ approaches which take account of historical, political and sociocultural discourses/influences on identity construction versus micro/‘bottom up’ approaches, which examine the fine detail of localized interaction. Some accounts incorporate elements of both micro- and macro-perspectives, for example, Interactional Sociolinguistic Analysis (ISA), and some narrative approaches. What all of these perspectives and frameworks have in common is an interest in situated language use and an understanding that the social world/identities are constructed, contested and reproduced in discourse. However, they differ in at least three (contentious) areas: Firstly, how analysts theorize and operationalize context, that is, whether analyses should just focus on the local occasioning of identity within an interactional unit – that is, an orientation to identity in response to a prior utterance and/or as made relevant within the current exchange or activity – or whether external, background knowledge (cultural/ social/political) should be brought to bear on interpretations of the data. For example, pure conversation analytic approaches focus their lens on the momentary display of identity, working on fine-grained analyses of turns at talk. They restrict the analysts’ gaze and interpretation to the situated/local context of interaction. This contrasts with narrative analysts and critical discourse analysts who, in different ways, broaden their purview to incorporate considerations of external (sociocultural and political) factors and contexts in the interpretation of their data. Secondly, and related to the latter, different approaches differ with regard to the role of the analyst – some preferring to adopt an emic-centred approach, whilst others draw on analyst knowledge of other sites of information and/or political orientations (in the case of CDA) for data interpretation. Thirdly, there are differences with respect to beliefs about the limits of and relationship between ‘structure’ and ‘agency’ – to what extent are individuals conceived as free to act as they wish, or are they subject to structural forces and control? These differing perspectives arise from different theoretical orientations and methodological approaches, informed by different research traditions and disciplinary bases (e.g. cultural and social theory; ethnomethodology; post-structural feminism and queer theory; social constructionism; and symbolic interactionism). The following is not an exhaustive or comprehensive account. It is necessarily selective and nuanced in its discussion and illustration of three frames of analysis. More comprehensive accounts of these approaches can be read in earlier chapters of this book and in the references provided. The aim is to illustrate and outline how different discourse analytic approaches afford different lenses through which to view and analyse the same dataset. The three approaches selected for discussion and explication have become prominent and influential in the study of language and identity. They have been chosen as they illustrate macro-, micro- and combined macro/micro-theoretical and analytical perspectives (in that order).

Critical Discourse Analysis The term Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) encapsulates a number of interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological approaches. It views discourse as a social practice, which is subjective in form and therefore not neutral or transparent, but influential in moulding our worldview (see Chapter 3). Analysts share a common ‘critical’ perspective and approach to the analysis of discourse and identity. Their aim is to deconstruct and uncover the relationship between language/semiotic systems of representation and the

DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY

313

workings of power in and via social institutions (e.g. education, media, government), thereby revealing the discursive processes through which ideologies are circulated and forged, and bringing to light hegemonic practices which serve to establish, normalize and perpetuate inequity and oppression of certain individuals or groups, leading to symbolic and material disadvantage for some. CDA therefore upholds an ‘overtly political agenda’ (Kress 1990: 84–5) such that scholarship is driven by an emancipatory quest to uncover discourses (in a Foucauldian sense) which have become naturalized as socio-cognitive ‘truths’ and which serve to regulate and control social ideology and the positioning of certain subaltern/less powerful identities (e.g. positioning woman as carers; migrants as threatening forces). Through their work they seek to effect social change. Scholars have developed different theoretical and analytical approaches and tools. These range from Fowler’s seminal work, showing how grammatical constructions serve to forge particular ideological meanings; Kress’s examination of multimodality; van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach and Wodak’s ‘Discourse Historical Approach’ (see Chapter 3). Analysts attend to large datasets, often collating corpora of documents/ texts (e.g. speeches, policy documents, newspaper articles or social media), which they subsequently and variously submit to thematic, rhetorical, semiotic and linguistic analysis. Researchers explore issues such as the strategic semiotic/linguistic accomplishment of inclusion/exclusion (e.g. via use of inclusive/exclusive markers or body placement), constructions of agency and passivity, and ideological positioning and influence. CDA relies heavily on the resources analysts bring to bear on the interpretation of texts: their linguistic training, their sociocultural knowledge and their political orientations. They rarely investigate the effect on the recipient (reader/listener) via an analysis of recipient responses or interpretations of texts. CDA’s adherence to looking beyond the text for explanations and viewing individuals or groups as an effect of discourse with limited agency has attracted criticism. Many (e.g. Blommaert 2005) claim that its top-down a priori assumptions about inequity, power and identity/ies lead to biased interpretations of the very discourse it is claiming to (critically) analyse. They further criticize a lack of uniformity in approach and systematicity in terminology and data analysis, especially when compared to the rigour of other approaches (e.g. CA). They argue that the methods lack specificity, for example, often the representativeness of datasets is not transparent and analyses depend on researcher interpretation, rather than being emically determined or verified. In assessing these differing perspectives (anti- v pro-CDA), Baxter draws a distinction between those who take a scientific, positivistic view of linguistic analysis and who therefore question CDA’s objectivity and scientific rigour and those who have ‘embraced hermeneutic, interpretivist or social construction principles’, who favour ‘its readiness to declare its principles and to marry ideological commitment to the pursuit of rigorous, replicable and retrievable research methods’ (2018: 246).

Conversation analysis, membership categorization analysis and identity Conversation analysts, in contrast, work from a vantage point in which their subject of enquiry is argued to be objectively/neutrally interpreted from the linguistic material internal to and recoverable from the interaction. Therefore, scholars do not begin their analyses with a particular agenda or viewpoint on identity, or its ontological standing; rather, the viewpoint of the interlocutor is privileged over that of the analyst. External theorizing and/or drawing on social categories, or cultural or historical knowledge or accounts for interpretative purposes is deemed inappropriate. They caution against researchers

314

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

deciding a priori which identity categories may be salient in the interaction under scrutiny. Rather they reveal through their analysis how interactants ‘occasion’ identity/ies and category memberships in realizing social action by examining interlocutors’ oriented-to and recipient-designed shifting ascriptions, roles and activities in the exchange, in order to determine the relevance of identity for the participants. Therefore, the ‘context’ of their investigation refers to the locally managed and situated nature of talk-in-interaction and identity is conceived as a dynamic ‘resource in conversational interaction’ (Antaki et al 1996: 473–4) and an ‘accomplishment of interaction’ (Benwell and Stokoe 2010: 84). Interpretation is dependent on speaker’s responses to turns at talk, using a procedure known as ‘next turn proof’. Analysts therefore focus on when and how identity/ies are made relevant to the interlocutors within the conversational exchange (/turn-taking) and how speakers orient to them in talk, for example, through explicit mention of social categories/names/ pronouns and/or via ‘category-bound activities’ conventionally associated with particular social types (e.g. mother, female, youth). Membership categorization analysis (MCA) is one way in which researchers have explored the local occasioning of identity construction and its negotiation in conversation, in order to achieve social action. Sacks (1992/1966) developed the concept of the membership categorization device (MCD) to explain how interlocutors invoke and use categories to organize, express, negotiate and interpret their social world. Categories are associated with particular actions (‘category bound activities’) or characteristics (‘natural predicates’) which are culturally inferred, and carry with them ‘rights and obligations’. For example, a boss might orient to a maternal identity when adopting an affiliative stance with her work colleague, in order to convey empathy when the employee’s child is ill and she is delayed. The employee’s role as a mother makes her lateness accountable. However, the boss’s interactional alignment may also serve to mitigate a subsequent face-threatening act when the colleague, despite her circumstance, is still requested by her boss to perform her duties within a restricted timeframe. The boss’s professional identity makes her request accountable. Whilst systematic in its approach, not all scholars agree that CA’s claim to objectivity and its restrictive definition of ‘context’ is feasible or optimal (e.g. see Wetherell’s (1998) oft-cited debate with Schegloff (1997)), for ‘even the most literal description of a conversational exchange involves selection and interpretation; thus, the answer to the dilemma between staying very close to participants’ explicit orientation to identity categories and proposing connections with more general social categories does not lie in interpretive asceticism’ (De Fina 2015/9: 362). Rather some scholars argue that there is merit in looking outside, as well as within the observable data, in order to make relevant connections and interpretations. Momentary performances may be associated with other contexts, experiences or ideologies which make discourse socially interpretable. As such some combine detailed micro-analyses with ethnographic insight in investigating the persistent and dynamic nature of identity display across space and time. They reveal the complex play and salience of inter-discursivity across contexts, showing how identity/ies are fashioned and refashioned, when interlocutors draw on, alter or sometimes repeat prior performances which may ‘accrete’ to produce more stable renderings. They argue that identity construction must be understood as a process spanning multiple moments and encounters which give rise to recognizably stable as well as dynamic practices, roles and characteristics. De Fina (2015/9) has been one of many who has taken this stance in relation to investigating storytelling and identity, as discussed below.

DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY

315

Narrative approaches Stories are credited with not only conveying identity but also shaping our very being, helping us to understand who we are by providing a sense of continuity and temporality – connecting events in coherent renderings (Bamberg and Georgakopoulou 2008, De Fina 2015/9). The ‘narrative turn’ (Bruner 1990) to the study of identity/ies within the social sciences has given rise to numerous methodologies and analytic frameworks (see Chapter 5), each exploring the processes through which individuals fashion and perform their complex, plural and sometimes contradictory identities, as well as those of their story characters, often through processes of positioning and evaluation. Most recent work has adopted a constructionist stance – viewing identities as built in and through storied interaction and constitutive of social reality. Two dominant narrative approaches occupy the field – biographical and interactionally oriented approaches (De Fina 2015/9). In this section we focus on the latter, exploring how identities are culturally and historically located and become realized and seated within specific participation frameworks and interactional routines. Interactionists, inspired by CA (e.g. see Antaki and Widdicombe 1998), explore the processual, repetitive and strategic realization of identity in the situated stories people tell. They reveal how storytellers and their interlocutors work to construct, claim, negotiate and/or refute the roles and representations proffered in interaction, through means such as membership categorization, or indexicality (Silverstein 2003). They investigate how particular personae are symbolically and (indirectly) associated with particular cultural repertoires, behaviours or characteristics established from prior events/encounters and ideologies, for example, linguistic indices which point to particular social categories or types, via such indices as voice (accent/voice quality), vocabulary or style. Narrative scholars often focus their investigation on the types of stories narrators tell and position themselves within; the identities constructed (narrator and story characters); the ordering of events; and the relationship between the immediate context of the storytelling event and broader culturally recognized ‘master narratives’ or shared repertoires. Theories of the multilayered and complex nature of identity, and its negotiation within the interactional order via storytelling, have been developed by some. For example, Goffman’s (1981) concept of ‘footing’ illustrates the different roles and changes of alignment that speakers take towards themselves, others and the subject of discourse. Roles include those of ‘animator’ (the person voicing the message), ‘author’ (the person who composes the message), ‘principle’ (the person responsible for the message) and ‘figure’ (the story character). Alternations in footing may align with shifts of perspective in the narrative telling and involve the voicing of story characters or social discourses. Through shifts in footing, storytellers ‘animate’ different selves or characters via the strategic use of socially recognisable voices. The ‘lamination’ (layering) of multiple voices has been shown to reveal the ‘self’ as multiple. Moreover, in examining narrative identity in ‘small stories’ told in everyday interaction, Bamberg (1997) asserts that narrators ‘position’ themselves at three levels (where ‘positioning’ refers to the psychological and discursive location that speakers/ writers inhabit or perform in conveying who they are or how they wish to be viewed at a particular time/place). These levels serve as crucial entry points for analysis: firstly, with respect to other characters in their story (e.g. as victim or active agent); secondly, in relation to their audience in the storytelling event and thirdly, with respect to themselves, that is, how they want to be understood. In storytelling and image management, we take

316

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

up positions with respect to the characters and the events we relay, our audience and the social issues under discussion. Part of the motivation for examining small stories for research on identity is argued to arise from the way they enable the analyst ‘to scrutinise the inconsistences, contradictions, moments of trouble and tension, and the teller’s constant navigation and finessing between different versions of selfhood in local contexts’ (Bamberg 2011: 16) uncovering both constant and variable realizations in the process of identity construction. Positioning theory connects identity with power relations by combining a consideration of both the (micro) conversational exchange and (macro) sociocultural and political influences.

SAMPLE ANALYSES The brief analyses below serve to illustrate the different approaches detailed above. They draw on data reported in Shaitan and McEntee-Atalianis (2017), gathered from semi-structured interviews with ten Japanese nationals who self-ascribe as mixed race, with one of their parents being Japanese. The short extract used for analysis is from an interview with one individual, Jack. Further demographic, contextual and ethnographic background will be provided in the analyses below as relevant to the analytic framework. Due to limitations of space the data is presented using a generic orthographic transcription which deliberately chooses not to align with any particular analytic approach. Different approaches use their own transcription systems – some far more detailed than others (e.g. CA; see Chapter 2), and although these were undertaken for the analysis, they are not presented here. The extract begins with a question by the interviewer: Interviewer: 001. Do you consider yourself a typical half, hybrid, double, or ‘hapa’? Jack: 002. NEITHER, really. I feel like just a human being, really. This 003. attitude….It is just people classify me as different … being … half 004. or whatever, RIGHT? I just see myself as a human being. Interviewer: 005. But, for example, if people in Japan or in America ask you where 006. you are from, what do you tell them? Jack: 007. In Japan, I usually say … mo (well), first of all, if it is mendokusai 008. (troublesome), I just tell them I am from Okinawa. If I do not really 009. care, I really say that. But, most people, if they ask me, it is none 010. of their business; I tell them I am half. In Japan I say, I am half. Interviewer: 011. Oh, I see. All right. ((silence)) Jack: 012. But nobody would ask me in US, RIGHT? If I go to US, nobody 013. would ask me, RIGHT? Everybody is mixed, anyway. They often 014. mistake me for a Hispanic. They start talking to me in Spanish, 015. Portuguese or something. They think I am Spanish.

Sample analysis 1: Critical discourse analysis (CDA) PRELIMINARIES People of mixed race in Japan have historically experienced ‘otherization’, marginalization, restrictive policies and forced assimilation. Beyond the extract above, critical discourse analysts would examine a range of texts to explore how the Japanese government, media and citizens have promoted Japan as a culturally and ethnically homogeneous nation,

DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY

317

shoring up a discourse of ‘Japaneseness’, known as Nihonjinron (Befu 2001), whilst also promoting a discourse of gaijin (‘foreigner/outsider’) – directed at and about individuals who do not possess Japanese features, ‘pure’ Japanese lineage or observe Japanese cultural/social customs or norms. Their mission would be to explore the linguistic and discursive realization of these representations, which in turn drive the construction of inand out-groups. Through this work they would aim to uncover the normalization of racist and xenophobic discourses which in turn may/do lead to hegemonic practices. Using a framework such as the Discourse Historical Approach (DHA), the analyst would therefore take into account historical and more recent extra-linguistic, social and institutional (con-)texts and behaviours, drawing on these in the interpretation of the data presented here (see Chapter 3; also see van Dijk (1998) and Stubbe et al (2003) for examples of how to apply CDA to spoken data). They may examine strategies of positive and negative presentation – of self and other (e.g. referential/predicational/ argumentational or mitigating strategies) – and explore the rhetorical and persuasive force of legitimization strategies. ANALYSIS In this short extract we see how a specific text – a brief conversational exchange – provides unique insight into the discourses of Nihonjinron and gijin as the interactants draw on, contest and re-contextualize circulating ethnic labels. We observe how strategies of positive self-representation and negative representation of others are used to construct in- and out-groups in order to legitimize the construction of identities. Initially we observe how the interviewer begins her exchange with a presupposition that the interviewee, Jack, may self-ascribe using a referential label ‘other’ than Japanese by invoking circulating labels associated with those of mixed heritage – ‘half, hybrid, double, or “hapa”’. She suggests that there are ‘typical’ examples of these categories and that the interviewee may align himself with one or more of these. This presupposition arises from the interviewers’ exposure to historical and contemporary discourses about race in Japan (particularly those of mixed race) and we witness its re-contextualization in the exchange here. The term ‘hapa’ introduced in her listing arises from the label given to the ‘Hapa Community’ which was unofficially created in Tokyo in 1991 as a voluntary organization for people of mixed race who were facing social isolation. Indeed, many other labels have been given to and appropriated by mixed-race Japanese, for example, Blackanese, haafu, mixed-roots, halvsie, half-Japanese (Shaitan and McEntee-Atalianis 2017). The term haafu is often used as a generic term of reference for people of mixed heritage in Japan – whether or not they self-ascribe as such. This opening provocative question therefore serves as a referential strategy and categorization device. It performs a definitive act of ‘othering’ or displacement and Jack’s response acknowledges its circulation in Japanese discourse – ‘people classify me as different … being … half or whatever … ’ but rejects the ascription. He goes on to discuss the salience of this categorization in different geographic locations, noting how assumptions and attitudes towards people of mixed race differ according to place. Using deixis Jack contrasts his experience in Japan – in which he is positioned as ‘half’ and ‘other’ – to the United States (his father’s place of birth), where his racial identity is reported not to be an issue at all. Indeed, the rights of individuals or groups to reside in nations (e.g. migrants) or to be treated on equal terms is often based upon assumptions and discourses of authenticity and legitimacy. These have been extensively examined in the CDA literature and are seen here. This brief account illustrates how CDA’s consideration

318

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

of material outside of the text (i.e. broader historical/cultural/social/personal details and context) helps us to tease out a meaningful interpretation of the data: in particular, in this instance, to understand the power of hegemonic discourses on the experiences of individuals and the construction of identities.

Sample analysis 2: Conversation analysis (CA) PRELIMINARIES In contrast to CDA, a conversation analysis would not draw on background (historical/ cultural/social/personal) knowledge for interpretative purposes. For CA it is crucial to find evidence within talk-in-interaction using a fine-grained turn-by-turn analysis. Therefore, interpretations are drawn from the ‘locally occasioned’ actions of the participants exploring responses to prior turns at talk. ANALYSIS In this extract we witness how the interviewer orients explicitly to Jack’s identity in the first turn at talk (line 1), making it accountable, that is, something we can study. We do not have access to prior turns, but this utterance can be characterized as ‘topic initial’ – orienting the interlocutors to the subject of identity. It acts to foreground a more extended turn-at-talk. Indeed, swiftly following the completion of the interviewer’s question, Jack (in turn 2) takes up the floor to reject the identity categories proffered by the interviewer. This rejection is heard immediately by the recipient, as Jack with raised voice and without hesitation invokes the adverb ‘NEITHER’ to introduce his dismissal of the categories proposed. Instead, he chooses to be characterized generically as a ‘human being’ (lines 2 and 4). The interviewer appears dissatisfied with Jack’s response however in line 5 (marked by the use of the adversative ‘but’) and immediately re-initiates an exploration of the topic by reframing and reformulating her question. She invokes national frames of reference (Japan and America) and instead of requesting a self-ascription (as in line 1) seeks a response based on Jack’s report of others’ ascriptions. Jack immediately responds, reporting on his experience in Japan, but his difficulty in responding is marked initially by hesitation in line 7 (indexed by pausing and the discourse marker ‘well’). His hesitation foregrounds the difficulty and complexity of his response both within the interactional frame of the interview and when responding to notional ‘others’ in different contexts. This is also subsequently marked by code-switching, from English to Japanese in the conditional clause: ‘if it is mendokusai’. Here he explicitly states that on occasion others’ questioning of his identity can be ‘troublesome’. The exact reason as to why some interactions may be ‘troublesome’ is not made explicit. Jack goes on however to confirm that on most occasions he would use the term ‘half’ (line 10) – an ascription which is somewhat different to that first claimed in his first turn at talk (lines 2 and 4 – ‘a human being’). Judging that his first reference to ‘half’ may be contextually ambiguous (‘I tell them I am half’), he repeats and makes clear that it is ‘In Japan I say, I am half’. The end of this assertion (line 10) is heard as a completed turn by the interviewer, an opportunity for her to speak. In line 11 she offers feedback to confirm understanding but appears to await (as marked by a level tone and silence at the end of the turn) continuation by the interviewee. The floor is taken up again by Jack (line 12) who then elaborates further on his experience in the United States. This brief analysis illustrates how CA provides a method to analyse the way in which interlocutors jointly work to constitute the interactional context and highlights the

DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY

319

unfolding complex and fluid nature of identity construction in talk-in-interaction. We finally turn to consider a narrative approach.

Sample analysis 3: Narrative analysis (Small stories) PRELIMINARIES Bamberg argues that there are ‘three practical challenges that self and identity formation processes are facing’ (2011: 3): a. ‘a successful diachronic navigation between constancy and change’ b. ‘the establishment of a synchronic navigation between sameness and difference (between self and others)’ and c. ‘the management of agency between the double-arrow of a person-to-world versus a world-to-person direction of fit.’ As such subjects position themselves in relation to social categories and values, one way of exploring these positions and tensions is via an analysis of the small stories people tell focusing on three levels of positioning: ‘How … characters [are] positioned in relation to one another within the reported events’; ‘How the speaker position[s] him- or herself to the audience’ and ‘How … narrators position themselves to themselves’ (Bamberg 1997: 227). In the following we draw on the first level of analysis to explore the means by which Jack constructs his identity in relation to other story characters, exploring how these are linguistically and spatially developed. ANALYSIS The characters in this short extract include the speaker (Jack) and ‘people’ (lines 3 and 9). ‘People’ are initially referred to generically (line 3) before a more nuanced specification is made of ‘people’ within bounded national contexts (via the use of the locative in line 5 – ‘people in Japan or in America’). These story characters are subsequently invoked by Jack to support a reasoned argument for his response to others’ ascriptions of him. Jack begins by rejecting the denotations offered by the interviewer as ‘a typical half, hybrid, double or “hapa”’, preferring to self-ascribe as ‘a human being’, thereby emphasizing his egalitarianism and opposition to his positioning by others, who view him as an outside/ foreigner/gaijin – ‘It is just people classify me as different … being … half or whatever’ (line 3). A distal positioning is therefore established between himself and those who choose to label him as ‘different’. Once prompted to reframe his response by considering how he would respond to enquirers asking about his place of origin in different geographical locations (Japan and America), Jack first locates himself spatially in Japan. He presents himself as subject to interrogation but expresses a degree of agency and control over interactions: as able to assess the appropriate response at different times and the ability to ‘play’ with his interlocutors. This is however conditional upon his affective state (as expressed via conditional clauses). He asserts initially that if he ‘do[es] not really care’ (line 9), he is able to subvert the question by aligning with a localized/Japanese place, rather than race identity, thereby appropriating a different label than one expected by the illocutionary force of the interrogator. He self-ascribes as someone from ‘Okinawa’ (a small Japanese island), not as someone who is ‘half/hapa’, etc. The dominant force of Nihonjinron is however acknowledged by Jack, for he notes that most of the time he will self-identify as ‘half’ if asked. He is therefore positioned as a victim of the perpetuation of a dominant ideology empowering nosey Japanese enquirers to encroach on his ‘business’ (line 10).

320

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

In contrast however, as the lens shifts to a different spatial location – the United States – Jack aligns with fellow US citizens – self- and other-ascribing using the referential label of ‘mixed’: ‘Everybody is mixed’, he states in line 13. He uses extreme case formulations (Pomerantz 1986) – ‘nobody’ (line 12), ‘everybody’ (line 13) – to present his justification for the generalized assumptions made about his ‘mixed’ identity in the United States and his apparent comfort in not being asked about his race. This first level of small story analysis has revealed how Jack variously positions story characters to expose the contested sites of identity within social orders embedded in different spatial/contextual frames which determine actor rights and obligations. Here we see that Jack is both subject to structural forces but also agentive in his ability to contest ascriptions or behaviours imposed upon him.

CONCLUSION The discursive turn to the study of identity in recent years has given rise to numerous studies which have applied a range of approaches to answer different research questions and achieve different goals (see McEntee-Atalianis 2019). Given their social constructionist stance there are many areas of overlap; however, there remain many points of difference (theoretically and analytically) and contention, for example, how context is conceived and utilized. Each approach, nonetheless, affords the analyst a unique toolkit and perspective to apply in their study of identity/ies, and each, in their own way, has enriched our understanding of this complex phenomenon/a.

KEY READINGS Antaki, C. and S. Widdicombe (1998), Identities in Talk, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Benwell, B. and E. Stokoe (2006), Discourse and Identity, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Benwell, B. and E. Stokoe (2010), ‘Analysing Identity in Interaction: Contrasting Discourse, Genealogical, Narrative and Conversation Analysis’, in M. Wetherell and C. T. Mohanty (eds), The Sage Handbook of Identities, 82–103, London: Sage Publications. De Fina, A. (2015/9), ‘Narratives and Identities’, in A. De Fina and A. Georgakopoulou (eds), The Handbook of Narrative Analysis, 351–68, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. McEntee-Atalianis, L. J. (2019), Identity in Applied Linguistics Research, London: Bloomsbury.

REFERENCES Agha, A. (2006), Language and Social Relations, New York: Cambridge University Press. Antaki, C., S. Condor and M. Levine (1996), ‘Social Identities in Talk: Speakers’ Own Orientations’, British Journal of Social Psychology, 35: 473–92. Bamberg, M. (1997), ‘Positioning between Structure and Performance’, Journal of Narrative & Life History, 7 (1–4): 335–42. Bamberg, M. (2011), ‘Who Am I? Narration and Its Contribution to Self and Identity’, Theory and Psychology, 21 (1): 3–24. Bamberg, M. and A. Georgakopoulou (2008), ‘Small Stories as a New Perspective in Narrative and Identity Analysis’, Text & Talk, 28 (3): 377–96.

DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY

321

Baxter, J. (2018), ‘Discourse-analytic Approaches to Text and Talk’, in L. Litosseliti (ed.), Research Methods in Linguistics, 227–57, London: Bloomsbury. Befu, H. (2001), Hegemony of Homogeneity: An Anthropological Analysis of ‘Nihonjinron’, Vol. 5, Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press. Berger, P. and T. Luckmann (1967), The Social Construction of Reality, Harmondsworth, England: Penguin. Blommaert, J. (2005), Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bruner, J. (1990), Acts of Meaning, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Foucault, M. (1972), The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, New York: Pantheon. Foucault, M. (1995), Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, New York: Random House. Goffman, E. (1981), Forms of Talk, Oxford: Blackwell. Kress, G. (1990), ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 11: 84–99. Irvine, J. (2001), ‘“Style” as Distinctiveness: The Culture and the Ideology of Linguistic Differentiation’, in P. Eckert and J. R. Rickford (eds), Style and Sociolinguistic Variation, 21–43, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pomerantz, A. (1986), ‘Extreme Case Formulations: A Way of Legitimising Claims’, Human Studies, 9: 633–53. Sacks, H. (1992/6), Lectures on Conversation, edited by G. Jefferson, Oxford: Blackwell. Schegloff, E. A. (1997), ‘Whose Text? Whose Context?’, Discourse & Society, 8 (2): 165–87. Shaitan, A. and L. J. McEntee-Atalianis (2017), ‘Identity Crisis: Half, Hybrid or Culturally Homeless?’ in F. Fozdar, and Z. Rocha (eds), ‘Mixed Race’ in Asia, 82–97, London: Routledge. Silverstein, M. (2003), ‘Indexical Order and the Dialectics of Sociolinguistic Life’, Language and Communication, 23: 193–229. Stubbe, M., C. Lane, J. Hilder, B. Vine, M. Marra, J. Holmes and A. Weatherall (2003), ‘Multiple Discourse Analyses of a Workplace Interaction’, Discourse Studies, 5 (3): 351–88. Van Dijk, T. A. (1998), ‘Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis’, in J. Cheshire and P. Trudgill (eds), The Sociolinguistics Reader Volume 2: Gender and Discourse, 367–91, London: Arnold. Wetherell, M. (1998), ‘Positioning and Interpretive Repertoires: Conversation Analysis and Post-Structuralism in Dialogue’, Discourse & Society, 9 (3): 387–412.

322

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Medical discourse TIMOTHY HALKOWSKI

INTRODUCTION Medical discourse is a massive topic, partly because it is so deep and intimate a subject. Our most ‘interior’ experiences (personal, psychological, sensory) are profoundly shaped and constructed via medical discourse, whether it be a discursive process with friends, family, doctor, nurse, technician or even oneself. Because of its depth, this topic has intrigued philosophers (e.g. Wittgenstein 1953, 1958), anthropologists (e.g. Frake 1961, Kleinman 1978, 1988), sociologists (e.g. Heritage and Maynard 2006, Maynard 2003), medical scholars (e.g. Beckman and Frankel 1984, Cassell 1985a, 1985b, 1997, Frankel 1984) and communication scholars (Beach 2009, Robinson 1998), among others. In a short book chapter, we can only skim the surface of this massive lake, but we can at least map out some central realms in this domain. One main theme in current research is on constitutive studies of medical discourse – that is, studies of medical discourse that consider how various phenomena are achieved and instantiated via social interaction. How are relevant identities, stances, roles, settings, institutional practices, etc., accomplished via practices (Heritage, 2005: 112– 14, Heritage and Clayman 2010)? Via this constitutive approach one can ultimately address more ‘practical’ or applied studies of medical discourse. Any applied research on medical discourse that intends to solve an immediate practical problem must first correctly understand the ways that the ordinary phenomena of interest are constituted via practices. Rather than starting from a reified sense of the ‘problem’ that needs to be fixed, we need to understand how that ‘thing’ we common-sensically see as a ‘problem’ comes to be in the first place (Zimmerman and Pollner 1970). In this chapter I offer a discussion of some prominent threads in the current literature on medical discourse. This literature has recently focused on empirically analysing the ways that ‘being a patient’, ‘being a doctor’ and indeed ‘being ill’ are accomplished in and through social practices. Following a brief discussion of these topics, we will use some focused data analyses to see what medical discourse research can tell us about ‘illness-ing’, not illness, ‘patient-ing’, not patients, ‘doctor-ing’, not doctors (Pollner 1979: 253).

ILLNESS-ING ‘Am I sick?’ ‘What kind of disease do I have?’ ‘What are my chances?’ ‘What caused this disease?’ ‘Why did it happen to me (of all people)?’ Illness evokes questions such as these among patients the world over. Every culture provides a set of significant questions, potential answers, and procedures for arriving at answers. (Frake 1961: 114)

324

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Medical discourse as a topic of enquiry properly starts not with a focus on doctor– patient communication, but with one’s initial experience of what might be a symptom, that is, the moments when one is figuring out if she is sick or not, or sick enough to see the doctor, etc. (Frake 1961, Hay 2008). As Frake pointed out, each culture provides its members with discursive resources (‘a set of significant questions, potential answers, and procedures for arriving at answers’; Frake, 1961: 114) with which to work through the liminal realm of ‘possibly being ill’, that is, to transform from ‘being well’ to ‘being ill’. The set of questions one poses to oneself in this liminal realm has been termed ‘the patients’ problem’, to wit: Is this a potential health problem, or part of the everyday sensations, aches, etc. that come with having a body? Is this something I need to deal with, or something that will resolve itself? Should I consult a professional about this, or manage it myself? If I treat this, how should I? How long should I try to manage this before I go to a doctor? (Halkowski 2006: 89) In his brilliant book A Leg to Stand on, Oliver Sacks made clear how central communication, language and interaction are to illness experience (to the question of whether or not he had a ‘real medical problem’). The cultural, discursive ‘resource’ he makes use of (because of the medical strangeness of his leg injury) is the question: is this problem in my leg or in my ‘head’ (Pollner 1987, O. Sacks 1984)? While we may not be used to thinking of this question as a medical discursive resource, for Oliver Sacks it was the only way to begin to sort out why his leg symptoms did not seem to make sense or cleanly fit into any reasonable diagnostic category. A series of possible diagnoses were applied to Sacks’s leg, and then discarded as not quite right. Sacks became obsessed by the constant failure to find a sensible diagnosis for his problem. Hilbert (1984) analysed the same sort of problem as confronted by chronic pain patients in the late 1970s. Sufferers want a diagnosis, they search for it. Three concerns motivate this search. The first and most obvious is the hope that diagnosis will bring treatment and cure. A second is the advantage of a disease category in describing one’s condition for others … But the most informative motivation is that a diagnosis provides a sense that one is living in an orderly world, that one’s condition can be located in medical indices and in libraries, that others share the condition and, especially, that one is sane. (Hilbert 1984: 368) It is medical discourse of various sorts that provides the resources for patients to make sense of their problem with friends and family, as well as to themselves. When Oliver Sacks was about to talk with the surgeon about his leg injury he reported thinking to himself that the surgeon ‘had years of orthopedic experience; he must have seen this sort of thing hundreds of times before’ (O. Sacks 1984: 68). Or as Oscar Wilde put it in a letter to a friend, ‘I am now neurasthenic. My doctor says I have all the symptoms. It is comforting to have them all, it makes one a perfect type’ (Holland and Hart-Davis 2000: 1174). Being a ‘perfect type’ is not merely reassuring to patients; it also allows the patient to provide a good account of their illness to others and themselves (Garfinkel, 1984). One strong bit of evidence for this is Oliver Sacks’s experience when the surgeon tells him his leg has been repaired (O. Sacks 1984: 80–1). ‘Surgically speaking’ the leg is fixed,

MEDICAL DISCOURSE

325

but Sacks still had strange physical sensations and symptoms that the doctors could not account for. Maynard and Frankel (2006) have termed this ‘symptom residue’ and it is a phenomenon that strongly highlights how both doctors and patients work to render all the features of the problem accountable and reasonable (Garfinkel 1984). One of the deepest themes in current research on medical discourse (and human interaction more generally) is that of epistemics. Central to being a patient, or doctor, is the interactional management of one’s (socially regulated) rights and obligations regarding the assertions one makes.

PATIENT-ING AND DOCTOR-ING: THE SOCIAL EPISTEMICS OF KNOWLEDGE AND SENSATIONS Fundamental to the organization of medical interactions is the interactional management of matters such as: a) What does a patient have rights to know? b) What does a patient have obligations to know? c) What is a patient not permitted to make knowledge claims about? d) What are the proper grounds/licences for one’s medical/health knowledge and one’s sensation reports? Investigations by Gill (1998, 2005) and colleagues (Pomerantz et al. 2007) have demonstrated ways that the boundaries of patients’ legitimate health and medical assertions and requests are delicately policed and managed by both parties to the interaction. In a similar vein, research by Stivers on antibiotic prescription demonstrates ways that patients (or their surrogates) carefully self-police their claims and requests, as well as their disagreement with professional medical advice (2005, 2006, 2007). Conversely, patients are subject to interactionally enforced obligations to ‘know’ (or at least to be able to speak to) aspects of their health experience. Note the following data segment (Halkowski 2008) (for details on data transcription conventions, see Heritage and Maynard 2006: xiv–xix): [50:Smoke] 1 → Dr:  How much do you smoke? 2     (1.2) 3 Pt:  I:MMMMmmmm. 4     ˚It’s ah good question.˚ 5    I’m not ah heavy smok[er if that’s what] 6 Dr: [ mmmm hmmmm, ] 7 Pt:  you’re talkin about. ih hih (no) 8    (.) 9 ⇒ Dr:  about how much. In line 1 the doctor (Dr) asks a question, and in line 9 the doctor re-asks the question in a modified manner, pushing for a response, treating the question as one that a patient ought to be able to answer. Boyd and Heritage (2006) analyse the turn design of doctors’ questions that exhibit similar sorts of interactional management of patients’ expected domains of knowledge.

326

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Related to the above set of questions is an underlying issue that appears to be deeply socially (i.e. interactionally) regulated, namely: How is it that you know something about your health or illness, that is, what are the appropriate, legitimate, socially enforced bases for one’s assertions, as regards one’s health? (As Harvey Sacks noted, an interest in what are the legitimate sources for one’s knowledge claims goes straight back to one of the earliest documents in Western history, the book of Genesis (3:11). Adam’s assertion that he is naked makes evident that he has illegitimately acquired knowledge (Sacks 1992; cf. Bergman 1993, Whalen and Zimmerman 1990)). Patients’ invocation of third party experts (Gill 2005), and other interactional practices, allows for the management of one’s (socially managed and revocable) licence to make particular assertions and observations. Such licences to make observations pertain even to one’s own experience of physical sensations (Halkowski 2006). How (or even whether) one will report particular symptoms and sensations to a health professional, friend, family member (or even acknowledge them to oneself) is a matter that is deeply interactionally organized. One’s licence or franchise to express one’s physical sensations is so deeply socially managed that people sometimes even come to doubt their own experience of their bodily sensations, because that option makes more sense than the physical pain or sensations one (thinks one) is feeling (Hilbert 1984; cf. O. Sacks 1984). The practices through which these rights and obligations to knowledge, experience and sensation are managed thus serve to partially constitute our sense of pain. These interactive practices also generate our sense of the roles of ‘patient’, ‘nurse’ and ‘doctor’ (Halkowski 1990), and they are, thereby, partially constitutive of the setting ‘a clinic’, ‘a hospital’, etc. (Drew and Heritage 1992, Heritage and Clayman 2010). A primary focus on the activities of interaction in their precise temporal details gives us a depth of view into the social constitution of the ‘things’ we otherwise theoretically reify or essentialize (Maynard and Wilson 1980).

DOING: BEING A ‘COMPETENT PATIENT’ The heading for this section alludes to Harvey Sacks’s brilliant lecture ‘on doing: “being ordinary”’ (Atkinson and Heritage 1984: 413–29). Borrowing from him, what we want to be able to see is that one’s competence as a patient is not knowable by others as an ‘essential feature’ of one, but purely as a performance or set of behaviours. Consider the following transcript, wherein the patient (Pt) is sitting alone in the examination room, waiting for the surgeon to do a follow-up inspection of a wisdom tooth extraction site (to make sure the wound is healing properly). In line 1, the nurse who had assisted on that operation, one week prior, enters the room and speaks to the patient. [TRH, 9/12/07] 1  N:   How’d ya do? 2     ((brief silence)) 3  PT:  I think ok. 4     ((brief silence)) 5  PT:  I feel good. 6  N:   Good. The patient’s answer has temporal features that help make visible some of its subtler social aspects. Having had an operation and being asked how he ‘did’, the first ‘thing’ we

MEDICAL DISCOURSE

327

can note is the silence in line 2. That is, the patient does not immediately answer; instead, there is a brief silence before he produces his response. Such silences before a response can be indications that the answerer had difficulty hearing or understanding the question. Since ‘understanding’ is demonstrated by the ability to produce some sort of reasonable response, whether (and how) the patient understands the question will be demonstrated in his turn of talk, just as his delay in responding displays incipient ‘trouble’ of some sort (Moerman and Sacks 1988, Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974). In analysing the potential sources for ‘trouble’ in responding we must consider the nurse’s question, which calls for some sort of assessment from the patient (e.g. ‘great’, ‘lousy’, ‘ok’). But every assessment has to be offered from a particular stance, or location, or perspective. Every assessment is a claim that is (potentially) socially defeasible (Pomerantz 1984, 1984b). Indeed, the patient’s delay in answering (line 2) can forecast such a difficulty. After his initial silence, the patient produces the utterance in line 3, offering the neutral assessment term ‘ok’ but mitigating it via the ‘I think’ preface. Compositionally, the ‘ok’ assessment term sits between markedly positive assessments (good, great, fantastic, etc.) and negative assessments (lousy, awful, terrible, etc.), with a slight shading towards the negative (Sacks 1992). Using this assessment term is a way for the patient to avoid making a strong claim (in either direction) regarding his progress. It is quite literally equivocal. Compositionally, ‘I think’ is regularly used as an epistemic marker to highlight that one’s own stance or bases of knowledge support the assertion or assessment being made. But this mitigator is also doing interactional work positionally. Via his initial silence, and the mitigator, ‘I think’, the patient thereby decreases the contiguity between the nurse’s question and his answer (Heritage 2007, Sacks 1987). This sort of impediment to the forward movement or ‘progressivity’ of the interaction is regularly treated by interactants as an indicator of some sort of ‘trouble’. In this case, the patient can be heard as conveying uncertainty about whether he is actually ‘ok’ or not. He is here on a follow-up visit, for the doctor to assess how he is healing. His tentative assessment can be a way to display that his own assessment of how he is doing is provisional and dependent on the forthcoming assessment by the doctor. Note that by responding in this way, the patient is epistemically marking knowledge claims that he has only tentative rights to make. He is ‘self-policing’ his assessments, showing that his claim is ultimately defeasible by the professional judgement of his oral surgeon. His assessment of his healing is a thoroughly social and interactional phenomenon. (While one would expect that only patients feel they have to carefully mark the epistemic licence for their illness observations, research by Perakyla demonstrates that physicians are also quite careful to mark the epistemic bases for their diagnoses as they deliver them to patients (Perakyla 1998, 2006).) Following the patient’s response in line 3, there is a brief silence. As a result of the foundational study of turn-taking in conversation (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson 1974), the conversation analytic perspective makes visible the interactive, social work that generates ‘silence’ in conversation. At this precise moment in this interaction, the patient has stopped speaking, treating his answer as a potentially adequate response to the nurse’s question. But the nurse does not offer any uptake or response to his answer. In each of the ticking milliseconds of line 4, the patient can either add to his answer or wait to see if the nurse will respond to what he said in line 3. Similarly, in each of those ticking milliseconds, the nurse can either respond to what the patient has said or wait to see if he adds more to his answer. The joint working out of who will speak next, and

328

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

when they precisely will do so, is what generates this brief silence in line 4. (See Wilson and Zimmerman (1986) for a brilliant demonstration of the systematic nature of these millisecond-by-millisecond ‘negotiations’.) Viewed through the analytic lens provided by the Sacks et al. turn-taking paper, this non-response by the nurse is actually a type of response – her silence at this precise juncture treats his talk so far as incomplete and/or inadequate, that is, not yet sufficiently responsive to her question. Furthermore, via her silence here, the nurse is treating her question as one that the patient ought to be able to adequately respond to (cf. PilletShore 2006). By doing this, the nurse is in effect informing the patient about the question she asked him – that is, by treating his response as incomplete, and by waiting for more ‘answer’ from him (and by not repairing or altering her initial question), she is treating her own question as one it is reasonable to expect another to be able to answer. In this short bit of interaction we approach some fundamental features of what it means to be a competent patient – one must be able to answer questions about ‘how one is doing’. This observation becomes more powerful when we consider the boundaries of competent patient-hood and person-hood, such as patients who are treated by others as not able to appropriately report on their health. Research by Stivers is particularly instructive here – both her work on children in healthcare as well as her work on veterinary medicine (Stivers 1998, Stivers and Majid 2007). Since being able to speak with regard to one’s own health is criterial for being a competent patient/person, she shows children as being treated by parents and doctors as liminally competent patients/persons. Infants (from the Latin, in fans, literally ‘without speech’) and pets require a competent person to report on their behalf. At line 5, the patient elects to continue speaking. Note that by speaking here the patient thereby retrospectively renders line 3 as an ‘initial’ response component (i.e. when he spoke the utterance in line 3 it was not at that point in time his ‘initial’ response, it was simply ‘his response’). (We can briefly note here that the nurse’s initial lack of response (line 4) can also be seen as part of the way that a preference for ‘good news’ is interactionally accomplished (Maynard 2003).) What the patient says in line 5 is understood by both parties to the interaction as not simply following line 3, but also following the silence of line 4; because it matters to the interactants, we as analysts need to attend to the progressive unfolding of this answer. In line 5 the patient elaborates on his initial response, stating ‘I feel good’. With the contrasting emphasis on ‘feel’, the patient explicitly marks the basis on which he can strongly positively self-assess how he is ‘doing’. This response receives a positive assessment from N (line 6). This move by the patient (from ‘I think ok’ to ‘I feel good’) is an incarnate, interactional (re)production of the differential bases for knowledge and experiential claims. The ownership of knowledge and experience is what is interactionally accomplished in this short spate of talk. The specifics of the patient’s answer – what was said and how it was jointly produced – renders the patient as having a tentative and provisional basis for one sort of assessment about his health status (‘I think ok’), and a stronger basis for a different sort of assessment (‘I feel good’). The interactive production of ‘his’ answer (Halkowski 1992) also demonstrates the obligation he is orienting to – to be able to answer at least some forms of the question ‘how are you doing?’ The patient achieved and demonstrated an understanding of the nurse’s question by producing an answer she treated as adequate. Furthermore, in hearing the patient’s (initial) response to her question, we can reasonably imagine that what her question ‘became’ might well not have been what she intended. As Rawls put it:

MEDICAL DISCOURSE

329

The ordering features of talk – the placement of utterances – is a huge and essential tool that people use to render their ‘thoughts’ in a mutually intelligible form. And they never manage this without having the sequential back and forth character of interaction change what they mean. That is, what they will have meant in the end, even to themselves, will be what emerges from a collaborative sequential production, not what they thought they meant before the sequential series was produced. (Rawls 2005: 175; cf. Mills 1940) The topic of social epistemics is ubiquitous in human interaction (Heritage 2010, Heritage 2012a, 2012b, Heritage and Raymond 2005, 2012, H. Sacks, 1984). But these issues are especially relevant in health care interactions. In the prior analyses, we have seen one way that a focus on interactional practices, particularly around the topic of epistemics, allows us to take received notions within the realm of health care interactions as a source of questions, treating them as interactional phenomena that members have to work through, navigate and produce in every health care encounter.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS: MOVEMENTS OUTWARD AND INWARD IN MEDICAL DISCOURSE RESEARCH In addition to the ongoing investigations into the epistemics of medical and health care interactions, there are a number of other new and exciting directions for research on medical discourse. One of these directions is a move ‘outward,’ and the other is a move ‘inward.’ The move ‘outward’ is being made by research that investigates video internet ‘telemedicine’ and ‘telerehab’ encounters, a topic made even more timely by the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the insightful conceptual ground-clearing by Arminen et al. (2016: 292), scholars are moving away from the simple dualism of mediated interactions versus unmediated interactions, and instead are looking at how discursive and bodily practices work with technological affordances to constitute interactional spaces (Pappas and Seale 2009, 2010, Seuren et al. 2020, Shaw et al. 2018, Stommel et al. 2020). By focusing on the affordances of technologies, these researchers transcend the dualistic dangers (signalled by Ong 2013) of viewing every new communication medium as either paving the way to heaven or hell. The move ‘inward’ is being made by researchers (following Goodwin (2000) and Mondada (2019), among others) who are investigating how bodily practices and discursive practices render sensations as social phenomena. A ‘social epistemics of sensation’ (Halkowski 2006) has become a rapidly growing area of enquiry in medical discourse studies. Researchers have analysed the body as a socially constituted entity and resource for interaction (Hindmarsh and Pilnick 2007, Parry, 2017). In addition, researchers have investigated the social structuring of our senses (Egbert and Deppermann 2012, Gibson and Vom Lehn 2020). The social epistemics of hearing, sight, touch, smell and taste will continue to be a generative area of enquiry for medical discourse researchers.

CONCLUSION Because to be human is to be embodied, and enmeshed in nets of overlapping and intertwined discourse, the topic of medical discourse will always be a rich and fascinating subject for research, having direct relevance for each of us at many points in our lives.

330

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

This is especially so because ‘health’ and ‘illness’, ‘patienthood’ and ‘being healthy’ are not cleanly discrete states, but are rather separated by semi-permeable membranes, each with a penumbral sheath, so that it will always be discursive interaction through which humans will name, manage and transform these zones. This discursive, interactional, deeply social work of naming, managing and transforming these realms is our way of organizing our bodily knowledge, experiences and sensations so that they make sense to ourselves and to others (Hilbert 1984, H. Sacks, 1984, O. Sacks, 1984). It is through this same discursive work that one maintains a sense of an understandable world known in common (Pollner 1987).

KEY READINGS Beach, Wayne (ed.) (2001), ‘Lay Diagnosis’, special issue of Text, 21: 13–268. Heritage, J. and D. Maynard (eds) (2006), Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Primary Care Physicians and Patients, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maynard, D. (2003), Bad News, Good News: Conversational Order in Everyday Talk and Clinical Settings, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Maynard, D. W. and J. Turowetz (2019), ‘Doing Abstraction: Autism, Diagnosis, and Social Theory’, Sociological Theory, 37 (1): 89–116. Raymond, C. W. (2014), ‘Conveying Information in the Interpreter-mediated Medical Visit: The Case of Epistemic Brokering’, Patient Education and Counseling, 97 (1): 38–46. Stivers, Tanya. (2007), Prescribing under Pressure: Parent-Physician Conversations and Antibiotics, New York: Oxford University Press.

REFERENCES Arminen, I., C. Licoppe and A. Spagnolli (2016), ‘Respecifying Mediated Interaction’, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 49 (4): 290–309. Atkinson, J. M. and J. Heritage (eds) (1984), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beach, W. (2009), A Natural History of Family Cancer: Interactional Resources for Managing Illness, Mahwah, NJ: Hampton Press. Beckman, H. and R. Frankel (1984), ‘The Effect of Physician Behavior on the Collection of Data’, Annals of Internal Medicine, 101 (5): 692–6. Bergmann, J. (1993), Discreet Indiscretions: The Social Organization of Gossip, Amsterdam: Aldine de Gruyter. Boyd, E. and J. Heritage (2006), ‘Taking the History: Questioning during Comprehensive History Taking’, in J. Heritage and D. Maynard (eds), Communication in Medical Care: Interaction Between Primary Care Physicians and Patients, 151–84, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cassell, E. (1985a), Talking with Patients, Vol. 1: The Theory of Doctor–Patient Communication, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cassell, E. (1985b), Talking with Patients, Vol. 2. Clinical Technique, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Cassell, E. (1997), Doctoring: The Nature of Primary Care Medicine, New York: Oxford University Press. Drew, P. and J. Heritage (eds) (1992), Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

MEDICAL DISCOURSE

331

Egbert, M. and A. Deppermann (2012), ‘Hearing Aids Communication: Integrating Social Interaction, Audiology and User Centered Design to Improve Communication with Hearing Loss and Hearing Technologies. Manheim: Verlag für Gesprächsforschung. Frake, C. (1961), ‘The Diagnosis of Disease among the Subanun of Mindanao’, American Anthropologist, 63 (1), February: 113–32. Frankel, R. (1984), ‘From Sentence to Sequence: Understanding the Medical Encounter through Microinteractional Analysis’, Discourse Processes, 7 (2), April: 135–70. Garfinkel, H. (1984), Studies in Ethnomethodology, London: Polity Press. Gibson, W. and D. Vom Lehn (2020), ‘Seeing as Accountable Action: The Interactional Accomplishment of Sensorial Work’, Current Sociology, 68 (1): 77–96. Gill, V. (1998), ‘Doing Attributions in Medical Interaction: Patients’ Explanations for Illness and Doctors’ Responses’, Social Psychology Quarterly, 61 (4), December: 342–60. Gill, V. (2005), ‘Patient “Demand” for Medical Interventions: Exerting Pressure for an Offer in a Primary Care Clinic Visit’, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 38 (4), January: 451–79. Gill, V. and D. Maynard (1995), ‘On “Labelling” in Actual Interaction: Delivering and Receiving Diagnoses of Developmental Disabilities’, Social Problems, 42: 11–13. Gill, V., and D. Maynard (2006), ‘Explaining Illness: Patients’ Proposals and Physicians’ Responses’, in J. Heritage and D. Maynard (eds), Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Primary Care Physicians and Patients, 115–50, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gill, V., T. Halkowski and F. Roberts (2001), ‘Accomplishing a Request without Making One: A Single Case Analysis of a Primary Care Visit’, Text, 21 (1/2), 2001: 55–81. Goodwin, C. (1995), ‘Co-Constructing Meaning in Conversations with an Aphasic Man’, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 28: 233–60. Goodwin, C. (2000), ‘Action and Embodiment within Situated Human Interaction’, Journal of Pragmatics, 32 (10): 1489–522. Goodwin, C. (ed.) (2003), Conversation and Brain Damage, New York: Oxford University Press. Goodwin, C. (2004), ‘A Competent Speaker Who Can’t Speak: The Social Life of Aphasia’, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14 (2): 151–70. Halkowski, T. (1990), ‘“Role” as an Interactional Device’, Social Problems, 1990, 37 (4): 564–77. Halkowski, T. (1992), ‘Hearing Talk: Generating Answers and Accomplishing Facts’, Perspectives on Social Problems, 4: 25–45, Stamford, CT: JAI Press. Halkowski, T. (1999), ‘Achieved Coherence in Aphasic Narrative’, Perspectives on Social Problems, 11: 261–76, Stamford, CT: JAI Press. Halkowski, T. (2006), ‘Realizing the Illness: Patients’ Narratives of Symptom Discovery’, in J. Heritage and D. Maynard (eds), Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Primary Care Physicians and Patients, 86–114, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Halkowski, T. (2008), ‘Approximation Elicitors and Accountability in Pursuit of Amounts’, presented at the annual conference of the National Communication Association, San Diego, CA, 21 November. Hay, M. C. (2008), ‘Reading Sensations: Understanding the Process of Distinguishing “Fine” from “sick”’, Transcultural Psychiatry, 45 (2): 198–229. Heritage, J. (2005), ‘Conversation Analysis and Institutional Talk’, in K. Fitch and R. Sanders (eds), The Handbook of Language and Social Interaction, 103–48, London: Lawrence Erlbaum.

332

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Heritage, J. (2007), ‘Constructing and Navigating Epistemic Landscapes: Progressivity, Agency and Resistance in Initial Elements of Responses to yes/no Questions’, presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, 12 August, New York. Heritage, J. (2008), ‘CA as Social Theory’, in B. Turner (ed.), The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, 300–20. Oxford: Blackwell. Heritage, J. (2010), ‘Questioning in Medicine’, in A. Freed and S. Ehrlich (eds), ‘Why Do You Ask?’: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse, 42–68, New York: Oxford University Press. Heritage, J. (2012a), ‘Epistemics in Action: Action Formation and Territories of Knowledge’, Research on Language & Social Interaction, 45 (1): 1–29. Heritage, J. (2012b), ‘The Epistemic Engine: Sequence Organization and Territories of Knowledge’, Research on Language & Social Interaction, 45 (1): 30–52. Heritage, J. and D. Maynard (eds) (2006), Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Primary Care Physicians and Patients, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heritage, J. and G. Raymond (2005), ‘The Terms of Agreement: Indexing Epistemic Authority and Subordination in Talk-in-interaction’, Social Psychology Quarterly, 68 (1): 15–38. Heritage, J. and G. Raymond (2012), ‘Navigating Epistemic Landscapes: Acquiescence, Agency and Resistance in Responses to Polar Questions’, in J. P. De Ruiter (ed.), Questions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heritage, J. and S. Clayman (2010), Talk in Action: Interactions, Identities, and Institutions, New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Hilbert, R. (1984), ‘The Acultural Dimensions of Chronic Pain: Flawed Reality Construction and the Problem of Meaning’, Social Problems, 31 (4), April: 365–78. Hindmarsh, J. and A. Pilnick (2007), ‘Knowing Bodies at Work: Embodiment and Ephemeral Teamwork in Anaesthesia’, Organization Studies, 28 (09): 1395–416. Holland, M. and R. Hart-Davis (eds) (2000), The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, New York: Henry Holt and Co. Kleinman, A. (1988), The Illness Narratives, New York: Basic Books. Kleinman, A., L. Eisenberg and B. Good (1978), ‘Culture, Illness, and Care: Clinical Lessons from Anthropologic and Cross-cultural Research’, Annals of Internal Medicine 88: 251–8. Maynard, D. (2003), Bad News, Good News: Conversational Order in Everyday Talk and Clinical Settings, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Maynard, D. and A. Perakyla (2003), ‘Language and Social Interaction’, in J. Delamater (ed.), The Handbook of Social Psychology, 233–57, New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Maynard, D. and R. Frankel (2006), ‘On Diagnostic Rationality: Bad News, Good News and Symptom Residue’, in J. Heritage and D. Maynard (eds), Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Physicians and Patients, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Maynard, D. and T. Wilson (1980), ‘On the Reification of Social Structure’, Current Perspectives in Social Theory, 1: 287–322. Miller, G. (1997), Becoming Miracle Workers: Language and Meaning in Brief Therapy, New York: Aldine. Mills, C. W. (1940), ‘Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive’, American Sociological Review, 5 (6), December: 904–13. Mishler, E. (1984), The Discourse of Medicine, Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Moerman, M. and H. Sacks (1988), ‘On Understanding in Conversation’, in M. Moerman (ed.), Talking Culture: Ethnography and Conversation Analysis, 180–6, Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

MEDICAL DISCOURSE

333

Mondada, L. (2019), ‘Contemporary Issues in Conversation Analysis: Embodiment and Materiality, Multimodality and Multisensoriality in Social Interaction’, Journal of Pragmatics, 145: 47–62. Ong, W. J. (2013), Orality and Literacy: 30th Anniversary Edition, United Kingdom, Oxford: Taylor & Francis. Pappas, Y. and C. Seale (2009), ‘The Opening Phase of Telemedicine Consultations: An Analysis of Interaction’, Social Science & Medicine, 68 (7): 1229–37. Pappas, Y. and C. Seale (2010), ‘The Physical Examination in Telecardiology and Televascular Consultations: A Study using Conversation Analysis’, Patient Education and Counseling, 81 (1): 113–18. Parry, R. (2017), ‘Distribution of Agency across Body and Self’, in N. Enfield and P. Kockelman (eds), Distributed Agency, New York: Oxford University Press. Perakyla, A. (1998), ‘Authority and Accountability: The Delivery of Diagnosis in Primary Health Care’, Social Psychology Quarterly, 61 (4): 301–20. Perakyla, A. (2006), ‘Communicating and Responding to Diagnosis’, in J. Heritage and D. Maynard (eds), Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Physicians and Patients, 214–47, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pillet-Shore, D. (2006), ‘Weighing in Primary-care Nurse–patient Interactions’, Social Science and Medicine, 62 (2006): 407–21. Pollner, M. (1979), ‘Explicative Transaction: Making and Managing Meaning in Traffic Court’, in G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, 229–55, New York: Irvington. Pollner, M. (1987), Mundane Reason: Reality in Everyday and Sociological Discourse, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pomerantz, A. (1984), ‘Agreeing and Disagreeing with Assessments: Some Features of Preferred/Dispreferred Turn Shapes’, in J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, 57–101, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pomerantz, A. (1984b), ‘Giving a Source or Basis: The Practice in Conversation of Telling “How I Know”‘, Journal of Pragmatics, 8: 607–25. Pomerantz, A., V. Gill and P. Denvir (2007), ‘When Patients Present Serious Health Conditions as Unlikely: Managing Potentially Conflicting Issues and Constraints’, in A. Hepburn and S. Wiggins (eds), Discursive Research in Practice: New Approaches to Psychology and Interaction, 127–46, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rawls, A. (2005), ‘Garfinkel’s Conception of Time’, Time and Society, 14 (2/3): 163–90. Robinson, J. (1998), ‘Getting Down to Business: Talk, Gaze and Body Orientation during Openings of Doctor-patient Consultations’, Human Communication Research, 25 (1), September: 97–123. Sacks, H. (1984), ‘On Doing: “Being Ordinary,”’ in J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, 413–29, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sacks, H. (1987), ‘On the Preferences for Agreement and Contiguity in Sequences in Conversation’, in G. Button and J. R. E. Lee (eds), Talk and Social Organisation, 54–69, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Sacks, H. (1992), Lectures on Conversation, Vols. 1 and 2, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Sacks, H., E. Schegloff and G. Jefferson (1974), ‘A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation’, Language, 50 (4), Part 1 (December 1974): 696–735. Sacks, O. (1984), A Leg to Stand On, New York: Touchstone.

334

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Seuren, L. M., J. Wherton, T. Greenhalgh, D. Cameron and S. E. Shaw (2020), ‘Physical Examinations via Video for Patients with Heart Failure: Qualitative Study Using Conversation Analysis’, Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22 (2): e16694. Shaw, S. E., D. Cameron, J. Wherton, L. M. Seuren, S. Vijayaraghavan, S. Bhattacharya, J. Morris and T. Greenhalgh (2018), ‘Technology-enhanced Consultations in Diabetes, Cancer, and Heart Failure: Protocol for the Qualitative Analysis of Remote Consultations (QuARC) Project’, JMIR Research Protocols, 7 (7) (2018): e10913. Stivers, T. (1998), ‘Prediagnostic Commentary in Veterinarian-Client Interaction’, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 31 (2): 241–77. Stivers, T. (2005), ‘Non-antibiotic Treatment Recommendations: Delivery Formats and Implications for Parent Resistance’, Social Science and Medicine, 60: 949–64. Stivers, T. (2006), ‘Treatment Decisions: Negotiations between Doctors and Patients in Acute Care Encounters’, in J. Heritage and D. Maynard (eds), Communication in Medical Care: Interaction between Primary Care Physicians and Patients, 279–312. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stivers, T. (2007), Prescribing under Pressure: Parent-Physician Conversations and Antibiotics, New York: Oxford University Press. Stivers, T. and A. Majid (2007), ‘Questioning Children: Interactional Evidence of Implicit Racial Bias in Medical Interviews’, Social Psychology Quarterly, 70: 424–41. Stommel, W. J., H. Van Goor and M. W. Stommel (2020), ‘The Impact of Video-Mediated Communication on Closed Wound Assessments in Postoperative Consultations: Conversation Analytical Study’, Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22 (5): e17791. Whalen, M. and D. Zimmerman (1990), ‘Describing Trouble: Practical Epistemology in Citizen Calls to the Police’, Language in Society, 19 (4): 465–92. Wilson, T. and D. Zimmerman (1986), ‘The Structure of Silence between Turns in Two-party Conversation’, Discourse Processes, 9: 375–90. Wittgenstein, L. (1953), Philosophical Investigations, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Wittgenstein, L. (1958), The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the ‘Philosophical Investigations’, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Zimmerman, D. and M. Pollner (1970), ‘The Everyday World as Phenomenon’, in J. Douglas (ed.), Understanding Everyday Life, 80–103, Chicago: Aldine.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Forensic discourse analysis: A work in progress JOHN OLSSON

Given the breadth of use of both terms ‘discourse analysis’ and ‘forensic discourse analysis’, the task of summarizing the latter field, both as an expression of the former and as a subdomain within forensic linguistics, is a charge filled with the twin pitfalls of generalization and exclusion: the danger, on the one hand, of generalization of the field to the point of not being able to give specific information, and, on the other, the necessary exclusion of highly specialized, though equally worthwhile, fields of endeavour through a lack of space. Summarizing current thinking and research on these topic areas is an even more daunting task, not only because of the somewhat heterogeneous breadth of work associated with the field, but also because many of those working in areas which may be candidates for the umbrella term of ‘forensic discourse analysis’ might not use – or even be prepared to recognize – this term to describe what they are doing.

ORIGINS OF FORENSIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS Notwithstanding these caveats, the origins of ‘forensic discourse analysis’ can be traced to a chapter in a book by Coulthard, in which he appears to describe the subject as the analysis of spoken discourse in forensic settings, with particular reference to police interviews (Coulthard 1992: 242–43). In a 1994 paper on the Derek Bentley statement, he refers to the use of insights from a number of linguistic disciplines collectively as ‘forensic discourse analysis’ (hereafter FDA), including the use of data from prescriptive grammar (word order of particular phrases, especially the postposed position of ‘then’ in police statements), corpus linguistics (word frequencies and collocations) and functional grammar (especially issues of register, specifically language mode (Coulthard 1994)). However, since that time the field has expanded considerably.

THE FOCUS OF FDA The main focus of the analysis of forensic discourse in the early days was in the area of police interaction with suspects and defendants. This will also form the bulk of this chapter, though not exclusively. Other areas which have attracted linguists’ attention include court examination and cross-examination, language use in lawyer–client relationships and the analysis of a variety of text types. A number of researchers, from traditional

336

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

discourse analysts to conversation analysts and sociolinguists, have been engaged in these endeavours. Coulthard’s (1994) paper set the benchmark for early textual analysis of written police statements. In that paper, Coulthard gives cogent reasons for the suspect status of the word ‘then’ in the Bentley statement. He begins by pointing out that in statements known to have been authored by police officers ‘then’ occurs approximately once per 100 words, whereas in witness-authored statements its frequency is about 1/10 of that. This is borne out by his examination of the Cobuild corpus which gives a 1/500 word frequency. However, it is not just the frequency of ‘then’ which appears curious, but its positioning: in the Bentley statement it is usually placed after the subject, rather than before, which is more usual in ordinary speech, so that instead of getting ‘then I … ’ we get, in the Bentley statement, ‘I then … ’ (Coulthard 1994: 32). Coulthard noted that this phenomenon also occurred routinely in police-authored statements. While still working on the Bentley statement, in a later publication (Olsson 2000) I collected ten dictated narratives from ordinary speakers in order to evaluate the claim that the statement had been dictated. As part of the analysis, issues of textual cohesion, lexical distribution and proportionality were considered. It was found that the Bentley text exhibited odd characteristics in these respects. Regarding cohesion it was noticed, for example, that the name ‘Chris’ is used ten times in the statement, but that the subject pronoun ‘he’ occurs only four times in relation to ‘Chris’. On reading the text, the use of ‘Chris’ seems somewhat overdone, if not artificial. In any case, once a participant is within a given universe of discourse it is not necessary to continue naming them. It is a general characteristic of police-authored statements that they tend to specify individuals by name and – in general – do not use the available resources of textual cohesion, such as the pronoun system. It is also curious that this same participant, ‘Chris’, is referred to as ‘Craig’ in the first part of the text and only becomes ‘Chris’ in the second and third parts of the text.

THE LOCATION OF LANGUAGE WITHIN SOCIOLINGUISTIC INTERACTION FDA practitioners include those with an interest in, inter alia, sociolinguistic interaction. For scholars like Eades, the emphasis is on situating interaction within its social context. After studying the interaction and communication styles of Aboriginal Australians for some years (Eades 1988), Eades came to realize that in institutional settings Aboriginals would be at a severe disadvantage because of fundamental differences between European and indigenous Australian ways of asking and answering questions. In Aboriginal culture, agreement and consensus are formed as a group endeavour in gradual stages. There is an avoidance of conflict and a desire for social harmony. The confrontational style of direct questions and demands for ‘straight’ answers favoured by non-Aboriginals is entirely absent from their culture. Thus, when Europeans and Aboriginals meet in institutional contexts there are inevitably clashes. Eades illustrates this with examples from the wellknown Pinkenba case: In May 1994, three boys were picked up by police and driven to a remote location where they were abandoned. They had apparently not committed any offence, and nor were they ever charged. However, charges were eventually brought against the officers for depriving the children of their liberty. The main issue at the preliminary hearing was the question of consent. While police maintained that the boys had consented to get

FORENSIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

337

into the car, prosecution claimed they had been coerced. At Pinkenba the boys stated they had been forced to strip naked and had been threatened with being thrown into a creek. Eades’s analysis of the courtroom interaction reveals the one-sided nature of the proceedings. Not only are the boys – the victims in this case – frequently referred to as the ‘defendants’, but they are ceaselessly badgered by defence counsel. The case did not go further than the preliminary hearing because the magistrate found that the boys had ‘consented’ to go in the police cars. The court not only did not take into account that the lawyers in the case were able to bully the children in the witness box, but it also failed to appreciate the fact that in Aboriginal society young people are obliged to respect their elders, and that part of this respect involves avoidance of interactional conflict. The key point to emerge from Eades’s study is that in what are essentially ‘white’ courtrooms the neocolonial interaction style is dominant. Eades (1995) relates the cases of Rupert Max Stuart and Kevin Condren, both convicted in Australian courts of murder. In the first case, Stuart was convicted in 1959 of the rape and murder of a nine-year-old European girl, Mary Hattam, in South Australia. Initially sentenced to hang, this was later commuted to life imprisonment. In the second case, Condren was convicted of the 1983 murder of Patricia Carlton in north Queensland. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment, of which he served seven years. Eades did not herself undertake an analysis of Stuart’s confession. This had already been carried out by TGH Strehlow, the well-known linguist and anthropologist who had been raised on a mission station in the same area as Stuart, and who was a fluent speaker of the Aranda Aboriginal language. As Eades points out, Strehlow carried out a forensic linguistic analysis, at least ten years before anybody in Europe or America did. Moreover, he took a discourse approach long before the concept was even clearly understood in linguistics. Strehlow’s advice had been unambiguous: Stuart’s confession could not have been spoken by a speaker of AE (or what was then termed Northern Territories English, NTE). He gave two simple indicators. 1. The use of unsupported verbal auxiliaries (not found in other examples of the defendant’s language or in AE or NTE generally): The police statement contained formulations such as: ‘When you hit her with the steel picket, did you aim for her head? Yes, I did. Was Patricia bleeding when you walked away? Yes, she was. Eades (1995: 154) 2. The use of the definite article, the: Whereas the police statement has examples like ‘Alan went back to the showground’ and ‘I slept at the Wheatboard’, Strehlow recorded examples such as ‘Alan went back to showground’ and ‘I slept in that Wheatboard’. As a result of these and other observations of basic grammatical differences, Strehlow concluded that the grammatical features of Stuart’s language were inconsistent with the language of the police interview. One particularly absurd invention attributed to Stuart was: ‘The show was situated at the Ceduna Oval’ whereas the Aboriginal speaker himself stated in his conversation with Strehlow ‘That show was in Cedoona Opal.’

338

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

OBSERVATIONS ON THE STRUCTURING OF FORENSIC DISCOURSE However, Strehlow moved beyond mere grammatical analysis. He also concluded that it would have been impossible for someone not educated in the construction of English prose to produce a ‘narrative [with such] conciseness and relevance’ (Inglis, 1961, cited in Eades 1995: 158). Strehlow’s concern was not just with the discourse features of the ‘confession’, but with the “whole composition”, which he claimed had the “structure and argument of a legal document” (Eades 1995: 158). Although nearly thirty years separated Strehlow’s analysis of Stuart’s supposed confession and Eades’s examination of Condren’s ‘confession’, Eades found a number of similarities between the communication styles of the two alleged confessions. For example, both confessions were highly focused on specifying times, dates and other numeric information, whereas, in reality, neither Stuart nor Condren appeared capable of thinking in terms such as these. So, when asked what time he (allegedly) attacked his victim, Condren is supposed to have answered promptly: ‘Quarter past four’. However, when asked in prison what day a particular incident had occurred, Condren is not able to be any more specific than ‘Um, about, about two weeks ago’. In court, his incompetence with numbers is further demonstrated. Asked how many flagons of wine he had drunk, he replies, ‘About twelve, I think, or seven.’ Strehlow had also noticed that Stuart’s confession was full of references to time, even though Stuart was almost entirely uneducated (Eades 1995: 161). These observations are in line with the observation that police officers appear to be devoted to the precise recording of time and other quasi-numerical data. For example, Fox (1993) writes: Police officers are obsessed by time. Or so it seems from their statements. Actual times are often given: ‘at 5.12 p.m.’, ‘at 9.23 p.m.’, ‘at 12.46 p.m.’ etc. These are frequently the times at which questioning begins and ends, but by no means only that; for example, ‘at 12.20 p.m., at a rubbish site … ’; ‘Lunch was provided at 12.39 p.m.’ There are also many approximate times: ‘at approximately 3.15 p.m.’, ‘at 10.28 a.m. approximately’, ‘at about 3.45 p.m.’, ‘at round about 10.05 a.m.’ Fox (1993: 183) The Western preoccupation with time has largely come about because of the modern individual’s growing involvement with official institutions, particularly arms of administration, such as government offices, courts and other official bodies. This Western adherence to matters of time has caused a general awareness of the day being ‘divided up’ into distinctive segments relating to the kinds of activity people carry out in order to function as productive citizens. In the West, events are always related to their time of occurrence, and this is ingrained within our discourse. Amongst indigenous Australians, however, events are related not to time but to other events, especially those which relate to families. People remember events not in relation to when, but who. Therefore, small as it may appear in the construction of police statements, the question of time is a key dividing line between the cultures of those who measure their lives in days, hours, minutes and seconds, and those whose lives are built around their family relationships and the events that take place within those families.

FORENSIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

339

THE CONSTRUCTION OF ADMISSION In 1982 three brothers, Raymond, Brian and Peter Mickelberg, were arrested on suspicion of having carried out the infamous Perth Mint Swindle. It was later found that the lead detective had persuaded a colleague to fabricate statements in which the brothers made admissions which led to lengthy prison sentences – later overturned on appeal. What was striking in the Mickelberg case was that there are many examples of unforced self-incrimination in the statements. The typical scenario is that the defendant initially denies an action or situation, but then – on further questioning – admits the action or situation, either in its entirety, or partially. Here is an excerpt from an interview between Don Hancock (a senior police officer, now deceased) and the suspect Raymond Mickelberg, accused of perpetrating the Perth Mint fraud:

EXAMPLE FROM THE MICKELBERG CASE STATEMENTS I (Hancock) said, “Does Peter know that you are Peter Gulley?” The accused said, “Look, Peter doesn’t know anything. I swear to you, none of the family are involved.” I said, “What about Brian?” The accused said, “I told you, the family have got nothing to do with it.” I said, “Are you saying that you did it all yourself?” The accused said, “Look, I’d like to tell you, but I can’t say anything.”

HANCOCK INTERVIEW OF RAY MICKELBERG 15 JULY 1982 One of the key discourse strategies for moving from a position of claimed denial by the suspect to apparent concession or admission is the use of vagueness. Thus, although the question asks whether Peter knows anything about Gulley, it is not stated in the answer what Peter does not know anything about. Rather, the answer simply states, ‘Peter doesn’t know anything.’ This is then broadened from Peter to the entire family and from ‘knowing anything’ to having ‘nothing to do with it’. Whatever ‘it’ has now become the focus – the attention having completely shifted from Peter Gulley and what Peter knows. The next question takes up ‘it’ in the form of ‘ … that you did it all by yourself’. Note that this is an embedded question. The answer ‘I’d like to tell you … ’ implicitly accepts the proposition that the speaker ‘did it’, whatever ‘it’ – unspecified – is. The accused now repeats a standard mantra, found in many of the statements that he ‘can’t say anything’. We thus have a number of non-content pronouns: it, anything, nothing: in fact, nothing is being specified. However, the reader is deliberately left with the impression that someone other than the suspect is involved in ‘it’ because he ‘can’t say anything’ about whether others are involved in ‘it’ or not. All of this has stemmed from the question as to whether Peter knew that Raymond was Peter Gulley. I suggest that Peter Mickelberg knowing who Peter Gulley was is of no relevance to the Perth Mint fraud enquiry: it is simply a red herring. By using vagueness, the writer of the statement is able to suggest that the witness has begun by deliberately attempting to conceal information from the officer, but has almost immediately succumbed to the officer’s close questioning. Such an exchange, read out to a jury, can be very damaging to a defendant.

340

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

INDICATIONS OF FABRICATION However, close examination of the statement reveals a strong possibility that it is fabricated. According to the detective Hancock’s account, he conducted the interview with Raymond Mickelberg, while his colleague, Sergeant Round, noted down the interview (we will discuss the supposed method by which this was done shortly). Later, when he had to prepare his own statement, Hancock admits that he copied his version from Round (altering only items such as ‘Sergeant Hancock’ to ‘I’, for example). This method of interviewing and statement making was not unusual in Western Australia at the time. However, close analysis of the two statements reveals, not that Hancock copied from Round (as the officers claimed), but that Round most likely copied from Hancock. Hancock’s statement reads, with reference to a building society passbook: Hancock version: He said, “I thought it was that long ago.” I said, “Do you remember operating the account at Whitfords on the 27th of May?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “Why did you get a cheque made payable to Mr Wilson?” Round version: The accused said, “I thought it was that long ago.” The accused said, “Yes.” Sergeant Hancock said, “Why did you get a cheque made payable to Mr Wilson?” It appears that in copying out the Round version the writer has omitted the line ‘Do you remember operating the account at Whitfords on the 27th of May?’ thus producing the anomaly of the suspect apparently answering a question without a question being asked (note two lines in succession begin ‘The accused said’). Thus, it does not seem likely that Hancock would have inserted the sentence ‘Do you remember … ’ but that Round accidentally omitted it when copying. This is supported by the observation that a reference to remembering the cheque cashed at Whitfords PBS exists in Round’s own notes of the alleged Hancock interview. Yet it is missing from his statement. This also raises the question of Round’s own statement and which version of notes he copied from when producing it. It seems possible that he wrote out his own rough notes only after he had written his own statement. Another difference relates to a line found in Hancock’s statement and also in Round’s: Hancock: ‘ … why would I use my own number on the cheques?’ Round: ‘ … why would I use my own number on the cheque?’ This point relates to a very important facet of the case and a key element of the prosecution. The issue of whether it is ‘cheque’ or ‘cheques’ is central to the enquiry. As there were several cheques used in the offence, then ‘cheques’ would appear to be the correct form with ‘cheque’ being the incorrect form. Round himself is aware that there is more than one cheque, because he says in his statement: Round statement: I said, “Two of the cheques used to buy the gold were issued by the Perth Building Society and were drawn on the account of Peter Gulley.”

FORENSIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

341

Furthermore, in his own notes of the alleged Hancock interview he writes ‘cheques’ ‘… why use own number on cheques?’ Again, this would point to Round not using his own rough notes to compile his statement, and from that for Hancock to produce his statement. Rather, it suggests he has used some other version when writing his statement. I suggest that – given the suspect identical sentence across the two alleged interviews – the likely source of the ‘cheque/s’ error is the copying procedure from another set of notes or statement other than his own rough notes. If Round had originated his own document, he would most likely have been aware of the ‘cheques’ vs ‘cheque’ issue and would have written ‘cheques’. However, when copying it is relatively easy, especially in a long or tedious document, to make small errors. Hancock also knew that there was more than one cheque and in fact writes ‘cheques’: if he had been copying from Round he would most likely have pointed this error out to Round, since it is a very important detail in the case that several cheques were used rather than one.

TEXTUAL PROVENANCE AND MODE An issue which has come up repeatedly in FDA is that of provenance and mode. While police officers claimed that statements such as those which featured in the Bentley case, or in the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four cases had been dictated, some Australian police officers of the 1970s and 1980s appear to have taken a more creative approach to the art of explaining the source of ‘confession’ statements. The first claim to consider, but one which would hardly merit investigation in the real world, is that which applies to the statements in the Mickelberg case. Here the officers claim that they took the suspects’ confessions and admissions down ‘verbatim’ in long hand. We can dismiss this almost immediately by noting Hargie and Dickson’s observation that whereas people ordinarily speak at a rate of somewhere between 125 and 175 words per minute (Hargie and Dickson 2004: 184), adult handwriting speeds generally average between 22 and 31 words per minute. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the average adult can take down conversation verbatim for any length of time. The officers in the Mickelberg case appear to have attempted to overcome this difficulty by proposing an entirely novel way of text construction, which I have provisionally termed ‘sequential transcription and turn’. According to the officers’ testimony at trial the method works like this: The officer conducting the interview asks a question. The suspect does not answer it until the scribe (another officer) has written down the question. Only once the question has been written down does the suspect answer the question, which the scribe in turn writes down. If the scribe cannot keep up with the conversation s/he asks the interactants to repeat or to slow down. I consider this method entirely implausible and linguistically naïve. It not only reinforces the much discredited, speaker–hearer model of the 1960s, but it also proposes, in effect, that speech is not interactive, but sequential, which it rarely is. In general, people do not wait until someone finishes speaking before answering. Interruptions are not only commonplace in conversation – they are almost inevitable at one or more stages in the conversation. One aspect of police interviewing is to test the suspect/witness’s reaction to a question or the mentioning of some event or person involved in the enquiry. Using the method of sequential transcription the officer cannot ‘surprise’ the suspect with a question. The suspect would have to wait until the scribe

342

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

officer had finished writing before answering. This would be a severe disadvantage to the police officer because the suspect would have considerable time to formulate an answer. When we ask someone a question, the likelihood is that they will understand the question before we have finished asking it. In many cases they will want to answer it even before we have finished asking it. Humans process speech at a very high rate. It is not natural for speakers to wait twenty or thirty seconds before they can answer a question. One implication of this model is that the officer prepares the next question while the suspect is answering and the scribe is writing down the answer. In other words, the implicit claim is that the entire interrogation is planned beforehand. However, following questions are often based on current answers and so the officer’s ability to plan is much less than the model suggests. I suggest the method of sequential transcription proposed here would be as linguistically disorienting to officers as it would to interviewees. All in all, this method of interviewing has little linguistic credibility and I suspect few linguists would believe that any of the statements were produced in this way.

WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ROYAL COMMISSION INTO POLICE CORRUPTION In 2002, a Royal Commission was formed to investigate corruption in Western Australia’s police service. At this commission police officers, under the protection of anonymity, testified that they had verballed suspects on many occasions and, also, that they had perjured themselves on many occasions. One officer admitted to having altered evidence in the Mickelberg case. In another hearing, Sergeant Anthony Lewandowski admitted that he and Detective Sergeant Don Hancock had assaulted Peter Mickelberg. At the Royal Commission hearings several officers described how they would make their verbals appear more realistic. One officer would engage the suspect in friendly conversation in order to acquire an understanding of their speech habits, mannerisms, hobbies, topics of interest and information about their families. This information would then be used to construct a statement, that is, to verbal the suspect. In some parts of the Western Australian Police, according to several of those who testified, promotion was sometimes dependent on the officer’s willingness to verbal and – on occasion – to assault suspects. In an affidavit regarding his part in the Mickelberg case, Lewandowski stated, inter alia, ‘The statements we made up were based on later information …’ and ‘Don [Hancock] and I just sat around adding in what we reckoned we needed ….we thought we’d lose Brian [Mickelberg] because we didn’t tell enough lies … all the … evidence in relation to the so-called confessions of Peter … Raymond … and Brian Mickelberg … was false. The statements were fabricated by Don Hancock and myself sometime in early September 1982’ (WA Police Royal Commission, 2002: Section 3.8 The Practice of verballing).

CONTEMPORARY INTERROGATION METHODS There is a general perception among lawyers that since the advent of audio and video recording of police interviews, linguists and other professionals need not trouble themselves any longer with issues of verballing or other forms of evidence tampering,

FORENSIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

343

including oppressive interviewing. However, despite the undoubted benefits of audio and video recording to the interview process, there still remain three areas of concern: (i) Transcription: Not all police interviews are transcribed in full – many are summarized by police typists who have little or no training in linguistics. It is rare that an interview tape would be played in court, and it is thus very often the case that the only record of interview presented to juries is an interview summary. In my experience, solicitors very seldom take the trouble to check these summaries, or even to discuss them in any depth with their clients. However, legal professionals need to be mindful that even though everything may appear to be above board, the document that is being produced is still an institutional police version of events and may be wittingly or unwittingly slanted against defendants. In a recent case the officer conducting the questioning asks the suspect how long he had been in possession of a particular vehicle. The suspect replies: ‘Not long’. In the summary this is rendered as ‘X denied that he had possessed the vehicle for a long time’. Shortly thereafter the suspect is asked if he was at a certain address on a particular date. He says ‘No, I wasn’t. I was at … ’ and names another place and an alibi. The alibi is not mentioned in the summary. All that is stated as ‘X denied that he had been at ….on the date in question’. The use of denied in this way can be particularly injurious to a defendant in court. If the summary is read out in court, a succession of apparent denials may lead a jury to think that the witness was lying, being uncooperative or simply being evasive (see Newbury and Johnson (2006) for examples of interview resistance strategies). It is therefore very important that solicitors check summaries against interview tapes in order to ascertain that a fair summary has been made, and that the defendant’s words have not been (un)wittingly misrepresented. (ii) Discursive paths to consent in police interviews: In cases where the actual language spoken in a police interview is not at issue because a recording is available, conversation analysis (see Waring this volume) has proved useful in demonstrating the nature of the interaction. Heydon (2005) has contributed much in this area. In one interview Heydon notes that the officer is able to produce agreement to a proposition. The officer begins by asking the suspect whether there was any reason for the assault he has (allegedly) carried out on his girlfriend: Officer: Was there any reason why you had to treat her this way at all? Suspect: It was a combination of things you know. I didn’t like the fact you know here I am going out with a girl and she jumps into bed with one of my so-called mates. (see Heydon (2005: 142) for the original CA mark-up of this text). As Heydon points out the officer implies by the use of ‘any reason … at all’ that no reasonable explanation for such behaviour exists. Hence, whatever explanation the suspect may produce has already been signalled to be inadequate. This is borne out by the officer’s reply to the above, where he says: Officer: OK well regardless of that may have been the case … not to say whether that might have been the case, do you agree that that warranted your actions by dragging her out by the arm, pulling her by the hair, forcibly removing her from the house? Suspect: No. (Heydon 2005: 142).

344

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Excerpt from a police interview. The turn beginning ‘ … regardless of that may have been the case … ’ functions, as Heydon notes, to ‘deny the relevance of the suspect’s contribution’ and, further, the officer then systematically ‘discards [the suspect’s] reasons why he assaulted … ’ the victim. In this way, the officer produces a version of events which disregards the suspect’s version. Although the suspect is able, in a limited way, to initiate topics, the officer is able to ignore them and to produce the final ‘favoured’ version (Heydon 2005: 142). Cooke (1996) points out that questioning techniques are culture-specific and cites examples of how Aboriginal witnesses and suspects are unable to cope with the legal process because narrative, rather than the question–answer format, is their natural discourse style. He gives a chilling account of how, using a traditional interrogation approach, essential aspects of a suspect’s defence were not captured by police officers in their efforts to obtain a statement, as a result of which the suspect was charged with wilful murder. Without an appreciation of Aboriginal narrative culture, it is possible that many Aboriginal defendants will be unable to present a true picture of events and may be found guilty of offences of which they may be innocent.

CONSENSUS IN COURT It is not just in police interviews that legal institutions are able to manufacture consent. Several linguists have been working on courtroom discourse, in particular the discursive methods employed by barristers and attorneys in directing questions and controlling the information flow which is presented to the court. Lowndes (2007) presents a summary of some lawyerly methods. One in particular is that of propositional loading or stacking. This is the technique whereby a lawyer will present a series of questions and then ask for agreement at the end of them, often by use of a pseudo-tag question. The witness or defendant does not know what s/he is being asked to agree to. In this example from Lowndes, a barrister is cross-examining a medical expert witness regarding the injuries being claimed in a medical insurance case: Barrister: and he’s failed them because when asked formally to show a range of movements, he showed a restricted range but he’s been observed informally or in a different context he reveals that he can actually do all the things he says he can’t do. That’s what the tests show, isn’t that right Doctor? As Lowndes notes, ‘pseudo-tags can follow single or multi-propositional turns and it proved difficult for witnesses to gauge whether [the word] that was a substitute for the entire original question or referred to the final proposition only’ (Lowndes 2007: 308). It should also be noted that in the above cross-examination, the barrister is actually asking several questions or, rather, he is embedding several points into one question. An expert witness should not feel compelled to deal with multiple propositions in this way: an appeal to the judge to ask counsel to take these points one by one would be one way of dealing with this kind of strategy. See, for example, Baffy and Marsters (2015). Aldridge and Luchjenbroers describe how lawyers will use linguistic techniques to disempower witnesses, often with the object of portraying a witness under crossexamination as a sexually experienced individual, thereby turning the victim into an agent (Aldridge and Luchjenbroers 2007: 93).

FORENSIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

345

The twin strategies of degrading the victim to the status of a willing, skilled participant and reducing the rape or assault act, with all its attendant violence, to a consensual experience are common lawyerly tactics in rape and child sexual assault cases. The authors point out that, despite the many initiatives in the UK and elsewhere to protect vulnerable witnesses – especially rape and sexual assault victims (both adult and child) – lawyers are still able to exploit language structures and lexical choices in order to effect their ends. In rape cases the social frame dictates that the victim is ‘respectable’ and that, ideally, the perpetrator is a stranger (Clark 1992, quoted in Aldridge and Luchjenbroers 2008: 90), whereas in child sexual assault cases, the child must be ‘innocent’ and entirely ‘inexperienced’. There is no penalty to the defence barrister for suggesting otherwise. Furthermore, rape victims must demonstrate not only that they are sexually respectable, but also that they resisted to the utmost the assault of their attackers. Part of the lawyer’s strategy is to represent anything less than the utmost physical resistance as consent (despite the fact that this may put the victim in severe danger), which is achieved through linguistic means and a reliance on stereotypical frames (Aldridge and Luchjenbroers 1992: 104).

SUMMARY The work reported in this chapter represents only a small sample of the kinds of areas in which linguists have been applying their knowledge of discourse to the forensic arena. Many other aspects of legal language have come under the microscope, including the wording of laws and statutes, the directions given by judges to juries, the nature of lawyer–client discourse in pre-trial discussions, the reporting of sexual crimes in the news media, the use of interpreters in asylum cases, to name but a few. I consider that the field of FDA is becoming well-served by a growing body of researchers who are applying fundamental linguistic knowledge and skills in order to bring all areas of language and the law under the microscope. This is evidently a healthy field of linguistic endeavour. At the same time more lawyers and judges are beginning to realize the potential value to the legal profession of linguistic expertise. Reason dictates the need for this kind of cross-discipline cooperation to become more extensive, in order to reduce abuses and to ensure that the legal systems of all countries can begin to live up to their frequent claims of due process, impartiality and universal fairness. This is the true task of FDA: in that respect, consider the current chapter to be an interim report.

KEY READINGS Baffy, M. and A. Marsters (2015), ‘The Constructed Voice in Courtroom Cross-Examination’, The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 22, 2: 143–65. Coulthard M. (1994), ‘On the Use of Corpora in the Analysis of Forensic Texts’, The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 1 (1): 27–43. Lowndes, S. (2007), ‘Barristers on Trial: Comprehension and Misapprehension in Courtroom Discourse’, The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 14 (2): 305–8.

REFERENCES Aldridge, M. and J. Luchjenbroers (2007), ‘Linguistic Manipulations in Legal Discourse: Framing Questions and “Smuggling” Information’, The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 14 (1): 85–107.

346

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Aldridge M. and J. Luchjenbroers (2008), ‘Vulnerable Witnesses and Problems of Portrayal: A Consideration of Videotaped Police Interviews in Child Rape Cases’, Journal of English Linguistics, 36 (3): 266–84. doi:10.1177/0075424208321205 Cooke, M. (1996), ‘A Different Story: Narrative versus Question and Answer in Aboriginal Evidence’, The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 3 (2): 273–88. Coulthard, M. (1992), ‘Forensic Discourse Analysis’, in M. Coulthard (ed.), Advances in Spoken Discourse Analysis, 242–57, London: Routledge. Coulthard, M. and A. Johnson (2007), Introduction to Forensic Linguistics, London: Routledge. Eades, D. (1988), ‘They Don’t Speak an Aboriginal Language, or Do They’, in I. Keen (ed.), Being Black: Aboriginal Cultures in Settled Australia, 97–115, Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Eades, D. (1995), ‘Cross Examination of Aboriginal Children: The Pinkenba Case’, Aboriginal Law Bulletin, 3 (75): 10–11. Fox, G. (1993), ‘A Comparison of ‘Policespeak’ and ‘Normalspeak’: A Preliminary Study’, in J. Sinclair, M. Hoey. and G. Fox (eds), Spoken and Written Discourse: A Festschrift for Malcolm Coulthard, 183–96, London: Routledge. Hargie, O. and D. Dickson (2004), Skilled Interpersonal Communication: Research Theory and Practice, London: Routledge. Heydon, G. (2005), The Language of Police Interviewing: A Critical Analysis, Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan. Newbury, P. and A. Johnson (2006), ‘Suspects’ Resistance to Constraining and Coercive Questioning Strategies in the Police Interview’, The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 13 (2): 213–40. Olsson, J. (2000), ‘Some Aspects of Dictation and Text Analysis’. Unpublished MPhil dissertation. University of Birmingham. Trinch, S. L. (2001), Review of Ehrlich, S. (2001). ‘Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent’, London/New York: Routledge. The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 9 (2): 2002, 239–45.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Discourse and ageing VIRPI YLÄNNE

INTRODUCTION The human life course is typically conceptualized as a series of transitions through stages, roles and age-specific challenges or milestones. These are based on, for example, biological and psychological maturation or societal/familial roles and responsibilities. Our daily interactions are full of age marking, with strategies of ‘age-telling’ and interactional and institutional displays and appraisals of life course positions. Ageing can be approached from different perspectives and age itself has different dimensions, although we tend to link it with chronological age. Social gerontologist Peter Laslett (1989) distinguishes between chronological, biological, social, personal and subjective dimensions of age. According to Laslett, whilst subjective self is more enduring and unchanging, personal and social ages change with individuals’ own or their environment’s assessments of the age reached, respectively. Similarly, Ginn and Arber (1995: 5–7) propose three ‘meanings of age’: chronological (calendar) age, physiological age (a medical construct of the physical ageing of the body) and social age (constructed by social attitudes to age-appropriate behaviour), which also includes ‘subjective perceptions (how old one feels)’. In sum, Laslett’s and Ginn and Arber’s categories suggest that age categorization by self and others is a multi-determined process. One way to gain access to these processes is to look at discourse about age and ageing in different domains and media. In this chapter, we will focus on the latter part of the lifespan – mid- to later life – from a discourse analytic perspective. Our main foci will be intergenerational talk and discursive construction of age identities. We will examine age and age identity as a discursive and context-sensitive accomplishment by providing examples from contexts such as family interaction and personal interviews.

DISCOURSES OF AGEING ‘Language is undoubtedly central to the lived experience of age and ageing, and age is as potent a dimension of social identity as gender, class or race’ (Coupland 2001: 185–6). Sociolinguistic studies on age have traditionally looked at age-related changes in language use, such as sound change in progress, in either ‘real time’ or ‘apparent time’. Age-grading, on the other hand, refers to differences within cohorts between two times (Chambers 1995, cited in Coupland 2001: 188–9). Linguistic change has been found to happen by new generations adopting features different from older generations, and hence sociolinguists have tended to focus on younger, rather than older cohorts and the notion of age has been linked with relatively fixed chronological age categories. Our focus here is

348

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

not on sound or linguistic changes in individuals as they age, but on how age is oriented to in interaction. Before looking at some such examples, I will briefly discuss current societal discourses of age(ing), which both reflect and constitute stereotypes and understandings of ageing and hence also relate to age construction in interaction. As Heinrichsmeier (2020) and many others discuss, there are two predominant discourses of ageing circulating in current Western societies. One is influenced by biology and views ageing as inevitable decline (e.g. Gullette 2015). This is reflected in the negative stereotypes of older adults as frail, physically weak, vulnerable, lonely and depressed, perhaps also ill-tempered and complaining. These are the qualities of many older characters traditionally seen in the media, for example. The decline discourse continues to frame, for example, public discourse that ‘others’ the older populations and conceptualizes them as a homogeneous vulnerable group. Very recently, this discourse has been criticized, for example, in relation to the UK government and press reporting in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The British Society of Gerontology issued a statement on 20 March 2020 at a time when guidance about social distancing and isolation was first issued. They said: We object to any policy which differentiates the population by application of an arbitrary chronological age in restricting people’s rights and freedoms … not all people over the age of 70 are vulnerable, nor all those under 70 resilient. Older adults are actively involved in multiple roles, including in paid and unpaid work … and providing vital care for parents, partners, adult children and grandchildren. Quarantining the more than 8.5 million people over 70 years of age will deprive society of many people who are productive and active and who can be a key part of the solution by supporting the economy, families and communities. The application of chronological age alone to demarcate vulnerable populations was argued to be not only arbitrary, but also ageist and discriminatory. It also exemplified the difficulty of determining who exactly is ‘old’. The second predominant current discourse of ageing is different, although also linked to the decline narrative in some ways. That is the discourse of ‘successful ageing’, which appears more positive in conceptualizing later life as a time of renewal and new opportunities (for a critique, see e.g. Timonen 2016). This ‘third age’ rhetoric is visible, for example, in advertising (e.g. Ylänne 2015) and in publications directed at affluent older consumers (e.g. Lumme-Sandt 2011). Although appearing to frame later life with positive qualities and imagery, this discourse resonates with neoliberal ideas of self-responsibility, in this case for one’s health and ageing, promoting an active late lifestyle in order to age ‘well’. Anti-ageing product marketing urges third age (and younger) consumers, especially women, to ‘combat’ the look of ageing, and hence links with the idea of ageing as a disease that can be resisted (e.g. Coupland 2009). The promotion of ‘ageless’, extended midlife-styles also pushes the boundary of ‘old age’ further to those in the dependent and vulnerable ‘fourth age’ (e.g. Gilleard and Higgs 2010). These discourses of decline and successful ageing provide older adults and others with potential models and resources for thinking about ageing and for identification, or distancing for that matter. Although we tend to think of age as a biological or a chronological category, age can also be contextually and interactionally defined and hence an area of interest to discourse analysts. In recent years, discourse analytic work has emphasized the constitutive role of language in lifespan identities, as embedded in various interactional, institutional or intergenerational sites.

DISCOURSE AND AGEING

349

RESEARCH ON AGEING AND IDENTITY Categories and formulations of age are made relevant ‘in implicit or explicit ways, as we position each other in lifespan implicative ways, or describe and account for our own and others’ actions in talk’ (Nikander 2009: 264). For Benwell and Stokoe (2006: 4), ‘who we are to each other, is accomplished, disputed, resisted, managed, and negotiated through discourse’. A case for a dynamic perspective on age identity has been made by interactional sociolinguists and cultural gerontologists (e.g. Angouri 2012, J. Coupland 2009, Featherstone and Hepworth 2005, Nikander 2009), who argue that age, like other aspects of our personal and social identities, can be approached as socially and discursively constructed. Although there is a biological basis for our chronological age that may set limits to such constructions, arguably biology cannot fully explain the ageing process, because it is ‘an interactive process involving social and cultural factors’ (Featherstone and Hepworth 2005: 355). As Gullette (e.g. 2015) points out, we are ‘aged by culture’. Interactive processes through which age(ing) can be negotiated in talk include age identification strategies of various kinds (e.g. Coupland, Coupland and Giles 1991, Nikander 2002). Coupland et al. (1991), for example, in a pioneering study in the 1990s of peer elderly and intergenerational face-to-face encounters, identified a range of ‘agecategorization processes’ and ‘temporal framing processes’ in talk, especially of the older participants. The former include ‘disclosure of chronological age’ (DCA, age in years), ‘age-related category or role reference’ (use of labels such as old, elderly, pensioner) and ‘age identity in relation to health, decrement and death’ (such as commentaries on one’s own ill health and declining abilities, termed ‘painful self-disclosure’ or PSD). The temporal framing processes comprise strategies that relate the speaker’s identity with a temporal perspective, marking them indirectly as ‘old’ (such as self-association with the past or commenting on historical change) (Coupland et al. 1991: 58–65). This research problematizes age as a predictive and deterministic a priori category in explaining behaviour (as in traditional variationist sociolinguistic studies, for example). Furthermore, Coupland et al. (1991) discuss the conversational context (participant turns) surrounding age implicative talk. For example, they found that in young-elderly encounters the younger participants (women in their thirties and forties) tended to elicit self-disclosure from the older conversational participant (e.g. ‘when were you widowed?’, ibid: 81) more often than the other way round, and moves that expressed sympathy (e.g. ‘oh dear’) towards a PSD often encouraged further disclosure (p. 95). Disclosure of chronological age (DCA) also displayed varied patterns. It might relate to the themes of ill health and decrement, where age telling functions as a rationalizing account of frailty. For example, one older participant said, ‘I’m I’m not very well these days too (.) I’m seventy this October so I I find I can’t do it so good’ (Coupland et al. 1991: 137–8). The DCA contributes to self-handicapping. Contrastively, DCA might have a disjunctive function, where it contributes to the speaker’s positive self-identification against normative expectations of immobility, for example. This happens in Example 1 (Coupland et al. 1991: 139) (see transcription conventions at the end of the chapter). Example 1 1. E1: well I lead quite a busy life although I’m eighty-six I’m not young (laughs) 2. Y1: 3. E1: I was eighty-six last May

[gosh you don’t look it!

350

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

E1 (older woman) is aligning herself with Y1’s (younger woman) active lifestyle – despite her age (marked with ‘although’) – resulting in positive self-appraisal, which is further affirmed by Y1’s compliment in line 2. It is likely that the older participants in these examples are responding to the interactional context of the surrounding talk, but also to societal normative expectations more generally, for example, regarding what constitutes being ‘good for my age’. The younger participants similarly were found to orient to social stereotypes about elderly lifestyles. Looking at interview data, Nikander (2002), on the other hand, examines how speakers at midlife apply, mobilize and manage descriptions of age, ageing and the life course. Her work focuses on how lifetime categories are used in interaction, and on how discursive moral buffers are mounted, typically when challenging or talking against one’s chronological age. For example, one interviewee, Laura (forty-nine years), defines her ‘childish’ behaviour as incongruent with her chronological age, but justifies it by claiming membership of a ‘little girl’ category, which is located in some ‘inner reality’ and carefully presented as a positive, active choice of preserving parts of the child within as an adult. Her identity construction, thus, manages to align with normative notions of age-appropriate maturity whilst simultaneously challenging them. It also displays the challenges in defining what constitutes and how to identify as ‘middle-aged’. Some more recent studies on age identity include, for example, those by Anderson (2019) and Heinrichsmeier (2020). Anderson examines ageing femininity by analysing how the ageing female body is represented in beauty and cosmetic advertising and lifestyle media, complemented by women’s personal narratives about their changing appearance. She demonstrates how in both kinds of texts ‘appearance remains the most significant index of ageing’ (p. 184). Both public and subjective gazes negatively evaluate the physical realities of ageing; critically documenting the discursive effects of this form of ageism is both topical and important (see also Coupland 2007). Relatedly, Heinrichsmeier analyses older women’s (aged fifty-five to ninety) interactions in an English hair salon. She examines the older women’s experiences of ageing and their orientations to their appearance via an examination of talk in the salon and in subsequent interviews. Both the haircare practices themselves that the women disclose, and their talk and interaction display negotiation of social norms of appearance for older women. This discursive negotiation entails tensions between desired identities for the speakers and those available that conform to accepted age-related norms.

INTERGENERATIONAL INTERACTION We have already touched upon intergenerational talk above. Some research in this area has examined potential miscommunication in such contexts from the perspective of Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), viewing intergenerational talk as intergroup communication (for a review, see e.g. Hummert 2019). CAT (e.g. Giles, Coupland and Coupland 1991) models how group identity processes may influence communicative choices. Accommodative (convergent) strategies are those that build solidarity, whereas nonaccommodative (divergent) strategies maintain and reinforce group distinctions. (Non)accommodative behaviour might be guided by stereotypes of the outgroup and result in overaccommodation or underaccommodation. The former exaggerates the perceived characteristics or needs of the outgroup member to such an extent that, from the perspective of the hearer, they ‘miss the mark’, constituting

DISCOURSE AND AGEING

351

‘convergence beyond the optimal’ (Hummert 2019: 134), whereas underaccommodation fails to meet the expectations or needs of the hearer. In intergenerational contexts, beliefs of the communicative needs of the (e.g. older) interlocutor, together with interactional goals (e.g. promotion of communication efficiency) and age stereotypes, might lead to miscommunication in the form of over- or underaccommodation. For example, in institutional settings such as carehomes, older residents have been found to be recipients of overaccommodative talk. The care staff’s (para)linguistic adaptations include features such as simplified grammar and lexis, slower and louder speech, intrusive and repetitive questions, as well as exaggerated praise and forms of address that infantilize the recipient (see e.g. Hummert 1994). ‘These adaptations are often well-intentioned efforts to communicate effectively with old individuals based on stereotypical assumptions about their communicative needs, but are viewed by many older people as patronizing and dissatisfying’ (Hummert 2019: 139). Such talk positions the hearer as lacking in competence and independence. The style might also be motivated by the speaker’s need to exert authority, but it could also be well-intentioned and heard as nurturing (and thus not overaccommodative) by some recipients. Underaccommodative talk might similarly be overly directive and characterized by interruptions, orders and imperatives, as well as not listening or ignoring the other verbally. Such communication is negatively judged if it does not fulfil the hearer’s communicative and interpersonal needs. Williams and Giles (1996) importantly point out that over- and underaccommodative talk (such as patronizing or not listening) is also experienced by younger people in intergenerational contexts. Grainger (e.g. 2004) investigated nurse–elderly patient interaction in a geriatric hospital setting. The data, collected via ethnographic observation, interviews and taperecording interaction demonstrate a conflict in the nurses’ talk between procedural (taskrelated) and personal (relational) goals (2004: 484). The institutionally imposed and time-restricted tasks often override relational goals, which in practice means that staff do not (have time to) engage in patients’ non-phatic talk, for example, as it might threaten the continuance of the task, such as washing or dressing. Relational and personal discourse does take place, but, Grainger argues, it serves institutional goals of task achievement. Furthermore, nurses’ seemingly nurturing discourse (with overaccommodative qualities) enables their task completion, but it might position the elderly patient as dependent, needy and sick, or encourage the patient’s own positioning as such. Patients’ troubles talk, in turn, is frequently met with nurses’ ‘deflection’ strategies that do not facilitate in-depth discussion about the trouble (such as pain), but instead only a superficial acknowledgement of it that saves face for the nurse in their role as a carer. This could be judged as underaccommodative by the patient. In this context, it is not only the patients’ age that is relevant, but also their institutional role as care recipient. However, even in contexts where independently living active older adults interact with younger adults, ageadaptive speech might occur. For example, Ylänne-McEwen (1999) observed strategies that can be deemed overaccommodative in travel agency interaction between younger staff and an older client couple. Intergenerational encounters, such as multigenerational family encounters, provide a fruitful context in which to observe interactional positionings in terms of age and, for example, related familial roles. Let us have a look at one such interaction, which took place during a family visit in the UK by mother, father and their teenage daughter, who were visiting the maternal grandmother.

352

THE BLOOMSBURY HANDBOOK OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Example 2 Irene (grandmother, aged 86); Louise (parent, female, daughter of Irene); Andy (parent, male, husband of Louise); Georgina (teenage daughter of Louise and Andy). The conversation took place in the winter during a particularly cold and snowy spell. 1. Louise:

so what have you done today then (.) stayed warm I hope=

2. Irene:

=yes (.) I’ve not been out (.) I did go down the garden and put some uh-

3.

uh stuff in the recycling bin=

4. Georgina: 5. Louise:

[.hhhh]

=you shouldn’t

6. Georgina:     [it’s too cold 7. Irene:      [but that was late this afternoon 8. Louise:

[it’s too icy=

9. Georgina: =it’s cold nan= 10. Louise:

=it might be black ice (.) you may not see it (.) slip over and not be able

11.

to get up

(about 5 minutes later the conversation returns to the cold weather) 12. Andy:

have you had to put the little fire on at all?

13. Irene:

[I haven’t actually because I’ve got the

14.

heating up and I’ve been sat with (.) stuff round me=

15. Andy:

=yeah=

16. Irene:

all the time (1.0) I do get cold sometimes (.) but then I am 86 (1.0)

17. Louise:

yeah we know mum (1.0) right (.) we’re gonna head off (.)

18. Irene:

okay=

19. Louise:

=remember don’t be going in your garden tomorrow

20. Irene:

okay (.) don’t worry

21. Louise:

but do make sure that you’re still getting up and walking around

22. Irene:     [oh I do= 23. Louise:

=and make sure you’re drinking plenty of like hot tea and coffee

24. Georgina:        [and Ribena 25. Irene:

oh I do (.) don’t worry

This interaction displays elements of potential overaccommodation by the mother, echoed by the granddaughter, in addressing the grandmother. In lines 5, 19, 21 and 23 Louise uses imperatives which have a somewhat regulative and controlling stance, constructing for Irene a vulnerable elderly age identity. The references to the weather conditions in lines 6, 8 and 9 imply that it is ‘too cold’ and ‘too icy’ for Irene, also positioning her as vulnerable, as well as functioning as negative evaluations of Irene’s behaviour. However, because Louise and her family frequently visit Irene and offer her their assistance, it can also be proposed that such potentially overaccommodative communication may have become normalized and, therefore, not be perceived as miscommunication but, instead, as

DISCOURSE AND AGEING

353

supportive and expressing concern for the grandmother’s wellbeing (Morgan and Kunkel 2001) – also perhaps implied in lines 10–11. This is also signalled by Irene’s repeated response ‘don’t worry’ (lines 20 and 25). Interestingly, Irene produces a disclosure of chronological age (DCA) in line 16, which might be a response to the preceding older age implicative discourse, and which seems to function as an account for age-specific needs, even if not for frailty as such (see Coupland et al. 1991 above). The DCA is dismissed after a one-second pause by Louise (‘yeah we know mum’), although it is not entirely clear whether this response primarily refers to the DCA, or Irene’s self-identification as someone who ‘gets cold sometimes’, which might be a frequent topic in these interactions, and therefore potentially judged as underaccommodative by the younger participants. This demonstrates how the overaccommodative/nurturing turns have an effect on the subsequent self-identification of the older participant. Whether the style was judged negatively or positively, the ageimplicative stance is taken up by the recipient, who is accommodating to the role in which she is positioned. This example shows how the experience of ageing and later life is lived through face-toface interaction. Although the CAT model stems from social psychology and intergroup theory, it can usefully inform discourse analytic and interactional sociolinguistic analysis of intergenerational conversations. In the sample study to which we now move, a different analytical model was used to investigate age implicative talk. That model is about speakers’ use of strategies in talk and interaction that do the work of membership categorization.

A SAMPLE STUDY This study, by Ylänne and Nikander (2019), focuses on how transition to and membership in the category ‘older parent’ (defined below) is managed in talk. It presents a case for studying stage of life categories (SOL) in interaction. Sacks (1992: 585) referred to SOL categories as positioned categories which means ‘that “B” could be said to be higher than “A,” and if “B” is lower than “C” then “A” is lower than “C” etc.’. As a collection of positioned categories (A