Explain the assumptions, theories and steps of discourse analysis.

 ASSUMPTIONS OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Theoretically discourse analysis is an interdisciplinary approach and has been widely used by the social scientists and cognitive psychologists. Some of the basic assumption of this approach can be outlined as follows:

Psychologists assume that the human behaviour can only be studied with objectivity that is, without involvement of any biasness or subjectivity of the researcher as well as the subject/people under study. However, this has been disputed – people, including researchers, cannot be objective. A researcher is very likely to hold some position (expectation, belief, or set of cultural values) when they are conducting their research.

Those expectations may be revealed while interpreting and explaining the events and experiences.

The approach also assumes that, reality is socially constructed. It is assumed in a scientific research that ‘reality’ can be categorised. The constructs generally used by psychologists like – personality, intelligence and thinking are explained as real and naturally occurring categories or events. However, the assumption ignores the fact that it is language which gives a shape to the categories and constructs we use. Since language is a social and cultural thing, our sense of reality is socially and culturally constructed.

It is also assumed that, people are the result of social interaction. In the scientific approach it is assumed that many of the constructs used are ‘inner essences’. That is to say that personality, anxiety, drives, and so on exist somewhere within our heads and our bodies and are revealed only when the individual socially interacts with others. However, it may be the case that many of these so-called essences are actually the products of social interaction.

THEORIES OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

There are numerous “types” or theories of discourse analysis. The various discourses has been explained or categorised on basis of several theories and approaches. Some of them are:

Modernism: The theorists of modernism were guided by achievement and reality based orientation. Thereby they viewed discourse as being relative to talking or way of talking. They emphasised that the discourse and language transformations are needed to develop new or more “accurate” words in order to describe new inventions, innovations, understandings, or areas of interest. Both language and discourse are now conceptualised as natural or real products of common sense usage or progress. Modernism gave rise to various discourses of rights, equality, freedom, and justice.

Structuralism: The structuralism theorists squabble that the human actions and social formations are related to language and discourse and they can be implicated or considered as systems of related elements. The approach believed that the individual elements of a system only have significance when they are considered in context to the structure as a whole. The structures can be defined as selfcontained, self-regulated, and self-transforming entities. In other words, it is the structure itself that determines the significance, meaning and function of the individual elements of a system. Structuralism has made an eminent contribution to the world of language and social systems.

Postmodernism: Unlike the approaches of the modern theory, the postmodern theorists examined and investigated the variety of experience of individuals and groups and emphasised more on differences over similarities and common experiences. Postmodern researchers insisted more upon analysing discourses as texts, language, policies and practices. In the field of discourse analysis, the most prominent figure was Michel Foucault. Foucault (1977, 1980) has defined discourse as “systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak.” He emphasised that the discourse analysis has a significant role in social processes of legitimating and power. Discourses can help researchers in emphasising the construction of current truths, how they are maintained and what power relations they carry with them. He later added that discourse is a channel through which power relations (for example– power relation between boss and subordinate, professor and students) produce speaking subjects and that power is an in evitable or unavoidable aspect. Foucault (1977, 1980) argued that power and knowledge are inter-related and therefore every human relationship is a struggle and negotiation of power. Discourse according to Foucault (1977, 1980, 2003) is related to power as it operates by rules of exclusion. Postmodernism was one of the mid- to late 20th century development and believes that the human mind is free from the constraints of tradition, belief, faith and tries to explore the furthermost horizons of human development.

Feminism: Feminists explained discourse as events of the social practices. They investigated the complex relationships that exist among power, ideology, language and discourse. They emphasised on the concept of ‘performing gender’. According to them gender is a property, not of persons themselves but of the behaviours to which members of a society ascribe a gendering meaning.

STEPS IN DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

The method of discourse analysis evaluates the patterns of speech, such as how people talk about a particular subject, what metaphors they use, how they take turns in conversation, and so on. These analysts see speech as a performance. The analysts or the researchers of the discourse analysis believe that the speech performs an action instead of describing a specific state of affairs or specific state of mind. Much of this analysis is intuitive and reflective, but it may also involve some form of counting, such as counting instances of turn-taking and their influence on the conversation and the way in which people speak to others.

The researchers collect and interpret information in the following steps:

i) Target orientation: First of all, the analysts need to know their target or focus of study. Since beginning, they need to think about the ways by which they will analyse and interpret data after collecting the information.

ii) Significance of data: Once the relevant information is collected, the researchers need to judge or examine the value of the collected data, especially those which may have come from more than one source.

iii) Interpretation of the data: As the research progresses the analyst needs to try to understand and interpret the data so that the researchers as well as others can gain an understanding of what is going on.

iv) Analysis of the findings: Finally, the researcher needs to undertake the mechanical process of analysing, interpreting and summarising the data collected. On basis of the analysis of the information, the findings can be summarised and concluded. There are many qualitative analysis programs available to social researchers that can be used for a variety of different tasks. For example, software could locate particular words or phrases; make lists of words and put them into alphabetical order; insert key words or comments; count occurrences of words or phrases or attach numeric codes. With the help of the software’s, the analysts or the researcher can retrieve text, analyse text and build theories. Although a computer can undertake these mechanical processes, it cannot think about, judge or interpret qualitative data.

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