What is Discourse Analysis?

Stephanie Taylor
The Open University
What is discourse analysis?
(1) The study of well-established meanings or ideas around a topic
which shape how we can talk about it

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What is discourse analysis?
(1) The study of well-established meanings or ideas around a topic
which shape how we can talk about it
e.g.
discourses of education, discourses of health and illness

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Discourses of nation-state or nation:

England? Britain? The UK? Europe?

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Discourses of nation-state or nation:

England? Britain? The UK? Europe?

Different terms have different definitions and different consequences

(e.g. who is included).
Discourse is material

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Possible problem:
Too static?

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What is discourse analysis?
(1) The study of well-established meanings or ideas around a topic
which shape how we can think and talk about it

(2) The study of how meanings are established, used, challenged

and changed (including in talk)

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 The study of how meanings are established, used,
challenged and changed (including in talk)

(i) Over time (genealogical study Foucault)

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 The study of how meanings are established, used,
challenged and changed (including in talk)

(i) Over time (genealogical study Foucault)

(ii) In ordinary life (discourse practices)

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Analysing discourse practices around nation and national
identity
flagging the nation Michael Billig (1992)

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Analysing discourse practices around nation and national
identity

football wise we can mix it with anyone. But first and foremost
were a very proud country and weve got to go out there wanting to
win.

John Terry, England player, quoted in The Observer 20.06.10

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Analysing discourse practices around nation and national
identity

football wise we can mix it with anyone. But first and foremost
were a very proud country and weve got to go out there wanting to
win.

John Terry, England player, quoted in The Observer 20.06.10

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Analysing discourse practices around nation and national
identity

football wise we can mix it with anyone. But first and foremost
were a very proud country and weve got to go out there wanting to
win.

John Terry, England player, quoted in The Observer 20.06.10

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Jackie Abell, Susan Condor, Robert D. Lowe, Stephen
Gibson and Clifford Stevenson (2007)
Who ate all the pride? Patriotic sentiment and English
national football support
Nations and Nationalism 13 (1), 2007, 97116.

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Analysing discourse practices around nation and national
identity
Charlie: Im English. Its in the blood, you cant help, its in
the blood.
Jackie: And that gives you certain characteristics that make you
C: It does. It makes you shave your head, put a bit of weight on (laughter) and watch
football.
.

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Analysing discourse practices around nation and national
identity
J: Do you think you can choose to be English?
C: I think they had more of a sense of Englishness say earlier on, in the,
well from the day dot all the way up to say the 1970s. They had more
of a sense of being English than they have now because its such a
multi-racial society, that people who are being brought into it dont
have as much value of where they come from than what they used to
have. And the way we see it, well I see it, a few of the lads and that,
on St Georges day, were just trying to keep alive, you know, the
theme if you like, of where we are.
.

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Analysing discourse practices around nation and national
identity
J: So if youre of a different race then youre not English?
C: (1) You mean like
J: If youve got Pakistani parents but you were born here, are you English?
C: No, youre Pakistani.
J: Why arent you English?
C: Cos your parents are Pakistanis.
J: So if your parents had been Welsh and youd have been born here
C: Id have been Welsh.
J: Youd be Welsh?
C: Yeah.
J: So its not on where you were born, but on where your parents were born?
C: No. Its blood, its blood int it? (Abell et al, 2007, pp.101-2)
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Two assumptions:
1) support for the England team follows naturally from a sense of
pride in a distinctive English national identity
2) English national identity is naturally and inevitably a function of
personal and collective ancestry
(Abell et al, 2007, p.102)

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Multiple, overlapping discourses:
Int: Where do you feel most at home then?

P: I think feeling at home is is a hard job for me but I think in I think about it a lot cos I
think [townname] is is the place ah Cos Ive been here so long Ive been here longer
than anywhere else um and have so much in my own history now attached to
[townname] um but its hard to say that it its home because you know or that I
belong because my early history wasnt in [townname] as (.) not many peoples was
um But as I say there are no there are no theres no family no extended family there
are only relatively recent friends you know Anyone over the last twenty years um

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Summary
What is discourse analysis?

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Two definitions:
(1) The study of well-established meanings or ideas around a topic
which shape how we can talk about it
(2) The study of how meanings are established, used, challenged
and changed (including in talk)

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Why analyse discourse?
To understand our social worlds and their complexity
To understand the implications of certain meanings and world views
To understand ourselves within our social worlds

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What kinds of data?
Language data (written, spoken - found, collected)
Other kinds of evidence (images, behaviours, situations found,
collected)

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Criticisms of discourse analytic research:
Deterministic? (But also about how meanings are used and
contested)
Just words? (But discourse is material)

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Why do discourse analysis?
Varied possibilities
Interesting
About people and their social worlds

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Dr Stephanie Taylor, The Open University
s.j.a.taylor@open.ac.uk

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