DA post for 11.21.13

Discourse Analysis

Blog post for 11.21.13

 Hutchby and Wooffitt – Chapters 8-9

            At this point in the semester, everything I read is filtered through my lens of data analysis and what is relevant for that project.  Because of that, Chapters 8 and 9 were particularly helpful.  The section on Children’s talk connects to my work in Reading Recovery.   On page 194, H and W state, “… two types of research can be identified.  One type prioritizes the development of linguistic skills that children acquire on the way to becoming competent members of the surrounding adult language culture.  Much of this research draws on the empirical findings of developmental psychology.  The second type prioritizes the linguistic competence that children possess and manifest as part of their membership of the indigenous language cultures of childhood, which can be more or less independent of adults”.  I think in Reading Recovery, we think about the first more than the second, though there is attention given to the second.  In most of our students, we deal with the difference between the language the kid uses orally and independently and what “book language” and “school language” require of them.  Many of the students we serve are very far away in their use of sentence structure from book talk.  This is true whether the kid speaks a language other than English primarily, or if the student is from the mountains and speaks like parents, grandparents, cousins etc. who use very different types of phrases and words.  For both students, learning the literate language is a challenge and one that takes time to develop.   On 195, the authors reference a “developmental” framework that students pass through as they become more competent users of language.  In RR, we use a book/tool called Biks and Gutches – it offers several different diagnostic instruments to assess a student’s language competence.  The student is asked to repeat back a number of sentences that are said orally by the test administrator.  It is interesting to see what the child retains and what they omit from the provided sentence.  The child’s performance of the task helps teachers to select books.  For example, if the child consistently omits “is” - as in the sentence ‘Mom is driving’ and says only ‘Mom driving” (which is very common of inexperienced readers/language users) then a teacher may not select books with ‘is’ or she will know that this structure will take more effort for the child because it is not a part of their language structure.  This type of instrument assumes a developmental framework and encourages teachers to instruct just beyond a child’s independent competence.   

            On 197, the authors talk about the various environments that seek to “ensure changes in behavior by the child, or to manage and regulate children’s behavior” – this is definitely true in RR, where we are trying to change the rate of literacy acceleration of a child identified as at risk in terms of their literacy learning.  My entire interaction on the video that I am analyzing has as its goal to change J’s way of being literate.  This section made me think too of earlier discussions we have had about why educators are so concerned with change.  It is what we are supposed to do as teachers, so I think it is hard to let go of when we become researchers.

            P. 202 was especially relevant to my data analysis.  In this section, the authors are talking about repair instances of a speech impaired individual and a therapist.  This made me think of my video where the student I work with repairs his speech numerous times – there are several instances when he starts one way and then changes courses, or when he tries to find the appropriate label – “easy” (not hard) or “Grandfather” or “letters” or to ask a question about bold print.    I also take some time to figure out what speech sounds he can make “s” “O/W”.  I do this for instructional purposes which are known to me because I was the teacher in the video, sot it is hard to talk about these without referencing my rationale!   On page 205 the authors talk about how there may be implications from looking at speech difficulties and interactions around them to think about how they might be resolved or accommodated in family interactions.  The lesson framework in RR is designed to be an ongoing conversation between teacher and child as they negotiate various literacy tasks.

            I am continuing to think about Questioning in my data – I ask a lot of questions on the video.  J asks some questions.  With my questions, I know what I was after – so again, that makes it difficult to analyze without including my rationale.  But, I could examine the question and look at what happens next (next turn proof) to see how J takes it up.  If I say a question served as a prompt that called him to do something, then the accuracy of my analysis can be seen through how he actually deals with the question.  I do agree that I ask more questions than he does and that I am highly directive in my interactions – but, I am charged with teaching the child to read and within a relatively short amount of time.  Every time we read about teachers and their questioning, it seems like it is in a negative light, when it is actually what we are supposed to do (I think)…

            One of the features of the transcript that I am really interested in thinking about is how Jake uses ‘Let’s see”.  He says it a number of times in our lesson and it seems like it buys him some time to problem solve, or he is pausing, or he is backing me off a little or letting me know he is problem solving.  Over and over in the interaction, I praise him for thinking, so maybe he is letting me know he is thinking with his “Let’s see”.  Not sure yet, but am thinking about it.

Chapter 7 in H and W and Eight Challenges for Interview Researchers – Potter and Hepburn

            Both Chapter 7 and the article on interviews made a lot of the same points.  We read the article in Advanced Qual, so it was a nice refresher about the things that are often taken for granted in interview data – the biggest assumption being that people actually say what they think – that there is a definite link between the two. 

            I like how the chapter discussed the 3 different types of interviews and the shortcomings/strengths of each from a DA/CA point of view.  It sounds so ridiculous for an interviewer to ask questions in the same order, in the same way, without regard for what the person being interviewed is saying.  This made me think of scripted reading programs that are delivered “onto” the children with no regard for how the child is responding.

Discourse Analysis Means Doing Analysis: A Critique of Six Analytic Shortcomings – Antaki, Billing, Edwards, and Potter

            As I read this article, I was thinking about the articles I had read for my lit review.  I saw several of the shortcomings that were discussed within my articles.  The article on Coaching Discourse really did very little true investigation of coaching discourse.  The author quantified the “dominance” of the coaches by looking at how many turns a coach took.  Also, the author summarized the findings and talked about groups of issues that came up – roles and responsibilities, being the expert, and standardized testing.  This is the kind of summarizing that the authors of DA means Doing Analysis were talking about – it reduces the complexity of the actual language of the coaches and simplifies the participants’ words.   

            I find that when I am struggling to understand something, I will over quote – in time, as I write more and reflect more, I am able to explain the quotes or tie them into the context…but, an initial step for me is to include the quotes and ponder what they mean or what I want to say about them.  I thought it was interesting that over quoting was mentioned in this article.  I think of it as a step along the way to analysis.

            I really liked how the authors included the entire transcript and then went back to it when discussing the various critiques - an interesting way to demonstrate their points.

            Number 4 – The Circular Discovery of (a) Discourses and (b) Mental Constructs, made me think about what I would like to do with my data when J continually says “Let’s see”.  I would compile all of the quotations and then look at the contexts in which the phrase is used as a “discursive resource” – what is J doing when he says “Let’s see”?  What do I do when J says “Let’s see”? – do they have something in common?  Is there a pattern in when he consistently says, Let’s see?

            I liked this quote and want to include it somewhere in my paper… “Original analysis should seek to show how established discursive devices are used, in new sets of material, to manage the speakers’ interactional business.  What is required is to show what the feature does, how it is used, what it is used to do, how it is handled sequentially and rhetorically, and so on”  and “Good analysis always moves convincingly back and forth between the general and the specific.”

 The Generalizability of Discursive Research – Goodman

            Great points made in this article too – I liked how he talked about telephone answering behavior as following a set pattern and the work on invoking applause – there are certain features of language and conversation that are generalizable.  I heard on the radio the other day – it may have been NPR, that the utterance “huh” sounds the same and means the same thing in most languages – confusion, “what?” – I thought that was fascinating.  I thought of this as I was reading this article.   Article also gave a nice reminder about the idea of transferability.  I think we have talked about the idea of “vertical generalization” – which is about theoretical transferability across context – but I have never heard that term.  Have we discussed it before and I just blipped out?

            Nice reminder too about DAM and that in DP the focus is on action and not cognition…”social action refers to the interactional accomplishment that a piece of discourse brings about” – this also made me think about the “Let’s see”.

            The section about “existing prejudice to justify further prejudice” blew me away.  I had a very similar conversation with someone recently who as a gay parent said they would never encourage another gay person to be a parent.  I was speechless in the conversation (astounded at the internal homophobia) and it was like alarm bells went off in my head when I read this.  I was shocked at the discourse and didn’t know how to respond!    That was a personal response, but it was still very meaningful and helpful as I sort through what happened in that interaction!

Course Reflections

Of all the classes I have taken in my Doctoral Program, this one has been the most challenging and the most enjoyable.  The conversations and discussions in class were really good – very much in the spirit of a “seminar”.  The challenge and the enjoyment of this class have been one in the same.  The readings were challenging simply due to volume – there was so much, and building the time into my schedule to complete them all thoughtfully and blog about them well was tough.  At the same time, the readings held my interested and seemed to be well placed as I was doing my analysis or writing my lit review – there was much just in time learning for me as far as the reading go.  Some of the readings were incredibly dense!  I would read and reread and write about the reading, and still would not have a clue.  For these readings, the class discussion and your debriefing were particularly helpful.    The assignments were few but intense.  Doing the lit review of articles in my field was eye opening.  So many of them say they are doing DA, but really aren’t.  This was part of my critique, but would have been even more part of my critique had I read the Antaki article before I read the critique.   Conducting the lit review allowed me to think about how my potential study would fit, and how there truly is a gap in the literature.  The analysis is slow going – I am still working on it!  The class debriefings about the various discursive resources was helpful, as was the ongoing list that was kept to remind us of what we had read about and how we might apply it in our study.   But, the analysis is huge and even with all the instruction around it, I still find myself wondering if I am “doing it” right or approaching it in the right way.   It was helpful in class to hear that our attempt is but one attempt and there are several aspects of the discourse that might be interesting or relevant to a researcher.   I enjoyed the data sessions and got as much out of helping others with their data as I did with working with my own data – maybe even more because I wasn’t clouded by my own perceptions of my interactive data.  I wonder if it might be possible to include even more time in data analysis.  Not sure how this would be possible given the time constraints of the semester, but it would be helpful.  Perhaps this is what DART is for…

Atlas.ti – wow.  I think about where I was almost a year ago with Atlas, and the phrase “You’ve come a long way, baby” comes to mind.  I remember purchasing ATLAS and thinking “What in the world?” when I opened it up for the first time.   Now, I feel really comfortable with Atlas and look forward to using it for my comps and my prospectus and my dissertation work. I even felt comfortable enough to show my classmates how I used Atlas to code my lit review.  I remember seeing my Advanced Qual classmates using Atlas for a lit review and having no idea where to begin.   I am really thankful that I was able to learn about Atlas over the course of a year (Advanced Qual, Digital Tools, Discursive Psychology, and now in DA).  With each project I grew more competent and felt confident to use Atlas in ways that worked for me.   I do wonder what it would have been like to do a Digital Tools course and focus exclusively on Atlas ti – the entire class.  I know I could have used my DT projects to do this, but there were so many other things I wanted to think about and learn about. 

 I think that being forced to use Atlas was a good thing – we were gently forced though – many times it was stated that if it became too much we could let it go, but we were highly encouraged to keep at it.  I am glad I did.  I feel like I have a tool that will be really useful to me in the future with other projects.  I also find myself talking with professors about Atlas – my chair and I have been working on a project together, and I uploaded all of our readings into Atlas.  When we had our first discussion, I had coded all of the readings and could quickly reference a quote or a memo to elaborate on our conversation.  I think she was pretty amazed at the tool and she could see how the program wasn’t ‘coding’ anything for me – this was an assumption she came to the table with, and actually seeing Atlas in use showed her that it simply was not coding the data for me.  Another professor actually began to use Atlas because I was using it in my Advanced Qual class for a project we were working on together.  She went to an IT workshop to learn more, and attended an info session that you conducted.    I have had a really good experience with Atlas ti. and am really glad that I can use it well right now – I think it will be tremendously helpful with my upcoming projects and especially my dissertation.

 Thanks!  I am not sure what I will do next semester without a Paulus class…haven’t had that since my first semester of my program, and then I didn’t know what I was missing!