|
|
Course
Description
Educ 794D Discourse Analysis
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) focuses its inquiry on questions
of power, ideology and hegemony through a recursive exploration
of text and context (e.g., local, institutional and societal
domains). Our course provides participants with a working
knowledge of CDA and its application to ethnographic and qualitative
research in education and related fields (e.g., sociology,
communication and political economy). Specifically, the course
begins by providing participants with a brief historical overview
of the genesis of CDA and a dialogic exploration of what the
terms ‘critical’ and ‘discourse’ mean
for this particular course. Secondly, the course provides
participants with an understanding of systemic functional
linguistics as an analytic tool for CDA: how this approach
can be used to highlight interconnections between social systems
and social events. Thirdly, the course affords participants
the opportunity to apply CDA to their own research. The instructors
use their own working analyses of reading policies in No Child
Left Behind legislation and genre-based pedagogy in ELA classrooms
throughout the course to illustrate their approach. Using
a seminar format, participants will 1) discuss selected readings
on CDA methodology, specific theoretical constructs, and published
CDA analyses used in ethnographic studies; 2) engage in collaborative
and recursive analyses of texts from ongoing research projects
3) and use the course website as a resource to guide and deepen
their own specific areas of interest. These activities will
help participants develop a deeper understanding of how CDA
can be used to construct systematic, insightful and powerful
interpretations of dominant and subaltern discourses in social
research. A basic understanding of linguistic features of
text, particularly of syntactical components (e.g., subject,
verb, object patterns; mood; subordination; modality) is assumed
but resources will be available for those who feel they need
a more in-depth review.
Enduring Understandings:
1. Grammar provides language users with a dynamic set of choices
to be used for different social purposes and audiences (versus
a static set of rules to be followed)
2. Cultural parameters (e.g., genres and registers) constrain
and enable the range of choices
3. Texts and discourses have material effects on reality.
Critical discourse analysis explores ways in which broader
cultural ideologies are invoked in local social events (e.g.,
classroom interaction) and why certain form-functions are
privileged over others (patterns of language use etc). As
such, SFL and CDA are conceptual and analytical tools that
can provide a means to make visible the cultural assumptions
and “commonsense” values in texts and discourses.
|
