Context is/as Critique
Critique of Anthropology March 2001, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 13-32(20)
Blommaert J. Ghent University, Belgium

In this article the treatment of context in two schools of contemporary discourse analysis - Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Conversation Analysis (CA) - is discussed. Starting from the observation that critical trends in discourse analysis identify the intersection of language and social structure as the locus of critique, I first qualify the treatment of context in some CDA work as largely backgrounding and narrative. Contextual information that invites critical scrutiny is often accepted as 'mere facts', framing the discourse samples analyzed in CDA. On the other hand, context is reduced to a minimal set of observable and demonstrably consequential features of single conversations in CA, and 'translocal' phenomena are hard to incorporate in CA analyses. Both treatments of context have severe defects, and in the second part of the article I offer three sets of 'forgotten contexts': contexts that are usually overlooked in critical discourse studies but that offer considerable critical potential because they situate discourse deeply in social structure and social processes. Using data from an ongoing project on narrative analysis of African asylum seekers' stories in Belgium, I discuss linguistic-communicative resources, 'text trajectories' (i.e. the shifting of text across contexts) and finally 'data histories' (i.e. the socio-historical situatedness of 'data').
Keywords: asylum seekers; contextualization; discourse analysis; interpretation; methodology; narrative
Full text available at umass e-journals http://www1.tdnet.com/frames.asp
(Type name of journal and then look for full text article).
Full text here (class members only)
Back to top

Discourse and Critique: Part One
Blommaert, Jan
Collins, James; Heller, Monica; Rampton, Ben; Slembrouck, Stef ; Verschueren, Jef
Critique of Anthropology; Mar2001, Vol. 21 Issue 1, p5,

Abstract: Focuses on critical discourse analysis and linguistic anthropology. Relations of language, ideology and inequality; Links between language, discourse and social process; Role of critique and
anthropology in the nature of discourse.
Full text available at umass e-journals http://www1.tdnet.com/frames.asp
(Type name of journal and then look for full text article).

Explanation, Interpretation and Critique in the Analysis of Discourse.
Slembrouck, Stef
Critique of Anthropology; Mar2001, Vol. 21 Issue 1, p33,

Abstract: The first half of this article offers an assessment of critical discourse analysis, as developed since the 1980s and understood at the time in terms of a much-needed departure from predominantly
descriptive modes of linguistic enquiry which prevented an adequate thematization of power, inequality and ideology. In this review I draw attention to some enduring tensions in the model's aspirations between
(1) being an interpretative mode of enquiry which inevitably adopts a discourse participant's point of view, (2) offering social-theoretically informed explanations of discourse which overcome limitations inherent
in a participant's outlook and (3) formulating an interventionist programme of emancipation which prioritizes dialogue with institutional members. With an eye to relieving some of these tensions, I explore, in
the second half of my article, what might be gained from a dialogic confrontation with reflexive research traditions within linguistic anthropology. In particular, recent work on the 'natural histories of discourse' takes the situatedness of entextualizations of discourse-in-context as one of its main forces of enquiry.
Full text available at umass e-journals http://www1.tdnet.com/frames.asp
(Type name of journal and then look for full text article).
Back to top

Concepts, context and discourse in a comparative case study.
Carmel, Emma.
International Journal of Social Research Methodology; Apr99, Vol. 2 Issue 2

This paper examines the methodological issues encountered in a comparative case study, which investigated how discourses shaped and legitimated policy maintenance and policy change in Germany before and after unification. The research strategy involved discourse analysis of party political and parliamentary documents, integrating detailed textual and contextual analysis of the institutional framework within which discourses were articulated. The paper examines the possibility of using comparative case studies to
develop concepts, and reviews the relationship between concepts and context in qualitative comparative research. A critique is then offered of the process of analysis, ranging from the initial data analysis using
NUD*iST, to the re-contextualisation of the textual analysis, and the reintegration of context, theory and textual analysis in writing up the research.
Full text here (class members only)

This article appeared in Volume 5 (2) of The Semiotic Review of Books.
SRB Insights: Text and/or context? by Paul J. Thibault
Contends that texts are always created in and through their enactment in some social activity-structure. What is the relation of the text to the social activity-structure in and through which the text was enacted. performed. or produced? Concludes that language and the other semiotic resource systems do not provide a simple window on a given reality. Quantum physics (for example) has taught us to give up the notion that an object is localizable in a system of well-defined mechanical parameters (Prigogine and Stengers, 1985: 224). It is the interaction between the globally organized system of relations and the 'outside' which is relevant.
Full text here (class members only) or link to
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/epc/srb/srb/textcontext.html

Also see Resources page under articles

Bomer & Laman (2004) “Ways people continually put on different selves and assign roles to other people.” Read more details here
IN LIBRARY

Bomer, R. & T Laman (2004) Positioning in a primary writing workshop: Joint action in the discursive production of writing subjects. Research in the Teaching of English. Vol 38 (4), 420-466.
Full text available at umass e-journals http://www1.tdnet.com/frames.asp
(Type name of journal and then look for full text article).

Collins P. Storying Self and Others: The construction of narrative identity. Journal of Language and Politics, 2003, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 243-264(22) Full text

Dyrberg T.B. Right/left in the context of new political frontiers: What's radical
politics today? Journal of Language and Politics, 2003, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 333-360(28)
Full text

Hawkins, M. R. (1997). Positioning, power and the construction of knowledge in groupwork in a graduate second language teacher education course. Unpublished dissertation. University of Massachusetts. More

Inigo-Mora I.On the use of the personal pronoun we in communities. Journal of Language and Politics, 2004, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 27-52(26)

Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to show the existing relationships between the concept of community and the linguistic forms used to convey or even to manipulate it. First of all, the limits and restrictions of any form of community will be defined. Second, one specific form of community will be selected for analysis. The community chosen will be the Parliamentary community, and the linguistic form singled out for study will be the first person plural pronoun “we”. We will try to discover any type of relationship between (a) the scope of reference of this personal pronoun and (b) the intentions of the person who uttered it. In this way, we can see whether there is any connection between personal identity (in terms of inclusion/exclusion from a group) and pronominal choice. This could also lead us to the discovery of any possible strategic use of this personal pronoun.
Keywords: community, linguistic forms, manipulation, parliament, personal identity, pronominal reference (retrireve article through ILL)

Triandafyllidou A.; Wodak R. Conceptual and methodological questions in the study of collective identity: An introduction Journal of Language and Politics, 2003, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 205-223(19)
Abstract
Studying identity, be it ethnic, cultural, linguistic, national or regional, in the contemporary context becomes troublesome because the scholar is faced with a whole range of social and cultural forms that co-exist uncomfortably with existing definitions of social identity. Moreover, although identity has been a central concern in a number of disciplines during the past decades, there has been considerable disagreement regarding the methodological tools most suitable to study its formation and change. The aim of this Special Issue is to discuss the usefulness of the very concept as well as the main methodological tools suitable to analyse identity-related phenomena today. In this introductory chapter, we provide for a general definition of the concept and elaborate on recent theoretical and conceptual developments regarding the nature of identity in the sociological, discourse studies and social psychological literature. In the concluding section, we introduce the individual contributions presented in this issue. Keywords: discourse, methods, national identity, social identity
(retrireve article through ILL)

Back to top

Interactional Positioning and Narrative Self-Construction
Wortham, S. (2000). Interactional positioning and narrative self-construction. Narrative Inquiry, 10, 157-184.
Many have proposed that autobiographical stories do more than describe a pre-existing self. Sometimes narrators can change who they are, in part, by telling stories about themselves. But how does this narrative self-construction happen? Most explanations rely on the representational function of autobiographical discourse. These representational accounts of narrative self-construction are necessarily incomplete, because autobiographical narratives have interactional as well as representational functions. While telling their stories autobiographical narrators often enact a characteristic type of self, and through such performances they can become that type of self. A few others have proposed that interactional positioning is central to narrative self-construction, but none has given an adequate, systematic account of how narrative discourse functions to position narrator and audience in the interactional event of storytelling. This article describes an approach to analyzing the interactional positioning accomplished through autobiographical narrative, and it illustrates this approach by analyzing data from one oral autobiographical narrative.
Full text here (registered users only)

The discourse Production of Selves. In Wetherell, Taylor, and Yates 2001. p. 261-271

Bourdieu, P. and J. B. Thompson (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.
(Small portion of this text reproduced in Jarowski and Coupland. The Discourse Reader).

Other useful concepts: Althusser’s interpelation. Discourse writing us. Habitus etc.

Bourdieu, P. Language as Symbolic Power. In Jaworski, and Coupland. The Discourse Reader. 1999. p. 502-513

Foucault, M. The incitement to Discourse. In Jaworski, and Coupland. The Discourse Reader. 1999. 514-522. (power).

Dijk, T. A. v. (1998). Ideology : a multidisciplinary approach. London ; Thousand Oaks, Calif., Sage Publications. (to explore foundational chapters here).

Discourse Analysis as Ideology Analysis TEUN A. VAN DIJK
In n: C. Schäffner & A. Wenden (Eds.), Language and Peace . (pp. 17-33). Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishin,. 1995.
Full text on Web: http://www.discourse-in-society.org/teun.html
(look under download older work).

New Courant (English Dept, University of Helsinki), 4 (1995), 135-161.
Special issue Interdisciplinary approaches to Discourse Analysis , ed. by Eija Ventola and Anna Solin.
Full text on Web: http://www.discourse-in-society.org/teun.html
(look under download older work).

Discourse, Ideology and Context.
Folia Linguistica, XXX/1-2, 2001, 11-40.
Full text on Web: http://www.discourse-in-society.org/teun.html
(look under download older work). (His current view of ideology and discourse).

Lee, D. (1992). Competing discourses : perspective and ideology in language. London ; New York, Longman.(Personal Copy).
Ch. 6 Language and Gender

Hodge, R. Kress, G. In Wetherell, Taylor, and Yates 2001. p. 294-299.(Personal Copy).

Lemke, J. (1990). Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. Norwood: NJ, Ablex Publishing Corporation. Cp. 8 p. 183-210 Lays out the principles of Social Semiotics. Treats Social semiotics as a venue to affect change and enact social responsibility.

Halliday talks about Social Semiotics in several works.

Smagorinsky, P. (2001) If meaning is constructed, what is it made from? Toward a cultural theory of reading. Review of Educational Research. Vol.71 (1), 133-170.
Key Words: activity theory & cultural semiotics, meaning construction.
More on this article here

Smagorinsky (2001). (activity theory & cultural semiotics) Any construction of meaning-is thus necessarily located first in culture and second in the mind of the individual. And because the mind extends beyond the skin to include the tools of mediation through which the individual then acts on the environment, the mind of the individual, however distributed, in turn contributes to the evolving culture of the social surround. Among these mediators are texts themselves, transactions with which can contribute to the worldviews of members of a culture… [individuals construct] meaning through two related processes. Initially, meaning emerges through the process of articulation as sense achieves expression through the medium of a psychological tool. This process produces some sort of image, a newly constructed text, that provisionally serves as the repository of meaning. This text is protean, changing with new reflection on its form. Its articulated potential thus makes it available as a tool for new transformations. I would argue when a sign becomes a tool-when an exploratory, tool-mediated process leads to a representation that in turn leads to reflection and new evocations that, when articulated, generate further evocations, with the process potentially extending indefinitely-a new concept emerges. This process of concept development is at the heart of the construction of meaning. The richest meaning, then, comes through transactions that are most generative in the production of potent new texts. "If meaning is constructed, what is it made from"? the answer lies in the transactional zone and the kinds of processes and practices that readers engage in as they employ the associations they make with the text with their broader life narrative, generating new texts that in turn make that narrative more comprehensible in terms of the cultural and ideological drama that composes their life story and locates that story in a broader social community's political life. (Similar to Bakhtin’s position on dialogue).

Wertsch, James (2001) The multivoicedness of meaning. In Wetherell, M.; Taylor, S.; and Yates, S. (Eds). Discourse Theory and Practice: A reader. P. 222-235.
Uses Bakhtin notions of meaning as they inform Vygotskian approach to mediated action.

Egan-Robertson, A. (1998a). "Learning about culture, language, and power: Understanding relationships among personhood, literacy practices, and intertextuality." Journal of Literacy Research 30: 449-487.

Full text available at umass e-journals http://www1.tdnet.com/frames.asp
(Type name of journal and then look for full text article).
Full text here (class members only).

Also referred to as discourse historical method which aims at tracing the intertextual links and history of phrases and arguments. The method starts with original documents and is usually enhanced by enthnographic research.
Some examples are:
Wodak 1995
van Leeuwen & Wodak 1999

Context is/as Critique
Critique of Anthropology March 2001, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 13-32(20)
Blommaert J. Ghent University, Belgium

In this article the treatment of context in two schools of contemporary discourse analysis - Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Conversation Analysis (CA) - is discussed. Starting from the observation that critical trends in discourse analysis identify the intersection of language and social structure as the locus of critique, I first qualify the treatment of context in some CDA work as largely backgrounding and narrative. Contextual information that invites critical scrutiny is often accepted as 'mere facts', framing the discourse samples analyzed in CDA. On the other hand, context is reduced to a minimal set of observable and demonstrably consequential features of single conversations in CA, and 'translocal' phenomena are hard to incorporate in CA analyses. Both treatments of context have severe defects, and in the second part of the article I offer three sets of 'forgotten contexts': contexts that are usually overlooked in critical discourse studies but that offer considerable critical potential because they situate discourse deeply in social structure and social processes. Using data from an ongoing project on narrative analysis of African asylum seekers' stories in Belgium, I discuss linguistic-communicative resources, 'text trajectories' (i.e. the shifting of text across contexts) and finally 'data histories' (i.e. the socio-historical situatedness of 'data').
Keywords: asylum seekers; contextualization; discourse analysis; interpretation; methodology; narrative

Full text available at umass e-journals http://www1.tdnet.com/frames.asp
(Type name of journal and then look for full text article).
For full article click here (course members only) Also,

Literacy (go to Resources page. Look under Articles/genre)

Racism (go to Resources page. Look under Articles/identity formation/race). Also, for a comprehensive site that includes the study of racism see van Dijk's web page also, see his bibliographic compilation about Ethnic Minorities, Racism and the Mass Media.

Economic Discourse

Advertisement and Promotional Culture

Media Language

Institutional Discourse

| Key theoretical Constructs and Topics| CDA Theoretical Framework |
| Special Analytic Issues in Discourse Analysis | Further DA Bibliography | ACCELA Project | Other Links |