1. Social Research Methods
Alan Bryman
Social Research Methods
Chapter 22: Language in Qualitative research
Slides authored by Tom Owens

2. Language and social research
Knowing how words are used and the meanings of specific terms in the local vernacular (or `argot') is crucial to an appreciation of how the social world being studied is viewed by its members
The two approaches examined here treat language as their central focal point: conversation analysis (CA) and discourse analysis (DA)
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3. What is conversation analysis?
Conversation analysis (CA) is the fine-grained analysis of talk as it occurs in interaction in naturally occurring situations.
The talk is usually recorded and transcribed so that the detailed analyses can be carried out.
These analyses are concerned with uncovering the underlying structures of talk in interaction and as such with the achievement of order through interaction.
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4. Assumptions of CA Speech is seen as action that ‘does’ something
Focus is on the ‘here-and-now’ context of talk
avoid making extraneous inferences
Heritage (1984, 1987)
talk is structured by tacit rules
talk is forged contextually
analysis is grounded in data
The specific details of conversational interaction cannot be ignored
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5. Some basic tools of CA: 1 Notational symbols Turn-taking
We:ll - prolonged sound
.hh - intake of breath
(0.8) - silence for 0.8 seconds
Turn-taking
Adjacency pairs
question and answer
invitation and response
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6. Some basic tools of CA: 2 Preference organization Accounts
one response preferred to the other (e.g. acceptance/refusal)
dispreferred response has to be justified
Accounts
justifies action by reference to common values
Repair mechanisms
response to unexpected speech acts
restores interaction to normal appearances
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7. What is discourse analysis?
All forms of linguistic communication
Discourse is constitutive of the social world
frames the way we perceive reality
creates objects of knowledge
Anti-realist epistemology
Constructionist ontology
What are people trying to accomplish when they use particular discourses?
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8. Three basic discourse-analytic questions
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9. Four themes in discourse analysis
Discourse is a topic, not just a resource
Language is constructive
Discourse is a form of action
Rhetorically organized
establishing one version of the world in the face of competing versions
Gill (2000)
Thinking deeply 22.1
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10. Uncovering interpretative repertoires
General resources used to construct discourse and enable the performance of certain acts (Potter & Wetherell, 1994)
e.g. Gilbert and Mulkay’s (1984) found separate empiricist and contingent repertoires of language used by scientists, depending on whether they were presenting their work in scientific papers or discussing it more informally with the researchers.
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11. Producing facts
Discourse analysts are interested in the ways that allegedly factual knowledge is conveyed
Potter et al (1991) studied the making of a television documentary ‘Cancer: Your money or your life’ (Channel 4, April 1988)
They used the following methods:
Looking for rhetorical detail
Use of variation as a lever
Reading the detail
Looking for statements of credibility
Cross-referencing discourse studies
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12. Critical discourse analysis (CDA)
CDA emphasizes the role of language as a power resource that is related to ideology and socio-cultural change
CDA tries to reveal the meaning of a phenomenon by asking:
why something seems to mean something different now to what it meant 40 years ago; how one discourse influences another; how discourse is constructed through academic or journal articles; how discourse makes certain activities possible, desirable or inevitable;
how some people use discourse to legitimate their positions and actions
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13. Overview of Discourse Analysis
More flexible than Conversation Analysis in looking beyond immediate context of talk
Growing in popularity
Anti-realist position leads to a criticism of being too abstract
The term itself – ‘discourse analysis’ – may be too broad to be meaningful
Overall, understanding how language is used may be crucial to understanding the social world
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