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The
Toolbox, an overview
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The Discourse Analysis Toolbox has the following
major categories:-
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1
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Detailed examination of the
chosen discourse strand. In my example. I examine a
single document - the UK Government 'aims and objectives'
strand for environment, food and rural affairs, for
2001. This strand can be examined for the discourse
themes, planes, positions, synchronic and
diachronic factors. I describe these theories in greater
detail here, and describe
more of the nature and mechanisms of discourse here.
Larger corpora of material can also be examined |
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Relationship with other discourses. For
example, my text refers to society, economics and food
in a variety of ways, and forms a relationship to these
other discourses which can be analysed |
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3
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The Author(s). Who is the author of the text, and
what is their identity ?
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4
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The Reader(s). Including the Imaginary
Reader |
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5
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The Actor(s). Who (if anyone) are mentioned
as able to take action, and how are they referred to
(and what does this reveal about the way the author
thinks ?) |
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Actions and Threats of Action. Are any
actions promised by the authors, and are any actions
expected or threatened form any other source ? See here |
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The dispositive. For more about the dispositive,
see here |
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8
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Power dynamics. Who has power in this
general field, and how is it expressed and referred
to ? |
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Global Trends. Some authors have developed
hypotheses of global trends, such as the 'new managerial
discourse', or the 'new politics'. Can these or any
other ideologies be detected in the passage |
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Internal Syntax and Dynamics. Is the text
a Site of Struggle,
or are any other Patterns operating within it,
such as Repetition.This
section also includes the Situation
Analysis |
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Presentation and Structure. Are there
any interesting factors in the physical presentation
of the text - colours, typefaces, location in other
documents, etc. |
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Ideational. How is the thought of the
author transformed into the message s/he has communicated.
What can we infer (guess) about the what the author
was trying to do ? |
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Purpose. What is the overall purpose of
the text ? |
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Not all of these tools are useful in every circumstance,
but if a text is systematically examined using the
full set of tools, interesting information can be
extracted from it.
In the box to the right, I have indicated links to
the pages where I have used the individual tools,
and also to a cross-reference to the complete text.
The results of the analysis using the tools are on
my Food Policy
site, which focuses attention on issues of food
and food production.
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Notes:-
- Critics might say that the tools I have proposed are
common-sense and/or routine elements of semantics (or
"reading between the lines"). I can hardly deny
that, except to add that they are much improved by systematising
them and using them in a rigorous way that I propose.
This attempts to remove them from the realm of commentary
and criticism to bring them into the realm of analysis,
and this is one of the key aims of CDA. Additionally,
using a discourse perspective opens the potential for
a deeper analysis.
- In any case, a discousre analysis can never be purely
impartial - the analyst may try to be impartial, but their
assumptions and experience will influence their findings
(as an example of this, my direct experience of industrial
production means I understand the implications of this
differently to someone without this experience - tool)
- I am not in favour of campaigning and criticism. My
intention is to use these tools to understand "what
was in the mind of the author" so that better communication
can be established, and the author might be helped to
understand the advantages of other approaches. It is not
a "point-scoring" approach.
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Please contact me if you are interested in using my services.
(0044)(0) 1372-749803
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A website from  |
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