Ideology and how ideas (such as values and beliefs) are shared using language (like in political speeches).How people communicate in a specific context (such as in a social situation with colleagues versus a board meeting).Some form of power or inequality (for example, how affluent individuals interact with those who are less wealthy.Therefore, you may consider discourse analysis if you are researching: For example, you could look at the way that someone with more power (for example, a CEO) speaks to someone with less power (for example, a lower-level employee). The purpose of discourse analysis is to investigate the functions of language (i.e., what language is used for) and how meaning is constructed in different contexts, which, to recap, include the social, cultural, political, and historical backgrounds of the discourse.įor example, if you were to study a politician’s speeches, you would need to situate these speeches in their context, which would involve looking at the politician’s background and views, the reasons for presenting the speech, the history or context of the audience, and the country’s social and political history (just to name a few – there are always multiple contextual factors).ĭiscourse analysis can also tell you a lot about power and power imbalances, including how this is developed and maintained, how this plays out in real life (for example, inequalities because of this power), and how language can be used to maintain it. the purpose of your research) will heavily influence the right choice of analysis method.

There are many ways to analyze qualitative data (such as content analysis, narrative analysis, and thematic analysis), so why should you choose discourse analysis? Well, as with all analysis methods, the nature of your research aims, objectives and research questions (i.e. Discourse analysis goes beyond the literal meaning of words and languagesįor example, people in countries that make use of a lot of censorship will likely have their knowledge, and thus views, limited by this, and will thus have a different subjective reality to those within countries with more lax laws on censorship.

What makes discourse analysis unique is that it posits that social reality is socially constructed, or that our experience of the world is understood from a subjective standpoint. Basically, discourse analysis is used to conduct research on the use of language in context in a wide variety of social problems (i.e., issues in society that affect individuals negatively).įor example, discourse analysis could be used to assess how language is used to express differing viewpoints on financial inequality and would look at how the topic should or shouldn’t be addressed or resolved, and whether this so-called inequality is perceived as such by participants. We’ll dig deeper into these two above-mentioned approaches later.Īs Wodak and Krzyżanowski (2008) put it: “discourse analysis provides a general framework to problem-oriented social research”. While some forms of discourse analysis center in on the specifics of language (such as sounds or grammar), other forms focus on how this language is used to achieve its aims. This body of data could include a set of interviews or focus group discussion transcripts.

Now that we’ve defined discourse, let’s look at discourse analysis.ĭiscourse analysis uses the language presented in a corpus or body of data to draw meaning.

Overarching notion definition