Download Social Text Analysis

Social Text Analysis
Social text analyses
examine the meanings
and uses of a given text.
Creating a Social Text
First, the researcher needs to identify a work or
works of interest.
 Second, from that work the researcher needs to
construct a text.
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– This process is called textualization.
– The researcher must remain faithful to the work.
Documents can be social texts.
 Enacted talk, transcribed, can be a social text.
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Transcribing Enacted Talk
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Qualitative researchers generally transcribe their
own work.
– Transcription is not a neutral activity
– The researcher becomes familiar with her data
through transcription
– The level of transcription will depend on the research
purpose.
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There are several principles guiding the
transcription process (Edwards, 1993).
– Principles of Category Design
– Principles of Readability
– Principles of Tractability
Communication Criticism
(Sillars & Gronbeck, 2001)
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Communication criticism describes a body of social
approaches to the study of public messages.
There are three processes involved in communication
criticism:
– Textualization
– Analysis
– Interpretation
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Some critical approaches include a fourth process,
judgment.
There are three families of communication criticism:
– The Rhetorical Tradition
– The Social Tradition
– Cultural Tradition
Discourse Analysis: Two Traditions
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A structural perspective approaches discourse
above the sentence level.
– For example, utterances, conversations, accounts
would be studied as discourse.
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A functional perspective approaches the “use” of
language.
– What are the functions and purposes of discourse?
– How is discourse situated in a cultural system?
Conversation Analysis
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A type of discourse analysis
The origins are in ethnomethodology.
The study of naturally occurring interaction
Issues to consider (Pomerantz & Fehr, 1997):
Select a sequence of talk for study
Identify the actions in the sequence
Identify how the actions are performed.
Identify how timing and taking of turns construct
certain understandings of the action.
– Consider how the actions construct certain identities,
roles, and relationships for the speakers.
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The Narrative Approach
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Meaning is constructed through stories.
Stories are structured by a beginning, middle,
and end.
Researchers examine the process of storytelling:
how a story is accomplished.
Researchers examine the form of a narrative,
such as the structure, characterization, and
narrative voice.
Researchers examine the content of narratives,
such as the themes and meanings.
Performative/Dramatistic
Approaches
Performance studies conceives
communication as performance.
 The researcher is both a tool for
understanding and performing.
 Communication is an embodied
performance – scholarship, then is
embodied.
 Researchers also examine the
performances of others.
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A Semiotic Approach
Semiotics is the study of the signification
process.
 Signification is the process by which signs
are conveyed with meaning.
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