10.15 Part 2: Discourse, discourse, Primary Discourse, Secondary Discourses, transcripts = and discourse analysis

Note: See the previous post for a summary of presenting the informed consent forms to participants.  This post lists the prompt for Blog 7 - the in-class writing you did on how you would present your project to participants.

We spent the middle part of class talking over James Gee's introduction to Discourse.  These were some of the observations we made during the discussion.

Literacy is connected to Discourse

Little d discourse is language in use

Big D Discourse includes beliefs, ways of thinking = a pattern for performing an identity

Dominant Discourse is the identity/ways of being/language  that is "enforced" by culture

Primary Discourse = values beliefs ways of relating to the world we learn as children

Discourse is not just what you say but how you say it

We learn secondary Discourses from school, media, work peer groups etc

You need to understand Discourse before you can research it

Our interpretations derive from our Primary Discourse

Your own discourse will influence the way you “hear” and “say” things = consciously and unconsciously

There is translation (difference) between languages – and between Discourses

School teaches Dominant Discourse

Transcripts – we hear what we expect

Style and structure are part of Discourse

Analysis of the gaming transcript.
Next we looked at a sample transcript, the Gaming transcript,  and made some observations about what was going on.  We noticed particular patterns in language use; repetitions, presence of particular language "moves" (such as the different ways B minimized his expertise, and Ch's persistence in focusing on connections between software and games= would counting the different ways these two speakers persisted in these moves help justify posing this opposition as a focus for the conversation?); the organization or sequence of the conversation (how statements set up the statements that follow); who spoke the most; who controlled the conversation; who asked questions, and so on.  Here is the marked up transcript we created in class.

We also went over the assignment sheet for the short analysis project.  This was to give you a heads up on the project - where we will be going.  The work we did in class on the Gaming transcript was practice for this project.  You will work on analyzing transcripts for your short analysis project next class.  We will also work on set up/doing interviews (handout distributed in class). 

We ended class by listing some communities/groups which have Discourses. Here is a list.

School

Most sports/games have Discourse communities (football, baseball, soccer, scrabble. . .)

Churches

Nationalities

Ethnicities

Professions (Doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, steel workers, farmers. . .)

Politicians – by party & positions within parties

Students

Gamers (online/game systems) by game genre or gaming group 

Music communities

Fan communities, including different fan fiction groups

Interviewers (for the news, for celebrities, for research, for jobs = all different discourses)

So, with all that in mind, this is what to do for next class.

Read: look through transcripts for Data Set 5 (posted to the right).  Review what we did to analyze 5-1 ( the gaming transcript).  Think about which of the other two you would like to use for your Short Analysis project. 

Blog 8: Pose a research question about what is going on in the Gaming transcript.  Do your best to ask a question that will allow you to discuss criteria requested on the Short Analysis Assignment Sheet.   List/point out the evidence from the transcript that you will use to develop your answer.  (One important criterion for a good research questionis that it is a question your data set can answer. That is, there needs to be evidence in the data to support an answer.)