Concrete "how to" discourse analysis references

[Ignasi Clemente]

Hi Jeff,

I have encountered your problem many times when applying for funding  
from NIH.  Here are some of my humble thoughts

First, use textbook definitions of everything, definitions of culture,  
ethnography, discourse, participant observation... pick up whatever  
textbook you have used to teach (or be taught) intro to cultural  
anthro or ling anthro at the undergraduate level and use them.

Second, Janice Morse and the journal she edits, Qualitative Health  
Research, is another good source of basic ways of explaining  
qualitative research.

Third, Denzin and Lincoln's Handbook of Qualitative Research is good.   
It contains a chapter written by David Silverman on analyzing talk and  
text.

Fourth, Duranti's Linguistic Anthropology chapters 4 and 5, and of  
course his appendix at the end of the book, are essential

Fifth, Charles  Briggs' Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic  
Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social Science Research  
Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, is another great  
resource.

Sixth, because most of the people on the review panel familiar with  
qualitative methods will be psychologists, social workers, and nurses   
(there may be nobody familiar with qualitative methods at all) make  
sure you cite scholars who they may know.  It will get you attention.   
If you only cite anthropologists, they may have no idea who you are  
citing.  I will be happy to provide you a few names if you want.

Seventh, if you want to use conversation analysis as one of your  
methods, that would be a whole different set of methodological  
references.   Again, let me know if you are interested in CA.

Finally, your job, as applicant (or supplicant, I like supplicant  
better!) is to educate them about your methods, analyses and  
rationales.  My experience has been that I cannot assume much.


Please let me know if I can help you with anything else.

Ignasi Clemente
Department of Anthropology
Hunter College CUNY




On Jun 4, 2009, at 2:10 PM, Jeff Solomon wrote:

> Hello Everyone,
>
> I'm new to this list, so my apologies if this topic has been  
> addressed before. Part of my work entails writing government grant  
> proposals for health care research projects. Reviewers of proposals  
> often have an at-best sketchy understanding of qualitative methods,  
> let alone discourse analytic ones. I'd like to cite some sources in  
> my proposals that are "how to" approaches to doing discourse  
> analysis in very concrete terms. And I prefer to shy away from  
> critical discourse analysis, because I think such a focus will not  
> be palatable to proposal reviewers. Even though I was trained in  
> linguistic anthropology, the works I know best are rather dense, and  
> the methods tend to be implied or assumed in the articles/ 
> monographs. Does anyone have any suggestions for works that are much  
> more straightfoward and comprehensible?
>
> Thanks in advance for your ideas.
>
> Jeff Solomon, PhD
> Research Health Scientist
> Center for Health Quality, Outcomes & Economic Research
> ENRM VA Hospital
> Bedford, MA 01730