CDA/Response to Scheuer 2003

[Linnea Micciulla]

Hi Noriko,

I don't think the claim that Fairclough doesn't "sufficiently explicate
what social theory lies behind the concept of social practice" (p. 144)
is problematic for CDA, as you suggest. CDA seems almost to be more of a
philosophy than a particular type of analysis; a variety of analyses are
typically used by different researchers. One important feature about
Scheuer's article, in the area of CDA, is that it is the study of the
discourse of an individual. As such, it is certainly useful to go into
the history and even the psychology of the individual. However, CDA
often studies the discourse of institutions, or even loosely knit
political groups. It seems to me that a fairly different approach would
be needed in these cases; a study of the institution's financial
sources, previous discourse, social programs, employee profile, etc.
would be useful in the analysis of institutional discourse. So I think a
variety of styles of analysis is crucial to what is currently the scope
of CDA. As time goes on, these will become better defined, and we will
be able to evaluate what works and what doesn't.

I think 'habitus' is potentially useful, yet problematic. Scheuer had a
number of personal interviews with Niels, which allowed him to claim
that Niels' discourse was the result of his youthful interests and his
career path. Although these are reasonable guesses, I suspect that a
professional psychologist might want more time with the patient before
stating those conclusions with reasonable certainty. I think what I
disagree with most in the article is the idea that "the habitus is
pre-established before any interaction..." and "the concept of habitus
may coexist with a concept that is deeply incompatible with CDA." (p.
172). This seems to be claiming that the 'habitus' is immutable - but
Scheuer just demonstrated how it developed and changed over time! I see
no reason to claim that, while the habitus affect the interview, there
was no effect of the interview on the habitus. On the contrary, I would
hope that after listening to a tape of the interview and doing a
post-interview with Scheuer, Niels would have learn from his mistakes
and adjust, so that he woulddo a better job in the next interview.
Indeed, Scheuer's later statement, "However, the habitus is not only an
empowering principle; it is also a principle of relative determinism,
since it is always grounded in experience" (p. 173) demonstrates to me
that this is a two-way street (ie. habitus effects discourse and
vice-versa -> CDA's 're-production').

I do think that statements by Scheuer such as "Pursuing such concrete
perspectives may relieve the critical discourse analyst of the
temptation to make unwarranted claims on a political level." is a
statement that should concern us and calls for a lot of discussion. I
would be very interested to hear more thoughts on that! (But I'll stop
here for now since my computer battery is about to die!)

Linnea


杉森 典子 wrote:

>Hi,
>
>This is my response to Jann Scheuer’s article entitled,
>“Habitus as the principle for social practice: A proposal
>for critical discourse analysis
>” Language in Society 32, 143-175.
>
>Jann Scheuer’s article is an interesting read, even if
>you are not interested in critical discourse analysis
>(CDA). Scheuer analyzes the process in what way Neil, a
>middle-aged unemployed job applicant, was rejected in the
>interview.  I became involved in the interview process to
>the degree I sympathized and identified with him.
>Although the article
>’s text may seem long (30 pages), about five pages are
>Danish transcripts of the job interview. English
>translation neatly follows after each block of interviews
>(not each turn or sentence), so it can be read quickly,
>skipping the Danish part.
>
>Scheuer criticizes Fairclough in the following way:
>
>Faircloough does not, however, sufficiently explicate what
>social theory lies behind the concept of social practice,
>or how text-external data should be incorporated in the
>analysis (p.144)
>
>Because my study of CDA is still shallow, I cannot say
>whether Scheuer is right or not. As the quote below shows,
>Fairclough (2003) is trying to connect social theories and
>discourse analysis. After writing about Foucault,
>Representation, Action, and Identification, he writes:
>
>What these various formulations point to is the
>possibility of enriching our understanding of texts by
>connecting each of the three aspects of meaning with a
>variety of categories in social theories. Another example
>might be to see Identification as bringing what Bourdieu
>(Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992) calls the
>‘habitus’ of the persons involved in the event in the
>event into consideration in text analysis, i.e. their
>embodied dispositions to see and act in certain ways based
>upon socialization and experience, which is partly
>dispositions to talk and write in certain ways
>(Fairclough, Analysing Discourse 2003:28-9)
>
>Scheuer says that CDA’s connections with social theories
>are not sufficient. Do you agree? Does CDA have to follow
>one particular social theory?
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Noriko Sugimori
>
>
>
>Noriko Sugimori
>20 Chestnut Street #204, Cambridge, MA 02139
>tel & fax 617-494-6497
>杉森典子
>〒939-8051 富山市大泉中部１２３　秋本方
>tel & fax 076-421-1337
>
>
>