CDA/Response to Scheuer 2003

[Linnea Micciulla]

Hi again,

Just re-read my posting - what I meant in the first line is that I agree
with Noriko's suggestion, that the claim is not problematic. (Too many
negatives!)

Linnea



Linnea Micciulla wrote:

>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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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