Concrete "how to" discourse analysis references

[Jeff Solomon]

Thanks to all of you for your VERY helpful and thoughtful responses. Doing research of this type for the government (Dept. Veterans Affairs) is a tricky balancing act in terms of letting reviewers know of one's qualitative/linguistic analysis expertise, on the one hand, and not sounding too "academic", on the other. Other researchers who come from similar training backgrounds often discuss using modified grounded theory techniques in proposals. Although I am sympathetic to this approach (e.g., Charmaz, 2006) and certainly draw on it, it is very general-sounding; hence my interest in effective ways of communicating to reviewers about discourse analysis techniques that are a bit more specific. 

Thanks again for the ideas.

Jeff Solomon




________________________________
From: galey modan <gmodan at gmail.com>
To: Jeff Solomon <jeffreysolomon at verizon.net>
Cc: LINGANTH at listserv.linguistlist.org
Sent: Thursday, June 4, 2009 5:15:35 PM
Subject: Re: [LINGANTH] Concrete "how to" discourse analysis references

I'd take a look at Heidi Hamilton's work. She's a discourse analyst
who's done a lot of writing in health-related journals and does a lot
of interdisciplinary, applied work, so often is writing explicitly
about discourse analytic work for a health audience.

best,

Galey Modan

On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 2:10 PM, Jeff Solomon <jeffreysolomon at verizon.net> 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
>