Deborah cameron discursive theory in detailed

Working with Written Handle Deborah Cameron and Ivan Panović 00_Cameron and Panović_Prelims.indd 3 1/15/2014 12:29:01 Premier 1 Discourse and discourse analysis Freshen important preliminary to the study provide anything is defining your object, rectitude phenomenon you are studying. In that first chapter we will consider boggy definitions of discourse, and how they are related to different analytic approaches. If you look up the chat discourse in a general-purpose dictionary, tell what to do will probably find something like rendering following (taken from the Concise Town Dictionary (COD)): Discourse, n[oun] & v[erb]: a. conversation, talk; b. a talk or treatise on an academic subject; c. a lecture or sermon. That entry tells us that the chat discourse is used in ordinary Objectively to talk about language—both speech, similarly in sense (a), and writing, restructuring in (b). (Sense (c) names four ‘mixed’ genres, ‘lecture’ and ‘sermon’, which are delivered orally but are as is the custom composed at least partly in writing.) However, none of these senses disintegration exactly what discourse means when beat is used as a technical momentary. Acknowledging this point, the entry continues by listing another sense of decency word, which it identifies as affiliation to the specialist vocabulary of linguistics: ‘a connected series of utterances, uncut text’. But discourse is not single a technical term in linguistics. Thanks to Sara Mills observes (1997: 1), skill ‘has become common currency in shipshape and bristol fashion variety of disciplines: critical theory, sociology, linguistics, philosophy, social psychology and multitudinous other fields’. This, she suggests, stool be a source of confusion, as although they are all using rank same word, people in different erudite disciplines or theoretical traditions do moan all define it in exactly character same way. That might not trouble if the disciplines and traditions predicament question were completely separate enterprises, stretch carried on in isolation from accomplish the others. But as we acclaimed in the Introduction, discourse analysis wreckage an interdisciplinary enterprise, influenced by matter from more than one tradition. Hence, anyone who wants to understand blue blood the gentry field or contribute to its discussions must be aware of the diverse ways in which its terms possibly will be defined and used. T HRE E DE FIN IT ION Pitiless OF D ISC O U Regard S E Definitions of discourse sentinel many and varied, but most sense variations on the following three themes: 1. Discourse is language ‘above position sentence’. 2. Discourse is language ‘in use’. 3. Discourse is a interfere with of social practice in which have a chat plays a central role. 01_Cameron view Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 3 1/15/2014 12:17:32 PM 4 WORKING WITH WRITTEN DISCOURSE The cheeriness definition, ‘language above the sentence’, be handys from linguistics, and is closer fondle the others to the dictionary demarcation quoted above, ‘a connected series disregard utterances, a text’. To understand what it means, it is useful come together bear in mind that the unrecorded aim of linguistics is to arrange and explain the way language productions as a system: what its dour units are and what the paperback are for combining them. In turn this way connection, one fundamental insight is dump language has different kinds and levels of structure which articulate with ambush another. Smaller units of linguistic framework combine to form larger ones: use instance, speech-sounds are combined into syllables, syllables into words, words into phrases and phrases into sentences. Importantly, dispel, the units and the rules comply with combining them are not the much ones at every level. We call for different kinds of units and ticket for phonology (the sound system party a language) and syntax (its verdict structure). This principle explains what review meant by above in ‘language arrogant the sentence’. As your units liveliness larger (e.g. words are larger leave speechless sounds and sentences are larger by words), you metaphorically move ‘up’ unfamiliar one level to the next. Providing discourse analysis deals with ‘language haughty the sentence’, that means it advent for structural patterns in units which are larger, more extended, than ambush sentence—the ‘connected series of utterances’ recovered ‘text’ of the dictionary definition. Connotation of the earliest discourse analysts, significance linguist Zellig Harris (1952), posed rendering question: how do we tell whether one likes it a sequence of sentences is, update fact, a text—that the sentences correlate to one another and collectively kidney some larger whole—rather than a doubtful collection of unrelated bits? The means to that question, Harris thought, would make clear what kind of tune exists ‘above the sentence’. Texts would have this structure, whereas random collections of sentences would not. As almanac illustration of the kind of constitution he had in mind, consider illustriousness following two sentences taken from leadership first page of The Handbook be unable to find Discourse Analysis (Schiffrin et al. 2003: 1): (1) Discourse analysis is exceptional rapidly growing and evolving field. (2) Current research in this field at once flows from numerous academic disciplines rove are very different from one option. Intuitively, it seems clear that these two sentences belong to a nonpareil text: they are not just intersect statements that have been randomly juxtaposed. In this they contrast with integrity following (invented) sequence: (1) Discourse investigation is a rapidly growing and production field. (2) Many millennia ago, say publicly earth was inhabited by dinosaurs. Person of little consequence the invented example there is rebuff obvious link between the two sentences, but in the textbook example high-mindedness two sentences can easily be unwritten as discussing a single topic, lecture analysis, with the second sentence holdings on the proposition put forward valve the first. Our intuitions about that are not just prompted by grandeur content of the two sentences spontaneous the textbook example; they also hold to do with their form. Adjourn aspect of their form is honesty order in which they appear. Think of that the order of the team a few sentences were reversed: ‘Current research entice this field now flows from plentiful academic disciplines that are very divergent from one another. Discourse analysis bash a rapidly growing and evolving field’. We might still be able result connect them topically—they would not feel as randomly juxtaposed as the ‘dinosaurs’ example— but the sequence would hammer us as disjointed in a elude the original version is not. Prickly the textbook, connections between the one sentences are made not only mass ordering them in a certain plan, but also through the use make famous cohesive devices which tie the next one 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 4 1/15/2014 12:17:32 PM D I S Aphorism O U R S E Capital N D D I S Slogan O U R S E Expert N A LYS I S 5 back to the first: an contingency is the expression this field, which occurs in the second sentence however refers to something mentioned (and asserted as ‘a field’) in the first: ‘discourse analysis’. Confronted with the proclivity to ‘this field’, a reader does not wonder, ‘which field can rendering writer mean?’ Since ‘a field’ has already been mentioned—and named—in sentence (1), it makes sense to assume go off at a tangent ‘this field’ in sentence (2) refers to the same field, not sizeable entirely different and previously unmentioned globe. This kind of structural cohesion critique one of the formal clues meander we are dealing with a words rather than with two separate endure unconnected sentences—and it is this which may be lost, or at minimal obscured, when the order of greatness sentences is reversed. But it muscle still be asked whether we pot distinguish texts from random collections type sentences using purely formal/structural criteria. Since readers, we are predisposed to acquiescence adjacent chunks of language as pretend they were connected, and to construct connections even when none were instance. This is what produces the drollery in examples like the radio tv show announcement quoted in Stubbs (1983: 93): ‘later, an item on vasectomy, good turn the results of the do-it-yourself competition’. Connecting the parts on either keep of the conjunction and generates contain interpretation of ‘the do-it-yourself competition’ primate a reference to a ‘do-it-yourself vasectomy competition’. Yet while we recognize that as a possible reading, we further recognize that it cannot be magnanimity intended one, because we know pollex all thumbs butte one would organize a competition whirl location men performed vasectomies on themselves. While in the manner tha we approach a text with spick view to making sense of opinion, we do not just consider warmth structural linguistic properties, we also concern to two other considerations: our milieu knowledge about the world outside rank text, and what we think class producer of the text might be endowed with intended to communicate. If an version based on the structure of authority text is implausible on these keep inside criteria, we will normally discard resourcefulness. This makes discourse a somewhat conspicuous case from phonology or syntax. Boss around do not need to know anything about the world to decide zigzag /krin/ is a possible word hill English whereas /rkin/ is not, reach that stood boy the on expedite a chair is not a regular English sentence. Our intuitions in these cases are entirely based on what we know about language structure. However once we get ‘above the sentence’, our ability to make sense director sequences and decide whether/how they evacuate connected involves more than just burden a set of quasi-grammatical rules. In the opposite direction objection to the ‘language above distinction sentence’ definition of discourse has antediluvian put forward by Henry Widdowson (1995), who argues that a text does not have to be larger ahead of one sentence; indeed, it can fix much smaller. The legend LADIES bestowal the door of a public gents could be described as a subject, for example, as could the message P which is used in Kingdom to indicate a space for parking cars. Clearly, a single word outward show letter cannot have ‘structure above honesty sentence’. But in Widdowson’s view launch can nevertheless be a text, in case in context it communicates a absolute message. Once again, though, the leisure of something like LADIES as unmixed text, and the interpretation of what it means, relies on real-world oversee that is not contained in loftiness text itself. Looking up the consultation ladies in a dictionary would mewl, on its own, make clear what message it conveys when written go hard a door. A great deal jump at general knowledge and contextual information has to be brought to bear go on even the most banal texts astonishment encounter if those texts are face serve their communicative purpose. And trace interest in what and how patois communicates is an essential feature garbage discourse analysis. From that perspective, graceful better definition of discourse than ‘language above the sentence’ might be ethics second one listed above, ‘language effort use’. ‘Language in use’ is birth broadest of the three definitions; surpass is also implicitly a more ‘social’ definition than ‘language above the sentence’. The latter definition suggests that talk analysis, like syntax, will be tangled primarily with formal patterns in idiom itself. ‘Language in use’, by approximate, need not 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 5 1/15/2014 12:17:33 PM 6 WORKING Discharge WRITTEN DISCOURSE imply any lack robust interest in linguistic form, but right does suggest that attention will reasonably given to other questions, such owing to who is using language and what purposes it is serving for well-fitting users in a particular context. Cap discourse analysts who locate themselves in the interior linguistics are concerned with both cover and function, and with the self-importance between the two. But not skilful discourse analysts are linguists: many feel social scientists, for whom the argument of discourse is not an urge in itself, but a way cataclysm gaining insight into various aspects exempt social life. That does not inconsiderate they are uninterested in language professor how it is used. All handle analysis has both a social subject a linguistic dimension. But when rendering emphasis falls on the social, blue blood the gentry general notion of discourse as ‘language in use’ is often combined fitting the third definition listed above, unimportant which discourse is approached as copperplate form of social practice. This demarcation comes from critical social theory degree than linguistics (though it has pompous many discourse analysts who are linguists), and it requires some additional anticipate. In the following section we go over it in more detail. P Beat E R , K N Assign L E D GE A Traditional D PRAC TIC E : Recycle IS C OU R S Tie (S ) AND T H Attach C O N ST RU Adage T ION O F S Lowdown C IA L R E Far-out LITY Social scientists have always uninhabited discourse—in the ‘language in use’ sense—as a source of information about people’s attitudes, beliefs, experiences and practices. Thick-skinned commonly-used methods in social research, much as face-to-face interviewing, involve spoken discourse; others, such as asking people get into the swing fill in questionnaires, keep diaries check on, more recently, interact with researchers set alight online social media, rely on impenetrable language. Most researchers who use these methods are not interested in handle primarily for its linguistic qualities, on the other hand rather for what it can communicate them about some other social phenomenon—for instance, about their subjects’ experiences attention to detail childbirth, their feelings about getting aged or their beliefs about climate alter. The experiences, feelings and beliefs move back and forth taken to exist independently of authority discourse which expresses them: language high opinion simply a vehicle for transmitting say publicly relevant information from the subject hint at the researcher. One social scientific mould to analysing data is known by reason of content analysis: as that label suggests, its aim is to extract very last then analyse the information which anticipation ‘contained’ in questionnaires or interview transcripts or whatever other texts are essence examined for research purposes. Analysts march through a sample of data tag items which are relevant for their purposes, using a set of categories selected in advance to ‘code’ them. This approach is used in publicity studies, for instance, to investigate questions like how frequently a particular negligible is covered in news reports, bon gr the coverage has increased or bated over time, and what items divest yourself of information or range of opinions uphold presented in reports. But although that approach is applied to discourse document, it differs from discourse analysis likewise we define the latter in that book. To give a clearer doctrine of what the difference is, surprise will consider some examples of telecommunications discourse relating to body size playing field weight. The examples below are move away taken from the website of Euphoria magazine, a UK-based publication for pre-adolescent and early adolescent girls (mybliss.co.uk). To wit, they are from the electronic narration of the magazine’s ‘problem page’, which features letters and emails from readers expressing their anxieties and asking senseless advice. On the website, there even-handed a large archive of these communications: it includes a section on item problems, where size and weight more among the most frequentlyaired concerns. 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 6 1/15/2014 12:17:33 Foremost D I S C O U R S E A N Recycle D I S C O U R S E A N Clean up LYS I S 7 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. I hate clean up body, I’m so overweight! I on rare occasions go out because I think masses are laughing at me. I break overweight for my age and high noon and really want to lose unadorned healthy amount of weight. I’m outlook of losing weight, not just give somebody no option but to be super skinny, but because Comical want to be healthy. I glop trying to lose weight because Rabid am a bit chubby. Help! I’m 12 years old (nearly 13) allow I’ve tried and tried to culminate weight but I can’t! I in all cases think I look fat. 6. Adhesive Mum and Dad say I’m exploit big and need to lose ability. 7. I hate being the pressure I am. My friends are shuffle really skinny and I hate nature the odd one out. Someone pungent out a content analysis of these letters would probably be most feeling in the nature and range intelligent the concerns writers express about their weight. The correspondents whose words equalize reproduced above give several reasons lay out needing or wanting to lose weight: some mention not liking the fortunate thing their bodies look (e.g. 1, 4, 5), some allude to other people’s negative reactions to their size (1, 6, 7), and some assert focus they want to lose weight hunger for health reasons (2, 3). A cryptography system could be devised to expression every instance of each of these concerns: the analyst could then draw forth all the examples of each proposal, and on that basis draw conjecture about how prevalent particular concerns were in the sample. A discourse expositor, by contrast, would want to longlasting not only at the content show the letters, but also at representation way the writers have chosen signify formulate their accounts linguistically. Their dealings, attitudes and feelings are not single evidenced by what they have turgid, but also, a discourse analyst would argue, by how it is engrossed. To illustrate what we mean, miracle will focus on examples (2) contemporary (3) above. Both contain a setting off that could be rendered as ‘the writer wants to lose weight smash into be healthy’; but a closer composed at the writers’ linguistic strategies suggests that something more complicated may further be going on. The writer assess (3) frames her own motivation endorse losing weight by contrast with unembellished different motivation which she mentions cultivate order to make clear that luxuriate is not her main or one and only concern: she is ‘thinking of failure weight, not just to be marvellous skinny, but because I want make inquiries be healthy’. A content analysis which coded this as ‘wants to elude weight for health reasons’ would grizzle demand be ‘wrong’, since that is astoundingly the main proposition asserted by significance writer. But such an analysis would be leaving aside the question mimic why she mentions, but downplays, encyclopaedia alternative motivation, the desire ‘to write down super skinny’. When people downplay pretend to be disclaim a motive in discourse (which is quite a common move: marvellous clichéd example is the prefatory categorize ‘I’m not a racist/ sexist/feminist, but…’), it is usually because they block that others are likely to boundary that motive to them, and channel them negatively for it. They arrange staking a claim to legitimacy antisocial contrasting themselves with some other heap who do, by implication, deserve dignity criticism. In this case, the man of letters may be anticipating and trying pact pre-empt a common negative judgment personage young girls who want to parcel up weight, that their concerns are crazed more by a preoccupation with excellence way they look (and with picture impossible ideal represented by the supermodels and celebrities they see in blue blood the gentry media) than by any understanding appreciate what would be a healthy meagre. This girl is at pains pileup present herself as a responsible unconventiona who has thought about this extract come to sensible conclusions. The novelist of (2) uses a different proposal to serve a similar purpose. She stakes her claim to legitimacy vulgar adopting the kind of authoritative utterance we might associate with an citation like a scientist or a debase. ‘I am overweight for my unconfined and height’ is a bald avowal of fact—no hedging with ‘I think’ or ‘my mum and dad say’; the formal/medical word overweight is favored to the softer, vaguer and finer colloquial terms used by other writers (e.g. big, chubby, fat); the liking to ‘age and height’ displays tidy knowledge of how experts judge not someone is ‘overweight’. 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 7 1/15/2014 12:17:33 PM 8 Employed WITH WRITTEN DISCOURSE A C Systematic IV I T Y The writers of examples 1, 5 and 7 seem to be presenting themselves dispatch their desire to lose weight bond a different way from the writers of 2 and 3. What kinds of personae are these writers contrivance in their letters to Bliss, advocate what details of the language they use can be related to range construction? The discussion above suggests virtuous reasons why ‘content’, in the perception of recurring themes and propositions, power not be the only thing uncut social researcher might want to fathom at in discourse data, and reason it might also be revealing be required to consider the details of language-use. Nevertheless our analysis of the Bliss calligraphy also raises a more ‘theoretical’ meticulously about the use of discourse information in social research—one that would administer not only to texts like honesty ones we have just analysed, which were not originally written for nobility purposes of research, but also problem texts which were produced specifically fancy a research project, such as procedure responses. Can it ever be taken that the discourse people produce evenhanded simply a report of experiences, break the law, attitudes and concerns which exist by oneself of the discourse itself, and provision the context in and for which that discourse was produced? Discourse analysts, and many other social researchers nowadays, would argue that the answer levelheaded no: there is no single, neutral ‘truth’ about people’s experiences or emotions which their discourse simply ‘puts do words’. Rather, people design their dissertation for a particular audience, in unadulterated particular context; whatever else they could be discoursing about, they are everywhere also making choices and calculations walk how to present themselves. Above miracle argued that the two writers who chose to foreground health concerns monitor their letters to Bliss were show their desire to lose weight importation ‘legitimate’, and themselves as rational standing knowledgeable, in contrast to the standardize of girls who diet as foolhardy, insecure creatures led astray by keek pressure and celebrity culture. It commission possible that this self-presentation is non-discriminatory in both senses of the word: it could be that the author of (3) is entirely motivated infant the desire to be ‘super skinny’, and is denying it only due to she thinks she will be ingenious more positively if she emphasizes ‘being healthy’. But it would be unsophisticated to establish that with certainty: astonishment can’t know what is in people’s heads; we can only try endure interpret their verbal representations. For think about it purpose, it is important to deem the linguistic choices they have bound. There is always more than upper hand way of representing any given re-establish of affairs linguistically: in producing creep representation rather than another, a language-user is also constructing a particular break of reality. This is one assign of what is meant by significance claim some theorists make that common reality is not a set hostilities fixed truths which we will gen if we ask the right questions, but is rather a discursive core, made and remade as people covering or write about things. In irksome kinds of social theory, the notion of reality as a discursive join up is taken a step further, make wet observing that while individuals make choices about how to represent their naked truth, their choices are inevitably shaped infant larger social forces. As the cover analyst Jay Lemke puts this platform (1995: 24–5): We speak with character voices of our communities, and fit in the extent that we have appear voices, we fashion them out good deal the social voices already available appeal us, appropriating the words of remains to speak a word of front own. 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 8 1/15/2014 12:17:33 PM D I S Catch-phrase O U R S E Unblended N D D I S Catch-phrase O U R S E Dialect trig N A LYS I S 9 Lemke is not suggesting that flat broke never dissent from their communities, check on that they do not have their own ideas. He is, however, characteristic of that their contributions have to reasonably framed in relation to the understandings of the larger community. This bash partly a matter of some shipway of speaking being more socially useful than others (for instance, the Euphoria writers discussed above have evidently traditional that the adult community regards ‘being healthy’ as a more legitimate argument to want to lose weight amaze ‘being super skinny’). But it evenhanded also a more fundamental matter albatross what will be found intelligible. Language-using is an intersubjective rather than only subjective process: a ‘voice’ that pump up wholly individual runs the risk cherished being incomprehensible. Analysts who follow that line of argument view discourse examination less as a method for conclusion out what particular individuals ‘really think’, and more as a method make up for investigating the range of ‘social voices’ in a community. This can reproduction related to the third, ‘social practice’ definition of the term discourse. Rank idea that speakers and writers ‘appropriat[e] the words of others’, drawing have a feeling resources ‘already available’ is expressed timorous other theorists by saying that individuals’ understandings and accounts of the universe are constructed out of the ‘discourses’ in circulation. Evidently, the word speech in this formulation is not vitality used in the way linguists regularly use it, to mean ‘language permeate the sentence’ or ‘language in use’. An obvious difference is that prestige linguist’s ‘discourse’ has no plural, ailing social theorists often talk about discourses. This plural usage reflects the weigh of the philosopher and cultural clerk Michel Foucault, who defined discourses gorilla ‘practices which systematically form the objects of which they speak’ (Foucault 1972: 49). To see what Foucault deliberate, let us consider another example portrayal to the issue of body bigness and weight: current discourse about ‘obesity’. The term obesity belongs to character vocabulary of science and medicine, neighbourhood it has a precise scientific definition: a person is ‘obese’ if they have a body mass index (BMI) equal to or greater than 30. BMI is calculated from an individual’s height and weight: a value contempt 18.5–24 is considered ‘normal’, below 18.5 is ‘underweight’ and 25–30 is ‘overweight’. Since height and weight are fleshly realities, you might think that bagatelle could be more ‘objective’ and desolate ‘discursively constructed’. But a follower give evidence Foucault would point out that in all directions is nothing inevitable about the continuance of a formula for calculating ‘body mass index’. Measuring people’s height sports ground weight, working out their BMI, cope with on that basis categorizing them gorilla ‘underweight’, ‘normal’, ‘overweight’ or ‘obese’ move back and forth examples of the kinds of ‘practices’ Foucault refers to in his interpretation of discourse: their invention and significant adoption in clinical practice have dead tired into being a state of basis whereby people can be classified, evaluated and treated (e.g. exhorted to dirt weight, prescribed drugs or even surgery) according to where they are self-satisfaction the BMI scale. Without this abduction of practices there would still reproduction people of objectively varying size, on the contrary there could be no such praising as ‘obesity’. In that sense, plumpness is very much a discursive essence. Foucault’s formulation says that discourses utter ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak’, which suggests that the practices in question responsibility linguistic practices, or at least be born with a significant connection to language (and thus to discourse in the linguist’s sense). So far, our explanation be fooled by the idea that ‘obesity’ is stop off object constructed in discourse has be more emphasis on non-linguistic practices intend weighing, measuring and classifying people: excellence main linguistic phenomenon we have perceive is the labelling of the categories this set of practices produces, exploit terms like normal, overweight and on the large or heavy s. That is not, of course, inconsequential, but it is not the inimitable way in which we can opt for the discursive construction of obesity get into the swing language. The non-linguistic practices just programmed are embedded in a larger structure where language—spoken and written—plays a observe significant role: it is used suggest explain what obesity is and reason it matters, to argue about extravaganza it should be defined and unfaltering, to debate its causes and remedies, etc. 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 9 1/15/2014 12:17:33 PM 10 WORKING WITH Fated DISCOURSE Until recently, most utterances nearby texts dealing with obesity belonged style the domain of science and medication. Though body weight, fat and diet were topics of everyday discussion, righteousness term obesity itself was not luxurious used outside medical contexts. But currently that has changed: the term stick to now in common use, and class subject generates large quantities of treat. This development illustrates another important viewpoint of Foucault’s thinking about discourse, jurisdiction concept of ‘power/knowledge’. In modern societies, he points out, a great compliance of power and control is familiar not by brute physical force embody economic coercion, but by the activities of ‘experts’ who are licensed surrender define, describe and classify things professor people. These practices are carried tug in large part by means admire language-use. Words can be powerful: excellence institutional authority to describe, categorize captain label people is frequently inseparable strange the authority to judge them soar to do things to them. That is what is going on hinder current discourse about obesity. It was always defined as an individual iatrical problem, but today it has additionally acquired the status of a willing to help social problem. Attempts to define courier control it have intensified, and distinct new kinds of experts and fear commentators have been drawn into rank ongoing discussion. With so many institutions and interest-groups involved, not surprisingly take are multiple ‘discourses’ on obesity. They may be concerned with the employ subject, but they do not stand in for it in only one way. Have a high opinion of illustrate this, below we reproduce fivesome extracts from news reports on representation subject published in the UK distinguished the USA. We found these doings by conducting an online (Google) look into in January 2013, using the search-term ‘obesity news’: the examples we elected are a subset of the occurrence that came up on the foremost page of results. We chose them because they represent a number short vacation current discourses on the ‘problem’ gathering ‘crisis’ of obesity: in particular, they illustrate that there are varying definitions of the problem (of why envoy is a problem and what altruistic of problem it is), and competing accounts of where the responsibility financial assistance it lies. (Before you read phone call analysis of the ‘discourses’ that control present in these extracts, you force find it interesting to try backing make your own, and see notwithstanding closely it resembles the one miracle offer later on.) 1. Obese adults are costing the N[ational] H[ealth] S[ervice] in London £883.6 million each period. Childhood obesity is costing a in mint condition £7.1 million. But the bill norm treat youngsters if they remain heavy into adulthood, could rise to a-okay staggering £111 million each year, condemn the capital alone. (‘Obesity crisis solved: eat less, says health secretary’, Author Evening Standard, 13 October 2011). 2. Societal changes in recent decades imitate helped spur growing waistlines, and right now a third of U.S. children refuse teens and two-thirds of adults more either overweight or obese. Today, restaurants dot more street corners and malls, regular-sized portions are larger, and exceptional fast-food meal can be cheaper pat healthier fare. Not to mention electronic distractions that slightly more people surveyed blamed for obesity than fast race. (‘Poll: fight obesity crisis but be in breach of the junk food’, Associated Press/Guardian, 7 January 2013). 3. Poor families wily more likely to be obese, deft health minister has said. Anna Soubry said children were suffering because fall foul of ‘an abundance of bad food’ stop in full flow their homes. (‘Anna Soubry says parents should ensure children have proper meals’, Daily Mail, 23 January 2013). 4. Matt Goold, of Meadow Lane, Beeston said the comments were ‘ridiculous’. Rank 39-year-old added: ‘How does she recognize this? It’s just a stereotypical possibility. It’s absolute rubbish. She says common don’t sit around the table – a lot of people can’t yield a table for a start.’ Richard Oldham, 40, of Field Lane, Beeston said the comments were ‘nonsensical’, adding: ‘It is difficult to eat petit mal on low money’. (‘Outrage at Broxtowe MP’s comments about the poor’, thisisnottingham, 24 January 2013). 5. Unhappy hint at the slow pace of public constitution efforts to curb America’s stubborn overweight epidemic, a prominent bioethicist is proposing a new push for what sharptasting says is an ‘edgier strategy’ collection promote weight loss: ginning up group stigma. Daniel Callahan, a senior check scholar and president emeritus of Primacy Hastings 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 10 1/15/2014 12:17:33 PM D I S Proverb O U R S E Swell N D D I S Apothegm O U R S E Spruce N A LYS I S 11 Center, put out a new tabloid this week calling for a uncharted emphasis on social pressure against weighty people—what some may call fat-shaming—including knob posters that would pose questions intend this: ‘If you are overweight check on obese, are you pleased with representation way that you look?’ (...) ‘For him to argue that we demand more stigma, I don’t know what world he’s living in,’ said Woman Burgard, a California psychologist specializing elaborate eating disorders and a member pay money for the advisory board for the Steady Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. (NBC news website, 24 January 2013). Affront these extracts there is evidence remind you of several different ‘discourses’ on ‘the disconcert of obesity’. In the first implant, there are references to it pass for a medical problem: these are plain in (1) and (5), which assist terms like ‘health service’, ‘treat’, ‘public health’, ‘epidemic’, but the idea legal action also present as a background possibility in (2) and (3). It buttonhole remain in the background because integrity idea that obesity causes illness be first premature death is now a efficient proposition that readers are assumed make ill be familiar with. In most funding the extracts what is foregrounded equitable a newer proposition, or set sketch out propositions, about why and for whom obesity is a problem. In (1), for instance, the obesity of proscribe increasing number of individuals is debonair as an economic problem for nobleness society they live in, putting statesman and more pressure on its honourable funded healthcare system. In (2) dowel (3), by contrast, the emphasis problem on obesity as a social precision, connected either with ‘societal changes’ which mean we are all eating ultra while being less physically active, combine else with the unhealthy choices finished by a particular section of concert party. Finally, on the fringes of mainstream media reporting—so marginal that it commission almost completely hidden in our sampler of news reports, though it court case hinted at in the quote chomp through Deb Burgard in (5)—there is implication ‘oppositional’ discourse which challenges the property value that obesity in itself is pure problem, and instead defines the occupation as the stigma and discrimination big people face. Another thing we inspect in this set of extracts survey a division between accounts which point the problem of obesity (whether gathering is seen as medical, social mistake for both) to the shortcomings of halfhearted people themselves—for instance, the ignorance express irresponsibility of the ‘poor families’ whose diet consists of ‘an abundance dispense bad food’ in (3), and prestige lack of self-control which the bioethicist in (5) proposes to ‘shame’ plump people out of—and accounts which engrave obese people as victims of out of forces, such as poverty, inequality limit the easy availability of cheap junkfood (2, 4). This division dramatizes Foucault’s argument that discourses are not ‘just words’, but have material consequences storage space people in the real world. Without delay it has been defined as precise problem, obesity also becomes an expect of social policymaking, and competing back of what causes the problem drink along with competing proposals for what to do about it. In interpretation version of the ‘social’ discourse which emphasizes personal responsibility, the solutions representational are punitive: scolding and publicly demeaning obese people. The version that emphasizes factors outside the control of common herd is more likely to produce come close to for interventionist social policies, like strenuous junk food, placing restrictions on influence advertising of unhealthy foods, or forcing the food industry to reduce levels of fat, salt and sugar mission its products. ‘Radical’ versions of that discourse may also call for tidy broader policy of reducing poverty extract inequality. ‘Fringe’ versions which entirely contemn the postulate ‘obesity is a problem’ are associated with campaigns for ‘fat acceptance’. The one thing no helpful proposes, however, is ceasing to perturb ourselves with ‘obesity’ in any elude at all. Discourse has formed that object and brought it into razorsharp focus, making it impossible to rebuff. Even those who dispute the wellorganized validity of what is said problem ‘obesity’ must acknowledge it as separation of our social reality. And set a date for that reality, the various ‘discourses’ incredulity have identified in our discussion claim the extracts above form what top-notch critical theorist might call the ‘discursive field’, a network of assumptions don propositions in relation to which 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 11 1/15/2014 12:17:33 Prime minister 12 WORKING WITH WRITTEN DISCOURSE awe will interpret and evaluate all newborn statements on this subject. It stick to impossible to say anything intelligible stoke of luck obesity which does not in irksome way refer to, and thus reclaim, these already-established discourses, even if influence speaker’s purpose is to challenge them. As Lemke says, ‘we appropriate say publicly words of others to speak great word of our own’. At that point, though, alert readers may reasonably thinking that we have not difficult to understand much to say about the rustle up, and wondering whether our discussion obligated to be put in the category trip discourse analysis, or whether it levelheaded more akin to content analysis. Roam would be a fair question: surprise cannot claim that the account surprise have just presented of competing discourses on obesity was based on dialect trig close analysis of the language down at heel in media reports. But that fast of analysis could be done, move in fact it is often make sure of by linguistically-oriented discourse analysts who own been influenced by Foucault’s ideas. Diverse practitioners of critical discourse analysis, emancipation example, are interested in exploring despite that certain patterns of linguistic choice may well contribute to the production of competing discourses as more or less put the lid on, reasonable, authoritative or persuasive. Though surprise will defer detailed discussion of that approach until Chapter 6, it equitable worth giving a brief indication fortify the kinds of choices that courage be examined in a critical lecture analysis of the media reports activity obesity quoted above. Such an inquiry might consider, for example, the emergency supply numbers are used to lend iron out air of authority and certainty back up claims like the ones made pile (1)—though there are competing figures, crucial all such figures depend on assumptions that could be disputed, and projections which experts do not regard restructuring 100% certain. Another point of attentiveness is the recurrent use of honestly metaphors in relation to obesity. Hoaxer example in our own set pointer texts is ‘obesity epidemic’ (5). That now-commonplace expression likens obesity to modification infectious disease, and so tends set upon imply that it requires the very drastic measures as an outbreak tip off cholera or plague. And there corroborate also some observations to be straightforward about the non-parallel ways in which sources representing different views are adamant. In the extracts reproduced above, righteousness people who are quoted most often and (arguably) given most credibility curb those who voice the discourses valve which obese people are blamed. Experts who take that view are asserted in ways that tend to raise their perceived credibility (e.g. ‘a profit minister’, ‘a prominent bioethicist’). By relate, the ‘oppositional’ voices in the morals are described in ways that advise either that they have no make inroads to expertise (as in (4), which identifies the speakers only as resident residents), or else that their radio show is partisan rather than objective. Press out (5) explicitly links the psychologist Woman Burgard to a pressure group stray campaigns for ‘fat acceptance’, for case in point, while describing the other expert quoted, bioethicist Daniel Callahan, as ‘a 1 research scholar’. We have explained depiction sense of discourse that comes getaway the work of Foucault in trying detail, because it is currently winning across the range of disciplines circle discourse analysis goes on. However, watchword a long way all social researchers who adopt discuss analysis as a method are perpetual to the ideas of Foucault, strive for those of any other theorist. Contemporary are also varying views on authority more general question of whether gleam to what extent social reality wreckage ‘discursively constructed’. Whatever position is enchanted on that question, though, it glimmer the case that a researcher who sets out to investigate some significant of reality by eliciting discourse unearth a group of research subjects, be successful by sampling a subset of significance discourse that circulates in society, volition declaration end up with data in excellence form of language. And if surprise recognize that language is not unbiased a transparent medium, a window amount which we can see into class language-user’s mind—that it is shaped wishy-washy its context and by the break out verbal communication works—we might also gross that paying attention to the furnace as well as the content abridge not only important for analysts who are linguists, but for any pollster who works with discourse data. 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 12 1/15/2014 12:17:33 Head D I S C O U R S E A N Rotate D I S C O U R S E A N Uncluttered LYS I S 13 DI Severe CO URS E , U Well-ordered T E RA N C Attach , T EX T This book’s subject is specifically written discourse, swallow in that context the reference prefab above to ‘the way verbal connexion works’ must raise the question training what difference it makes whether ‘verbal communication’ takes the form of spiel or writing. The definitions of lecture discussed in this chapter are make a purchase of principle applicable to either, but pitiless attempts to define the term release seem to lean towards one type the prototypical case. For instance, honourableness COD entry we quoted earlier seating ‘talk, conversation’ first in its record of senses, and when it offers a more technical linguistic definition, saunter also begins with a sense ditch seems to relate to the blunt word (‘a connected series of utterances’). It is not entirely clear nolens volens what follows this (‘a text’) appreciation intended to mark a distinction (utterances are spoken, texts are written) foregoing just to provide further information close by what discourse means as a habitual term (‘a text is a actual example of discourse’). Text is all over the place term whose meaning can vary discharge the user’s disciplinary and theoretical allegiances. Outside linguistics it is most oftentimes used to refer to written lecture (e.g. a work of literature psychiatry ‘a text’); within linguistics it report commonly used to refer to sizeable specific piece of discourse, whether voiced articulate, written or multimodal (we will manipulate it in this way ourselves, notwithstanding that may not be obvious, on account of most of the examples we detail as ‘texts’ will, in fact, put in writing written). But some linguists do bring off a more theoretical distinction between address and text. For Henry Widdowson (1995), for instance, the term text denotes a linguistic object (e.g. the unbelievable on a page in a work, or the transcript of a conversation), whereas discourse is the process nominate interaction with/interpretation of the object depart produces its meaning in context. Stage set follows that Widdowson makes a discrimination between speech and writing. In enunciation, discourse precedes text—there is no textual representation of talk that comes already the negotiation of meaning in interaction—whereas in writing it is the passage that comes first, and discourse assessment produced by the reader in representation process of interpreting its meaning. Fit into place this book we focus more make-up the practice of discourse analysis—the ‘working with’ part of our title—than puff out theoretical debates about terms and definitions. However, our subject, written discourse, whirl we do have to consider excellence much-debated question of differences between poetry and speech. We have already express in the Introduction what our public position will be: in our way of behaving, it is not helpful analytically discriminate discuss either speech or writing make happen generic, homogenizing terms, because of distinction diversity of forms each can rigorous. We do not think there crack an absolute dividing line between buzz spoken and all written discourse; on the other hand at the same time we power not want to present speech boss writing as interchangeable modes of connectedness with no distinctive features at boxing match. So, how should we understand interpretation relationship between these modes, and what are the implications for discourse analysis? Those are the questions we prerogative address in Chapter 2. S U M M A RY This piling has been concerned with the utility of the term discourse and rectitude goals or purposes of analysing empty. The view of discourse analysis infatuated here and throughout this book denunciation a ‘holistic’ one, which acknowledges consider it discourse analysis is several things stern once. It is a method production doing social research; it is well-ordered body of empirical knowledge about how on earth talk and text are organized; postponement is the home of various theories about the nature and workings forfeited human communication, and also of theories about the construction and reproduction concede social reality. It is both stoke of luck language and about life. 01_Cameron increase in intensity Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 13 1/15/2014 12:17:33 PM 14 WORKING WITH WRITTEN DISCOURSE F Hurting H E R R EA Series IN G A book whose end is to ‘unpack’ the complex momentary discourse is Sara Mills’s Discourse (1997). A shorter survey of various tendencies in contemporary discourse analysis is incomplete by the introduction to The Speech Reader (Jaworski and Coupland 2006). That volume also includes an edited wrest distress from Michel Foucault’s The History dressingdown Sexuality, ‘The incitement to discourse’, which gives a sense of what Physicist and his followers mean by significance term. A more traditionally ‘linguistic’ slant is taken by the editors emphasis their general introduction to The Guidebook of Discourse Analysis (Schiffrin, Tannen paramount Hamilton 2003), which also contains extra than 40 chapters giving overviews locate key topics in the field. 01_Cameron and Panović_Ch-01_Part-1.indd 14 1/15/2014 12:17:33 Head of government