Readings MONDAY Aug 5

ASSIGNMENT: The reflections should raise questions that you would like us to discuss in class.

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• Lester, J.N. & Paulus, T.M. (2011). Accountability and public displays of knowing in an undergraduate computer-mediated communication context. Discourse Studies, 1-16. 
  
  
• Varga, M.A. & Paulus, T.M. (Forthcoming). Grieving online: Newcomers’ constructions of grief in an online support group. Death Studies. 
  
  
• Canfield, D. Dissertation proposal: The discursive construction of language learning in multiuser virtual environments.
  

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(From Readings 7/22) The Lester and Paulus article was an example of an empirical study using DP as the epistemology and theoretical framework.  They used DA, CA, ethnomethodology, and rhetorical psychology as methods within DP. Their research question was "How do students work up their beliefs and experiences in this CMC environment?" (p. 5). The authors used 3 DA questions to guide the study...

1. "What are the students doing/accomplishing with their language?"
2. "How are they constructing their language in order to achieve this?"
3. "What resources are being used to perform these tasks?"

These questions are based on Edwards and Potter's work on function, construction, and resource of discourse (1992 p. 133 and 162). The concepts are applied within the analysis and seen clearly in the findings as the authors described the two patterns within the student blogs. Users of the "I don't know" pattern used the phrase to decrease accountability. Users of the "five paragraph" pattern used script formulations and extreme case formulations to deny alternate versions. 

 

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The Varga and Paulus article was an empirical study also using DP and DA to examine the construction and function within the initial postings from newcomers to an online grief support group. The analytic 6 step approach found on page 7 has been seen in several of our readings. I'm assuming this is part of the DA course in the Fall. Is that true?

I'm still a little confused about variability and its role in DP. On page 12, a "variable pattern" is noted. I understand finding a variation in the data, but I haven't quite made the connection with how it is worked out with the rest of the pattern. 

I really liked the idea of "doing normal" and how people seek membership with groups to redefine normal in an attempt to do "being ordinary" (even when they may need to express the extremes of their experience to join.)

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Questions for Canfield

Can you explain what an argumentative texture is? 
"I suggest that this in-depth examination can be accomplished through a critical discursive psychology approach that emphasizes the local, everyday discursive practices of the study’s participants and the “argumentative texture” that makes the interaction possible (Laclau, 1993, p. 341)" (p.7)

The following seems pretty gutsy to me! Can you explain why you wanted to include this? Did it meet with any resistance from your committee? "I wish to offer an alternative view of the notion of “significance”. Qualitative researchers often feel compelled to attend to the tension between the view that their research is useful in answering the “how/why” questions of the discipline and the view that such research offers so little generalizability as to be useless in providing broader pedagogical significance. (Munby, 1983)" (p. 8).


So, critical DP is a combo of DP with Wetherell's attention to the " 'broader cloth' of social fabric" (p. 10). How did you come to this belief/ decision? Can you explain it in a little more detail? On page 42, you use the phrase extra-discursive. Do you mean the same thing with both phrases?


Have you started the analysis of the video recordings? What is this experience like? We discussed last week that video is very hard due to the amount of data.