Contaminations.
Before returning to graduate school, I worked in an elementary school. Over the course of six years as a member of a school community, I developed very close relationships with students and their families. Since I began working in schools, what is now a decade ago, I have come to know three transgendered students. In each case, these students transitioned to their “new identity” at a very young age. For many, especially adults, this was a confusing situation, surrounded by rhetoric of doubt (“what if they change their mind”) or denial (“they can’t be old enough to know this”). This week's readings on gender and masculinity provided an interesting glimpse into how gender is constructed and resurfaced my own thoughts and feelings about these students. I am unquestionably concerned with these young people and the ways in which adult discourse, especially their teachers' and parents', shapes perceptions of gender. Is it perceived as a choice? How is gender framed against medical, hormonal, and surgical treatments? What is the discursive relationship between sex and gender?
Yet, personally I have found it difficult to navigate the waters of “critical” research and how it positions me within scholarly research. I have a deep appreciation for the growing number of critical scholars in the Learning Sciences and related fields. It is undoubtedly important work that can readily answer the “so what” question. Nonetheless, I share some of Schlegoff’s concerns about the assumptions that underlay certain strands of critical discourse analysis. At this point, I see this question as two-fold: (How) should issues of social equity guide research (i.e., should we have a critical agenda)? If so, in what ways must this affect analysis? I suppose it is also important to consider if these questions are mutually exclusive in practice. And so, we have the great Schlegoff-Wetherell debate. I think I might have just changed sides…maybe…
As I have worked to build my methodological toolkit for discourse analysis. I originally found myself drawn to the micro. I found utility in grounding analyses in the observable orientations of participants. That way I did not have to make claims about relevance outside of the immediate context. Essentially, I could provide a critical analysis, but only if the claims were demonstrable in participant interactions. This gave me the option of doing critical work without a priori assumptions and prescriptions of social inequity. The notion of inherent power inequities in all forms of social interaction always worried me. Not because it is a frightening proposition (and it is), but rather because the potential for “bad” analysis -- the critical discourse analyst knows what they are looking for before they find it. For example, a “gendered analysis” may impose or legitimize a particular “reality” unrelated to that of the participants.
I appreciated the practicality. I did not have to deny the critical, just only attend to it when it presented itself. Moreover, I did not have to impose my research agenda on my participants, at least during my analysis. In some ways, this was a position on what constitutes “good” or “bad” discourse analysis. At the end of the day, quality of research is associated with notions of validity and generalizability (constructs that I continue to wrestle with, even considering DP’s reconceptualization of much of mainstream psychology). However, an interesting turn of rhetoric in the debate is to focus on what constitutes a “complete” analysis. My read on Schlegoff’s version of conversation analysis is that “complete” means exhaustively attending to the empirical. That is, analysis of only observable characteristics social interactions. Researchers should not make a priori assumptions on what is relevant, because participants in social interaction dictate relevance (this is conditional relevance, right?). This avoids “intellectual hegemony” or “theoretical imperialism” or another metaphor for researcher imposition. Wetherell claims that Schlegoff is attempting to achieve a “gold standard” in discourse analysis, one that is consistent with mainstream social science research.
How do we know where relevance begins and ends? Schegloff would point toward the internal features of social interaction, which is useful in reducing the infinitude of possible conversational moves. On the other hand, Wetherell suggests that, “conversation analysis alone does not offer an adequate answer to its own classic question about some pieces of discourse…rather, a complete or scholarly analysis (as opposed to a technical analysis) must range further than the limits Schegloff proposes” (p. 388). Again, what is “good” or “bad” or “complete?” In this case, Wetherell posits that a "complete" analysis lives at the interaction level and considers participant orientations against the backdrop of (Laclau and Mouffe's) “argumentative texture of social life.” Put differently, we can attend to participant orientations and conditional relevance as localized and occasioned and in relation to broader socio-historic contexts. Yet, what exactly do we, as discourse analysts, mean when we say we are “attending to participant orientations?” Schegloff and Wetherell appear to be differing on this even in practice.
“Analysis works by carving out a piece of the argumentative social fabric for closer examination - a set of similar seeming conversational activities, say. Schegloff ‘s approach demands that analysts then lose interest in the argumentative threads which run through this set as warp and woof connecting it in again with the broader (p. 403).”
What I find intriguing about Wetherell’s position is that she is not necessarily moving away from the micro. On the contrary, she remains situated in it. Yet, her approach also considers broader meanings that live in the fabric of social life. In all, this is what I find so appealing about IRs – they serve as a conceptual link between micro-level talk-in-interaction and the socio-historical contextual backdrops that discourse plays out on. This appears to be the best of both worlds, as criticality does not necessarily require social inequity and conversation analysis still illuminates the practices that shape talk-in-interaction. We can consider "why this utterance here" from a variety of angles, lenses, and frameworks.
Lingering questions:
Can discourse analysts honestly do research as Schelgoff proposes? That is without “contaminating” the analysis with imposed categories, descriptions, and theories?
What exactly are subject positions? Is this synonymous with orientation or identity?
How can we do critical research that is “critical enough?” Put differently, how can we ensure that we are not modifying our research with the “critical” tag as an appeal to audience?