Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis

The focus of these two sessions will be the linking of theory to method, paying particular attention to the relationship between language or other forms of representation or communication and the broader social milieu with special attention to power relations. The topic will be approached from a broadly Foucauldian angle: Foucault writes that discourse “consists of not—of no longer—treating discourses as groups of signs signifying elements referring to contents of representations, but as practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak.” The emphasis of these two lectures will be less upon what is known as ‘conversation analysis’ or ‘content analysis’ and more on methods based on post-positivist methods and critical theory which emphasize how language and other social practices create reality rather than reflect it, and thus methods of interpreting discourse are themselves not ideologically or politically neutral practices.

This module is designed for MPhil and PhD students as part of the Social Science Research Methods Centre (SSRMC) training programme - a shared platform for providing research students with a broad range of quantitative and qualitative research methods skills that are relevant across the social sciences.

Number of sessions: 2

Session 1: The origins of critical discourse analysis (the Frankfurt school, Foucault, post-structuralism, feminism); how theoretical backgrounds shape research design
Session 2: 'Doing' discourse analysis: analysing methods and approaches

Presentations only

• Carol Cohn, “Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals”, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Vol. 12, no. 4 (Summer 1987)
• Lene Hansen, “Gender, Nation, Rape: Bosnia and the Construction of Security,” International Feminist Journal of Politics. Vol 3. Issue 1 (2000).
• Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, “A Genealogy of Dependency” A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State,” Signs: Journal of Women, Culture and Society, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Winter, 1994).
• Helen Kinsella, “Gendering Grotius: Sex and Sex Difference in the Laws of War,” Political Theory, (April 2006); vol. 34, 2: pp. 161-191.
• David Campbell, Writing Security: US Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1992 (1998).

All students are expected to give feedback for each module they take...

At the end of each module, students will be sent a link to a very short evaluation form. They will also be able to find this link on the Moodle page for their course. The survey takes a few minutes to fill in, and can even be done on a mobile phone. Students that do not respond to the survey the first time, will receive regular automated reminders until the survey is completed.

Students will not be given certification or proof of attendance for any module for which they have not provided feedback.

• To gain maximum benefits from the course it is important that students do not see this course in isolation from the other MPhil courses or research training they are taking.
• Responsibility lies with each student to consider the potential for their own research using methods common in fields of the social sciences that may seem remote. Ideally this task will be facilitated by integration of the SSRMC with discipline-specific courses in their departments and through reading and discussion.

Two sessions of one and a half hours each

Once a week for two weeks