Introduction: Defining the Issue
Discourse analysis is a type of qualitative research design, which is based on naturally occurring data. DA is a general term that relates to the set of qualitative procedures, which are widely defined as an approach that addresses talk and text within social practice. According to Kiyimba, Lester & O’Reilly (2019), the core principle of a disclosure analysis is based upon the fundamental premise that people carry out certain practices through language. Furthermore, language is considered to contribute significantly to the regulation and sustainment of social life in terms of DA. The broad range of approaches to discourse analysis implies that there are many underlying assumptions and foundations.
With that said, discourse analysis has diverse definitions, although all the DA approaches have a common ground since they are dedicated to examining discourse as talk and text in the context of social practice. Kiyimba et al. (2019) identified three common features of the DA methods, such as “focus on language, recognition of variability concerning how people account for things, and focus on the variety of account-construction ways” (p. 125). Therefore, some might perceive the discourse and DA as the study of language in use, while others consider it a study of the level of language above the syntax (sentence). Gee (2017) believes that both perspectives are linked to syntax representing discourse as a theory that analyzes the ways the language structure (form) is applied in communication (content).
Historical Context
From a historical perspective, in the scientific study of language, discourse analysis originates from the close study concerning the language style and interpretation in sacred writings intersecting with the hermeneutics field. For this reason, the majority of early works in discourse analysis were targeted at the translation of written texts. Discourse analysis historically originates from the ancient Greek differentiation of grammar and rhetoric in language arrangements. However, throughout DA development and the emergence of structural linguistics and generative linguistics, discourse analysis turned into the study of the application of the oral language’s grammar in communication. The analytical model for investigating spoken discourse was developed during the 1970s and was introduced as the discourse-analytical model. To be more specific, this concept was initially presented through work about the classroom discourse by Sinclair and Coulthard in 1975. It was stated that the classroom discourse adheres to the specific structure. Such an analysis model adapts a rank scale to explain the nature of the discourse structure.
Considering the theoretical foundations of discourse analysis, the broad spectrum of DA approaches is focused on language and the ways the meaning is developed. Many of the DA methods have roots in the concept of social constructionism, which means that they consider the knowledge as “historically, socially, and culturally contingent” (Kiyimba et al., 2019, p. 125). Otherwise stated, some come to the agreement that knowledge is generated and maintained through social phenomena. A more traditional type of discourse analysis is founded in ethnomethodology and is based on three critical concepts, including “interpretative repertoires, subject positions, and ideological dilemmas” (Kiyimba et al., 2019, p. 126). The discourse-related research can be seen in the writings that are dated the early 1900s, but a significant number of dominant DA traditions began to develop only since the 1980s. Moreover, linguistic philosophers, such as Wittgenstein (1958), Winch (1967), as well as Berger and Luckmann (1967), previously studied the idea of language as constitutive of inner thought (Lester & O’Reilly, 2016). As such, the linguistic perspective led to a greater shift in understanding and studying a language.
During a crisis of representation within many research traditions, the researchers avoided the thought that language correlates to a given reality. For instance, Rorty and others argued that language is a useful strategy in predicting and monitoring behavior, and a “constitutive of meaning and practice” (Lester & O’Reilly, 2016, p. 33). In contrast, reality was viewed as a feature or result of hypothesizes to which people relate in social life, as well as the practices they perform. Such a change of perspectives demonstrated how the diversity of DA approaches were developed and applied across disciplines. Consequently, discourse analysis became more specialized in the 1990s. As such, analysts who rely on discursive psychology began to examine the ways mental conditions provoke in language, together with a gradual and progressive focus on conversation analysis (CA). The analysts who applied critical discourse analysis began to deal with the broader political and social structures. The traditional methods of DA were targeted at studying discursive resources that help to consider the truth of a claim. Over time, the very explicit ways emerged, which included various approaches to DA and were focused on their analytical direction.
Philosophical Framework
The philosophical perspective of the DA issue implies the complex relationship between the discourse and the world people perceive as outside of and independent of the discourse. Hence, such an argument over this interconnection was a recurrent topic in terms of the history of philosophy. In addition, one of the essential goals for language theorists during the past century was to define the connection between “language and thought, language and culture, or discourse and society” (Johnstone, 2018, p. 35). The shared agreement among discourse analysts is the idea that discourse is both formed by the human lifeworld and assists in shaping it or the world as people feel and experience it.
This means that discourse reflects and contributes to the development of human beings’ conception of the world. More specifically, people generate worlds by talking, writing, and singing. The field of philosophy puts a different view on the DA, meaning that controlling metaphor for discourse may be considered as adaption rather than tactics. Following the ideas of Johnstone (2018), DA is part of the “continual, automatic dance of coordination,” which is a human social life (p. 35). Humans are spoken through as they create texts that are seen as responses to the circumstances and usually are automatic, less conscious, and less developed as one might assume and, therefore, provide less choice. From this perspective, discourse analysis plays a crucial role in uncovering how it is beyond the control of rhetorical agents formed by more considerable social powers.
Methodology
The study of discourse analysis is closely linked with the finding and methods of other disciplines and subdisciplines. One of the examples of the interdisciplinary nature of discourse analysis, which is commonly considered as an exercise in pragmatics or CA (conversation analysis), is the apology. Apologies should be perceived as contributions to a wider discourse and examined from different perspectives, including “formal and functional, cognitive and interactive, individual and group, interlanguage and societal” (Lakoff, 2015, p. 296). The apology is also analyzed from the view of phonology, syntax, lexical semantics, speech act pragmatics, conversational analysis, narratology, and sociolinguistics (Lakoff, 2015). They develop in a variety of forms from canonically clear to vaguely indirect. One of the methods in terms of apologies study is Austinian analysis that helps to define the abundance and the specific types of apologies.
Conversation analysis (CA) is another research method that corresponds to autonomous syntactic analysis. In this case, the analyst can avoid dealing directly with meaning, intention, function, or understanding. Adjacency pairs are the formal structures that might assist in uncovering what sort of second is preferred when an apology is the first member of a turn sequence. The means and methods of the CA can help to explain what represents a preferred second in response to an apology. Concerning the CA perspective, the analyst has to consider that, of the different possible seconds available in reply to an apology, contrary ones are more inclined to synchronize with variously shaped apologies. Narrative analysis, sociolinguistic analysis, and text analysis are other ways of examining the apologies in terms of discourse analysis.
Interactional sociolinguistics (IS) is a method in discourse analysis that originates from the search for replicable methods of qualitative analysis. According to Gumperz (2015), conversationalists continuously rely upon the knowledge that “goes beyond grammar and lexicon to make themselves heard” (p. 309). It differs from conversational analysis because the concern is with the situated interpretation of communicative intent rather than the strategies. In addition, this analysis is not limited to explicitly lexicalized data. IS method has a four-phase design, such as “providing of insight into the local communicative ecology, discovering recurrent encounter types, and finding out key participants through observation and interviewing” (Gumperz, 2015, p. 312). The final phase implies scanning the transcripts at two levels of an organization. With that said, discourse analysis has a variety of methods due to its interdisciplinary nature. Some of the approaches also include:
- framing and positioning,
- conversational interaction,
- transcribing embodied action,
- imagination in narratives,
- oral discourse,
- multimodality,
- critical discourse analysis,
- computer-assisted methods for analyzing textual and intertextual competence,
- register variation.
Data Analysis
The research procedures and methods of analysis are implemented through the questions that one asks, as well as the unique answers, even if they represent the combination of many different concepts. As such, the data might vary from small units (sentences or turns) to significantly larger and more abstract entities (courtroom trials, novels, political events) (Lakoff, 2015). During the data analysis, it is important to consider these concepts in terms of the smaller and more precise units that establish them. Data analysis is a systematic method for reviewing data prepared for a research investigation that supports explanations and findings of the information and presumptions about the specific population. Since discourse analysis refers to the qualitative research design, it involves the “application of logic and reasoning, a branch of philosophy, to non-numeric data” (Aaronson, 2018, p. 155). Qualitative data analysis includes coding words, objects, or events into relevant categories and themes inherent to actual data analysis.
Presentation of Results
The final and culminating stage of the discourse analysis implies presenting the results and drawing the conclusions accordingly. After allocating particular characteristics to the elements of the examined material, one should reflect upon the results to study the function and meaning of the applied language. Therefore, it is crucial to consider the provided discourse analysis in connection with the broader perspective that was established earlier to make conclusions that serve as the answer to the research question. Discourse analysis is also widely implemented in mental health research and can be even used more compared to the current situation.
Considering such a fundamental role of the DA method, it is vital to explore how findings from DA research may influence policymakers, as well as clinicians. It is especially relevant for those who might be less aware of or exposed to questions set up within social constructionist perspectives. The result is based on the complexity of synthesizing the conclusions of the previous research into a group of coherent and stable findings and incorporating scholarly findings into an empirically based theory. The majority of findings comply with the language applied by small numbers of individuals in conversations, interviews, or naturally occurred interactions as a result of the precise micro-level analysis.
Application to Nursing Science
In terms of the multidisciplinary nature of the discourse analysis, it is widely applied in the nursing field through all three perspectives, including sociolinguistics, anthropological approach, and conversation perspective. DA is useful in examining the discourses on a broad range of nursing topics, such as individualized care, abortion, or expertise in the nursing literature. Hence, three nursing studies by Fjørtoft et al. (2020), Tengelin & Dahlborg-Lyckhage (2016), and Wilson et al. (2017) based on the DA method are analyzed in correspondence with the description of this approach mentioned above. The first nursing research examines prevalent discourses on nursing proficiency within homecare nursing to promote the general understanding of practice in this area. It is a qualitative study conducted through a critical discourse analysis with a social constructivist perspective.
The key elements of the first research include data examined through a linguistic, thematic, and contextual concept in terms of theories on competence, institutional logic, as well as discourses. The researchers implemented Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework and examined the interview transcripts as “linguistic text, discursive practice, and social practice” (Fjørtoft et al., 2020, p. 7). The second study defines the discourses inherent to nursing teachers’ talk about their norm-critical competence. The analyzed empirical material based on focus group interviews was studied through critical discourse analysis. Three separate discourses related to nursing education were disclosed as an overarching order of discourse. The third research is focused on psychoeducation as the psychosocial intervention for bipolar disorder patients. This study used Foucauldian discourse analysis for a critical outlook on psychoeducation to examine the related assumptions. The implementation of medical discourse in psychoeducation aims at restraining its capacity to work with uncertainty and contradiction.
Conclusion
Discourse analysis is not a single method of qualitative approach, which provides the groundwork for the variety of approaches with different theoretical backgrounds, as well as the use of different methodologies. In general, it covers the set of thematic studies of language, texts, or communication, and their overall engagement in society and history, linked with syntax. Due to its multidisciplinary nature, DA is commonly applied to examine the relationship between the nurse and the patient, dynamics of home visiting, nursing documentation as a form of power relations, and nursing diagnosis in the nursing literature. Each of the studies is based on valuable sources, such as nurses’ notes and written texts, and client-nurse conversations, that help to examine the language-in-use from different perspectives. To conclude, the following research emphasizes the relevance of the DA approach, its core elements and structure, and application within a nursing field and its results.
References
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