Discourse Analysis Especially in the Context of Research Interview
The term discourse was first used in 16th century in Greek-Latin terminologies, from Analuen where Ana means Up and Luen means to loose. It is a process of deconstruction (complex to simple). Discourse according to Philosopher Ludwig Width Genting defines as “Discourse is a linguistic action be it written, visual, oral, verbal or non-verbal communication undertaken by social actors in specific settings and determined by social rules, norms and conventions”, so it has deep relation with linguistics.
According to philosopher Austin, Discourse is a speech act which constitutes 3 kind of performative utterances like locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary pertaining to the activity the speech is creating the role of the listener.
In philosophy there is a discursive logic or reasoning which is a methodology of researcher where a researcher is thinking and exploring one premise to the other premise aiming t come to a generally accepted logic. Discourse analysis provides a general framework for a problem, oriented research. Here the importance of the language should be understood and how the language is constructed have to take into consideration. Majorly discourse analysis has to parts- language or verbal and non-verbal , activities of thinking, acting, feeling, believing, valuing and interacting by using certain tools and symbols. In the right place and right time when this language is presented, certain identities are invited and recognized giving the world certain meanings making connections meaningful through communication distributing social goods like power and status and privileging certain kinds of meanings.
The characteristic features of Discourse:
1. It is related to language
2. Any discourse can be split into two or more
3. Discourse can be merged together
4. Discourses can remain the same over the period of time
5. Discourses need not necessary be large or grand scaled
6. Discourses can be a hybrid
7. Discourses are related t cultural models and social languages
8. Discourses very often represent the interest of other group
9. In every Discourse 3 things are very important-
a. Performance
b. Negotiation and
c. Acknowledgement
10. Every situation in a discourse have
a. A semiotics language or aspect (signs and symbols)
b. An aspect of activity
c. Political aspect and
d. Social-cultural attributes
11. In a discourse some aspects are important and have to take in consideration like,
a. The meaning and aspects of material world
b. The general activities of the actors
c. Politics and distribution of social goods
d. Identities and representations
e. Connections
f. Semiotics
12. In discourse analysis the role of transcription is important in both verbal and non-verbal communication
Limitation of Discourse Analysis:
1. Scholars believe that analysis can be linked at 4 levels but they do not agree to the direction of the links
2. Scholars critiques on whether analysis should began from context? Or should it begin from the last step of the data collection
3. The intertextual links reflect underlined ideology or they are just creations of language of playful individuals?
4. Do genera actually narrate people’s everyday life of other people?
5. Do these interviews indicate any kind of transformative social change?
6. The most important aspect of a discourse analysis should be how the participants look into their experience through word? Etc..
Steps for Discourse Analysis:
1. After transcription of the interview look for the immediate language or text which is referred to as internal co-text. These contexts are certain utterances or words indicating also what comes before and after it and how it is related to other utterances in the text.
2. Understanding the intertextual and interdiscursive relations between utterances texts, genres and discourses which simply means what are the keywords used, how one talk in a discourse is related to other talk in the interview and how it is recontextualized?
3. The extra linguistic, sociological variables and institutional framework for a specific context of a situation should be understood.
4. Here we have to understand the broader socio-political and historical context, for example- the discourse around ethnicity, gender, class etc.
Discussion of the findings:
Interview:
I went to Delhi, when I was 20 years old to pursue my post-graduation from University of Delhi. Before that I had completed my graduation from West Bengal State University, West Bengal, which is my home town. I belong to a middle class Bengali family, with a aspiration for higher study. My parents were supportive and one of my teacher had advised me to attempt the DUET examination to get chance to pursue my post-graduation from DU as she had seen a bright student within myself and she wanted me to provide new scopes and to reach to a broader exposure from where I can pursue further, which supposed to be was not possible from WBSU because they have lack of infrastructure and also educational facilities. I was from the field of Anthropology and I knew that in India, the Department of Anthropology, DU was the superior most in its all kind of standards and I thought that I have that ability to represent myself as a student of anthropology from Delhi University. As I had always tried to get exposure for new knowledge, new skills I attempted DUET and got Ranked No.1 in all over India.
Before the DUET result I had to take admission to WBSU because of timing issue and I was not sure whether I will be selected or not and was somehow perpetuated to decide whether I will go to Delhi or not. Also I was thinking that whether I can be able to adjust with the new life without my parents or not. But when result come out I decided not to miss the opportunity.
I have faced many problems when I reached to Delhi. After some days of admission I went to Delhi, I had taken admission to the DU women’s hostel and then started living there. Actually I had face a huge transition from all across my lifestyle from food to study. I didn’t know whether I will be catch up the race I that busy city or not. I have experienced many things which were not supposed to be expected. First of all I had syndrome of feeling lonely. As I was new at that place and initially I did not have any close one as a friend. I used to talk to everyone in the hostel but at the end of the day when I used to be in my room I felt alone. My room-mate was not supportive at all.
I used to cry a lot whenever I felt down. In department, everything was in English which was a major change in my life. As I am from Bengali culture and also I had my graduation in Bengali itself. Suddenly all in English was a very tough period to adjust for me. My department and hostel has a diverse kind of people from many corners of the nation where English was most comfortable one to conversation in but it was a struggle for me to shift my language completely from Bengali to English . I always used to feel that I am inferior than the others around me from every aspect.
Environmentally I have faced a lot of issues. I used to fall in fever many times. I got my migration also from the loneliness syndrome. Delhi was very polluted and also warm in climate that time which was not favored by me and I used have breathing problem, headeque, nausea, fatigue, digestion issues and uncomfortable feeling all the time. Even my menstruation cycle got disturbed due to the huge change in environment.
I had change in my food habit as well. Hostel did not allowed Bengali dish every day. They also used to provide variety of foods daily which was really struggling for me to familiarize with. There was no place for worshipping God in my hostel, they also did not performed any ritual from my own culture. Dress pattern was also different. Sometimes I felt that what I am wearing is not good enough for the city so I thought to buy new dresses but economic struggle was also there for me as my father does not have that much of sufficient money to spend without any tension. I did not had many friends so there was no opportunity to go and hangout for some time. Ultimately I was all alone that time but the only support was from my parents and their motivating statements.
As we know environment is not only the physical background around us but also the socio-cultural background has a great importance to form an environmental condition, I had to find out the way to be happy that time. When I was unhappy with my room-mate, I informed the hostel authority and after some day they allowed me to shift to a single bed room and I moved to that room. that was actually the turning point of my life. After shifting to my new room I started to live in new way.
Whenever I felt bad, I started moving out for some time with who ever used to be my companion or alone. I started loving all the food from different culture that was provided by the hostel. I started thinking and living within a diverse environment. I started wearing mask while going out, I used to take hot vapors and medicines whenever it was needed. I started engaging myself with the study and started love to speak in English. I had to practice conversation with others for many times and I thought that this is the only place where I can grow up and can move out from the nut shell. I started going to gym in the evening time. I used to laugh not to cry. Whenever felt down used to call my mother. I did not changed my dressing style rather I stop myself to feel inferior and be creative. I started painting in my room, organizing my room with lights and water plants to have a fresh feeling. I had managed myself to that changed place, changed socio-cultural background.
But after all of these, there are a lot of change in my life write now. First of all, It was my prime most right decision to go to Delhi. I have learned a lot of thing from my department, visited lot of places, experienced diverse culture and diverse educational opportunities and facilities, which all were not supposed to be in my life if I did not take that decision. Now I am more confident in my conversation in English. I met to diverse people from diverse culture, experienced diverse rituals and also enjoyed diverse food and festivals. Ultimately now I don’t have that fear to adjust with other people or other culture rather now I am nourished with anthropological knowledge and I know I can adjust myself to any kind of situation and will create my happiness according to the context.
Analysis of the discourse:
Primary Codes:
Aspiration of a student
Lack of educational infrastructure in rural areas
Moving to urban city for better learning and placement opportunity
Initial socio-environmental constrains
Adjustment strategies
Change in overall lifestyle
Following each of the paragraph of the interview we can identify the above primary codes to constitute the major discourses. A student from rural place coming to metropolitan city for educational purpose. The student have ability and intelligence to learn and pursuit higher education. The parents does not have any governmental or private service rather a small business but they are willing to send their child to pursue higher education for the better learning and placement opportunity. Brilliant students always have mental support from their parents or teachers so they can aspire for higher education. But the fact is lack of educational infrastructure, lack of teaching support in spite of the high amount of fees in the universities push the guardians to try to send their child in a better place where the fees are equivalent to the availability of infrastructure and teaching-learning support. For a guardian the process is never easy nor for the student as well. the narration shows great amount of uneasiness to left the parental state and go to urban city to live alone and peruse higher education. But the necessity and the interest push a student mind to leave their parental home and stay in hostel just for the sake of better learning opportunity and a hope of better placement in the future.
The major discourse here is one of the influencing factor of the process of urbanization. When we talk about urbanization, one of the major influencing factor is the educational purpose of the people, who have high aspirations and affordability to come and live in a urban city they want to take the opportunity to grow and assimilate with the higher standard lifestyle than their previous one. In this competitive world everyone is running towards getting a secure and better placement to live life with comfort and ease. The people who can afford a higher education expenses, they will always look for better infrastructure, learning facilities and better opportunities for future placement but those who can’t afford all the facilities they have only the ability of their child to show and ask for better opportunity for their child. Here the hidden discursive fact is that it is not easy for a smaller businessman to afford all the comfortability for their child in a urban city but the student are going and adjusting with the urban city life and expenses with various strategies but they are moving to urban city for one aspiration only and that is proper higher education which in broader way actually influencing people to move from rural to urban city life.
Then another discourse is flourishing through some of the major constrains that the students have faced during the initial days of her migration, this is not only a single experience rather most of the students do face this kind of physical, emotion, social, cultural, psychological, environmental and many constrains when they move out from their home for the first time. Urban city life is not easy to adapt for a student in the initial days. The narration delivers many kind of difficulties and stresses that a student face without their guardian in a city life. And this constrains introduces many kind of strategies to cope of with new life style. Urban life is full of socio-cultural diversity. A student goes from their own culture have to adject with that diversity to carry on the urban life. These actually push towards another major discourse which is acculturation. Acculturation may be is a process of social change but it can also be done in individual level, it is more transculturation process that goes on in a urban city life. But for a student acculturation process is more dominant than the later one. Acculturation is the process of assimilation to a different culture which is typically the dominant one in a particular area. But in most of the urban life the dominant culture is the major group assimilated in the diverse one, like a mixing bowl where many culture come together and assimilate with each other. This process is actually influences the social change and especially the change in individual lifestyle. Which have many advantages in respect to the modern world but also has many disadvantages while talking of the preservation of traditional custom, culture and lifestyle activities.
The feelings of inferiority is the major barrier in this process of changing lifestyle, the economic inferiority, linguistic barrier, lack of support, feeling of inferiority in respect to lifestyle and dressing sense and also the feeling of uncertainty to reach to the purpose or goal for the movement to urban city, these can be major constrains that a student has to overcome but the end of the day if they are reached to their goal they must gain a voice of confidence. Although this change can bring many unexpected behaviors and mindset among them. So it is a great deal of controversy, the process has many pros and cons but it is one of the fact and can brings out many major discourses while studying at a deeper level.
So we can have 3 major discourses which are actually interconnected and orderly arranged in an individual level but the process is almost similar to the broader social context as well.
Major discourses:
ü Influencing factors of Urbanization
ü The process of adaptation to a new social and cultural context
ü Acculturation
All the three discourses are interrelated and arranged in a chain or one-way process.
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