Text in Their Social Contexts

1. Text in Their Social Contexts Including Discourse Analysis in Qualitative Projects or

2. How how to do what Glen told me was impossible

3. Who am I? • Catherine F. Schryer, Professor and Chair, Ryerson University, Toronto • cschryer@ryerson.ca • Genre Theorist –texts in their social contexts • Completed projects that combine discourse analysis and qualitative analysis • Negative letters, Case presentations, consulting reports, forensic reports, dignity interviews, transplant list

4. Main Research Trajectory • Developed a model investigating texts in their social contexts • Investigated discursive forms of identity in medicine, social work and optometry (case presentations) • Investigated discursive strategies used to communicate across professional boundaries (reports, letters) • Investigating within healthcare team discursive strategies (lists, rounds, technology)

5. Main theoretical frame • Genre theory (Miller, Bakhtin) allied with structuration theory (Bourdieu, Giddens) ⁼

6. Genre: Evolving definition • Genres-- constellations of regulated and regularized improvisational strategies triggered by the interaction between individual socialization or “habitus” and an organization or field • --trajectory entities through which participants negotiate their way through time and space • Jazz

7. Main Methodological Frame • OperationalizeBourdieu’s “social praxeology” • Two Steps • To represent objective structures that define external constraints = Discourse Analysis • To reintroduce lived experience of agents= Interviews and review of published material

8. Three Studies • Walking a Fine Line: Writing Negative Letters in an Insurance Company • 26 letters • 3 interviews • wide ranging discourse analysis • Co-Management in Healthcare: Negotiating Professional Boundaries • 75 letters and reports in pairs • 14 interviews • Focused discourse analysis—modality in verbs

9. Third Study • The trial of the expert witness: Negotiating credibility in court documents in child abuse cases. • 82 letters • Interviews:6 writers, 4 readers • Focused discourse analysis on equatives

10. My Window Into Linguistics: SFL and CDA • Hodge and Kress, 1993. Language as Ideology • “the grammar of a language is its theory of reality”

11. View One: Syntagmatic Models • Actionals (relationships perceived in the real world) • Transactives (SVO) • Mary (S) fires (V) John (O). • Non-Transactives (SV) • Mary (S) falls down (V). • Relationals • Equative • Mary is a terrorist. (noun) • Attributive • Mary is evil. (adjective)

12. View Two: Transformations • Transformation are never “innocent” and have two functions: “economy and distortion” • Three types • Nominalizations- Verb becomes a noun = Freeze process, helps to hid agency • Eg. The nurse documents the change. Vs. Documentation of change exists. • Passives – Loss of agency, accountability • The radiologist performed the tests. (active) • The tests were performed by radiologists. (passive) • Tests were performed. (passive) • Negation • “There is not a tiger in this room” – implies that there could be a tiger in the room.

13. Negative Letters: Declining LTD Benefits • Research Questions • What strategies constitute this genre? • What strategies distinguish effective from ineffective letters? • What kinds of agency do these letters create? • what you, the reader, could do, be, or have • what we, the company, could do, be, or have • what other entities (doctors, files, documents) could do, be, or have.

14. You (reader)results

15. Figured world: Speech acts • A world in which you the reader could apply your claim, make a request, give reasons and obtain documents • And sometimes you could get better

16. We (the company) results

17. Figured World • We the company could inform you, conclude that your are capable (or not), terminate your claim, decide your case, decline your claim.

18. Other entities: Files, Doctors, Conditions

19. Other entities: Powerful • “The current findings available indicate that your depression appears to be stable” • “All the evidence provided to us indicates that there is no major limitation preventing you from returning to some non-stressful occupation.”

20. Negation: Why so few? • Therefore, we must decline your claim for long term disability benefits. • We are unable to continue your claim… • We will be terminating your claim…

21. Small data slice: Dignity Interview Project • When the Americans and the Japanese went to war, we had to evacuate the Western coast and we had to stay 100 miles away from the coast. Some were sent to camps, others chose to just come out east. And in my family’s case they came to Toronto. Others went to Montreal. We called that evacuation. And when we came out here it was a different place . . . at that time, there were several very intelligent young men who graduated and, because of the war situation, they got no job except maybe gardening or mundane type work. But my people were strong. (4)

22. Trial of the Expert Witness • General research question • What are the discursive strategies used by healthcare providers to negotiate meaning across professional boundaries?

23. Context • Physicians writing to social workers, police, courts regarding their opinion as to whether a child had suffered maltreatment • Physicians not allowed to “diagnose” child abuse– legal category • Accreditation, credibility issues

24. Methodology • Qualitative data analysis of interviews–using Nvivio • Data from the theme of Credibility –instances where participants reflected on the letters as conveying certainty or uncertainty • Letter analysis – using Wordsmith • 72 letters focusing on physical abuse divided into 3 categories: positive evidence of abuse; some concern for abuse; no evidence • Located evaluative adjectives and adverbs; Tracked their use across the three categories

25. Evaluative Lexemes: Positive Evidence of Abuse (39 letters)

26. Analysis • Evaluative lexemes are more prevalent in letters indicating abuse. • Words such as apparently, highly, possibly, probably, serious, suggestive, surprising, suspected, suspicious, uncommon, and unexplained only appear in those letters. • Much of the boundary work is conducted through evaluative lexemes that both constrain interpretation but leave room for alternative interpretations – eg highly suspicious.

27. Advice Or How I Learned How to Do DA • by flying by the seat of my pants.

28. 1.Data Set Construction • Parameters or selection criteria • Research question • Time • Writers, readers • Genre, text type • Exclusions • Genre – not the same social action • Big enough for analysis, but not too large

29. 2.Eyeballing Your Data Set • Immersion in data set • Looking for possible patterns • Intuitive • Can use a concordance software package Warning: They do not do analysis for you!

30. 3.Operationalize and Apply • Select concepts • Create definitions of concepts • Find paradigm examples • Sort data into categories • Double check analysis • See where data fall • Make sense of it all

31. Play it Again Sam! • Once data collapsed into large data sets you will probably have to refine your categories • Examples • Compared data patterns in “effective” and “ineffective” letters • Compared different usage patterns in letters and reports • Compared differing strategies in forensic letters (diagnosing abuse, uncertain, no abuse).

32. Lessons Learned: Specific • Two large data bases result • Can feel like “overwhelmosis” • Strategy: Emphasize one over the other • Result –one theme from interview data that helps explain context

33. Lesson Learned: General • Raid respectfully • Understand context of definitions • Work with a linguist if possible • Do homework • Check analysis with a linguist

34. Thank You • To SSHRC for supporting this research • To you for attending

35. Questions Welcomed!