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General references
- Ainsworth-Vaughn, N. (1995). Claiming power in the medical encounter: The whirlpool
discourse. Qualitative Health Research, 5(3), 270-291.
- Clark, J. A., & Mishler, E.G. (1992). Attending to patients' stories: reframing
the clinical task. Sociology of Health & Illness, 14(3), 344-371.
- Lane, V. & Lawler, J. (1997). Pap smear brochures, misogyny and language: a
discourse analysis and feminist critique. Nursing Inquiry, 4(4), 262-267.
- Lupton, D. (1992). Discourse analysis: a new methodology for understanding the ideologies
of health and illness. Australian Journal of Public Health, 16(2), 145-149.
- Murray, Michael, (1997) Narrative health psychology, Massey University, Palmerston
North, Dept. of Psychology. Visiting scholar series; no. 7.
- Nessa, J., & Malterud, K. (1990). Discourse analysis in general practice: A
sociolinguistic approach. Family Practice, 7(2), 77-83.
- Potter, J. and Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes
and behaviour. London: Sage.
- Potter, J. & Wetherall, M. (1994) Analyzing discourse. In A. Bryman, & R.
Burgess (eds). Analyzing qualitative data (47- 68). London: Routledge. (Extended
example of an analysis of a UK TV programme about fund-raising for cancer).
- Waitzkin, H. (1990). On studying the discourse of medical encounters. Medical Care,
28(6), 473-488.
- Wetherell, M. (1999). Discourse analysis. In C. Davidson, & Tolich, M. (Ed.),
Social science research in New Zealand: Many paths to understanding (pp. 265- 276).
Auckland: Longman.
- Wetherell, M. (1998). Positioning and interpretative repertoires: conversation analysis
and post-structuralism in dialogue. Discourse & Society, 9, 387-412.
NZ theses and dissertations
- Bähr, Giselle Lisabeth. (1997) A discourse analysis of madness in the context of
deinstitutionalisation. Thesis for MSc. in Psychology at Victoria University of
Wellington
- Danks, Josephine Helen. (1995), Mental disorders and community care: A discourse
analysis, Thesis for MA in Psychology at Massey University.
- Hubbard, Andrew, (1999), Discourses of community in New Zealand health
policy :Dissertation
for BA Honours. University of Otago, Dunedin.
- Michel, Jennie. (2000), Physically restraining the confused elderly: A Foucauldian
discourse analysis. Thesis for Masters in Health Science (Nursing) at Auckland University
of Technology.
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Journal articles
- Avdi E. Griffin C., & Brough S. (2000). Parents' constructions of professional
knowledge, expertise and authority during assessment and diagnosis of their child
for an autistic spectrum disorder, British Journal of Medical Psychology. 73(Part
3):327-338.
Abstract: This paper presents a discourse analysis of parents' talk
about the knowledge, expertise and authority of professionals, during assessment
and diagnosis of their child for an autistic spectrum disorder at a Child Development
Centre. Focusing on the positional level of analysis, it was suggested chat parents'
constructions of professional expertise and authority were inherently ambivalent
and at rimes contradictory. It was further argued that this ambivalence is also
reflected in an ideological dilemma between equality and expertise, regarding the
role and positioning of 'human relations experts'. Discourse analysis was found
to be a particularly useful tool in investigating aspects of the parents' calk relating
to authority, knowledge and expertise. It is suggested that acknowledging this ambivalence
and scrutinizing one's assumptions and practice, rather than denying the authoritarian
aspects of health care, would provide the basis for more ethical and respectful
clinical practice.
- Aviles LA. (2001). Epidemiology as discourse: the politics of
development institutions in the Epidemiological Profile of El Salvador. Journal
of Epidemiology & Community Health. 55(3):164-171.
Abstract: Study objective-To
determine the ways in which institutions devoted to international development influence
epidemiological studies. Design-This article takes a descriptive epidemiological
study of El Salvador, Epidemiological Profile, conducted in 1994 by the US Agency
for International Development, as a case study. The methods include discourse analysis
in order to uncover the ideological basis of the report and its characteristics
as a discourse of development. Results-The Epidemiological Profile theoretical basis,
the epidemiological transition theory, embodies the ethnocentrism of a "colonizer's
model of the world." This report follows the logic of a discourse of development
by depoliticising development, creating abnormalities, and relying on the development
consulting industry. The epidemiological transition theory serves as an ideology
that legitimises and dissimulates the international order. Conclusions-Even descriptive
epidemiological assessments or epidemiological profiles are imbued with theoretical
assumptions shaped by the institutional setting under which epidemiological investigations
are conducted.
- Bartz R. (1999, Aug) Beyond the biopsychosocial model - New approaches
to doctor-patient interactions, Journal of Family Practice. 48(8):601-607.
Abstract:
The biopsychosocial model has been a cornerstone for the training of family physicians;
however, little is known about the use of this model in community practice. This
study, conducted in an urban Native American health center, examined the application
of the biopsychosocial model by an experienced family physician. METHODS. Interactions
between Dr M and 9 Native Americans with type 2 diabetes were audio-recorded following
preliminary interviews. Interpretations of the interactions were elicited from Dr
M through interpersonal process recall and interpretive dialogue sessions. The author
analyzed this data using techniques from interpretive anthropology and narrative
discourse analysis.RESULTS. in a preliminary interview, Dr M described a sophisticated
biopsychosocial approach to practice. However, she viewed her actual interactions
with these patients as imbued with misunderstanding, mistrust, and disconnection.
This occurred in spite of her experience and commitment to providing culturally
sensitive primary care. CONCLUSIONS. Biopsychosocial models of disease may conflict
with patient-centered approaches to communication. To overcome difficulties in her
practice environment, Dr M adopted a strategy that combined an instrumental biopsychosocial
approach with a utilitarian mode of knowing and interacting with patients. The misunderstandings,
mistrust, and constrained interactions point to deeper problems with the way knowledge
is formed in clinical practice. We need further understanding of the interrelationships
between physicians' clinical environments, knowledge of patients, and theories of
disease. These elements are interwoven in the physicians' patient-specific narratives
that influence their interactions in primary care settings.
- Crossley ML. (2000)
Deconstructing autobiographical accounts of childhood sexual abuse: Some critical
reflections Feminism & Psychology. 10(1):73-90.
Abstract: Much of the literature
on 'surviving' childhood sexual abuse has traditionally relied on approaches which
assume a reflective transparency between the original experience and retrospective
accounts of trauma. In recent years, however, social constructionist approaches
have encouraged the deconstruction of personal accounts of childhood sexual abuse
as a means of explicating the cultural narratives underlying the constitution of
such experiences. Drawing on the author's previous ethnomethodological/discourse
analytic work in this area, this article develops a critical orientation towards
such approaches, arguing that they tend to lose sighs of human agency and personal
subjectivity. A detailed consideration of these issues leads to a critical evaluation
of the utility of such approaches with regard to the investigation of traumatizing
experiences.
- Crossley ML. (2000) Narrative psychology, trauma and the study of self/identity
Theory & Psychology. 10(4):527-546.
Abstract: This paper aims to provide an
overview of a narrative psychological approach towards the study of self and identity.
The narrative psychological approach can be classified as broadly social constructionist
insofar as it attempts to examine the cultural structuration of individual experience.
However, building on recent criticism of certain social constructionist approaches
(such as discourse analysis), it is argued that these approaches tend to lose touch
with the phenomenological and experiential realities of everyday, practical life.
Accordingly, they overplay the disorderly, chaotic, variable and flux-like nature
of self-experience. Drawing on recent research on traumatizing experiences such
as living with serious illness, this paper argues that the disruption and fragmentation
manifest in such experiences serves as a useful means of highlighting the sense
of unity, meaning and coherence (the 'narrative configuration') more commonly experienced
on an everyday level. Moreover, when disorder and incoherence prevail, as in the
case of trauma, narratives are used to rebuild the individual's shattered sense
of identity and meaning.
- Elliott AJ. Chapman S. (2000) 'Heroin hell their own making':
construction of heroin users in the Australian press 1992-97 Drug & Alcohol
Review. 19(2):191-201.
Abstract: The ACT heroin trial was a proposal to evaluate
the efficacy of prescription heroin as a treatment for heroin-dependent people.
The trial was actively debated within the press by proponents and opponents but
ultimately did not proceed due to a lack of required political support. Precious
research indicates that public perceptions of the nature of drug users can influence
the direction of policy responses. This paper analyses the construction of heroin
users within press debate about the proposed ACT heroin trial, comparing and contrasting
trial proponent and opponent views. The primary constructions of the user embraced
models of users as people with health problems who were dying; who were criminals;
classic deviance distinctions between us and them; that users posed costs and a
threat to society; that users were victims; and discourse about 'ruined' selves.
Despite attempts by trial proponents to construct the user as an 'ill us', the cultural
value of abstinence from drug use and the ideology of individualism with its connotations
of heroin use as a choice that required punishment rather than help were rarely
challenged, reinforcing the view of drug use as a problem of individual morality.
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Hallett CE. Austin L. Caress A. & Luker KA. (2000). Community nurses' perceptions
of patient 'compliance' in wound care: a discourse analysis Journal of Advanced
Nursing. 32(1):115-123.
Abstract: As part of an interview study of community nurses'
perceptions of their work, 62 staff working within the district nursing service
in one English National Health Service Trust (grades B-H) were asked to recount
occasions when they had been involved in wound care and to discuss the ways in which
working with patients who required such care could be either enhanced or made difficult.
A large number of respondents expressed the view that non-compliance could pose
serious problems for the management of wounds. Data relating to compliance are presented
here and are interpreted in the light of discourse analysis, an approach which permits
the researcher to focus on the meanings underlying the communications of research
participants and to interpret those meanings in the light of social and cultural
mores and influences. The authors found that non-compliance could be explained by
nurses in a number of different ways. These ranged from passive resistance, which
could be due to ignorance or lack of motivation, through overt refusal, to deliberate
interference in order to prolong treatment. It also seeks to outline some of the
factors that appear to motivate the nurses' desire to achieve compliance.
- Horsfall
J. & Cleary M. (2000, Nov), Discourse analysis of an 'observation levels' nursing
policy, Journal of Advanced Nursing. 32(5):1291-1297.
Abstract: The practice of
special observation (or constant observation) is widely used in inpatient psychiatric
facilities for the care of people who are suicidal. In this study, the policy of
special observation was examined using a discourse analysis method to discern prevailing
ideas and practices highlighted within the policy. After reading, studying and analysing
the special observation nursing policy, the authors briefly describe the document
and outline the terms and phrases prevalent within the document. These recurrent
ideas are then organized into five categories: professional responsibilities, suicidality,
the patient's immediate context, the patient's observable behaviour and the nursing
checklist. In discussion of the policy document, the invisibility of the authors,
target audience and patients is noted. The authors attempt to elicit evidence for
the therapeutic nurse-patient relationship in the document. In the analysis of patient,
nurse and doctor roles and responsibilities, it is evident that the policy document
reinforces the traditional medical hierarchy of power relations. Some assumptions
that underpin the document are postulated. Questions regarding the nature of risk
assessment and the evidence base for the medical prescription of special observation
are raised. As well as ideas and themes evident in the document, the absence of
some relevant issues is explored. While the need for succinctness and clarity in
policy documents is acknowledged, the fact that patient rights, therapeutic processes
and ethical dilemmas are absent is deemed significant.
- Lupton, D. (1994). The condom
in the age of AIDS: Newly respectable or still a dirty word? A discourse analysis.
Qualitative Health Research 4(3): 304-320.
- McClelland L. Reicher S. & Booth
N. (2000). A last defence: The negotiation of blame within suicide notes Journal
of Community & Applied Social Psychology. 10(3):225-240.
Abstract: This paper
presents a discursive analysis of 172 suicide notes left by 120 suicide victims.
Instead of searching for the underlying psychological reasons for suicide in the
content of notes, we argue that such notes should be viewed as acts of communication
which serve to manage the blame accorded to both author and recipients of the suicide
note. Consequently notes may provide evidence of socially shared beliefs as to when
suicide is more or less acceptable. The analysis largely confirms this approach.
It is found that matters relating to blame are referred to more frequently than
any other issue (87% of notes). The precise arguments which are used to justify
the actions of both self and others are then described in detail and some evidence
is provided that the nature of these arguments may Vary as a function of the social
position of the author and also the identity of the recipient. The implications
of these findings, and for a general use of a discursive approach to suicide, are
then discussed. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [References: 49]
Publication Type Article
- McGowan RA. Morouney K. & Bradshaw P. (2000). Managers
and eldercare: Three critical, language-based approaches, Canadian Journal on Aging.
19(2):237-259.
Abstract: Critical, language-based analytic approaches offer tools
to explore how we use language to construct identities, roles and relationships,
to represent realities, and to challenge or support existing social orders. In this
paper we use language-based analyses to explore the issue of work and eldercare.
We identify the epistemologies, mechanics and insights of three language-based approaches:
functional grammar, discourse analysis, and deconstruction. The texts analysed are
drawn from depth interviews with male and female managerial level employees in Southern
Ontario who provide care for aging relatives. Analyses target (1) managers' reactions
to the "eldercare" label and (2) how managers balance work commitments and caregiving
commitments. We focus on managers because their role in eldercare has received little
attention in either the organizational or the gerontological literature; and yet
they may be in a position to effect institutional change.
- Moon G. & Brown T.
(2001, Feb), Closing Barts: community and resistance in contemporary UK hospital
policy, Environment & Planning D-Society & Space. 19(1):43-59.
Abstract:
Debates concerning the nature and extent of hospital provision in London, England
are longstanding. Reviews in the 1990s have focused on a perceived over-provision
and recommended rationalisation. This paper explores the representations of place
which emerged in the discourses surrounding the possible closure of St Bartholomew's
Hospital (Barts), London. Through a discourse analysis of official and unofficial
reports, Parliamentary debates, press releases, campaign material and coverage in
the London Evening Standard and other newspapers, we assess resistance to closure
and the construction of communities dedicated to the retention of Parts. Four different
representations of Bart's are identified: as community resource, as a site of expertise,
as a heritage symbol and as a site pertinent to the identities of Londoners. The
effectiveness of these different strategies is considered and their positioning
and use within the 'Campaign for Barts' is evaluated. We conclude that, notwithstanding
the potential to present the (possibly temporary) retention of Barts as a recognition
of its status as a Locus of particular medical expertise, the potency of this health
care facility as a symbol both of London and of medical tradition was the crucial
factor in its reprieve.
- Peter D. (2000) Dynamics of discourse: A case study illuminating
power relations in mental retardation Mental Retardation. 38(4):354-362.
Abstract:
In this paper, a discourse analysis of a single case, I examine the text of the
case file of an individual labeled as having mental retardation. The focus is on
exploring some of the power dynamics that underpin services and our understanding
of mental retardation. Using Foucault's treatise on discipline as an analytic tool,
I sought to unravel some of the mechanisms through which a defective identity is
constructed, thereby legitimizing social control.
- Rudolfsdottir AG. (2000) 'I am
not a patient, and I am not a child': The institutionalization and experience of
pregnancy Feminism & Psychology. 10(3):337-350.
Abstract: In this article the
focus is on how the relation between the self and body is formulated in medical/healthcare
discourses and how these affect the experiences of pregnant women. I draw on data
collected during research on the self-image of young mothers, analyses of booklets
and handouts distributed to pregnant women, and interviews conducted both on individual
and group bases with young mothers. I argue that the normalizing tendencies identified
in the booklets strip women of their agency. However, pregnant women do not always
position themselves in terms of maternal normativities. Their accounts of pregnancy
and childbirth both support and challenge the knowledge that underpins the practices
of medical/healthcare institutions. Their position as agents matters a great deal
for them and affects the extent to which they experience pregnancy and childbirth
positively or negatively.
- Pittam J. & Gallois C. (2000) Malevolence, stigma,
and social distance: Maximizing intergroup differences in HIV/AIDS discourse Journal
of Applied Communication Research. 28(1):24-43.
Abstract: This study examined the
intergroup language used by young heterosexual Australians in conversations about
HIV/AIDS and safe sex. Sixty male and 72 female heterosexuals participated in four-person
facilitated conversations same-sex or mixed-sex) about HIV/AIDS and safe sex, which
were recorded and transcribed. We focused on extracts concerning strangers or malevolent
individuals who appear to be group members, along with extracts involving foreign
national groups. Discourse analysis showed that groups at lower levels of social
distance were constructed mainly in terms of individual responsibility. At moderate
social distance, stereotypes were more negative, but sub-typing was common, whereas
at the highest levels, people were constructed entirely in intergroup terms. The
findings of this study suggest that HN prevention programs should make reference
to all salient outgroups, so as to neutralize communicative strategies that strengthen
intergroup boundaries as a means of reducing perceived personal threat of HIV infection.
- Potter, J. and Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes
and behaviour. London: Sage.
- Willig C. (2000) A discourse-dynamic approach to the
study of subjectivity in health psychology Theory & Psychology. 10(4):547-570.
Abstract: As one of the key tools of social constructionist research, discourse
analysis has allowed us to explore the ways in which 'health' and 'illness' are
constructed through language. There are two major ways in which a Foucauldian version
of discourse analysis has been applied within this context. Discourse analysis has
been used to deconstructexpert discourses of health and illness (Focus 1) and to
determine the extent to which dominant discourses are reflected in lay people's
talk about health and illness (Focus 2). This article argues that in order to progress
our understanding of the subjective experience of what it means to be 'healthy'
or 'sick', discourse analysis needs to develop Focus 2 through the use of memory
work and positioning theory. The article concludes by sketching a research programme
for a discourse-dynamic approach to the study of subjectivity in health psychology.
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Websites
General sites that provide short summaries of discourse analysis.
As this site is an archive and no longer kept up to date, we suggest you do a web
search on the title of the organisation shown to find their current website if the
link does not work."
- US based organisation, ACT National Outcomes Network/health forum. Link provides
summary of discourse analysis for qualitative researchers.
- The University of Texas at Austin. Provides a short description of discourse analysis
including uses, types, issues of reliability and validity, advantages and disadvantages.
Also contains short bibliography and links.
- University of Gent, Belgium. Introductory article by Stef Slembrouck. Mostly from
a socio-linguistic perspective, but includes discussion of theorists, along with
anthropological and sociological perspectives.
- University of Western Ontario. Essay by Robert Barsky on discourse analysis.
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