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Methodology Lecture 4 (21/11/03)
Methods in Text-Analysis
Discourse
Textual analysis should be viewed as a form of “discourse analysis”. The concept of
discourse refers to “language as social practice determined by social structures”1 That is
why it is also argued that “discourse shapes or produces social structures, as well as being
determined by them”. Discourse is often associated with forms of order and institutions.
For example Gunther Kress describes discourse as “systematically organised set of
statements which give expression to the meanings and values of institutions”.2 It is in this
sense that we speak of discourse on family, gender, religion, science, morality and so on.
Hence, discourse can be distinguished from dialogue (which consists of processes of
hearing and speaking). In discourse the intentions of the author are distant, the addressee
is general rather than specific and direct references are absent.
For a study of law and discourse see:
Penelope Pether, “Critical Discourse Analysis, Rape Law and The Jury Instruction
Simplification Project” in 24 (1999) Southern Illinois University Law Journal and
Peter Goodrich, Reading the Law (Basil Blackwell, 1986).
Textual Analysis
Textual analysis is a way for researchers to gather information about how other people
make sense of the world. It is a methodology – a data gathering process – for those
researchers who want to understand the ways in which members of various cultures and
subcultures make sense of who they are, and of how they fit into the world in which they
live.
The notion of text must be understood here broadly. Not only it contains written words
we find in books and magazines, but also films, television programmes, advertisements,
cloths, graffiti and so on.
It is important to remember that there are different methods of text-analysis, some of
which are incompatible with each other and produce different types of information. So
there is no single “correct” method of text-analysis, but many methods. As it is the case
with other forms of qualitative and quantitative methods of research, your choice of
method should be determined by your research question and the aim of your research
undertaking.
Questions that you ask have an effect on the information or data that you find and
collect. Different methodologies produce different kind of answers.
http://www.enhancetv.com.au/articles/article3_1.htm
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Norman Fairclough, Language and Power 17 (1989).
Gunther Kress, Linguistic Processes in Socio-cultural Practice 11(1985).
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When we perform textual analysis on a text, we make an educated guess at some of
the most likely interpretations that might be made of that text.
This is, of course, a simplistic definition, and one which will be heavily refined over the course
of your studies, but it will do as a starting point. If we want to understand the role that the media play
in our lives and precisely how its messages participate in the cultural construction of our view of the
world, then we have to understand what meanings audiences are making of television programmes,
films, newspapers, magazines, and radio programmes – in short, of ‘texts ’.
Textual analysis is a methodology: a way of gathering and analysing information in academic
research. Some academic disciplines (particularly in the physical and social sciences) are extremely
rigorous about their methodologies, with a small number of long-established ways in which it is
acceptable to gather and process information. Media Studies and Cultural Studies do not police their
methodologies in this way. Indeed, one of the key insights of Cultural Studies has been that rigorous
methodologies can limit research to a great extent: if you only ever ask the same questions, in the same
way, you will continue to get very similar answers. By contrast, by asking new questions, and coming
up with new ways of thinking about things, you can get different kinds of knowledge.
Questions to Ask When Conducting Text-Analysis
See: http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/txtanal.html
Analyse the Rhetorical Context
1. Who is the writer?
2. What is her or his role or position?
3. Who is the intended audience?
4. What is the exigence which prompted this writer to write?
5. What discipline or discourse community does this text seem to be a part of?
Analyse the Textual Features
1. What issue is being addressed?
2. What position does the writer take?
3. What is the author's major claim or thesis?
4. Is the claim qualified (does the author hedge)? If so, how?
5. What evidence or reasons does the author supply to support the claim?
6. How good are these reasons or evidence?
7. Why do you trust or distrust the claims and evidence?
8. Does the author offer any refutations? If so, of what?
9. How effective are the refutations? What makes the persuasive or
unpersuasive?
Place the Text in a New Context
1. How does this text relate to other texts you have been reading?
2. How might another writer (or you) use this text?
For a Different Discussion on Method of Text Analysis SEE:
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/year1/textanalysis/method.html
For a Paper on the Analysis of Legal Texts see:
http://www.unav.es/espSig/orts14.htm
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The Limits of Legal Documents as Empirical Data:
A Textual Analysis of Discrimination Cases in Sweden
(Reza Banakar, The Doorkeepers of the Law (Aldershot, Ashgate, 1998)
1. Background (Including Literature Review)
a) The institutional aspects of Ombudsmen
b) The legislation: How the law in this area has developed
2. The Cases (the data)
a) An overview of the data
b) The structure of the data
c) How to select cases required for the study
3. Generating Research Questions
a) What types of disputes do these cases contain?
b) What types of legal and extra legal documents do they contain?
c) How does the ombudsman process the complaints?
4. Analysis
a) Theoretical assumptions
b) Interpret the cases?
5. Conclusions
a) Gatekeeping functions
b) How the cases are processed reveal the organisation of the institute of ombudsman.
c) There are different perspectives and expectations on law and the role of
ombudsman.
d) Some of the cases are redefined
A conflict is presented to the
DO.
If no, then no
further actions
are taken by
the DO.
Does it concern ethnic
issues?
If yes
If no, then no
further actions
are taken by
the DO.
Is the conflict legally
relevant?
If yes
Further
investigation.
Advise to
further legal
action.
The DO acts in
accordance to
his mandate.
A resolution or a settlement can sometimes be
reached due to the DO’s intervention.
Diagram 3
The procedure used by the DO to process complaints
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The cases ordinarily contained three types of information:
1) the complainant’s account of a dispute with a second party,
2) frequently (but not always) an account of the reaction of the second party to the allegation of
discrimination, and
3) a record of how the dispute was processed by the DO.
The Method of Investigation
The two original studies were based on three methodologically distinct but interrelated stages. These
stages can be briefly described as:
1) gaining an overview of the empirical material in order to formulate a number of working
hypotheses,
2) constructing a preliminary conceptual apparatus to conduct a systematic substantive analysis
of the empirical material, and
3) attempting to develop the theoretical basis of the investigation.
Content of the
Files
1. Letters of
Complaints
2. Records of
Measures
Taken by the
DO
The
Structure of
Documents
Extra-legal
Empirical
Property
Method of
Interpretation
Narratives
The Literal Rule
Legal
Records of
Rational
Procedural
The Teleological
Rule
Again going back to the empirical material, three major areas were subsequently identified
which needed to be addressed theoretically. These were:
1) communication,
2) conflict and
3) dispute resolution.
The diagram below reflects the symbiotic relationship between the different aspects of this
investigation.
Method of
Investigation
Empirical
Material
Research
Questions
Theoretical
Apparatus
Thus, the method of investigation used here was developed through a close interplay between the
empirical material, the research questions posed and the relevant theoretical constructs within
sociology of law.
Pedro v. Diss
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Late one night in 1979, a man called Ya Ya Pedro was standing by the door of his
brother’s house in London. Another man Martin Diss came to him, identified himself
as a police officer, and asked Pedro what he was doing there. Pedro walked away
without answering. When Constable Diss repeated his question Pedro told him to
“fuck off”. Eventually he allowed himself to be searched, but when the policeman
began to question him about some keys that he found in his pocket, Pedro walked
away again. Constable Diss grabbed him by the arm and said, “Do you live here?”
Pedro replied with another obscenity and swung backwards, striking the constable in
his chest with an elbow. As he did this the constable took hold of his clothing and
Pedro punched him. He was eventually restrained with the assistance of two other
officers, and they arrested Pedro and charged him with assaulting a constable in the
execution of his duty.
When Pedro appeared before the Highbury magistrate, he was convicted and fined
£50. But he appealed to the High Court, and the Chief Justice, Lord Lane, with one
other judge, overturned the conviction and sentence. They said that when Pedro
punched Constable Diss, the officer was not acting in the lawful execution of his
duty. The police, said Lord Lane, do not have an unlimited power to detain people for
questioning: their powers of legitimate detention and arrest are set down and
governed by law. If they go beyond these powers, the person they have got hold of is
entitled to strike back in self defence, Just as he may resist any other person who
attacks him. Lord Lane went on:
It is a matter of importance, therefore, to a person at the moment when he is first
physically detained by a police officer, to know whether that physical detention
is or is not regarded by that officer as a formal arrest or detention. That is one
of the reasons why it is a matter of importance that the arresting or detaining
officer should make known to the person in question the fact that, and the
grounds on which, he is being arrested or detained.
Constable Diss claimed that he had thought Pedro was burglar, and that he was
authorised by Section 66 of the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 to “stop, search and
detain any person who may be reasonably suspected of having or conveying in any
manner anything stolen or unlawfully obtained”. The problem was that he did not tell
Pedro that that was what he was doing; he did not say that this was the power he was
executing and these were the grounds of his suspicion. So Pedro had no way of
distinguishing the situation from one in which he was being unlawfully attacked. That
was why Lord Lane held that he was entitled to defend himself, even against a police
officer.
It is tempting to say that Pedro got off on “technicality”. In some countries you are
not allowed to resist a police officer even if his attempt to detain you is unjustified;
moreover the officer has no obligation to say why you are being detained and you
certainly have no entitlements to resist him if he does not. I do not want to argue that
the rule in Pedro v. Diss is necessarily better. But the case illuminates a couple of
boarder points of principle.
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Questions to Ask When Conducting Text-Analysis
See: http://www.engl.niu.edu/wac/txtanal.html
Analyse the Rhetorical Context
6. Who is the writer?
7. What is her or his role or position?
8. Who is the intended audience?
9. What is the need which prompted this writer to write?
10. What discipline or discourse community does this text seem to be a part of?
Analyse the Textual Features
10. What issue is being addressed?
11. What position does the writer take?
12. What is the author's major claim or thesis?
13. Is the claim qualified (does the author hedge)? If so, how?
14. What evidence or reasons does the author supply to support the claim?
15. How good are these reasons or evidence?
16. Why do you trust or distrust the claims and evidence?
17. Does the author offer any refutations? If so, of what?
18. How effective are the refutations? What makes the persuasive or
unpersuasive?
Place the Text in a New Context
3. How does this text relate to other texts you have been reading?
4. How might another writer (or you) use this text?