Discourse analysis places particular emphasis on talk and text as a data source, it focuses on looking at any form of written or spoken language. It’s a very interesting, qualitative way of analysing conversations, not just by what is said rather how it is said e.g. the language used, the emphasis placed on different words to convey importance, how negative/positive a conversation is etc. DA can be used to examine the ways in which social events are reported by different people and to what extent being from a different social or cultural group might impact on your communication with someone not from your social/cultural group. In doing so, DA can unmask the underlying values and agendas of different groups. I was particularly interested by one book which described studying DA in terms of how language gets recruited ‘on-site’ to enact specific social identities and activities for example, ways of being a ‘good student’ or a ‘tough cop’ or a ‘(video) gamer’. This raises the question to what extent do we model our language and style of conversation depending on the social situation we find ourselves in.
A paper by Peel et al looked at how patients recently diagnosed with T2DM talked about their diet both before and after diagnosis.
The study found that there is a gendered dimension to T2DM participants’ discussion of diet, with women constructing their diet as something they had to manage individually, often in conflict with the demands of their families, and men on the other hand, in general, constructing their diet as a broader familial issue that was not their concern at all, more of an external locus of control.
Participants often used strategies (especially when discussing ‘failure’ to adhere to the regimen) designed to position themselves positively; suggesting that patients come to see themselves as accountable for their food choices, and therefore wanting to portray as positive an image of themselves as possible, for example through dismissing lapses or ‘cheating’ in diet by speaking relatively in terms of how much they used to eat before the diagnosis and how they eat much less now (even if this is still relatively too much).
This comes nicely back to the point I made earlier about how people’s views of being a ‘good’ diabetic patient may influence the way they think about and discuss their diets, and what healthcare professionals can do to empower patients and how they identify with their disease.
Taking the Biscuit? A Discursive Approach to Managing Diet in Type 2 Diabetes. Peel et al, 2005. Find it here: http://hpq.sagepub.com/content/10/6/779
