Thursday, October 31, 2013

Can opposite leading scholars mix?


During the first read of Gee, I thought, “Ugh! This is not at all what I expected—especially when I read the entire grammar section.”  However, I did like the idea of the “tools”, because those can be applicable.  Overall, I see this book as a resource, but now I have a question when it comes to analysis.  I know that in advanced qual we discussed who we may align ourselves with when it comes to research and analysis.  At this point, to be plain, I just like Hutchby and Wooffitt better.  Jeffersonian transcription is something that I picked up easily, and it makes total sense to me.  The analysis of the conversations in Hutchby and Wooffitt were also clear, as I would ‘test’ myself while reading the conversations.  I would skip the written text and analyze the examples, then read to see if my analysis was correct.  More often than not, it was, and I was on the same page with them.  Gee, however, threw me off, especially with his linguistic approach in the first half of the book.  I can’t say whether or not that small section then biased me towards the rest, because I did find things useful.  Tool #21, the Sign Systems and Knowledge Building Tool, fits perfectly with the data I’m looking at for this course. Thank you, for finding that for me before I did J.  So, to get back to my question.  When I am analyzing data, does it make sense to rely on completely different leading scholars in the field?  I plan on using many of Hutchby and Wooffitt’s theories and arguments to assist in my analysis, however, some of the tools Gee lists are useful, and I would also like to use them, but does it diminish my analysis if I use both?  I suppose since I am new to working with data and analysis, especially DA or CA, that the more practice the better.  I tried to look at Gee’s references, but, alas, the unicorn has none.  He does, however, give readings at the end of each section, and I see he cited Fairclough, but he also does not refrain from offering his previous publications.

1 comment:

  1. It's a good question, and of course there's not one "right" answer. Gee's toolkit covers a large spectrum of discourse analysis research, theory and methodology - so some of his tools are more compatible with conversation analysis than others. And the references he provides at the end of each section are supposed to point you in the right direction to learn more about the tools that seem most useful - as he says in the conclusion - this book is only a starting point.

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