1st Edition

Hybrid Voices and Collaborative Change Contextualising Positive Discourse Analysis

By Tom Bartlett Copyright 2012
    274 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    274 Pages 15 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    In this study, Bartlett presents a theoretical and descriptive development in the discipline of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) extending the recent trend away from critiques of hegemonic practices and towards the description of alternative and minority practices that has been labelled Positive Discourse Analysis (PDA). Through an in-depth case study of intercultural development discourse, the book goes beyond the top-down model of power in CDA and the oppositional approach of PDA to develop a model of power in language as multifaceted and potentially collaborative. This model is used to analyse the particular circumstances of the case study, but is primarily presented as a framework for practical applied linguistic contributions within a wide range of sociocultural contexts. Drawing on social and linguistic theory and methods from a range of functional and applied approaches to language, the book explores the connections between language form and social function, the contextual constraints on discursive action and the potential for the renegotiation of existing discourses and social practices.

    1. Bucking the System: The Revoicing of Hegemonic Discourse  2. Background  3. Participatory Voice in Development Discourse  4. Local Prestige, Local Power  5. Taking Control  6. Interdiscursivity, Capital and Empathy  7. Positive Discourse Analysis: Spaces of Collaboration and Resistance  Appendices

    Biography

    Tom Bartlett is Professor of Functional and Applied Linguistics at the University of Glasgow, UK. 

    'All in all, the performed research seems to be well developed and does justice to the input and interactions between the various participants. The author has managed to systematically use SFL, creatively combined with other approaches and usefully combined with theoretical frameworks such as Bourdieu’s account on symbolic capital, which he further enriched as a result of the research.' - Nicolina Montesano Montessori, Utrecht University of Applied Sciences/VU-University, Critical Discourse Studies

    '...Bartlett makes an impressive effort to integrate theories and methodological approaches from critical discourse analysis, positive discourse analysis, SFL, conversation analysis, interactional sociolinguistics, pragmatics and ethnography to develop a model of power in language as bottom-up, multifaceted and potentially collaborative...This case study of bottom-up change in institutional discourse provides an exemplary reference for researchers who explore similar processes in other communities, as well as more generally scholars in linguistic anthropology, ethnography and ethnopoetics.' - Yunhua Xiang, Jilin University, Discourse and Society