New Methods of Literacy Research

Peggy Albers, Teri Holbrook, Amy Flint, Peggy Albers, Teri Holbrook, Amy Flint

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136250576
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Literacy researchers at all stages of their careers are designing and developing innovative new methods for analyzing data in a range of spaces in and out of school. Directly connected with evolving themes in literacy research, theory, instruction, and practices—especially in the areas of digital technologies, gaming, and web-based research; discourse analysis; and arts-based research—this much-needed text is the first to capture these new directions in one volume. Written by internationally recognized authorities whose work is situated in these methods, each chapter describes the origin of the method and its distinct characteristics; offers a demonstration of how to analyze data using the method; presents an exemplary study in which this method is used; and discusses the potential of the method to advance and extend literacy research.

For literacy researchers asking how to match their work with current trends and for educators asking how to measure and document what is viewed as literacy within classrooms, this is THE text to help them learn about and use the rich range of new and emerging literacy research methods.

PART I

Methods in Discourse Analysis

1

MICROETHNOGRAPHIC DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

David Bloome and Stephanie Power Carter

The What of Microethnographic Discourse Analysis

The study of discourse structures and processes has been conducted from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives (see Graesser, Gernsbacher, & Goldman, 2003; Schiffrin, Tannen, & Hamilton, 2001; van Dijk 1985, 1997, 2001) with a broad range of definitions of discourse (see Bloome, Carter et al., 2009; Potter, Wetherell, Gill, & Edwards, 1990). Applied to the study of literacy, these diverse perspectives and definitions of discourse have produced a body of educational studies across disciplines redefining literacy learning in and outside classrooms (see Gee & Green, 1998; Hicks, 1995; Rex et al., 2010). Microethnographic discourse analysis is a subset of perspectives within the broader field of discourse analysis studies.

Microethnographic discourse analysis is not a method but a perspective. This perspective is grounded in the insight that people act and react to each other; and they do so within a social context constructed by how they and others have been acting and reacting to each other over time. The primary, but not exclusive, means by which people act and react to each other is with language and related semiotic systems. Inherent to this perspective is the inseparability of people and their uses of language within the social events and social contexts of their interactions.

The foundations of a microethnographic discourse analysis perspective lie in the ethnography of communication (Erickson 2004; Gumperz & Hymes, 1972; Hymes, 1974) and interactional sociolinguistics (e.g., Gumperz, 1986). In brief, these foundations provide a systematic way to understand language and related semiotic systems as they are actually used in people's daily lives as part of their interactions with others within the local and broader social contexts of their lives (as opposed to views of language as an idealized, decontextualized linguistic system, cf., Chomsky, 1957). As applied to education, these foundations conceptualize teaching and learning as social linguistic processes (cf., Green, 1983b); that is, it is through their contextualized, interactional uses of language (and related semiotic systems) that educators and students constitute and define what counts as teaching, learning, curriculum, knowledge, achievement, gate keeping, and other educational processes (Hicks, 2003). Applied to the study of classrooms, researchers have employed this perspective to examine how cultural, racial, gender, and linguistic variation among school populations play out in educational processes and outcomes (e.g., Au, 1980; Camitta, 1993; Erickson & Mohatt, 1982; Phillips, 1983) as well as how classroom conversations are related to and define academic learning (e.g., Cazden, 1988, 2001; Michaels, Sohmer, & O'Connor, 2004).

Building on foundations in the ethnography of communication and interactional sociolinguistics, educational researchers (e.g., Bloome, Carter, Christian, Otto, & Shuart-Faris, 2005; Hicks, 2003) sought to incorporate additional theoretical perspectives that would address the complexities of dialogue (e.g., Bakhtin, 1935/1981; Volosinov, 1929/1973), power relations (e.g., Apple, 1995; Bourdieu & Thompson, 1991; Foucault, 1980), the relationship of language and culture (e.g., Agar, 1996; Duranti & Goodwin, 1992; Sherzer, 1987; Street, 1993); critical discourse analysis (e.g., Blommaert & Bulcasen, 2000; Fairclough, 1992, 1995; Rogers, Malancharuvil-Berkes, Mosley, Hui, & Joseph, 2005), cultural studies (e.g., Walkerdine, 1984; Wohlwend, 2009), gender and language studies (e.g., Cameron, 1998; Coates, 1993; Holmes & Meyerhoff, 2008), critical race studies (e.g., Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995), among others. In so doing, educational researchers addressed: (a) the relationship of local, interactional events with events and processes in other locales and at broader levels of social, cultural, economic, political, and educational contexts; (b) the ways in which social structures structure daily life and institutional life including schooling; and (c) the ways in which people, including teachers and students, together adapt and resist given structures and social, cultural, economic, political, and semiotic practices as well as the ways in which new structures and practices are created. This laminating of multiple theoretical perspectives seeks to capture and theorize the inherent inseparability of local interactions and the contexts in which they occur. At the same time, it seeks to maintain the insight that social events, practices, institutions, ideologies, are constructed, maintained, and changed by people in interaction with others; the histories and material nature of those practices, institutions, and ideologies not withstanding. As such, from a microethnographic discourse analysis perspective one must simultaneously view local, interactional events as reflections and refractions of broader social and historical contexts while viewing broader, social contexts as reflected in and refracted by local, interactional events.

Microethnographic Discourse Analysis Perspectives of Literacy

The study of literacy from a microethnographic discourse analysis perspective incorporates theoretical frames and constructs from scholarship on literacy as a social and cultural process (e.g., Barton & Hamilton, 1998; Cook-Gumperz, 1986; Gee, 1996; Heath, 2012; Street, 1995). With roots in social and cultural anthropology and sociology, literacy is defined as a set of social and cultural events and practices in which the involvement of written language is more than trivial (cf., Heath, 1980). From this perspective, literacy is always literacies (referring to multiple and diverse social and cultural events and practices involving written language; hereafter referred to as literacy events and practices) and literacies are always a part of reflecting and refracting the cultural ideology of institutional and broader contexts.

A microethnographic discourse analysis perspective views literacy events and practices as constructed by people acting and reacting to each other with, through (and possibly about) written language. Literacy events and practices may involve spoken language and other modes of communication, and the relationships of written and spoken language and other modes of communication to each other vary depending upon the nature of the social events and practices themselves (and as people adapt and change those events and practices). Thus, there is no a priori characterization of the nature or functions of written language or an a priori framework for the interpretation or meaningfulness of written language. Rather, what written language is used for, its nature, and how it is interpreted depend on what people in interaction with each other do with it and what frames of interpretation they construct (Santa Barbara Classroom Discourse Group, 1992). And, while these constructions are not predetermined, neither are they indifferent to the history of the use of written language within local and broader contexts. Indeed, people may hold each other accountable for using written language in ways consistent with its history of use in particular types of social situations.

Questions Asked About Literacy(ies) from a Microethnographic Discourse Analysis Perspective

A key research question from a microethnographic discourse analysis perspective is on how the ways people act and react to each other constitute literacy events and practices and the relationship of such social interactions to other social events and practices and to broader social contexts. Simply put, questions are asked about who is doing what, with whom, when, where, and how in a literacy event and across a series of literacy events. Related questions include how, in situ, the ways people act and react to each other define literacy and literacy learning, construct social identities in relationship to literacy, constitute inclusion and exclusion from a broad range of social groups and social institutions, enact and challenge the relationship of literacy and social structures and power relations, define and naturalize rationality, as well as provide opportunities for people to use written language and related semiotic systems to construct their daily lives in and out of classrooms, make their lives meaningful, and develop caring and loving relationships.

Some Theoretical Tools for Conducting Microethnographic Discourse Analysis Studies of Literacy Events and Practices

As part of a broader approach to describing and theorizing how the diverse and evolving ways people act and react to each other with, through, and about written language, we note six key theoretical tools: attention to indexicality, contextualization cues, boundary making, thematic coherence, intertextuality, and intercontextuality.

Indexicality refers to the signaling of a context (cultural, social, historical, geographic, economic, etc.) and social relationships through the use of varied communicative means. As people act and react to each other they are continuously signaling, validating, and negotiating the contexts that are framing what they are doing, what and how their actions and reactions have meaning, and how what they are doing is connected to social and cultural phenomena outside the event. From a microethnographic discourse analysis perspective, indexicality is not established with an isolated word or singular sign, but rather in the ways people build their actions and reactions on each other.

Gumperz (1986) noted that as people act and react to each other they use contextualization cues, any linguistic feature or form – verbal, prosodic, non-verbal – to index an interpretive frame and context. Because people must signal to each other their intentions, contextualization cues are visible, usually multiple, and redundant. Contextualization cues provide a material basis for producing a description of what is happening in a social event. It is important to note that simply identifying a contextualization cue does not necessarily indicate what the cue means as the meaning depends on many factors; rather, contextualization cues need to be described as part of people's evolving actions and reactions.

The boundaries between social events cannot be determined a priori, and similarly so the boundaries among texts, social groups, institutional contexts, and other social contexts. Rather, boundary making is accomplished by people concertedly as they interact with each other. Boundaries have to be proposed and ratified, actively maintained, and are highly contestable by participants during a literacy event. Boundary making is a communicative tool that people use to help mutually construct meaning by identifying units of analysis at multiple levels including social events, institutions, and contexts.

Thematic coherence within a microethnographic discourse analysis perspective refers to the construction of meaning at multiple levels across an event and across events through...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I Methods in Discourse Analysis
• Part II Methods in Arts-based and Autoethnographic Research
• Part III Methods of Analysis in Digital Technologies, Gaming, and Web-based Research
• List of Contributors
• Index