ABSTRACT
Smart suggests that one of the chief challenges of the ethnographer is to balance the use of ‘experience-near’ concepts – those ‘natural’ to the participants – and ‘experience-distant’ concepts – those fashioned by the researcher. What are some of the diffi culties of integrating these two kinds of concepts, and what, if any, are the benefi ts of engaging this tension? Choose a workplace or institutional setting and design a study in which attention to the context in which texts are produced and received can inform our understanding of the construction of local knowledge and ‘sense-making’. What kinds of data would be appropriate for such a study and how could it be best obtained? Since they often involve more direct contact with producers and consumers of discourse than other approaches to discourse analysis, ethnographic approaches involve unique ethical concerns. What are these concerns and how should researchers address them? Collect written or spoken discourse from an educational setting. What features of the discourse require attention to the larger ‘activity systems’ in which they are produced? Lin argues that micro-analysis of talk is not suffi cient for understanding how people make sense of social interaction. What are some arguments that either support or refute her view?
