ABSTRACT
A rumor went around the institution where I work, some while ago, that a tutor had told one of our Master’s students who was working on a dissertation that she couldn’t (read shouldn’t) use discourse analysis when approaching the texts of mothers talking about their experience of childbirth. I don’t know whether this actually happened but the implication was that there was a valuable realm of authentic experience that lay beyond the reach of discourse analysis. Some researchers hold assumptions that the overriding purpose of qualitative research is to investigate and bring to light the subjective experience of research participants. In reading articles which claim to be using a form of discourse analysis in nursing research journals, I have often sensed the influence of a kind of methodological gravity which is pulling down the trajectory of many articles. What starts off with strong methodological claims and reviews of discourse analytic theory ends up by reporting a series of themes derived from the meaning-making of participants and labeled “discourses.” In addition to this specific problem a common-sense approach to human signification tends to focus on content rather than form, on meaning rather than structure. It is because of these problems that much of this chapter will focus on the differences between discourse analysis and most other qualitative research methods. Some readers, already familiar with discourse analysis, may find this emphasis unnecessary but I believe that in the context of this particular volume this is a good place to start. If you are not familiar with discourse analysis, I would recommend investigating it precisely because it presents a refreshing and sometimes radical alternative to other qualitative ways of doing research. As a former student of English literature, I find examining a text to see how it achieves its effect comes relatively naturally; however, I remember my astonishment when an experienced conversation analyst first demonstrated to me the structures and processes at work in “naturally occurring” conversation.
