Computational Models of Discourse Analysis

Carolyn Penstein RoséLanguage Technologies Institute/

Human-Computer Interaction Institute

Warm-Up

Pick either Greg or David’s analysis from the discussion board

Evaluate its validity (recall discussion in Chapter 8) in terms of:Convergence, Agreement, Coverage, Linguistic

detailsHow many of these are you able to address from

what is given? For those that are not, what would it take to be able to do so?

Example Analysis in Book (Ch 10) Notice how discourse analysis is question driven, even in the

design for the data collection How does their different participation in Discourses perpetuate societal

disparities? How do you imagine this relating to computational approaches to

discourse analysis?

Contrasting working class and upper-middle class teenagers Two styles of interview for each kid so we can view them in

two different “socially situated identities” Home life Academically related issues

Researchers “shadowed” the interviewees in their lives to get insight into “life beyond the discourse”

Building Tasks

According to Gee’s theory, whenever we speak or write, we are constructing 7 areas of reality

What we build: Significance, Practices, Identities, Relationships, Politics, Connections, Sign systems and knowledge

How we build them: Social languages, Socially situated identities, Discourses, Conversations, Figured worlds, intertextuality

Evaluating Validity (p123-124)

Note that an analysis is an argument, not just a bottom up “laundry list” of answers to 42 questions.

Convergence To what extent do your answers to the 42 questions offer consistent

support for your hypothesis Agreement

Face Validity: do members of the discourse community you are studying agree with your analysis

Interrater-reliability: do multiple analysts agree with your analysis Coverage

To what extent is your “model” generalizable to more data than what you specifically looked at or discussed?

Linguistic Details To what extent is the analysis tied to evidence from specific form-function

correspondences that native speakers agree exist?

Elements of Context Significance: things and people made more or less significant through

the text Practices: ritualized activities and how are they being enacted through

the text (for example, lecturing or mentoring) Identities: manner in which things and people are being cast in a role

through the text Relationships: style of social relationship, like level of formality Politics: how “social goods” are being distributed, who is responsible

for the flow, where is it going Connections: connections and disconnections between things and

people, e.g., what ideas are related, how are things causally connected, what is affecting what?

Sign Systems and Knowledge: languages, social languages, and ways of knowing, what ways of communicating and knowing are treated as standard and acceptable in the context, e.g., that you’re expected to speak in English in class

Significance Things and people made more or less

significant through the text

Eric: significance of the number of rings, gender of the narrator

David: (1) the races of elf, dwarf, and man, emphasized and presented in brief caricatures. (2) the One Ring as a focus for and an agent of Bad Things (3) Middle Earth, as the setting (and home of the "free peoples")

Significance Things and people made more or less

significant through the text

Greg: in the setting up, the repeated naming of things tells us whether they are important for the rest or not. We expect to see isildur, narsil, gollum, the ring, Sauron, the elves, dwarves and men, and bilbo again

Me: The focus of the text is on rings as symbols of governance. (A) The social language of a historical telling (B) The figured world of “power corrupts” helps us understand the significance of the ring’s passing

Practices Ritualized activities and how they are

practiced in the text

Are these all practiced within the text? Are they discourse practices or practices within the world? Is there a difference? Eric: Narrating David: Betrayal and war Greg: What does the ring do Iris: practices related to leading races and earning rings Beka: Belief system of the world allowing for supernatural

occurrences

Identities Manner in which things or people are

cast in a role (kinds of people)

Where do characteristics fit in? Eric/Beka: Narrator/Storyteller David/Beka: Speaker and listener along with their

characteristics (presented in voice over, in a whisper) Greg: Narrator as omniscient, men as weak, Hobbits as

“different” Martin: Within this fragment there are two types of

audience. First of all there is the audience who will see the visualized script in the theaters and then there is the production crew who has to interpret the encoding

Relationships Style of relating, level of formality

David: a king as the leader of and placeholder for an army (and The Free Peoples): Isildur is the only good-guy combatant named by the speaker, the only face in the crowd.

Greg: “so far pretty much only the enactments of identities - let's hope we get a love story at some point”

Iris: Relationships amongst the races (each is described with their greatest flaws/strengths and all are separated by race)

Politics The flow of information, goods and services David: the rings are emblematic of control and power ("the will

and the power to govern"), the pursuit of which is cast as a sinister vice (especially in the hands of Men, "holding-[it]-close as a precious secret"). The "distribution" of these "social goods" are achieved through violence and deceit - the rings are given as a trick, Isildur claims the One Ring as a battle-trophy, and the Ring itself betrays him to his death.

Greg: good and evil, where different races fit in

What about the flow of information from the storyteller to us?

Connections What is associated or disassociated,

causally connected or not? Beka: Connections between the ring and

characters in the story. David: the One Ring persists through (and is

implied to instigate) the events that are described, connecting this history to the present-day timeline of the listener.

Greg: Hobbits are a bit different - the ring is inanimate but has a mind of its own

Me: Ring/Sauron/Power --- the agency of the ring

Sign Systems Languages, social languages, symbols

Martin: The script accesses some common culturally pervasive semaphors through the usage of well established intertextuality (e.g. White flowers are scattered among the Well seeded grasses. An idyllic setting at the end of a long hot summer.) and figured worlds

David: Elvish is old and mysterious, its use implies that the English that overlays and follows it is a translation, and belongs to the same (old and mysterious) world as it is.

Greg: is the voiceover and explanation of the imagery or is the imagery a depiction of the voiceover? How do we know that this is the whole truth?

Building Tasks

According to Gee’s theory, whenever we speak or write, we are constructing 7 areas of reality

What we build: Significance, Practices, Identities, Relationships, Politics, Connections, Sign systems and knowledge

How we build them: Social languages, Socially situated identities, Discourses, Conversations, Figured worlds, intertextuality

Revisiting Styles of Analysis Eric: Use analytic

tools to identify “components of meaning” and then assemble them bottom-up

David: Zen out your interpretation and then use analytic tools to explain where the interpretation came from

Convergence answers to the 42 questions

offer consistent support for your hypothesis

Agreement Face Validity and Interrater-

reliability Coverage

generalizability Linguistic Details

analysis tied to evidence from specific form-function correspondences

Research Connection: Social Interpretation of Code SwitchingEnglish-Tswana-Afrikaans-English (Casaburi 1994)[An extract from the inaugural address of Matsephe Casaburi, the first woman to

be sworn in as provincial premier (i.e. governor) in South Africa’s Free State Province. Tswana is in italics.

 'YOU CANNOT DISCOVER NEW OCEANS UNTIL YOU HAVE THE COURAGE TO LOSE SIGHT OF LAND. KE TLA SEBEDISA TSEBO YA KA

GO BONTSHA GORE KE TLA KGONA GO KAONAPATSA PROVINCE YA RONA. ONS MOET SOOS BROERS EN SUSTERS SAAMLEEF EN NIE SOOS SWAPE SAAM STERF NIE. THANK YOU.'

 (TRANSLATION: “You cannot discover new oceans until you have the courage

to lose sight of land. I will use my knowledge to show that we are capable of improving our province. We must live together like brothers and sisters and not die together like fools. Thank you.”)

Questions?