Book chapter summary - An Introduction to Discourse Analysis, Second edition (chapter 3), by James Paul Gee

What I read

In this chapter, Gee introduces “tools of inquiry,” with a primary focus on Discourses—the “kits” of various constructs that we put together to communicate, and to evaluate and interpret.

First, Gee describes four tools. These include social languages, discourses, intertextuality, and conversations. Social languages are the change in spoken style, adapting to the context in which things are said. Discourses, which makes up most of this chapter, is the overall elements of identity building, where language is just one part of a large story. Intertextuality is the way in which elements of one discourse bleed into another. And conversations are the social themes that are “in the air” about a given topic.

Next, Gee dives deeper into Discourses, starting with a discussion of who and what. Who describes your working identity that you are projecting when you write or speak. This is socially situated. The what is the activity in which the who is situated. While it’s simpler to imagine a who as an individual, the example of a FDA warning label is used to show how many organizations, individuals, and conversations impact the creation of a non-person based delivery agent.

Gee uses the example of the phrase “real Indians,” and the corresponding views from Native Americans, that are used to separate those who are “really Indian” from others. This example is based on work from Wieder and Pratt. The realness is based on participating in the discourse to the extent within which someone is recognized as having participated effectively, and it comes across through behavior (such as sitting silently), the way in which someone may banter with others, and how disagreements are managed. Gee describes how this judging, accepting, and defining isn’t a moment in time, and it isn’t a “test,” as it evolves throughout history. The example exists in many other social identities, which are “settled provisionally and continually.”

Gee also describes how these identities conflict with one another, and in the context of power, how that can have real ramifications. The idea of a Native American participating in a traditional school, and how they understand the topic of an essay assignment, becomes problematic when the group doesn’t view the fundamentals of the assignment request in the same way, due to the historic discourse within which it exists.

Gee names this discourse Discourse (with a capital D), to indicate that it is when socially accepted associations work effectively due to the “right” elements showing up. The key to knowing when this is working, he describes, is when there is recognition: when the various elements of “language, action, interaction, values, beliefs, symbols, objects, tools, and places” are put together so the who and what are deemed correct by those who encounter it.

Gee discusses how someone knows what those various elements are, in order to show up correctly. Sometimes, such as with a physicist, this knowledge isn’t in their heads: it’s distributed across their work products, and shared by the community. This material is coordinated.

Gee explains (or warns) that Discourses have fuzzy boundaries. When participating in the Discourse (as a viewer or experiencer), there is what Gee calls “recognition work” that has to be done; people use clues through interactions at a detailed moment-to-moment level to make sense of the Discourse being presented, and then reflect on this later. The recognition work is publicly discussed through naming and labeling, which is assigning external meaning to the presentation, and over time, changing it through the work itself.

Gee shows two different ways of thinking about Discourses. First, he presents an imaginary map, where Discourses are presented with movable boundaries. The map is overlaid on participation elements (such as language or interactions.) It indicates how those elements are showing up in the context of the Discourse, and by moving the boundaries, the activation space changes the nature of the Discourse itself.

A second way to think about Discourses is as a “kit.” A Barbie Doll kit is used as an example; by imagining everything “Barbie,” we all share an understanding of the substance of the kit, and then, we can apply the kit to other circumstances. We can participate in the Barbie Discourse, and we know what to wear, and do, and think, and say, and how to act, so that we participate effectively and are recognized.

What I learned and what I think

The “kit” metaphor is right on. It’s exactly how I think about design, and selection criteria of design. You buy, use, and present a built world in order to present yourself to and in that world. The power of the designer, individually and in the context where design occurs, is that we shape the choices from which to select. It’s a false sense of ownership from “consumers,” because if they tend towards produced items (and most do), they are constrained by the choices.

Gee presents it in a designerly context that I understand, too. The “kit” is made of things, and actions, and interactions, and values, and attitudes that are displayed. This isn’t conversation in a spoken or written sense, though, which is a little weird for me; so far, most of the writing around Discourse Analysis has been explicitly about words and actual language, not a broader idea of language systems. He actually writes that up front, limiting the notion of conversation to actual words. This isn’t that. So, I hope that the notion of Discourse is widening, and therefore, the idea of the analysis of discourse is widening, too.

I’m struggling with the big D and little d, and I always sort of have problems with that sort of juxtaposition in academic articles; it’s a thing with Big D Design, and with Big I Innovation, and so-on. It doesn’t help me really separate what he means by Big D Discourse (which I think might be the overall construct container of all of the kit of parts), and small d discourse (which I think is the literal word, usually spoken conversation.) I’m not actually sure that’s the real distinction. Maybe it doesn’t matter, but he goes out of his way to say it, so it seems to matter.

My students have often asked “isn’t this just stereotyping?” and they aren’t wrong. I think viewing things in an archetypical way helps us make sense of the discourses that are happening around us without the recognition work—selecting a stereotype is lazy recognizing. It’s probably similar to the lazy analysis Paul mentioned, that doing a thematic analysis is lazy synthesis. It doesn’t require finding the clues in any depth, and so the conclusions that are drawn (and the actions we take as a result of those conclusions) are probably wrong in their incompleteness.