Natalie's English 815 Blog

Creswell and Poth, Chapter 4: Narrative Research Narrative can be the phenomenon being studied or the method used in a study Definition by Czarniawska (2004): "narrative is understood as a spoken or written text giving an account of an event/action or series of events/actions, chronologically connected." So this means that if I were to use various oral history interviews focusing on one event (like mining disasters, for instance), I could use the narrative method. Now it makes sense why some people assume I'm doing a narrative project when I tell them I'm working with oral histories! Procedures: focusing on studying one or two individuals gathering data by collecting their stories reporting their individual experiences ordering the meaning of those experiences Narrative research emerged from a LOT of different fields and is considered to still be developing; it is different from narrative inquiry, however. Defining Features: STORIES! (This is majorly important!) Exper...

Kunter (in Gawlik), Chapter 9: Discourse Analysis Discourse analysis focuses on the use of language to shape society and individuals' interaction with society Everything is socially constructed Texts do not have to be written; art, music, architectural design can all be considered texts as they actively construct meaning. Images are particularly powerful texts when used in marketing products. Because all meaning is constructed, and must be agreed upon by the players in the event, we can't ever know what actually happened in said event. We can only ever hear socially accepted constructions of what happened. Discourse analysis: the study of texts There has to be a balance between text and context This really stood out to me: "a fixed, final, and monological interpretation of a given subject is not possible." This is why I love studying language and literature. As I tell my students, nothing is written in a vacuum; everything the author lives through influences them. Con...