Discourse analysis and the study of communication in LIS.(library and information science)

ABSTRACT

A considerable portion of the work that is done in library and information science (LIS) can benefit from discourse analysis as a research method. The two major families of discourse analysis are linguistic-based analysis (such as conversation, which could be applied in any setting where information professionals mediate between the universe of information and information seekers), and culturally or socially based discursive practices (along the lines of the analyses that Michel Foucault has conducted). The potential of both families for LIS inquiry, along with examples of both, are discussed.

TWO VARIETIES OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Version 1. I want you to believe me. For you to believe me, I have to be credible to you. To be credible to you, I must speak in lexical terms that are familiar to you; I have to be understood. The lexical comprehension is one part of understanding; I also have to communicate in ways that fit your knowledge base, that will have a context within your mind. Understanding is one path to belief; it is necessary, but it is not sufficient. Your belief in what I say is also dependent upon your acceptance of what I say. I have to persuade you that what I say is correct; I must employ rhetoric as a means of setting you on a path of agreement that will culminate in your belief in what I say. At any point in our exchange you might reject what I say; you might disagree, perhaps strongly enough that you immunize yourself against all rhetorical strategies and tactics I can muster. In short, your belief in what I say may be hard-won, may be given, may be tenuous, may be impossible. Your belief in what I say is based in a complex array of discursive events--what we say to one another, what has been said to you in the past (directly, as in conversation or presentation, or obliquely, as in your reading of previously written texts), what you have thought, and what you have said.

The foregoing can describe, among other things, a reference interview in a library. If you are a student or a community member asking a question, the above conditions tend to apply in a discursive exchange. Further, the facets of the exchange can be examined rigorously so as to fix the locus of success or failure in such an exchange.

Version 2. I want you to believe me. I still have to be credible to you. In order to accomplish this credibility I will call upon traditions, customs, sources, powerful institutions, and other necessary social relations. I will ensure that you believe me by making it impossible for you to disbelieve me. What I say will build upon a substantial accumulation of discourse that has been established as authoritative. You believe me because you believe that set of discursive practices. The practices are not a continuous line from the past, although they have roots in the past. Their history has been disjointed, but it has managed to gain acceptance over, and through, time. All of your affiliations influence your belief structure--your education, your political party, your geographic location, your religious views, your occupation, your family, your friends, and your economic status.

This version is no less complex than the first; the main difference is that these discursive practices are not usually individual, dyadic, or engaged in by small groups. The practices in the second version are usually formal, whether written or spoken. They tend to be actions in the forms of making speeches, writing articles and books, issuing proclamations, and publishing results of inquiry. All disciplines engage in these practices, including library and information science (LIS). It is also possible to examine our own discourse rigorously and according to exemplars of analysis.

A few things must be mentioned at the outset of this article. The first is that, while there are many ways to study discourse and many purposes of each study, the focus here will be on two families of discourse analysis. The first is the more traditional, linguistic-oriented examination that can be framed as a form of applied semantics. Conversational analysis is an example of this type. The thrust, simply put, is investigation into what people say as part of efforts to be understood by, and to understand, others. The second family attends more to social, political, and other aspects of communicative practice. The aim is frequently to place discourse within a context or milieu, seeking to explicate not merely surface meanings of statements but possible structures into which utterances may fit. For both of these families, discourse is language beyond the clause or sentence level; discourse is a larger linguistic unit (Stubbs, 1983). The two families will be examined in some detail, with examples of analyses offered. This article will not be based in an independent analysis of discourse or discursive practice (that would narrow the scope and potential utility severely); it will present ways of engaging in discourse analysis, reasons why it can be a fruitful method, and what we can learn as a result of it.

DISCOURSE AND LANGUAGE

The first family of discourse analysis (illustrated in Version 1 above) centers principally on what Brown and Yule (1983) call "transactional language." Language used in such a situation is primarily "message-oriented." "In primarily transactional language we assume that what the speaker (or writer) has primarily in mind is the efficient transference of information" (Brown & Yule, 1983, p. 2). Conversations are the most frequently occurring kinds of this language use. For the most part, conversations are structured by both (all) speakers so that they can be taken literally. There may be additional conceits, such as sarcasm or irony, but even those are context bound so that they can be readily understood. Suppose two people are conversing and a portion of their exchange is as follows:

A: Did you hear what he said?

B: Yeah, but I don't buy it.

A: I don't know; he seemed to know what he's talking about.

B: Yeah, right.

It would be difficult for native English speakers in today's American society to assume that B is actually agreeing with A. At work is what Grice calls "conversational implicature" (1989, p. 26); the conversational context determines the meaning of some words, so "Yeah, right" in the above example is not taken as literal information.

No paper on discourse analysis can ignore the distinction presented by Ferdinand de Saussure (1959) in his Course in General Linguistics. He points out that there is a functional difference between langue (the linguistic system that provides the structure for any utterance) and parole (the real utterances spoken by people within particular situations). Language, says Saussure, "is a self-contained whole and a principle of classification. As soon as we give language first place among the facts of speech, we introduce a natural order into a mass that lends itself to no other classification" (1959, p. 9). Even if we take Saussure's definition of language at face value, its utility in discourse analysis is questionable since the classification he speaks of is less ordered and law driven than he supposes. Saussure's distinction provides a grounding for the applied sociolinguistic analysis of discourse, even when theorists and researchers have disagreed with some fundamental tenets of his theory. The difference between what could be said and what is said is at the heart of much contextual examination of conversations and other dyadic communication exchanges. Saussure's program, in short, involved attempts to derive formal laws of language based on linguistic structures manifest in speech (which he privileged over writing). He considers speech (parole) to be authentic and writing to be artificial. While his structuralist approach attracts researchers from several disciplines, his fundamental thesis can be found somewhat wanting.

In Saussure's semiotics (or semiology), the sign is the combination of a signifier (a sound-image, or speech sound intended to represent something) and a signified (a concept or thing represented). The sound "dog" signifies the four-legged mammal of the genus canis. In French "chien" is the signifier of…