Extracts from a conversation with Stephanie about DA and BNIM that others -
more informed perhaps about DA and IPA than I am -- might like to join.
The original message starts at the bottom of this email....
Best wishes (Happy Easter! - the weather is good in London!) to all....
Tom
_____________________________________________
From: tom wengraf [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 29 April 2009 12:16
Hi Stephanie,
I think that there is a difference between the researcher noting the
'discourses that people use in arguing and legitimating etc.' and the
researcher inquiring into what understanding/misunderstanding) processes etc
are going on when people use the discourses that the DA researcher has
noted.
Some people may happily inhabit the discourse that they use and find that
they think and feel nothing more than the discoursing does: for them, their
discourses are transparent and not difficult. Others find that the
discourse they have just used makes them say more or different from what
they wanted to say; others find that the discourse they have just used makes
them say less or different from what they wanted to say: for them, the
meanings that they would like to articulate are not fully and
unproblematically found in the discourses at their disposal and for them
their discourses are difficult and non-transparent. The latter groups may be
more aware of the difficulties around 'transparent' reception of their
messages, that the words might convey a slightly skewed set of meanings when
translated into the word/meaning systems of the other.
How to find a method that explores the "difficulties of (mutual and self)
understanding" where language is treated as a potentially difficult medium?
This struggle to find a good-enough method for exploring the 'unsaids' and
sometimes the 'unthoughts' of social communication in interview is where I
think I'm at and what I find BNIM interpretive protocols very helpful in
exploring in very concrete ways.
I think that there is a 'loose coupling' between your 'subsequent
interpretive method for looking at interview materials' and your 'interview
method for generating those materials'. When thinking about 'the timing of
learning', this is worth thinking about. If you eventually come to think
that there might be a point in using (among other ways) some or all of BNIM
interpretive practices, then this might well be too late if you hadn't
already generated material in a BNIM-type interview! Although this does not
at all commit you to using BNIM interpretive protocols, interviewing and
interpretation are best learnt together in the sort of 5-day intensive than
we run.
Best wishes
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephanie
Sent: 29 April 2009 11:48
To: tom wengraf
Subject: RE: BNIM - 3
Hi Tom,
your response was (and is) really useful.
Yes, in terms of the theoretical approach, BNIM is very different from DA
(as outlined below). I will take your advice and read the relevant sections
of the handbook to decipher what I would get from the course in terms of
informing my research. At this stage, I am confident that the course would
be useful for gaining tools in effective interviewing technique.
It may also be a case of waiting to see how my research pans out, (once i
have read more and have a preferred approach).
-----Original Message-----
From: tom wengraf [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tue 4/28/2009 10:41 PM
Subject: RE: BNIM - 2
Dear Stephanie,
My first response to your letter. If you know in advance that you wish to do
only a discourse analysis, then you might use the BNIM interview method for
eliciting 'talk' -- a thing at which it's very good at doing -- but you
would probably not want to use the BNIM interpretation protocol. On balance,
then, probably don't do the course but do some DA one instead.
I have a second response, though, which is less categorical. There seem to
me to be -- as it were -- two discourses at work in your email to me.
1) There is a DA discourse : "looking at language used... how they
legitimated... how they are arguing". This seems to be the dominant
discourse-analysis thread in your discourse.
2) There is just a hint of another one, however. You write " interviewing
the public/ young persons to start to grasp how they understand reasons for
going to war". This could just be a DA formulation. But. Were I to use the
phrase
"interviewing to start to grasp how they understand", for me it would going
beyond a formal analysis of discourses present/inherent in the formal
structure of the text. For me, it would mean getting at (sorry!) the "lived
experience of their understanding (or otherwise, or other ways)" of whatever
it is. Were you want to proceed down this road, then aspects of the BNIM
approach might start becoming useful -- particularly BNIM micro-analysis,
discussed in the electronic text I sent you, and with an example in my 2001
textbook.
Can I suggest that you look at section 1.6.1. of the Short Guide and
Detailed Manual? It distinguishes the "analysis of a told story" (DA-like or
other formal-textual approaches) from "interpretation of the telling of the
told story" (BNIM: quite different). It should clarify for you the way the
BNIM interpretive procedure works and what it can offer. [Section 3.5.7.1 is
devoted to micro-analysis, but you really need the textbook example Wengraf
(2001) pages 292-5 to see what it's referring to].
I hope this helps -- but it may not do. [I haven't looked at IPA, but I'm
pretty sure that their procedures are pretty different from BNIM's].
It may all turn on what you consider to be the sort of researcher's text you
wish to produce so as to convey your understanding about their
understanding. This involves identifying for oneself an example (real, but
if not, imaginary) of the type of exposition one is aiming for..
So these are my two responses. If you are perfectly happy with the sort of
DA work that Margi Wetherell or the Foucauldians produce (and there is no
reason why you shouldn't be), then none of the BNIM interpretation procedure
would be appropriate, even if the BNIM interview might be very useful for
eliciting the material you need.
Do let me know your thinking about this: it's all inevitable uncertain
water..
Best wishes
Tom
-----Original Message-----
From: Stephanie
Sent: 28 April 2009 21:35
To: tom wengraf
Subject: RE: BNIM
Dear Tom,
thanks for your speedy reply. Mark recommended your course on
the basis that my research is looking at language used to describe war (from
a social constructionist perspective). More specifically, how
politicians/media legitimated the Iraq war and how they are arguing for
troops to come back. I have designs on interviewing the public/ young
persons to start to grasp how they understand reasons for going to war. I am
at the very early stages of my PhD. My proposal is not crystal (ideas
welcome),
however having said that, I am certain that the
methodology will include interviewing.
Having read your email and some of the info you sent me (thanks) I am unsure
of whether the course is compatible with my approach. It strikes me as best
for (and specifically designed for) IPA with the emphasis being on 'lived
experiences'. I will likely be employing discourse analysis (Potter and
Wetherell or Foucauldian). With this info, would you recommend the course
for my purposes?
Many thanks,
Stephanie
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