Textual Analysis

Qualitative Research Course March 17, 2010

Case #8 Texts

Presentation Notes

-likened textual analysis to a sweater with a wool string that is pulled…the sweater becomes unraveled, just as, with textual analysis, once you pull it apart, it unravels the research

Presentation:

1. What it is (textual analysis)?

2. What constitutes text?

3. Key methodological points in textual analysis

4. Questions

“When we perform textual analysis on a text, we make an educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of that text”

1. -with textual analysis, based on interpretation and MAY indicate truths but not always…how others make sense of the world (what they read, texts)

-way to understand how members of a various culture/subculture make sense of who they are, how they fit into the world in which they live

-concept of, likely interpretation, made by people, researchers

-more than one way to study text, mutually contradictory and incompatible with each other

-no approach tells us the truth about a culture

-documents must be looked at within the context they came from and how does this relate to the social phenomena we are studying?

2. What constitutes text? “…whenever we produce an interpretation of something’s meaning, a book, tv programme, film, magazine, t-shirt, kilt, piece of furniture or ornament, we treat it as a text”

-text may be understood as a written formal document expressing aspects of a shared social existence

-meaning of text may be extended to shared social behaviour with multiple levels of meaning

-common traits of text = authorship, document purpose, readership, form, conventions of style, grammar, etc..,

Main inspiration for this presentation is from the Olympic games this year in Vancouver (see handout)

-group looked at the National Anthem…the text as identity…Canadian identity /National identity

What was the purpose of our national anthem? Began as a poem by Judge Adolphe-Basile Routhier that was written for a congress on St. Jean Baptiste Day celelbration

-initially intended to a competition to compose music for it, but then asked a musician to do this

-originally in French and then translated 20 years later…the French version focuses on ancestors, war and religion while the English version talks of glowing hearts and the true North

Examination of Content

-what does the text reveal about itself as a text? (home and native land)- it is a ‘home’- meaning to some

-true patriot love in all thy sons command, etc…

Literary and Rhetorical Analysis of Intertextuality – the reference of a text to other texts from which it is issued. Discover the trail…where did it come from?

-from the person, what kind of knowledge does a person bring to it?

Document As Action

-strategy based documents as an example of action documents

-board game/video game instructions, DIY manuals – other examples…these help you to play or do something

-manifestos/platforms

-rules, laws and procedures

-spiritual/cultural/academics/life guidelines

-recent news story: about the anthem…a debate between Kim Campbell (wants some of the language changed in the anthem) vs. ‘real women’ in Canada…say it is a waste of money/time…see the story that aired on the ‘Current’ CBC radio Canada

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2010/201003/20100305.html

The Power of Documents

-the written word is more powerful than the spoken word…for example: wills, court orders, search warrants, marriage contracts, work contracts and more

-the idea within a document can explode into a way of life or a cultural trend, which could surpass the life of the document itself (e.g. movies made from books)

-texts can be misunderstood when taken outside of the original context for which it was written and intended

Text and Identity

-can one’s Canadian identity be addressed by the National anthem??

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