Broader outside social discourses, embodiment, and technism in James Cresswell’s critique of discourse analysis methodology

Abstract

In our judgment, Cresswell's theoretical discussion of the two main concerns with CDA methodology and the conceptual ways to deal with them is most interesting and promising. However, we found his empirical illustration of how to deal with these two concerns unconvincing, problematic, and apparently contradicting of his overall theoretical framework, but also instructional and thought-provoking. We see the main shortcoming of Cresswell's application of his theoretical ideas to empirical research in his technism, a belief that there are methodological techniques detached from investigators' research goals and subjectivity -a belief likely rooted in positivism. In our commentary, we want to justify our judgment and offer our own illustrations of his fruitful theoretical and methodological ideas. KeywordsBroader outside social discourses, communal practices, embodiment, technismWe have found deeply thought-provoking and enlightening both the strengths and weaknesses in James Cresswell's critique of conventional critical discourse analysis (CDA) methodology (Cresswell, this issue). Grounded mostly in the work of Garfinkel and Bakhtin, Cresswell revealed two major concerns with CDA methodology that we call 'the breadth concern' and 'the depth concern'. The breadth concern with CDA methodology is about the localism of discourse analysis; it is too locally focused on what goes on

Community versus society: The normative vision of sociality in joint self-education

“…My anonymous surveys of the students support my suspicions. Some students interpreted their studies as the development of their often uncritical and uninformed opinions – what my colleague and I called “opinionship.” In contrast, others were interested in testing their dear ideas against the alternative, often conflicting, ideas (Matusov & von Duyke, 2010). I had at least one clear case when a student of mine chose the Open Syllabus to study a completely different academic subject of her interest (the Python computer language) on her own because she lost her interest in education while she was still required to take my class by the university (Matusov, 2022a, 2022b).…”