Atlas.ti Reflections

Atlas.ti and I had to part ways.  I'm a bit bummed about that because I really did put a lot of time, effort, and money into trying to make it work.  I am very much planning to try it out again in the future...but ultimately I had to make the decision that it wasn't going to enhance my work on this project during this semester.  Here are some thoughts on why.

1. Me.  My vision struggles make it difficult for me to get accustomed to new programs.  I don't get much out of classes or tutorials that are meant to introduce various functions of the program.  I have to learn on my own through reading and trial and error.  When I sit in workshops or classes where others are demonstrating programs, I tend to get frustrated because I fall behind and miss so much of what is happening.  It's not that I can't learn how to use program or that I'm resistant to using technology.  It's just that it takes a great deal of time for me to feel comfortable using a new program in a way that works for me and my vision abilities.   
2. The program.  There were several challenges that I ran into when attempting to use Atlas.ti.  My first issue was the fact that the program can't be used on a Mac, and I don't currently own a PC.  I thought I solved that problem when I bought Parallels and Windows.  But then Atlas wasn't capable of playing my video.  While it can play some mp4 files, it cannot import the specific kind I needed to use for my project.  I didn't mind converting my video.  Unfortunately, I discovered that all other versions of the video diminished the quality.  Because the visual quality was extremely important to my data, I felt that using the converted videos would negatively impact the transcription.  I decided to transcribe using VLC to play the mp4 file, but still planned to use Atlas for my analysis.  But I eventually discovered that I needed to watch my video again and again to do my analysis...and that meant using VLC.  
3. The decision.  I thought about using codes in Atlas to mark up my transcript while projecting my video in VLC, but at this point a computer disaster led to more complications.  I borrowed a laptop from OIT, but it was unable to project my video.  I borrowed a laptop from a friend, but it was a Mac and couldn't run Atlas.ti.  While it might have been an option to use both computers in order to use VLC and Atlas simultaneously...at this point, I decided that it just wasn't the best option for me to use to complete this project.  I don't think that I would have been able to take experience the true benefits of the program and would have made my analysis harder not easier.
4. The future.  I would like to try out Atlas in the future on my own.  I've considered using it for a literature review or to code data for my own research.  I do know that I want to use it for something that I don't feel rushed to complete.  That way I can take my time to become familiar with the program and figure out what can and can't be enlarged and what features are the most beneficial for me.  

A Few Thoughts on Goodman

This was a good article for me to read.  I had been annoyed at one of my articles for my lit review (you know that thing I still need to write--ahhh!) because the researchers kept making generalizations based on their data/findings.  What I realized through reading this article (along with the other two articles on interviews) is that the problem was not the generalization in and of itself.  The problem was that they didn't do a good job of backing up their claims.  Likely they are correct that deaf teachers do the things they noted.  But they only had one deaf teacher in their study.  And their mention of other research was very much in passing and not at all detailed.  How did they determine that her actions are indicative of the the actions of all deaf teachers?  Had they given more of a description on earlier findings or made their own analysis more visible I would have been more apt to buy into the "validity" of their claims.    I suppose Goodman did a nice job of convincing me that DA findings can be generalizable with his clear example and criterion.

Wrapping Up Hutchby & Wooffitt

First of all, I am officially typing this from my repaired Macbook.  I cannot tell you how excited this makes me!  :-)

These 3 chapters were all over the place, so I'm going to blog about a few things that I think are the most applicable to me and my research.

Interviews--This touched on a lot of the same things as the articles.  But also--Yep...this is why I loathe structured interviews.  Thanks H&W for articulating my complaints and for pointing out the research that indicates these interviews are not neutral.  "Whatever the ostensible topic, context or purpose of the interview, the interviewer and respondent are engaged in social action"  (p.181).

Children's Talk--Language (development of children) is my area of interest so it's no surprise that this section stood out to me.  H&W discuss two types of research in education and sociolinguistics (and all those other related fields).  1--Development of linguistic skills is the priority.  2--Current linguistic competence is the priority.  I think in my field, too often we are guilty of focusing on the first type of research instead of valuing what we can learn from the ways students are already demonstrating linguistic competence in their own sub-cultures.  That is very much an inclusive "we."  Because I come at language development from an institutional perspective...it's natural for me to observe student language in the classroom.  I'm not sure that it occurred to me to study language in the second way until very recently.  I've been doing a study looking at a student's language across various (adult led) contexts.  My own research findings for a study I'm presenting at LRA has led me to wonder how my student participant's language is different with his peers when teachers are not around to guide the interactions.  (Because what I've found is that his "side conversations" with his classmates demonstrate both quantitative and qualitative differences in the language he uses.)  I'm interested to look into Goodwin's research because it seems to be exactly the future directions I am suggesting in response to my own research.  I was also interested in the study by Danby and Baker and several of the others.  Note to self:  See pps. 194-199 for references when you're ready to check these out.  I think this is particularly of interest in deaf education where the language used in social vs. academic settings is extremely visible especially at a school that uses  mandates simultaneous communication from teachers in the classroom.  What could we learn about those differences that might help us in our approach to students with "delayed language".  And are they as delayed as we thing they are?

Order of Disorderly Talk--Again.  This section stood out to me for obvious reasons.  I think that's why my analysis is so hard for me...it is definitely 33 minutes of 'disorderly' talk,  Reading the examples of the patient and therapist in this section reminded me of the teacher-student struggle to co-construct meaning in deaf education classrooms.  Quite frankly, it's exhausting because both participants are working so hard!  My grandfather had a brain tumor and stroke 13 years ago that left him with pretty significant aphasia.  My family often remarks when I'm home that he is much more involved in conversations and seems to be able to participate in ways that he can't when I'm not there.  For years they thought because I rarely visit he was more motivated to communicate.  But Heeschen and Schegloff's research indicates that my role as an unimpaired co-participant is important because it allows us to co-construct meaning.  I think this can also be true of teachers in the classroom...but when we study classroom talk, the language isn't really naturally occurring because it's still institutional talk.  On p. 199, H&W talk about giving stimulus materials like cartoons to assess speech.  Yep, that's exactly the kind of research that I'm used to...in fact that is was one of the SIWI studies we did last year.  Only it didn't work at all...the students gave such little language that we weren't able to get much from the analysis.  Makes me think--what if we had just watched them interacting in a social context?  How would our data have been different?  Were there minimal responses due to a resistance (note to self--check out Danby & Baker, 1998) or because the formal setting led to more severe production difficulties (note to self--check out Heeschen & Schegloff, 2003)?  With deaf students, often the teachers are the ones with the responsibility of speech and language therapy.  Most deaf educators have some training on the topic...but they don't have nearly the amount of specialized coursework and experience as SLPs.  (Sidenote--UT does a much better job of emphasizing these skills than most deaf ed programs...go UT!)  Still speech and language development in many positions is one of the main responsibilities.  I have been known to say (during my classroom days)--"My number one goal for my students is for them to learn how to use language to interact with others."  I was a Language Arts teacher--of course, I wanted my kids to read and write.  But above all, I wanted them to be able to communicate using any "sign system."  This section made me think, that there is a lot that CA (and in my opinion also DA) approaches could do to shape interventions and inform practices of deaf educators.

"Grammar"--Okay that's it.  I need to read Goodwin.  Because everything that interested me cited him.  Love that he looks at the use of gaze, gesture, and body movement as part of the 'grammar' of social interaction.  To me these are the things that I feel can never be included in a transcript (no matter how Jeffersonian it is!)  And that's why I have continued to watch my video again and again to analyze it and why I feel like there is no way for me to adequately portray the interactions in a paper.  I really liked how Antaki et. all talked about making the sound available...but this is why I can't imagine doing DA without the video.  And why ultimately I couldn't use Atlas.ti   I think to use anything less than the original quality video is distorting the data that I am analyzing.  Even then there are things (certain details of signs, gaze, gesture, etc.) that are not fully available even in the highest quality video.  The video has already changed the interaction enough.  I think this is why I'm glad that I chose to use sign language.  It forced me to attend to the details of the interaction that would have been easy to miss if I had been using spoken language.  Moreover, it forced me to make decisions about which components I considered to be part of the grammar of the interaction.   And it made me much less willing to make compromises when it came to my transcription and analysis.  I think that these experiences better prepared me because I will be more likely to understand why all of these things are important regardless of the main method of communication.

Additional Note--In other respects, I very much wish I had stuck to a "simpler" data source....because this has been even more difficult than I had imagined.  I now understand why Kimberly looked at me with very wide eyes when I asked if she had heard of the Berkley Transcription System!  Sometimes I think that using a second language (especially a signed language) has been overwhelming and eclipsed some of the details of the analysis process.  It also made it more difficult to get feedback from others.  I'm a little envious of the data sessions my other group members got.  Even Emily.  Although she used deaf students, her transcript was an English translation and the interaction was among a group of students who are not delayed in language development at all.  Hollie and Journey were able to read her transcript and give input.  But my context and data were so unfamiliar to my group that they weren't able to give much assistance, especially since we ended up with very little time.  So I'm glad that I'm trying to tackle this now since it's the only way to really use DA in my own research...but it is a little overwhelming that I don't have very many examples or colleagues in my field to go to for support.  Can there be a DART for people who know sign language and language delays?  No?  Not so much?  :-)  (I was WAY too spoiled at FSDB.  It's one of the largest deaf schools in the nation...so I was surrounded with amazing colleagues and resources.  It's easy to forget that deaf ed is not like that in "the real world."  :-)    

Interview Articles

Where were this articles when I was in Intro to Qual trying to analyze interviews and write up my findings?  I interviewed 6 beginning deaf educators and thought that there was some really good data in the interviews, but I struggled with the study because we didn't talk about transcription in class and the time we spent on analysis included mostly photographs and documents with very little discourse.  I found a few "similar studies" and followed their lead...but they weren't the best examples.  I felt that the way I transcribed lost a lot of the data that I knew was there.  And when it came to analysis I wasn't sure exactly how to go about interpreting my findings.  I'm pretty sure I did half the things the articles warn against.  :-)  Both of these articles would have been very helpful at the time.  I'm glad I read them now because I'm planning to do a similar interview study for Program Eval II in the spring.  I'm hopeful that these articles will help me both with my current analysis for my DA project and my Program Eval project.

So...some notes for me to look back at next semester and some quotes and thoughts on things that stuck out to me.

Antaki et al, 2007:  What is not analysis?

1.  (Under-analysis through) Summary "Transcription prepares the data for analysis.  However, it is not analysis in itself" (p. 13).  Summarizing losing information from the interview and doesn't add any information.  Summarizing can distort the the original message.

2.  (Under-analysis through) Taking Sides

Position-taking and critical dis-alignment limit the complexity of the discourse.  "A particular danger is that the desire to sympathise or censure, when not allied to careful analysis, can lead to the sort of simplification that is the antithesis of analysis" (p.18).  

3.  (Under-analysis through) Over-Quotation  or Isolated Quotation

Compiling of quotes.  Referring to quotes rather than analyzing them.  Using quotes as "self-evident".  

4.  Circular Identification of Discourses and Mental Constructs

Different speakers draw on the same repertoires/ideologies/discourses.   1-Quotes must be shared, 2-A claim must be made to the existence of these repertoires, etc, 3-Details of the interaction must be examined, 4-Commonalities between quotes must be explained in detail.  The same is true for mental constructs (attitudes, schemata).  If all of these steps are not taken there is danger of circular identification.  How does the speaker backtrack, justify or qualify his utterances?  What in previous research is relevant?  

5.  False Survey

Be careful not to attribute findings to the "group" represented by the participant. 

6.  Simply Spotting Features

How are discursive devices used in this particular example?  "Good analysis always moves convincingly back and forth between the general and the specific."  

Potter & Hepburn, 2011:  8 Challenges for Interview Researchers

Reporting of the Interview.

1. Make the interview set-up explicit.  What category have the participants been recruited under?  What task are the participants given?
2. Display the active role of the interviewer.  What was asked?  How was the talk delivered? (prosody, delay & overlap, emphasis, volume, tempo, etc.)  
3. Represent talk in a way that captures action.  What is of consequence to the interaction?  (overlaps, closing intonation, latching of turns to one another, rising and falling intonation, raised volume, stretched vowel sounds, different kinds of breaths, laughter, etc.)
4. Tie analytic observations to specific features of interviews.  How are links between claims and quotations made evident to the reader?

Analysis of the Interview.

1. Flooding.  What social science agenda(s) are (implicitly) present in the interviewers questions that could influence participants?
2. Footing.  What position do interviewers question/speak from?  What position do participants speak from?  As an individual?  As a member of a category?  What is relevant?  How do we know?  
3. Stake and Interest.  How and when do the interviewer and interviewees stake and interest appear during the interview?   What do agreements and disagreements do?  
4. Cognitivism and Individualism.  What role does the cognitive and psychological language used in interview play?  

"The irony is that qualitative interviews are massively overused, but their potential has been massively restricted."  (p.32)

 

In my "HU"

Update:  I updated this on Tuesday night really early on Wednesday morning.  Last Thursday night after class when I originally wrote this...I was still totally lost and not at all liking my analysis.   So instead of writing my draft for the last two days, I ended up finding a better method and direction for my analysis.  So the good news is I actually feel like I have findings to write about.  The bad news is I have a lot of writing to do tomorrow night!  =)

So...I gave up on Atlas. There are multiple reasons--all of which you can read about in my other post. So my wanna-be-HU is in a folder in Dropbox. The most important things are not in subfolders.

• Video-- A VLC file, so if you attempt to play it on any other player it won't play properly. There are converted versions in a folder...but they're pretty terrible if you ask me. 
• Transcript--I added a "key" to it. It has the codes used most often, but there are a lot not in there. Partially because the BTS manual is a 30 page document so it can't really be condensed. But also because most of it wouldn't be understandable to people who don't know ASL. So I only included what I thought my group would need today. 
• Transcript with notes--Since I'm not using Atlas, I did all my comments and coding in track changes in word.  (Well really I did it in comments on Google Docs b/c that's much easier to read and work with for me...but it was easiest to share it this way.)  
• Document In Use--A document the class is using. 
• Coconstructed document--A photo of the document they are creating taken the day after the lesson. 
• Teaching Record--The teacher's reflection on the lesson. 

I've found that analyzing the transcript is tough because it's not really ASL.  I really like the transcript because it does a great job of capturing things.  But I can't analyze, because it's already changing the data way too much.  I realized that I just had to continue watching the video and pausing to make notes on the transcript.  At first I attempted to "code" in GoodReader.  I was using different colors of highlighting and comments to look at the different types of questions the teacher was asking and to comment on what those questions were "doing."  But it wasn't working because I found that I really needed to continue to revise the transcript as I was coding.  Because BTS has codes for discourse moves and actions, there were things that I really wanted to include in the transcript instead of coding in notes. But because GoodReader uses pdf's, I couldn't make changes.  Also, I really didn't like the focus of my analysis.  So after all that...I I abandoned that approach and started over this weekend using Google docs where I could edit the transcript and code with comments.  

It took me a long time to really be able to do analysis that I was happy with.  I felt like I was too close to the data to really do what I wanted with my analysis.  I spend a lot of time with these students looking for very different things and a ridiculous amount of time transcribing this video. After doing that it was really hard for me to switch gears...because my brain was in translation mode.  I had really hoped my group could help...but it was hard with limited time to get them to a point where they could understand what was even really happening in my video.  My students are extremely language delayed so the lesson is really hard to follow even if you are familiar with sign language.  But...after watching it again and again I finally started to be able to let go of the individual sign choices and focus more on my original questions.

At this point, the things I'm focusing on:

• I don't really know what to call this, b/c it's not exactly a communication repair.  But I'm looking at strategies used to assist in communication.  Basically what does the teacher (and also the students) does when she doesn't get a response (or doesn't get the response she wants) to a question.  (repeating the question, rephrasing the question, using a visual cue, roleplaying).  This will likely end up being what I write about for this project.  
• When students comments are not taken up.  This is something I'm looking at for another study I'm doing, because I'm doing a case study on the student whose responses are most often not taken up.  And I'd like to use this to look at why.
• When the participants repeat or rephrase each other's language.  Again something that I'll likely look at for my other study...but it will also be relevant to my first question.  

I don't really know how to give you specific questions about my analysis, other than do you have better ways to say whatever it is I'm trying to say above?  (Especially the first one.)   I don't really think that my video or transcript will make much sense without me to help you navigate them...but if it does make any sense and you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them.

My biggest question for you is about Jeffersonian--Any thoughts on how I should tackle that?  I'm a bit stuck.  There are some features in BTS that I didn't use that are much like Jeffersonian.  Should I add those in to the parts I'm using in the paper and also look to see if there are Jeffersonian things that are not included in BTS and use those from Jeffersonian?  So sort of combine the two and use what's applicable from each?  I guess I just don't have a vision for how to make it "accessible" to my audience.  Any suggestions?  Or thoughts on what you're expecting?

A Blog Post about Blog Posts

As I sit to write this there are a few things I find to be ironic.

1-I'm writing a blog post about research about blog posts.

2-I started my last post with an "I don't know much preface."

3-I just read an article on perfectionism which pretty much summed up my thoughts on blogging.  

So...I hate blogging...but I also kind of love blogging.  I have a blog...and once upon a time I wrote in it.  That's the thing blogging is writing.  And I hate writing...but I also kind of love writing.   The thing is that I only like writing when I'm done writing.  But it takes me way to long to actually write things.  Even a simple blog post.  I said I'd blog about my marathon...but I never did.  I said I'd blog about my trip to Haiti...but I've only gotten through the morning of day 2.  Because I am the slowest writer in the world.  (Also I like hyperboles and I'm kind of busy.)  I think the problem is that I'm the kind of person who likes to edit...and doesn't know when to stop editing or how to hold off on editing until I've actually written enough to edit.  I hit the backspace key a lot.  I just did.  This is the third time I've started this sentence.  True story. 

I found this research to be interesting, because this is something I wonder about with teaching.  I've been doing this whole higher ed thing for long enough to have done A LOT of blogs, wikis, and discussion boards... And I'm not the biggest fan--for the same reasons mentioned in the articles.  I'm not quite the quiet ballerina I was when I started out on this academic adventure, but I'm still not a huge fan of this whole "public display" thing.  The articles sort of helped me think through why and also think about how this is important to know in my own teaching.  

When I ask students to do blogs or discussion boards, what do I need to be aware of?  How might that interaction differ (or not differ as the case may be) from in class encounters or written responses that are not public?  

Note--One way to write a blog post quickly without over-editing is to forget your computer charger and work and be mid-post when the battery warning tells you that you're running out of time.  Whoops. Ha! 

SFG and Me

Basically I have no idea what I'm doing... =)  Kidding.  Kind of.

Kimberly thought Systemic Functional Grammar might be valuable to our work so she started reading up on it and introduced us to it over the summer. Then she asked me to start coming up with a way to use it to analyze student writing to see what we could learn. So I'm attempting to do that!

I don't know what you know about SFG--but the biggest piece is that there are 3 functional building blocks (of word groups) instead of abstract parts of speech. Participants (noun groups). Processes (verb groups) and Circumstances (adjective/adverb groups). Here's a simple example.

(This picture is from this website. Which helped me learn the basic groups.)

I've placed our students in low, medium, and high groups and added a same-age hearing peer group. I'm taking each groups' writing samples and analyzing them to see what kinds of participants, processes, and circumstances the groups are using. It's pretty fascinating. Difficult because I'm really jumping into it without knowing enough about it or having a real plan . (Not always the best approach! ha!) But neat because I'm seeing already how some of the objectives we've set in the past for some students based on what we saw as a need area may not have been the most appropriate objective simply because we didn't have a good way to determine what might be the next logical step. I think in deaf ed. often we don't know how to scaffold their learning appropriately--how do you know what's in their ZPD if you you don't really know what should come next?

It's been a really concrete way of seeing how the writing differs from across the 4 groups. For example I can see that the low group is only using first person pronouns, whereas the high group is using first, second, and third person pronouns. It's helpful to me to see what kinds of language students are using to make meaning instead of being distracted by the micro-level errors that can be easier to see in their writing. I really think it has a lot of potential as a way to look at the expressive language development (written, signed, or spoken) of deaf students, which is what I'm most interested in. I'm a teacher through and through...so I want my research to be helpful in understanding the things I struggled with most in the classroom. When Kimberly first brought up SFG I doubted it's ability to be helpful in a practical way (mostly because I saw the teachers' responses at the summer PD--ha!)  But as soon as I started creating tables of my findings, I realized that I was seeing things that I hadn't been able to see with all the other ways I've looked at and analyzed student writing. SFG is crazy and tedious so I'm still not sure that I see it as a tool for teachers, but I can definitely see the potential is has for research in language development, learning, and education.

Right now I'm just finishing up an initial analysis of our experimental groups' baseline independent writing (recount) samples. But in the next few weeks we'll start using it inform objective setting and progress monitoring. In fact I have a lot to do...because we're doing a PD on it with the teachers on Friday!  And then we'll continue to use it with other genres and see what we learn.  

So that's it...I'm just getting my feet wet. But I definitely see it as having a lot of application to things I'm interested in. I wish there was someone at UT who did some work in SFG/L. Hopefully after this semester, I'll find a little time to explore it more on my own. I need to start learning more about it so that I can determine if and how I might want to approach a dissertation using it. Kimberly and Hannah are presented on it at AAAL in March, but I'll be in Haiti.  But...Kimberly and I are putting a proposal in for the International Systemic Functional Congress in Argentina in April.  I'm hoping I'll be able to go because it'll be a good opportunity to get some feedback on our work and learn more about current research in the field.  And there is a pre-congress institute on SFL and language education this year...which would be perfect.  We shall see...    

Gee and I Go Way Back...

When I stop to think about what I'm doing with my life--literacy, (socio)linguistics, Deafness,  research, I'm always amazed.  I never really imagined any of these things for my life.  When I was 18, I thought I'd never sign again and certainly wasn't interested in education.  But slowly my curiosities lead me in this direction, I found these things I'm passionate about, and now I can't really imagine doing anything else with my life.  Along the journey there have been these moments that have guided me along this path.  And once upon a time, Gee was part of one of those moments.  I was teaching middle school language arts to deaf students in Florida and started taking courses in Literacy at UNF in my desperation to figure out how exactly I was supposed to teach my deaf students to read and write.  I felt like there was more to understand about the connections between language and literacy.  I was searching for something that could help me understand and articulate the ideas I had when I read some article by Delpit that cited Gee's theories on Discourses.  It piqued my interest immediately because it seemed to be describing my thoughts on Deafness, language, and literacy.  So I went hunting and started to check out JPG's work.  And, well...I quickly developed a bit of a research crush on Gee.  His work gave me a new and fitting way to approach my work in the classroom.  As I read more and more of his work, I realized that Gee and I don't see eye to eye on everything and that he annoys me very much when he tries to be a know-it-all in literacy when his work is based on theory and not practice, but his work really helped to point me to sociolinguistics, in general...and for that I have to thank him.

I've read much of his work including his Introduction to Discourse Analysis several years ago, so I had a pretty good idea of what I'd find in this book and figured I'd find it helpful.  It was a pretty easy read.  (Well, intellectually not physically...that print is tiny! But, anyway...)

I liked the way the book is set up because it helps me think about (27!) different ways to look at the same data.  Plus, he throws in the grammar interludes, and I spend my days look at looking at written language with Systemic Functional Grammar Analysis and Structural Analysis of Written Language...so it helps to find a bridge and not feel forced to think of DA and SFGA/SAWL as entirely contradictory.  Of course, in my current analysis the grammar isn't all that helpful since most of it isn't relevant to a signed language that has its own (very different) grammar.  But as I venture farther into SFG/L land it's good to know.  There were a few tools that stood out to me that I think are important for me to think about when using DA to examine deaf education classroom talk.

Disclaimer--As I read about the tools I was wrestling with how they might apply to and be useful for discourse analysis of ASL.  In many cases, the examples Gee uses don't work the same way in a signed language.  Below you will find my meandering thoughts about the intersection of various tools and ASL.  Many of these ramblings may carry little meaning, or be confusing/inaccessible to a person who is not familiar with the linguistics of ASL.  You have been forewarned.  Carry on...

LANGUAGE & CONTEXT

Diexis.  What signs might act as diectics in ASL?  There are no articles.  And pronominalization is done mostly through the use of indexing and pointing.  This makes me think about how classifiers must first be defined.  But I also wonder if the fact that context is typically given up front in ASL or how conceptually accurate signs make what would be implied (in some languages) explicit changes how diectics work or appear.  But then I can think of examples of multiple meaning signs where context could potentially act in the way he describes.  In any case...this is a tool that might be very helpful in examining how a shared understanding is co-constructed through dialogue in the classroom.
Intonation. Intonation clearly doesn't exist in ASL in the typically understood use of the term, BUT nonmanual markers (NMM) could function in the same way(s).  NMMs consist of head nods, raised or furrowed brows, head tilts, non-voiced and voiced mouth morphemes, eye shifts, eye gazes, facial expressions, and body shifts/movements.  I think there is potential for any one of these NMMs to act as intonation.  But I think mouth morphemes and some facial expressions would be of particular interest.   I'm not sure this is something I can do for this project since my video quality (in Atlas especially) doesn't allow for me to examine this closely...but it could be helpful in the future...  Some sign characteristics such speed or duration could also function as "intonation." This is something I could likely note in my video.

SAYING, DOING, & DESIGNING

Doing and Not Just Saying.  I think this is very helpful in classroom talk analysis.  Particularly when looking at what the teacher's language-in-use is doing.  Often a teacher asks a question that is really a command, that will become evident in the students' response.  (Next turn proof.)  This is definitely something I want to pay attention to.
Stanzas.  When ASL is written in English gloss is doesn't include some of the shifts in tone or idea.  It seems really choppy and can be hard to read/analyze, especially for a person unfamiliar with the nuances of signed language.  In analysis of spoken/written language stanzas may be used to help separate ideas...in ASL it would do the same...but it would also help to strengthen the connections between phrases and turns that may seem absent when ASL is written.  It could provide structure to something that might on the surface seem disjointed.

BUILDING THINGS IN THE WORLD

Context is Reflexive.  I like this tool, because it's recognizes my perspective on context.  I think it is important because it shapes dialogue, but I also think dialogue shapes context.  The other authors and methodologies that we have read seem to want to take one stance more than the other, but I think it's important to recognize both.  I think there are specific moves that teachers make when using SIWI that create a classroom context that is different from other classroom contexts...but I'm not sure exactly what those moves are.  This tool could help me recognize those.  

Identities.  When looking at classroom interactions with deaf students, I am particularly interested in noticing how the identities they are constructing are related to their deafness and/or preferred mode(s) of communication.  How do they use language to position themselves as part of Deaf and/or hearing culture?  How do they use language to define or relate to their "hearing impairment."
(Really Long Sidenote:  Do you know how many times since this semester has started I have caught myself identifying as visually impaired?  I really wouldn't have thought that it was a large part of my identity.  In those activities where you make those drawings of yourself or come up with nouns or adjectives to describe yourself...I've never include anything related to my vision...I didn't really think it was an important "part of me."  But now that this class has made me overanalyze language interactions including my own, I keep catching myself identifying as visually impaired.   Starting phrases with "I'm blind..." (e.g. I'm blind, I have no idea what that says.) Or referring to myself as "the blind girl" (e.g. Blind girl hates SPSS.)  I suppose it's possible that I've always (unknowingly) identified as visually impaired.  Or it's possible that surgery #10 and the prognosis that followed a year ago have made me finally accept that it's part of my identity.  But I think that really it's become more relevant now because the tasks I'm faced with in my life as a research associate and student make it suck so much harder to ignore.  It enters into my conversation because the contexts I am in have made it relevant.  So then context not only shapes our language but also our identities by determining what is or isn't relevant.  See this is why I can't ignore context.  It's too important to me.)  

Politics and Sign Systems.  In deaf education I often think about the languages, ideas, practices, and cultures are privileged.  I think this is particularly relevant during when SIWI is used because in this instructional approach both ASL and English are supposed to be privileged modes of communication.  Having the opportunity to not only use, but also explicitly talk about both of these languages, allows for a lot of discussion that constructs the values of the group participants.  This is particularly relevant when a hearing teacher is the one who holds the power to give turns and control the conversation in other ways.  Is English valued over ASL?  Or vice versa?  Who decides?  How do we know?  

THEORETICAL

Social Languages.  There are a lot of things that can be enacted in social languages.  I think the features of the language used in SIWI create a language specific to the context.  How does this language act to allow the participants to communicate in ways that they couldn't without this language? What features make it unique?  

Discourses.  This tool sort of combines all of the tools I've already discussed.  It is useful for me because I am interested in examining the intersection of language, culture, and identity and in examining language (and all the things that come with it) as action that helps to construct both culture and identity.  

J'ai des Questions...

Elizabeth:

1)  Can you describe the process through which you chose your topic and methodology?  When did you think you knew what you wanted to do?  And how long from then was it until you finished your proposal?  Did you know that you wanted to conduct research about IEP meetings and then find that DAM worked well for the research you wanted to do?  Or were you interested in DP/DAM before you chose your topic?

2)  I see that your study is changing based on participant recruitment.  Can you tell us a little bit about that?  Why did you have difficulty recruiting high schoolers but not elementary students?

3)  Can you tell us a little bit about the participants you have been able to recruit?  (how many participants?  how many schools?  how many different disabilities?  etc.)

4)  I see that your timeline says you should be finishing up data collection this month.  Are you on target to do so?  Have you had to make any adjustments along the way?

5)  If you were to start all over again (with comps, prospectus, etc.)  is there anything you would change?


Joshua:

1)  Do you think that there were any changes between your meetings in 2010-2011 and 2011-2012?  Specifically, do you think that your dissertation research influenced these meeting?  In what ways?

2)  What were you most surprised about in your findings?

3)  Did you share your work with the interns?  How did they respond?  Were they surprised in any ways?

4)  Before beginning your dissertation work, what was your experience with using discourse analysis?

5)  Are you doing any work currently with DART?  Do you think you will continue to use DA as your primary methodology?

Transcribing ASL...

The newest Deaf Guy comic.  How very appropriate considering how I'll be spending the next few days.  Ha!

I have never really done much transcribing of ASL.  Whenever I've needed to make ASL videos accessible to parents or professors, I've just added voice over.  It's much easier!  For the grant,we do captioning of teacher videos, but it's not one of my responsibilities.  When I helped out over the summer they were just transcribing in Word and the VLC Player, so I did that.  But it (of course) took forever!  I suggested they start using InqScribe since it's the one I've used and am familiar with for spoken transcription.  But it doesn't work with VLC files.  We tried out Transana and it doesn't take VLC files either.  I e-mailed the person who is doing the transcribing for the grant to ask what she is using at this point, but I haven't heard back from her.

I think most people do use ELAN with ASL, including some of the faculty and past doc students.  They even touch on it in one of the deaf ed classes now, but I am not at all familiar with it.  So for now my plan is to convert the video and do it in ATLAS.ti or InqScribe.  I just downloaded the conversion software...*fingers crossed*.

More CA: Some Meandering Thoughts

Building Collections and Identifying Phenomena.

Okay...so we're starting out with some unmotivated looking and we're building accounts that can be "particularized and generalized".  We're looking for patterns and deviant cases.  So this doesn't seem so different than what we're always doing in qualitative research.  The guiding questions on p. 93 are helpful in understanding what we're looking for in all this unmotivated looking.  And the 3-stage model for building analytic accounts on p. 104.  (Dangit...I can't help it...I really like directions.)  I, of course, liked that they brought up the relevance of culture in this chapter.  I've been saying all along that I really wanted to know if these "rules" were generalizable to all cultures.  One of the things they mention is that Anglo-Americans use as few descriptive terms as possible.  Quite the opposite in Deaf culture.  When you refer to another person in ASL you typically give the most detailed description possible--typically a very blunt and often not at all flattering description of the person.  Saying the same things in English would definitely be considered rude, but it just part of deaf culture.  They're always descriptive, referring to people is definitely not an exception.  

A comic that illustrates the descriptive nature of Deaf conversation.  Saw this a few weeks ago and had to laugh.  It's so true!

Extending Sequences and Single Cases.

As a writing teacher, I liked the discussion of storytelling sequences.  I often get annoyed with the five paragraph essay and the constrictive formulaic writing that we teach in schools.  But I'm also torn because I teach students language delayed students, which means that most of them haven't picked up on these sequences of through the air storytelling.  And the truth is that as much as I loathe the five paragraph essay it is actually rooted in conversation.  (It's just been terrible distorted and deduced, but...)  I often say that my goal is to teach my students how to have a conversation by the end of the year.  How to tell a story and ask and answer what Lucy Calkins' calls "genuine questions."  When I was reading about storytelling sequences and thinking about this, I was thinking about how important it is for me to know how conversation works if I'm going to guiding them in this practice.  I mean clearly I know how to have a conversation.  But I don't have the meta-awareness of why I do what I do.  I just do it because I've figured out the rules along the way.  I think that just like it was important for me to build meta-linguistic awareness of both ASL and English to effectively teach students to read and write English text, it's probably also important for me to know how conversation works.   I was intentional with learning the "rules" so that I could teach them.  Kind of an interesting thought...learning about these moves, resources, and procedures that have been identified through conversation analysis could definitely allow me to be more intentional in my approach to teaching language delayed students.  But that also brings me back to the culture thing.  I think it's important that we know which of those moves and procedures differ or do not apply in Deaf culture.  I commented on Emily's blog one week about how in Haiti the deaf sign "Fine Fine Fine" to ask "How are you?"  That would definitely differ from hearing culture, but it also differs from Deaf culture here in the States.  But in American Deaf culture when someone says "Thank you", instead of replying with "You're welcome" you say "Thank you" back to them.  I've often seen hearing teachers correct Deaf conversations similar to this, because they have not picked up on procedures that differ.  I wonder how many of these there are that I have never noticed.  I think that's one good thing about using Conversation Analysis to look at classroom language.      I could see it being helpful to determine (especially in deaf ed) which resources are used and how procedures are established.  

Talk in Institutional Settings.

So...context finally matters?  Only...oh wait it kinda doesn't?  I feel like they are saying that it only matters if the participants moves diverge from what might be expected in other contexts.  I don't disagree that we influence our context, but I do think that it also influences us...so I'm still not so sure I can jump on the CA train.  As I was reading this chapter, I was thinking about how many of the moves they mentioned are often part of classroom interaction.  Asking "exam" questions instead of "real" questions.  Redistributing authorship to avoid stating views or opinions.  Summarizing or glossing  Witholding.  I think there are similar procedures in classroom interaction that lead to asymmetric interaction...which I sort of just realized is what I'm interested in.  I just wasn't able to articulate it.  Oh asymmetry.  So there ya go.  

It's kind of related.

On a slightly related to class note...

Remember how I mentioned before that I had begun to look into Systemic Functional Linguistics?  Well...I've started looking into it more.  In fact we've been using SFG (Systemic Functional Grammar) to look at student writing samples for the last week.  And...I love it!  As in...I'm pretty sure this is where my dissertation is headed.  I learned more about the development of deaf kids writing by using SFG than any of this other stuff I've been trying to use for years.  Why has no one done this before?  So...in the spring after I survive this crazy semester that I've created for myself...I'm gonna be reading a lot of Halliday and his buds.

So...while this semester has been a bit of a disaster and I have spent the last several weeks trying desperately to hold on to my sanity...there are moments of progress to be celebrated.  

And...on slightly related to qualitative research note...

The organization that I'm working with in Haiti just opened a brand new children's home for the deaf last week.  As of today, 17 children have moved into the home staffed by deaf adults.  They expect to have 25-30 by the weekend.  And in less than a week the brand new school in Leveque will open and they will attend school with the village children in classrooms staffed by deaf teachers and teachers aides that we trained this summer.  For most of the kids (hearing and deaf), this will be their first time in school...for the others, this will be their first time in school since January 2010.   

So. So. So. So. So. Exciting.  

(This is why one day I'm going to learn how to do qualitative research so I can tell the stories of Leveque that could never be captured in numbers.)  

PAH!: (An update on data in lieu of an HU)

In ASL we have this "word"--PAH!  It means finally, at last, eureka!  

PAH!

This is what my iTunes looks like right now:



This may not look this exciting...in fact, it's probably meaningless.  But this picture shows that there is currently a video being downloaded to my computer.

PAH!

I have been working on the technology to get a video in this classroom since August 29th!  :-)  After almost 5 weeks of issues with IP addresses, microphones, camera angles, encrypted files, teacher absences, and other mishaps...today was the day!  A recording of this mornings lesson was captured on camera.  The teacher and students and their signs were all visible.    And after 10 hours of breath-holding, the unencrypted file appeared on the server.  It's a beautiful day.  :-)  That is the first item of good news.

Now...the bad news is that I now have to figure out how to successfully convert this file to a different kind of video that can be imported into ATLAS.ti without losing the picture clarity necessary to see the signs.  (But I have ideas and hopes!)  The other bad news is that this means I have not yet begun to transcribe a 30+ minute video of sign language...which takes much much longer than transcribing spoken language.

But the other really good news is that I found information on the Berkeley Transcription System, which is specifically for transcribing signed languages and is aligned with CHAT/CHILDES.  Super excited about this find!  :-)  The whole goal is to capture ASL at the meaning level and transcribe for understanding and it accounts for all of the nonmanual components of signed languages, as well.   It was exactly what I was looking for...unlike the initial results of my search--Stokoe Notation, Sign Writing, Sign Language IPAs, and all this other crazy stuff that people do to put sign language into writing.

So....clearly my HU is a bit...well...nonexistent at the moment.  But...I have pictures of documents from around the room that I took a few weeks ago, and I now have a video, and tomorrow morning during my observation I'll be able to take pictures of the documents-in-use from today's video.  Then hopefully the teacher will have her log from today filled out by the end of the week.  So it's starting to come together and will be in an HU soon!

(PAH!)

[[Update:  Uhm...so I may have spoken too soon.  It downloaded to iTunes but won't actually play.  Murphy's Law.  Argh.  I've spent the last hour googling ways to fix this.  The only thing I've accomplished is exhausting my eyes and computer battery and learning that lots of people have this problem with the newest version of iTunes.  But it's still good news...it plays on the website...so I have faith that it will happen.  I have a meeting with our IT person tomorrow afternoon.  This will happen.  It will.  And if it doesn't.  ATLAS and I will may just have to part ways...because I have a video and that's the important thing.]]

This is how Max feels about Rapley...

I agree, buddy.  I agree.  :-)

I liked Rapley because he helped me start to sorta-kinda-maybe-almost understand what I might be doing when I analyze my data...but I have to admit it that while I was reading, I realized something.  I like recipes.  Not because I like to follow them when I cook--I actually hate those kinds of recipes.  They do not at all help me with cooking and do not make the process any more enjoyable...but that is totally different topic.  I like directions.  I like to be told what to do.  I try to convince myself that I don't need rules...but I do.  Give me a rule, and I'll follow it.  Tell me how to do it right, and I'll do it that way.  I am was am a ballerina, not a modern dancer.  I need my choreography, hours of rehearsal, and someone to tell me what I'm doing wrong, so I can do it right.  DA (okay fine, qualitative research) is so outside of my comfort zone!  

I am very happy and comfortable with my quantitative data.  I'm in Special Education, after all.  There is this part of me that would be happy to stay with my numbers.  But the other part of me knows that that there is no such thing as objectivity and that numbers can't tell the stories.  Anyway...Here are my meandering thoughts on the reading.

I like the explanations and examples of different key features that can be objects of focus in Ch. 6.  (See--recipes.  I like them)  But then it seriously overwhelms me.  Now I am freaking out, because it's like Thanksgiving dinner and I'm trying to follow 10 recipes at the same time.   How is the sequence organized?  How do participants choose words?  How do they position themselves?  And dammit the rolls are burning.  But really.  How do you know which things you want to focus on?  Does you have a research question that guides you to focus on certain features?  Or do you pretend that the data is leading you? 

Much of the features they discussed were things we've talked about, but I liked "structural organization" because it made me realize that while I'm interested in the turn-taking and sequence organization...I'm also really interested in how instructional dialogue is organized structurally.  Another section that stood out to me was the "So What?", where Rapley discussed Kitzinger and Firth's (1999) work in date-rape prevention.  I have said that for years...I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks that prevention education strategies are actually given perpetrators an excuse.  I recently had a conversation with a friend who was talking about girls inappropriate clothing choices on a recent church youth group trip.  I tried to explain my perspective, and it didn't go over so well.  I was trying to say that I think "the church" places all the blame and responsibility on females and doesn't demand that males take responsibility for their own actions.  I guess what I was trying to say to her is that I wasn't bothered so much by what was being said, but by what was not being said.  So apparently I was analyzing some discourse...so I should stop freaking out, cause I probably analyze discourse without knowing it.  

I liked that he included discussion on documents-in-use, because this will probably be helpful to my analysis as the teacher and students use documents during the lesson.  I hadn't really thought about that until I read this chapter.  

In Chapter 8, when he talked about the "hidden role of the analyst"I realized that this is an issue that I have with my work scoring, coding, analyzing, interpreting, etc. student writing.  I like that Rapley says "you need to gain a certain level of members' knowledge . . . of the language and routines of your research site" (p. 104)  This is exactly why I need to step outside of my comfort zone and get comfortable with qualitative research.  His mandate is the exact opposite of the objective crap my field likes to believe in and promote.  I happen to think that the knowledge I have that interferes with my objectivity with looking at student writing is quite valuable, thank you.  :-)  

On p. 106, there are several long quotes from Firth and Kitzinger (1998).  The second one talks about the dangers of decontextualizing data extracts.  I think this is a great reminder, because when we start looking at pulling out fragments and analyzing and looking at specific features, there is the potential to use talk in an inappropriate role to make claims that are not supported by the data when considered in context.  This makes me think of when people use quotes, or lyric excerpts, or quotes to support a point they are making, without really knowing with those things mean.  It's propaganda.  And it works.  But the people who do these things understand the power of language.  They understand that it is language in action.  I mean...not the average person who quotes Robert Frost in an effort to support nonconformity...he or she is likely just confused.  But the advertisers, political advisors, and lawyers who knowingly and intentionally use language in this way.  What's that old cliché?  You can make the data say whatever you want it to say.  I think that's the danger of not being reflexive.  And I think part of being aware of your own biases is making sure that we are considering data extracts in context--both the local context and the larger context that includes the historical trajectory, broader themes, and concepts of power,etc.  

Making progress... :-)

Luff and Heath seemed like a lot of common sense, but it was also good to read that other people struggle with these decisions!  I've been dealing with some "technical challenges" with classroom observation video equipment for the last month.  I was extremely excited that the classroom I am using for my DA project was FINALLY able to record this week after lots of days and hours of work getting the equipment up and running.  Then on Friday I went to download the teacher's instruction from the week...  And my angles were...uh..."not ideal".  In this particular classroom there are 2 cameras mounted on the front and back walls of the classroom.  This allows one camera to capture the students from the front, while the other camera captures the students from the back along with the teacher and the instructional aides she is using.  But...I set the camera angles based on observations I had done in her classroom.  It's always difficult to determine how I can get the best data.  I like to get the big picture of what's happening in the room, but I also like to be zoomed in enough to see signs, facial expressions, and other non-manual communication clearly.  I thought I had them set well.  The teacher camera angle was set to include (from left to right) the flip chart easel the teacher uses for planning, the interactive whiteboard where the writing is displayed, and the teacher computer where the teacher often sits to add to the class co-construction.  So turns out, the teacher likes to stand to the left of the easel...often!  So she's off screen for a large portion of the videos.  Awesome.  I set the system up for the teacher to adjust the angles herself with very little effort, but she didn't check it prior to record.  So I'm left with lots of footage that will be difficult to analyze...because I can only hear her.  Luff and Heath talk about how the angles impact the perspective and analysis.  The give great examples of this, but I think in a situation where communication is predominately manual this impact may be even more pronounced.  

While reading all these chapters and articles on transcription, I've really been thinking about the task of recording sign language on paper.  First of all, I really need to look for some resources on this.  Right now I don't know if I'm planning to write an "English" transcription or keep it in ASL by using "glossing"  (writing the signs in English words using all caps).  I know how to gloss in theory.  I've even done it a lot.  But I'm not really trained in it.  I learned ASL through immersion, not through ASL, interpreting, or Linguistics classes...so I'm not really "qualified".  (I actually think that if I were to do a study that I was ever planning to publish, I would likely work together with a person trained in ASL linguistics...but anyway...)  I'm assuming there are some generally accepted approaches to recording manual communication...although, like all things in deaf ed, it's probably an extremely controversial topic.  I'd like to see how other researchers have approaches recording ASL, especially those things which we refer to as "non-manual markers" (facial expressions, mouth movements, etc.)   How have they been recorded.  I think sign intensity could easily be recorded in a way that is similar to inflection codes in Jeffersonian transcription.  So...about this whole Jeffersonian thing.  I don't hate it.  I kind of really like it.  I just think it will likely need to be adapted to record manual communication.  So since we have to pullout fragments to do in Jeffersonian, would it be acceptable for mine to be a slightly different adapted version of Jeffersonian?  Again...I need to look for resources on what others have done.  I don't expect you to have any idea...but I am asking in terms of the assignment.  

Beyond the general practice of recording manual communication, I've been thinking of my unique situation.  At the school where I am recording classroom discourse, the instructional policy mandates that teachers utilize "simultaneous communication, or simcom.  This means the teachers (and some students) both speak and sign while communicating.  And this means there are two completely different messages being sent simultaneously.  All participants and/or observers have different levels of access to each of these messages.  I keep trying to determine how I want to approach this.  Basically, I need to determine if I'm going to include spoken communication in my analysis.  Jefferson (2004) says "Why put all that stuff in?  Well, as they say, because it's there" (p. 16).  I think that's my hangup with this.  I don't want to completely ignore messages that are there.  There are times when parts of the discourse are only delivered auditorily...but those messages aren't available to everyone.  Decisions on how to handle this could really impact the analysis and findings.  How exactly could this be indicated, would I put the sign language over the English to show that it's happening at the same time?  It could, I think, be interesting even to look at times with these messages (auditory and visual) may even be in conflict with one another.  But...I think, because this is a learning experience, I'll likely focus on all of the communication that is visually accessible.  Let's keep this simple(-ish?)  This brings me back to the footage I have of last week.  I can hear the teacher, but I often can't see her...so I suppose I'll have to throw out that footage, fix the angles, and try to get better footage this week.  

I enjoyed reading Wiggins et al.  Not because of the topic...I actually found that to be somewhat annoying...but because it was helpful to see an example.  :-)  I know I've read articles that have used DA and CA before, but I wasn't "reading them like a researcher", so I didn't really pay attention to their methods.  Their explanation of their analytic procedure was helpful because I've been thinking the whole time--so when I go to analyze this data I'm collecting, what exactly will I be doing?  One of the 3 sentences I highlighted in this section said, "The data corpus was examined with a concern for the constructive and action-orientated nature of the participants' talk; how the participants themselves made sense of, and orientated towards, each other's utterances" (p. 8).   It was a really short section, but it very clearly explained exactly what they had done and how the next section would be set up.  While I wasn't overly interested in their topic, reading this example made me look forward to reading the articles for my lit review so I can see examples of DA in action, in my field.  

Trying to Catch Up...

So...I've gotten a little very behind.  Attempting to catch up from the last 2 weeks.  I started first with the books...

Rapley.  I like him.  His book is easy to read.  Very conversational.  I needed that.  I felt like I understood social constructionism, but then when we talked about it in class a few weeks ago, I wasn't so sure anymore.  His explanations in Ch. 1 were helpful in getting me back on track.  Love this quote: "Put simply, our understanding of things, concepts or ideas that we might take for granted like 'sexuality', 'madness' or 'instincts' is not somehow natural  or pre-given but rather is the product of human actions and interactions, human history, society and culture." (p. 4).  His key points for this chapter are great take aways from a lot of what we have discussed thus far this semester.  I've been really unsure of what kind of document(s) I want to use for analysis.  I think this is partially because I wasn't sure what kinds of documents could be used.  The way he talks about using data to build an archive was helpful to me.  I also liked how he listed lots of examples.  I really liked the example of looking at newspaper headlines.  Not because I plan to do this for any reason, but because it helped me understand that a part of a whole could be examined (if that makes any sense.)  But even after reading this section, I still don't really know what kind of text-based data source I want to analyze.  I wanted it to be connected in some way to the videotape of a classroom, but I can't really figure out how to do that.  I guess I could do the school's website or the teacher's daily instruction log...  His descriptions of collective A/V data made me pretty happy about my choice.  I'm using a video of a class during writing instruction.  This classroom has videocameras mounted on two walls in the classroom.  Writing instruction is recorded daily so the students are desensitized to the recording.  I'm pretty confident that the language captured will be as close to "naturally occurring" as possible.  I really liked Ch. 5.  Why?  Because I honestly knew nothing about transcribing A/V materials.  Where was this chapter before I did an entire study using interviews with beginning deaf educators in Intro to Qual?  I know that some of the techniques for transcribing discussed in this text and in Conversation Analysis are specific to this methodology, but even knowing the techniques Rapley used in just the basic transcript (pps. 53-54) really would have helped tremendously.  I felt like there was so much that I wasn't capturing because I didn't know about these procedures.  I collected some great data, but if I had known a better way to transcribe and analyze it, my study would have been better...  Anyway, I really liked his discussion about determining what level of detail to transcribe.  It was helpful for me to think about.  His sections on "working with video-based data" and "transcribing images" were especially helpful to me because of the participants with whom I tend to work and the types of data I tend to collect.  (How many times have I used helpful in the paragraph?)  Having worked at a school for students with sensory impairments for several years, I'm familiar with adding closed captions and descriptive audio.  I have had to do both on multiple occasions.  I couldn't help but think that a detailed transcript should basically be a combination of these two accommodations.  I think conceptualizing transcription in this way will help me to determine the amount of detail to include.

Hutchby & Wooffitt.  We've done a lot of reading so far this semester, but the whole time, I've been wondering exactly why I thought I was interested in Discourse Analysis and why I thought it would be helpful to my research.  The introduction helped me start to figure this out.  In the introduction, H & B say that CA is relevant to enthnography of communication, pragmatics, and discourse analysis.  As a linguistics person, I could visualize how CA could be used in of these areas...and see them as 3 separate areas.  I think because I'm interested in all 3 of these areas of linguistics the lines start to blur and I start confusing myself.  I think all along I thought that I was interested in discourse analysis, but what I really am most interested in is conversation analysis, which is a tool of discourse analysis.  "At the most basic level, conversation analysis is the study of talk.  To put it in slightly more complex terms, it is the systematic analysis of the talk produced in everyday situations of human interaction:  talk-interaction" (p. 11).  Yep.  That is what I want to study--talk.  But...part of my problem is that I'm also interested in language.  As we've been reading and talking this semester, I kept thinking about this and trying to figure out how to separate these two things.  I'm pretty sure the last paragraph on p. 12. was written just for me.  (I'm including it at the bottom of this post so I can read it again periodically, when my brain starts blending language and talk-in-interaction again.)  Basically this chapter really started to challenge my thinking about language/talk/talk-in-interaction--especially the last key point in Sacks' 'wild' possibility (Also included at the bottom of this post).  This point really does challenge a lot of the ideas that I have held as a person whose done a lot of work in sociolinguistics.  As I read through the discussion on conversational structures in chapter 2, I wondered if there are any differences with the nature of turn-taking with signed-language-interaction or how non-manual markers might be best indicated in conversation analysis.  I really liked the way data and transcription were described in Ch. 3.   --"The transcript is seen as a 'representation' of the data; while the tape itself is viewed as a 'reproduction' of a determinate social event" (p. 70).   The way the chapter was set up (description, followed by example) made it much easier to start to see how these symbols are used to transcribe in CA.  But it did make the idea of transcribing sign language, increasingly more daunting!  If spoken language transcription is this complex... yikes!  :-)  (I know you said there is a way to code on the video so we don't have to transcribe, and I may try that out for this project.  But I definitely still see the value in transcription and know I will need to develop this skill for future work.)  Note to self:  Work on converting the video to a file that is compatible with Atlas.ti.  :-)

"In relation to this, there is a further significance in saying that CA is the study not just of talk, but of talking-in-interaction.  On one level, talk involves language.  In fact it might be said that talk is the verbal instantiation of language.  But CA is only marginally interested in language as such; its actual object of study is the interactional organization of social activities.  CA is a radical departure from other forms of linguistically oriented analysis in that the production of utterances, and more particularly the sense they obtain, is seen not in terms of the structure of language, but first and foremost as a practical social accomplishment.  That is, words used in talk are not studied as semantic units, but as products or objects which are designed and used in terms of the activities being negotiated in the talk; as requests, proposals, accusations, complaints, and so on.  Moreover, the accomplishment of order, and of sense, or coherence, in talk-in-interaction is seen as inextricably tied to the local circumstances in which utterances are produced"  (p. 12)


Three key points of Sacks' 'wild' possibility:

• "Utterances may be viewed as objects which speakers use to accomplish particular things in their interactions with others" (p. 17)
• "Talk can be seen as methodic" (p. 18)
• "Talk-in-interaction can be treated as an object of analysis in its own right, rather than simply as a window through which we can view other social processes or broader sociological variables" (p. 19).  

Too Much Language Analysis for One Week

Just keep swimming.   I'm trying to remember a conversation that I've had recently that wasn't about language and discourse...  And I almost can't remember.  I'm in the middle of a 3 day training (for work) on the Structural Analysis of Written Language (SAWL), a tool for monitoring the development of written English.  We spent the morning talking about Chomsky and his kernel sentences and "key trigger verbs" and their semantic and syntactic features, and in the afternoon we began coding written language samples.  It was a lot of good information and an interesting, re-conceptualized approach to grammar that I'm interested in learning about.  But so much of what we are being trained to do has to do with measuring written language in numbers and percentages (of t-units, flawed t-units, etc.)  It's hard for me to look at language in such completely different ways for such different purposes simultaneously.   (Langue?  Parole?  Tous les deux?  Je pense que j'ai besoin d'une petite siesta...)  It's good...because this is exactly why I wanted to take this course...but it also makes me a little dizzy!  Just keep swimming...just keep swimming...

Discursive Psychology.  I'm pretty sure I had no idea what discursive psychology was before reading this.  At first I was reading along and thought--I like this.  It just makes sense to me.  On the first night of class, Hollie said something about how she didn't realize that not everyone thought that way, because it just made sense to her (that the message sent isn't always the message received).  That's almost how I felt about this...of course our attitudes, social groups, and identities are social constructed...if they were tied to mental states or processes wouldn't they be much more resistant to change and much less likely to be influenced by environment.  When I look back on the major changes in my own attitudes and identities and it's clear to me that those changes were social constructed.  I really liked on page 122 when they said, "The production of meaning, and hence identity construction, are constrained by the rage of discursive resources which are available to individuals by virtue of their social and cultural position and status."  That makes total sense to me.  This summer I remember reading something in Sociolinguistics about how we have to have language before we can have thoughts.  I have to admit that this is something that is tough for me to grasp.  In deaf ed, we are often claiming the opposite (In fact, I heard the opposite in our SAWL training today..."They have thoughts, they just don't have the language to express them."  So while I think I essentially agree it's still a tough concept for me to wrap my brain around.  That quote was helpful to me because it articulated why it is that I do agree that language gives birth to thought.  I think my favorite thing about DP (in comparison to Laclau and Mouffe) is that it analyzes discourse as situated social practice.  (Cause really that's where L & M lose me.)  When they start discussing the 3 strands of DP, they refer back to Figure 1.2 (p. 20).  Where was that when I was actually reading Chapter 1?  (But really...why do I always skip over the graphics...you'd never know I was a reading teacher...I do not at all practice what I preach!)  Anyway...I found it to be very helpful.  Pretty sure I'll go back to that a few times this semester.   So clearly...I liked this chapter.  I like DP  (probably would have enjoyed that class this summer!)...but then I read, "Discursive psychology thus locates certain social practices outside of discourse, although it does not distinguish as sharply between discursive and non-discursive practices as does critical discourse analysis"  (p. 103).   And I thought--hold up...this is the same issue I had with CDA.  I don't understand this distinction.  To me, it's all discourse.  (This is where I do agree with you, Laclau & Mouffe!)  I wasn't clear (okay, I'm still not) on what it is that they locate outside of discourse...but this statement bothered me.

Across the Approaches.  This chapter got me a little confused because I was still trying to figure out what DP considers to be "discourse".  I feel like they aren't saying that certain social practices aren't discourse. but they are saying that certain social practices may not be the focus of a given examination because discourse is given different boundaries depending on the context and research question.   However, if such practices were to be the focus, other theories could be used to explain how those non-discursive practices that are indeed part of discourse but have not yet been translated into a given discourse analytical perspective.  If that's what they're saying, then I'm not so bothered by this demarcation.  If that's not what they're saying...well then I might be even more confused...  :-)  This chapter was helpful in that it started to help me understand how these 3 approaches could be used in analysis.  I liked that examples in this chapter (and the others) because it helps me start to understand how DA can be used to answer research questions...but I think I'm looking forward to doing my mini lit review, because I need to understand what kinds of questions researchers are using DA to answer, especially in my field.

Really long sidenote that has a lot more to do with my thinking about the research I'm doing for my job than DA:  (Really you should skip this...It's just me trying to figure out what in the world I'm thinking about the SAWL, which is a completely different way of analyzing language...Writing helps me think!)  The linguist in me got super distracted in chapter 5 (as well as, throughout the book) when the authors were using words that reveal something to me about them (rubbish sorting, flatmates, etc.)  Clearly, I know what these words mean...but I think it's interesting because those words told me something about the authors (even before we discussed their backgrounds). Recently I was talking to my friend Candice on Skype.  Her family recently moved to Alabama from England.  We typically talk while her children are napping, but her 3-year-old was awake so I got to chat with him.  I was astounded at how obvious it was that they had been living in England.  By his language, one would have thought he was British!   It's interesting to me, because Candice and her husband are both American, and Candice is a stay at home mom.  Yet, somehow in their interactions in public he has picked up on these language features through social interaction.  He learned that it is more effective to use the discourse of the people around him.  Both Candice and I were born in Germany.  There are Beta tapes of us at Joseph's age speaking German to one another.  Neither of us remembers enough to hold a conversation in German now.  We came back to the states and quickly realized that the language used around us was very different and that German really didn't help us communicate with others.  We wondered together about how long it would take for Joseph to lose his British language and start speaking with a Southern twang.  His parole will begin to change, because his langue will, and vice versa.  The visible changes that will occur in his language features will also be tied to more tacit changes in his identities and attitudes.  It's so obvious to see how discourse changes according to the context when there are surface level differences are overt.  But I think that context influences subtle differences (those beneath the surface), too.  I realized today that this is my major issue with the SAWL.  It is intended to analyze language out of context.  But I really think that there is really no point in looking at language without context.  (Sorry, L & M.) So while I like the SAWL...much more than sentence patterns which I just can't get behind at all...I'm sort of stuck on whether or not I think it's useful for analyzing student language.  I think it has potential...but I would like to still look at the context.  Which I guess goes back to epistemological differences.  The SAWL is trying to be objective.  I'm not.  So maybe there is something about DP (outside of DA even) that could be helpful to me in looking at deaf students' language in a different way.  The ways I know feel too reductionist, to decontextualized, too inadequate...

Discourse Analysis in Literacy.  I definitely need to look into a lot of these articles.  Some for my mini lit review.  Some just because.  But what I found surprising is how many of these articles I have read (especially those about identity and shifting roles)...and I never realized that they used DA.  Probably because I'd never even heard of DA until near the end of my second Masters.  And then there's the whole idea that I didn't read like a researcher until a year ago, because I had sworn I was never going to be a researcher.  God and his sense of humor...  Some of the studies they mentioned and the questions that the included studies address were helpful to me in thinking about how DA might be used in deaf ed in general.  When I was reading about how Dworin and Bomer (2008) us DA to critique Ruby Payne's A Framework for Understanding Poverty, my first thought was:  I need to read that.  But then I thought about how DA could be used to critique other written texts--like laws and policies in special education or websites for various power-holding groups in deaf ed (AG Bell comes to mind...)  When I was reading about the articles that used DA to as "What counts as literacy?" I wondered how DA could be used to look at "What counts as ASL?"  I was observing in a class last week and the teacher was trying to explicitly teach some things about ASL that I viewed as misconceptions.  It got me thinking about how our ideas of what constitutes ASL had been formed.  Who decides?  What counts?  And then whenever I read about identity formation of any kind, I start thinking about Deaf with a capital D.  I always say that Deafness is a social construct.  But what is it?  How is it constructed?  And by whom?  One of the studies that stood out to me most was Mariage (2000).  (Quote:  "The study contributed to clams that when literacy events create conditions that give children who are commonly considered deficient access and ownership of their learning it can lead to increases in achievement of students" p. 107)  I use the research of Englert and Mariage a lot for my work in writing instruction and classroom discourse.  I'm sure I've read this before.  But I want to read it again, for new reasons.  I really think that it gets at one of the things I am most interested in when it comes to classroom discourse and struggling readers/writers...how classroom discourse can contribute to their achievement.

Diving in to Discourse Analysis

From the moment I first read the words "discourse analysis" I knew this was a theory and methodology I needed to learn more about.  Something about it just clicked with my own interests and ideas about learning.  I come from a Special Education background, but I've never really felt at home with their behaviorist ways.  Throughout my years in the classroom and in graduate school, I've started to understand my own perspectives on learning and research and come to realize why I never did agree with so many things I learned in my Special Education coursework.  I was excited to see that UT offered this course and knew I had to take it.  I was excited to start reading this week and start understanding exactly what discourse analysis really is and why it is that I've felt drawn to it.

Research:

So here's the thing...I want to make this useful for me and the types of research I'm interested, but I work with deaf kids and that gets even more complicated than "typical" discourse analysis (whatever that is...)  I am currently doing a case study of a student who is severely language delayed (when compared to his d/hh peers).  And I'm really interested in the discourse he participates in on a daily basis.  I want to know more about the language his teachers and cottage staff use with him and how that may impact his language interactions and participation.  I would love to analyze a video of him in a class, but I am nervous that it will be very difficult to do given the complexity of recording video in a language that has no written form.   By transcribing, we are already altering the language which makes it a bit...sticky.  I would like my text analysis to be connected in some way...but I'm not sure what I would use.  The student himself writes very little.  Sarah's idea of an IEP meeting, made me think that I could possible use his IEP or some time of written report about him.  So...in summary--I don't know.  But I really want to look at language in a classroom with deaf students in some way if possible.  For the mini-lit review: I first want to know if there is any work out there using discourse analysis with deaf education or sign language in general...so I'll likely try to find out what I can find in that area.  I'd like to look at how it's been used in the field of literacy with struggling readers and writers, or just with teacher language.  Maybe I should just take this time to read everything Cazden has ever written about classroom talk.  That's been on my to do list for a few years!  I'm pretty sure I have 4 of her books sitting on my shelf...and it may be a better starting point.

The readings:

I started my reading with the Rogers et al (2005) article based on a recommendation from a peer. So thankful for her wisdom.  It was a helpful way to start tackling--What is discourse analysis?   I really enjoyed understanding where DA came from and all of the fields that have had a hand in its development.  I especially liked the explanation of how DA made its way into education--"Education researchers turned to discourse analysis as a way to make sense of the ways in which people make meaning in educational contexts" (p. 366).  Yep, that pretty much sums up why I'm interested in DA.  I also really liked how the authors divided out Critical-Discourse-Analysis, and discussed each of these constructs.  It really helped me start understanding DA but also what makes CDA unique.

• Critical.  Because I'm most familiar with Gee's work in discourse analysis, I didn't really know CDA.  It makes sense how the addition of the "C" really sets CDA apart, but I didn't really know much about it prior to this reading.  I am interested in this type of research because I my research is with a marginalized population...but I'm not really sure that it's where my own research interests lie...because I'm more interested in understanding teacher language so that we can inform teaching practice.  A critical stance seems to be more interested in critiquing the language and doesn't seem as productive (at least not for the work I'm interested in).  
• Discourse.  Loved the brief discussion of the characteristics that CDA and Systemic Functional Linguistics share.  I've just recently begun to look into SFL because I find that it is very helpful to my work with deaf education, so this information was especially meaningful to me.  I want to know more about functional linguistics and a functional view of language development.  It's nice to know that this ties in well to DA.  (p. 369)
1. Language as social construction.
2. Language and contexts influence one another.
3. Cultural and historical acts of meaning making.  
• Analysis.  Fairclough's framework was helpful to me, because I felt I could visualize the three levels of analysis, which is helpful when learning about these constructs that can seem so intangible at times.  (p. 371)
1. the text
2. the discursive practice (production and interpretation of texts)
3. the sociocultural practice 

Out of the themes discussed, I think I was most surprised to read about the "Reflexivity and Role of the Researcher".  I suppose I sort of presumed that researchers using this methodology would clearly position themselves.  I was not expecting the review to find that few examples of thorough reflexivity.  While I am knew to qualitative research, I see reflexivity as an absolutely necessary component.  This was a good reminder of how I need to make sure that I am always being reflexive in my research.  The following quote really helped me walk away from the article understanding the current critical needs for CDA research:  "If CDA as a theory and method is to move beyond the present critiques, researchers might attend to the following:  (a) the links between the micro and the macro; (b) explaining why certain linguistic resources are analyzed and not others, and (c)  clear analytic procedures outlining the decision making of the researcher"  (p. 387).   It helped me see how methodology based on CDA should be developed.  In the directions for future research, I think the authors captured the reasons I thought discourse analysis could be a good theory/methodology for me before I even knew exactly what it was.  (That sounds like I know what it is now...I don't...but I'm getting there!)  "CDA offers a synergistic framework with social constructivist and community of practice models of learning.  Indeed, CDA can be used to trace changes in discourse patterns over time and across contexts--changes that we might refer to as learning (p. 387).  Exactly.  What they said.

And then... I read Jorgenson and Philips (2002) Chapters 1-3...and reread Jorgenson and Philips...  This one took some closer reading, but I liked it--especially chapter 1.  I appreciated that the first chapter set the stage by talking about the characteristics shared by the 3 approaches to discourse analysis (Laclau & Mouffe's discourse theory, critical discourse analysis, and discursive psychology), as well as the differences that exist between the approaches.  This helped me better understand discourse analysis in a broad sense before learning the specifics of the various approaches.  (p. 3)

• Similarities 
• social constructionist starting point
• view of language 
• understanding of the individual
• Diferrences
• 'scope' of discourses
• focus of analysis

Out of the three approaches, I have to say the first is the most difficult for me to grasp.  Fairclough is much more accessible to me at the moment.  I guess I did read both a chapter and an article on CDA, so this makes sense.  At first, I liked Fairclough because he "insists that discourse is just one among many aspects of any social practice" (p.7)  But then I began to understand what he means by that...and I don't so much agree.  That may be where Laclau and Mouffe are starting to win me over.  In their theory discourse does not interact with other things because discourse is encompassing of those things.  Their view of discourse is much broader, it includes other dimensions of social practice.  To me this makes more sense...of course, it also makes discourse analysis even more complex.  (Which makes me think that Fairclough and his followers are just trying to take the easy way out...just sayin')  Anyway...I think I just talked myself in a circle...and that's sort of how I feel after these readings.  At first I thought the readings were helping me to understand discourse analysis a little more,  but in the end they may have left me back at the beginning with even more questions!  I'm not quite sure yet.  Time, sleep, class discussion, and future readings will help I'm sure!  :-)