Talk is one of the main resources available to qualitative researchers. It offers rich, meaningful data that can provide real insights and new perspectives. But once you have the data how do you select an appropriate means of analysis? How do you ensure that the approach you adopt is the best for your project and your data? The book will help you choose strategies for qualitative analysis that best suit your research. It walks you through key decisions, provides actionable game plans and highlights the advantages and challenges of the main approaches. It is packed full of real examples designed to showcase the different tools you might use to meet your own objectives. Each section of the book focuses on one popular strategy for analyzing talk-based data: Narrative Analysis Conversation Analysis Discourse Analysis Taken together these sections will help you to fine-tune the link between your primary research question and your methods; to ensure that your theoretical stance fits with your methods; and to reason through your analysis in a way that will be recognizable to the intellectual communities of narrative, conversation, or discourse analysts. This book is both starting point and map for any social scientist looking to strategically and purposefully analyse talk data.
Chapter 1: Introduction PART ONE: ANALYZING NARRATIVES Chapter 2: Broad Strokes Approaches to Narrative Analysis Chapter 3: Fine-Grained Analyses of Meaning Chapter 4: The Interview in Narrative Analysis PART TWO: ANALYZING TALK-IN-INTERACTION Chapter 5 : The Basics of Conversation Analysis Chapter 6: Conversation Analysis Approaches to Social Categories Chapter 7: Institutional Talk-in-Interaction Chapter 8: The Interview in Conversation Analysis PART THREE: ANALYZING DISCOURSE Chapter 9: Foucauldian Discourse Analysis Chapter 10: Critical Discourse Analysis Chapter 11: Garden-Variety Discourse Analysis Chapter 12: The Interview in Discourse Analysis Chapter 13: Conclusion
This book is an absolute treat. Its engaging style, its comprehensive content, its clear logic, its brilliant use of examples and above all its enormous value to qualitative researchers of all stripes add up to me wishing it had been available years ago! -- Jo Brewis A pleasantly readable and remarkably helpful guide that offers as much to experienced researchers as it does to novices. It clearly presents the "how's" of narrative, content and discourse analysis while simultaneously dealing so thoughtfully with the "why's" of these approaches. -- Dorothy Pawluch This is a marvelous book. Qualitative social scientists analyzing "talk data" will benefit immensely from the astute discussion of discourse, narrative, and conversational analysis strategies. So too will quantitative researchers seeking a clear overview of this expanding methodological field. -- Harvey Krahn The authors are attentive to all aspects of the interview, and identify a generally unaddressed and possibly major flaw of the qualitative method by discussing how memories are altered in retrospect and collective, not just individual, in character -- Ivonne Kusters
