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    Discurso e identidad

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    Download as pdf
    9 views67 pages

    Discourse and Identity

    Uploaded by

    German
    Discurso e identidad

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
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    Download as pdf
    of 67
    “Benwell and Stokoe have procuced an indispensable guide for any student or scholar interested in discourse and identity. This isa deft and highly accessible overview of a complex emerging body of knowledge. ‘The authors move confident, with great panache, from social theory to the micro details of linguistic analysis, taking in the latest work on spatial, virtual and commodified identities along the way. A neat and illaminat- ing example can be found on every page, along with an important insigh: and an original line of argument. Ditconrve and Identity is the first schol- arly map of the field and is a “must own book” for every identity researcher? Professor Margaret Wetherell, Director ESRC Identities Programme, Social Scienees, Open University ‘Engaging with a range of current theories anid methods of discourse analysis, Discourse and Identity offers a critical overview of the ways in which researchers have approached the concept of identity. Benwell and Stokoe draw on an impressive variety of discourse contexts, from ordi nary conversation among friends to magazine advertisements, from online interaction to talk about the neighbors. While Discourse and Identity illastrates a number of different approaches in depth, including discursive psychology, cvitical discourse analysis, and several types of narrative analysis, the book’s particular strength is in demonstrating the techniques and advantages of ethnomethodology and conversation analy sis as tools for illuminating the workings of identity as an interactional achievement. Students and scholars alike will find the text « helpful resource in navigating the broad field of discourse and identity research? Mary Bucholtz, Associate Professor Department of Linguistics, University of California, Santa Barbara Luisa Discourse and Identity Bethan Benwell and Elizabeth Stokoe Edinburgh University Press (© Betas Brawl and latch Stokoe, 7006 aisturgh Univesity Prost Ld 22 Guoge Sure, Ear Reprinel 200 ‘Typeset 1/45 Monoype Bade ty Servis Fimseuing Lid, acest, and printed an bons Gea: Briain by ‘tony Rowe Ld, Chippers, Ws ACIP son fortis ok is isbn he Bess Library ISBN 1007486 1749 3 (tarde) ISBN 13 9780 184 94 ISBN 100748617309 (onpebsch) ISDN go 485 29500 “Theriht of Bet Beawell and Blatt Saboe tebe ideiled wars uf this work fi ben sere in seanance with {he Copy Des ane Patents At 198. Contents Acknowledgements Data: Transcription, Ethies and Anonymisation List of Figures and Tables Introduction PART I: Approaches Chapter 1: Theosising Discourse and Identity [Chapter 2: Conversational Identities | Chapter 3: Institutional Identities “Chapter 4: Narrative Identities PART I: Contexts Chapter 5: Commoditied Identities Chapter 6: Spatial Identivies Chapter 7: Virtual Identities References Index vii 7 87 129 165 204 243 280 305 Introduction Wi zaritsteak ious ond ent wih aseeich of escourse, Which has some interesting features with regard to identity: It comes from @ television programme, popular in the UK at the time of writing, called ‘What Not To Wear’. In this programme, two fashion ‘experts? (Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine) teach an unsus- pecting stember of the public how to dress ‘properly’. The programme's format involves secret filming of the participant for several weeks before~ hand, which the presenters then play back and discuss with her all the bad clothing choices she has made. They teach the participant rules about hhow she should dress for her shape, age and so on, before sending her out to buy clothes with eash provided by the programme. Inthe extract below, Trinny and Susennah are playing the secret footage of the participant, Jane, in various settings of her everyday life. They point to successive failures in Jane’s choice of clothes, At the start of our clip, they get to their main point: Jane isn’t wearing anything feminine Sossnnshand Trinny watching Jane 'Tthnk ve just Teinny “We've goezobalit the eorge “ren p owe Figure “What Not To Wear (BBC Television) Susonnah: Thetes NOTHING feminine! We have seen anything femeine or 2 DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY sane: ma wearing sie there! (poets a large teesion seen showing secret footage of Jane wearing 2 nes length grey sit Suseenat Yeah butts SO... sing). “ony Throws sting but Te never seen anyone make a skit |ook 50. nordescit Jane hin Fv just given up somashere alg the ine 10 be honest. ony Yeah, yeah, ssannahs Yea. vere: ‘snd naw am over tity realy have ten ‘in tes tragedy that you would resign yourseto this You know, Susannah: Mine, Twinn ‘con it wil ony get worse Jane oh gost, Susannah: Today diferent, you're in es and you'e sing and you'te viva and your eves are lighting UP and. Si0 diferet Trang The eel you's 30 diferent for the mage you'e orang and fi ise you we've got to getit dnd haul it out, Jane, and, you know, put ten the ouside Susannah: athe mentalside has gotta change end your site, sae ‘osing) Sounds ke 2 veal painful tensforation actualy Jane points out that, inthe seret footage, she i in fact wearing a skirt Mrvcthing feminine, However, the presenters sigh and tat — Jane aay be srearniga skirt bat in a‘nondlescript? way Jane accepts that she may have ‘given up’, and accounts for her poor choice of clothes in terms of her age (now Lam over thirty’. ‘The episode ends with Susannah and Trinny tlefining the ‘reaP Jane in terms of her clothes: the ‘eal’ Jane is mostly buried behind grey, drab, nondescript, unfeminine clothes. The presen ters ask is to “haul? what they sce as the ‘rea’ Jane ‘inside er to the ‘outside? for everyone to see “This short extract raises a number of questions about identity: ts ature, its location, who ean know it; what it looks like, how it could be qpanipalated and 3 on. So, tostart with, we might ead! identity off what ‘We can see, commonsensically, from the pictures of the interaction and the transcript. The speakers areall women. They are relatively ‘youns’ INTRODUCTION 3 though not ‘teenagers’. They are ‘white’. The presenters’ sceents sound Supper middle class’; Janc sounds ‘educated’ and ‘middie class’. We presume they are all ‘English’, and we know Jane is “heterosexual” ~ she fas a male partner. The three participants are not ‘friends’, but have another kind of relationship (for example, “expert” and ‘novice. Trinny and Susannah are “television presenters’, or ‘journalists’, or ‘style guru’. Bach of these categories can be further unpacked. Are they ‘women’, jrls, ‘female’, ‘ladies’? Are they ‘young’, ‘middle-aged’, ‘thi thingy’ or ‘okt? Are the presenters ‘snooty’, assertive or ‘bullies a‘vietim’? "As we cat see, an indefinably large number of terms may be used to describe persons. These ‘terms’, and the practice of ‘description’, are both discourse phenomena, Different descriptions may be produced, in which some ‘identities’ are emphasised and others are ignored or down played. Each of the categories listed above implies another, such as that to bea ‘woman’ contrasts normatively with ‘man’, ‘young’ contrasts with ‘old’, ‘heterosexual’ contrasts with ‘lesbian’ or “bisexual” and s0 on. However, not allof our speculative identity-relevant categories are clearly ‘present in, of relevant to, the transcribed extract. We can easily spot gender (‘We haven't seen anything feminine’), and age (‘now I am over thirty’) because the speakers explicitly mention these. We can sce the relevance of some ‘identities’, such as expert” and ‘novice’ in the content of what the participants say. Other things have to be implied or more heavily imerpreted. Issues of class, ethnicity, sexuality and so on, are not directly attended to by the speakers (at least in this part of the programme), yet we might contemplate thei relevance. For example, 2 recent analysis of “What Not To Wear’ focused on social class antagonist and the way women are publicly humiliated for failing to live up to ‘middle-class standards (McRobbie 200) "The participants talk as if there is @ ‘real you’ on the ‘inside’, out of sight, contrasted with a public identity display that may or may not coe respond with it. This idea is central to many contemporary theories of identity: identity as an ‘essential’, cognitive, socalised, phenomenologi ‘al or psychie phenomenon that governs human action, Typical questions based on this understanding include ‘what’ identities people possess (for example, are they masculine or feminine?), how they may be distin guished from one another (for example, what are the criteria for cate- gorising people in terms of class?) and how they correlate with a variety of social science measures (for example, do people of different sexual ori- entations bebave differently?) Tt is assumed that although people may present themselves differently in different contexts, underneath that pre- sentation lurks a private, pre-dscursive and stable identity. People should 4. DISCOURSE AND IDENTITY know who they ‘really’ are, and if they do not, they may need the help of experts, therapists, gurus and s0 on to reveal that knowledge. Th the ‘ata above, the real Jane is 'so different’ from the image she portrays. ‘Occasionally, the exterior performance matches the interior reality: the xed top Jane is wearing in the above sequence matches her happier, viva~ ous ‘real’ identity » An alternative nding of identity is as 8 public phenomenon, ion that i interpreted by other people: This constuction takes place in disco ‘and embodied ‘conduct, such as how we move, where we are, what we wear, how we talk and so on. These ideas underpina different strand of identity theory from the interior’ account above. Itis common to read about.a ‘discursive? and ‘postmodern’ turn across the social sciences and humanities, within hich theories of identity have undergone a radical shift, Crucially den~ tity has been relocated: from the ‘private’ realms of cognition and experi- ence, to the ‘pablic” realms of discourse and other semiotic systems of | meaning-making. Many commentators therefore arguie that rather than being rejleced in discourse, identity is actively, ongoingly, dynamically constituted in discourse From this broadly ‘social constructionist” perspective, there is no such thing as aiabiolite self; larking Behind discourse. A constrictionist approach examines people’s own understaiiings of identity and how the notion of inner/outer selves is used rhetorieally, & accomplish social action. Althotigh discourse isnot all there is in the world, we understand ‘who we are f0 each other in this public and accountable realm. There is xno way ‘through’ discourse to hidden reality, even though we might talk as fthére is Cosistructionist approaches do not therefore simply replace an Sinner’ self with an ‘outer’ one. Rather, i is the very idea of an fancr self and its ottniard expressions that is constructed, metaphorically, as we ‘aii see in the above extract. The presenters talk om the basis that Jane’s performance of who she is does not match the ‘eal Jane’ hiding behind the clothes. But the very notion that there is ‘real Jane’, whether ‘inside’ or ‘outside’, iiseffa production of discourse, Who we are to cach other, then, is accomplished, disputed, ascribed, resisted, manage sted in discourse. This is the starting point for the book. ‘There are already numerous books written about the discursive eon- struction of identity. Our book sits alongside these titles, but aims to do something slightly different. Many existing books are theoretical accounts ‘and arguments about discourse-based approaches to identicy anil thei im= itations, but these do not deal with empirical analysis (or example, Harré _, 1998; Mictiael 1996). A large Subset focuses on the analysis of one particu \(lar identity category, such as gender (for example, Bucholez, Liang and INTKODUETION § ‘Sutton, 1999; Johnson and Meinhof 1997; Litosseliti 2006), sexuality (for example, Cameron and Kulick 2003; Livia and Hall 1097), age (for example, Coupland and Nussbaum 1993; Nikander 2002), and ethnic and national identities (de Fina 2003: Joseph 2004; Wodak ct al, 1990). Another type of book focuses on explaining different approaches to understanding ind analysing identity (for example, Tracy 2002; Williams 7000). Sotiie choose a particular seting for identity construction, often institutional éavitonments (for example, Carbaugh 1996; Gubrium and Holstein 2001; Lecourt 2004; Matoesian 2001). Finally, there are a number of books that examine a range of identity categories and their construction froin a partculer analytical perspective, such as critical social psychology (for example, Shotter and Gergen 1986), psychoanalysis (for example, Hollway and Jefferson 2000), cthnomethodoiogy (for example, Antaki and ‘Widdicombe 19983; Malone 1997), positioning theory (for example, Harré and Moghaddam 2003) and narrative approaches (for ample, Brockmeier and Catbaugh 2001) ing with a particular identity category, setting or analytic method, cach chapter examines a different context of construction different discur~ sive environments in Which deity ork is being done. These include everyday conversation (for example, talk between friends, on the tele- phone), ivinutional sextings (for example, ncws intervicws, university websites), narrative and stories (for example, tories told in interviews, in the media), comioiifed contexts (for example, personal advertisements, magazines), spatial locations (for example, in neighbourhoods, on the beach) and eirfza! environments (for example, in chatrooms, on message boards). Aesoss the chapters, we aim to show fiom researchers, including ‘ourselves, identify identity construction in a wide range of spoken and ‘wnitten talk and text and images. We therefore adopt’ strong practical odentation throughout ths hook. We describe and demonditaie ranigeat

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