Transdisciplinary Research Methodologies: Enhancing content analysis through the application of

systemic functional semiotics.

Issues to be addressed:What is meant by transdisciplinary research?Reviewing common understanding of content analyses in research methodology.Systemic Functional Semiotics

• Systemic Functional Grammar and Discourse

• Examples of studies using systemic functional grammar and discourse

UAM corpus tool: Online software for SFL analyses

Transdisciplinary research Transdisciplinary research, according to Halliday, is very

different from ‘inter-‘ or ‘multi-disciplinary’ research because the latter implies that one still pursues research focused within the disciplines, while building bridges between them and/or assembling the research efforts into a ‘collection’; whereas the real alternative is to transcend disciplinary boundaries to achieve the kind of integrated focus necessary to research issues in innovative ways.

This means that educational researchers need to commit to reading and participating in the discourses of research beyond the discipline(s) in which they are traditionally trained and in which the prestige of their field is established.

Halliday, M. A. K. (2003 [1990]). New ways of meaning: The challenge to applied linguistics. In J. Webster (Ed.), On language and linguistics. Volume 3 in the collected works of M.A.K. Halliday. (pp. 139 - 174). London/New York: Continuum.

Content Analysis

A major form of analysis in any social research is content analysis, which can be used to analyse any form of spoken or written words; projected images, such as those of film or television; or any symbolic forms such as signs, logos or cartoons. Content analysis is the systematic analysis of text or pictographic material. It can be used on both original data collected by you as a researcher, or on any range of secondary documentary sources, as discussed above.

Smith, D., & Hope, J. (1992). The health professional as researcher: Issues, problems and strategies. Sydney: Social Science Press.(p. 86)

Contexts for content analysis

• Responses to surveys e.g. teenagers television viewing or computer game playing habits.

• The extent and nature of allied health professionals contributions to case conferences for mental health patients.

• The role of young children and sporting personalities in the advertisement of breakfast cereals.

• Gender differences in participation in class discussions in junior secondary school science.

• The construction of point of view in news reports of the Israel -Palestine conflict.

Content Analysis Approaches The main aim in content analysis is to identify the presence or absence of

patterns or recurring themes in one or more pieces of textual or pictographic material. Content analysis then is a sorting and categorizing process…. Computer programs such as ‘Ethnographer’ and ‘Nvivo’, now can assist in this process.

Smith, D., & Hope, J. (1992). The health professional as researcher: Issues, problems and strategies. Sydney: Social Science Press.(p. 86)

The theme is the most useful unit of analysis. A theme is often a sentence, a proposition about something. The letters of adolescents or college students may be studied for statements of self reference. This would be the larger theme. The themes making this up might be defined as any sentences that use ‘I’, ‘me’, and other words indicating reference to the writer’s self. Discipline is another larger theme. Child training or control is another.Burns, R. (1991). Introduction to research methods in education. Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

Issues in Content Analysis• Selecting categories for analysis• Ensuring the categories selected will deal exhaustively

with the data• Defining the categories precisely

Usually, the process of arriving at the categories is to first review the data a number of times until you become familiar with its contents and structure, and then derive a number of categories thought to be appropriate the categorize the data. These are then tried on a sample of the data. Usually, the original categories will be refined through this process and a final set of categories developed. Smith, D., & Hope, J. (1992). The health professional as researcher: Issues, problems and strategies. Sydney: Social Science Press.(p. 86)

Challenges for Content Analysis

One of the difficulties in content analysis is defining what to count in such a way that the count can be made reliably. For example, in analysing the content of a report issued by an educational commission, one could count fairly reliably the number of passages dealing with race relations because the variable may be defined objectively. On the other hand, it might be difficult to count reliably the number of passages that use inflammatory language because the variable is open to various subject definitions.

Crowl, T. (1993). Fundamentals of educational research. Madison: Brown and Benchmark.(p.127)

Systemic Functional Semiotics

• Systemic Functional Grammar Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. (2004). An introduction to

functional grammar (3 ed.). London: Arnold. and DiscourseMartin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2007). Working with Discourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause (2 ed. Vol. 1). London/New York: Continuum.

The centrality of meaning in SFL

Language occurs within a social context, informed by cultural beliefs and ideologies

In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) meaning and use are central to the descriptions of language structure. SFL is based on the complete interconnectedness of the social and the linguistic. SFL entails complementary descriptions of both social context and linguistic form.

Modelling language and social context in systemic functional linguistics

SFL approaches the description of social context by interpreting it as two inter-related levels: context of situation and context of culture.

• The context of situation is the immediate context in which the language is used.

• The context of culture can be thought of as the full range of systems of situational contexts that the culture embodies.

Any context of situation is described in terms of three main variables that are important in

influencing the way language is used. • FIELD is concerned with the social activity, its content or topic;

• TENOR is the nature of the relationships among the people using language;

• MODE is the medium and role of language in the situation - whether

spoken or written, accompanying or constitutive of the activity. Context of Situation Context of Situation

(Register) (Register) FieldField

TenorTenor

ModeMode

LanguageLanguage

Relating meanings and contextual variables

All situations are characterised by particular values of the three contextual variables, FIELD, TENOR and MODE.

Correspondingly, three dimensions of meaning (metafunctions) are also always constructed simultaneously in the texts that occur in these situations.

(semantics)(semantics)

Ideational MeaningIdeational Meaning

InterpersonalInterpersonalMeaningMeaning

Textual Textual MeaningMeaning

If we take the text "Helen Murson has given out some very detailed lecture notes in her classes"

• We can easily construct the ideational meanings - who is doing what to whom and we can infer the contextual variable FIELD as university or college education.

• Similarly we can infer interpersonal meanings and the contextual variable, TENOR, noting that the speaker has the role of information giver and that Helen Murson has both higher status than, and less contact with the speaker and addressee (as suggested by the inclusion of the surname) - so we know the interactional roles of the participants, and something of the relative status and contact among them.

• The textual meanings are related to the contextual variable, MODE - the part that language is playing. This text is probably spoken; is more likely to be constitutive of, than ancillary in the situation; and presents Helen Murson as the speaker's focus or point of departure in the structuring of the utterance.

Metafunctions and Lexicogrammar

(semantics)(semantics)

Ideational MeaningIdeational Meaning

InterpersonalInterpersonalMeaningMeaning

Textual Textual MeaningMeaning

(lexicogrammar)(lexicogrammar)

TransitivityTransitivity

Mood and Mood and ModalityModality

Theme/Theme/RhemeRheme

Graphology Graphology and and PhonologyPhonology

"Helen Murson has given out some very detailed lecture notes in her classes”

• Ideational meanings are realized by the transitivity system of the grammar (participants, processes, circumstances).

• Interpersonal meaning are realized by the mood and modality systems (Subject and Finite)

• Textual meanings are realized by location at the beginning of end of the clause (Theme/Rheme).

Mood realising interpersonal meaning

"Helen Murson has given out some very detailed lecture notes in her classes"

If this text is changed to

"Has Professor Murson given out very detailed lecture notes in her classes?" We are changing the interpersonal meaning. This involves a different choice from the MOOD system in the grammar. It is the position of the Subject which changes to realise the difference between giving and demanding information

"Some very detailed lecture notes were given out by Professor Murson in her classes"

• The experiential and interpersonal meanings are the same as the original version.

• But by putting "Some very detailed lecture notes" first, the focus or textual meaning has changed. The speaker’s orientation in the utterance is to the lecture notes and not so much to the professor.

Textual meanings in English are realised in part by what is selected for first position in the clause - the Theme/Rheme system - as we have seen by the difference in selecting "Professor Murson" or "Some very detailed lecture notes" in first position.

Theme and Textual Meaning

Transitivity and Ideational Meaning

To change the ideational meanings we would change the participants, processes or circumstances involved (known as the TRANSITIVITY system), so we could change "Professor Murson" to "Professor Chang", or we could change the process "gives out" to "asks" or the participant "very detailed lecture notes" to "complicated test questions" etc.

Transitivity Analysis

Analysing Mood and Modality

Analysing Theme

Different patterns of Theme in Reports and Explanations

Report

Explanation

Different patterns of Transitivity in Reports and Explanations

Report

Explanation

Mainly Relational Processes

Mainly Material Processes

A functional model of language

Wright, J. (1993). Regulation and resistance: The physical education lesson as speech genre.

Social Semiotics, 3(1), 23-55.

Co-educational year 7 Basic Skills lesson: male teacher with male (15) and female (13) students.

Appraisal Systems in English

Attitude

ATTITUDE

affect

judgment

appreciation

happiness

security

satisfaction

social sanction

social esteem

reaction

composition

valuation

veracity/truth

propriety/ethics

capacity

tenacity

normality

Current Health Research Using Systemic Functional Linguistics

Caldwell, DavidSchool of Communication & Creative Arts, Deakin University

How to show you are coping when you are unwell

This paper reports on the methodology and findings of a study of a sample of the control group of The Language of Depression research project which is a collaborative research project between linguists at Deakin University and psychiatrists at Monash Medical Centre. The purpose of the study of the control group is to identify language use that facilitates the kinds of attitudes or ‘character strengths’ indicative of Acute Hospital patients who are coping psychologically, despite their adverse physical conditions. In this way, the paper will follow recent developments in positive psychology (e.g. Seligman 2002) and shift perspective from a traditional ‘disease’ model of depression, to preventing and overcoming mental illness from a model of happiness and resilience.

The data comprise 10 interviews between Acute Hospital patients and a Consultation-liaison psychiatrist. The interviews are approximately 30 minutes in duration. There were 6 female and 4 male patients all in their late 50s. The data were analysed using the interpersonal discourse semantic systems of APPRAISAL analysis (e.g. Martin and Rose 2003) and Negotiation (e.g. Martin 1992). The analysis of ATTITUDE is aligned with features of subjective well-being (e.g. Compton 2004) so as to reveal the kinds of ‘attitudes’ that facilitate psychological well-being. Particular attention is also given to the ways in which the ‘non-depressed’ patients’ used ENGAGEMENT resources as a rhetorical device so as to ‘convince’ the psychiatrist of their well-being.

It is expected that the findings will contribute to a set of interpersonal discourse semantic features that show ‘what works’ for mentally healthy people in adverse circumstances.

Fraser, HelenUniversity of Adelaide

A comparison of local and international student papers in two medicine exams of reasoning

A comparative study of reasoning characteristics in answers to a medicine examination of reasoning, learning and explaining was undertaken for 2002 and 2003. The exam has three aspects: an initial case analysis (including hypotheses and brief mechanisms to explain patient symptoms), a research phase and a re-analysis, plus further explanations of specific symptoms/signs. Three paired papers by local and international students were selected for these years at the levels: excellent and satisfactory (grouped here as ‘successful’) and fail -twelve papers in all. 2002 and 2003 were chosen because the 2002 case withheld the diagnosis, while the 2003 case provided it. It was found that none of the selected papers was wholly consistent in the initial analysis, but the four successful local students produced consistent re-analyses in both years, while only one of the successful international students did so. The two local students who Thematised the key symptoms in their re-analyses scored much higher than the successful international students who used minor clauses and Thematised themselves and hypotheses, not symptoms. The results can be used for developing the international students’ skills in demonstrating their reasoning in this written exam. They may also be useful to the year group as a whole

Kealley, JillUniversity of South Australia

Exploring the Language of Nursing Practice: an examination of Nursing practice and theory.

The language of Nursing is examined in this paper. The ways of doing, thinking and saying of the nurse depicted in the conversations between nurses and patients are examined and highlight the levels of implicitness of the language of Nursing. Cloran’s Rhetorical Units (1994) were used to examine the texts to understand how the nurse’s language construes realities in the here and now, the past and future and abstraction – virtual realities. However, often nurses enact theory in material actions and ancillary language and this was explored using Lemke’s thematic patterns (1990). It is proposed that nurses enact the theory of nursing and scientific realities thereby construe a theoretical or scientific context often without expressing what is commonly understood as the language of science. Lemke’s work was also used to explore how nurses delivery goods and services and information and therefore how they need to interpret patient’s messages as requests for goods and services or information. When the language of practice was examined in relationship to the theory of Nursing, gaps in the congruency between theory and practice were highlighted and have impact on how Nursing is taught, researched, and measured. Furthermore, the results of this study impact on the current practices of doctors (and other healthcare professionals) and healthcare administrators.

Cloran C. (1994) Rhetorical Units and Decontextualisation: an enquiry into some relations of context, meaning and grammar Monographs in Systemic Linguistics, 6. Department of English, University of Nottingham Nottingham.Lemke J. L. (1990) Talking science: language, learning and values Ablex Publishing Corp Norwood, NJ.

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