2S Qualitative Text Analysis: Philosophical Foundations, Methods and Applications
Guido Schwellnus, Institute for European Integration Research
23 July - 3 August (two week course / 35 hrs)
Detailed Course Outline [PDF]
Course Content
Whether it is media coverage, political speeches and debates, or even transcripts of expert interviews – much of the empirical evidence we want to analyse is in textual form. Often, the structure and content of texts is in itself what we want to understand, for example: how are issues ‘framed’ in the media, or how are positions argumentatively justified in parliamentary debates? In other instances, how information is presented in texts has an important influence on what we want to explain (e.g. political decisions, or the success of social movements). In either case, methodological tools for the interpretation of texts are necessary to allow for systematic, valid and reliable qualitative research, because texts are not simple representations of objective reality, but both a rule-governed social construction and a means used by actors to achieve their ends through presentation, justification, and manipulation.
This course first provides an overview on the foundations of text analysis in the philosophy of language, e.g. the hermeneutic tradition, the ‘linguistic turn’ in philosophy and the movement from structuralism to post-structuralism in linguistics. It then presents different interpretative methods for systematic qualitative analysis such as frame analysis, speech act analysis, argumentation analysis and discourse analysis. For each method, both the theoretical foundations and examples for their application are discussed based on core readings, predominantly (but not exclusively) from the field of political science. Practical in-class exercises are conducted in order to familiarise students with the methods.
Course Objectives
The aim of the course is to familiarize students with different text analytical methods and enable them to use such methods for the qualitative analysis of texts within their own research. At the end of the course, participants will have a “toolkit” that allows them to systematically evaluate text corpora in order to answer research questions regarding the structure and content of textual data.
This course is not an introduction into data-collection techniques for qualitative research, but focuses on methods to analyze data, although it will also give some background on preparing the data for analysis (e.g. how to assemble a text corpus). Hence, the course is mainly suited for students who either already pursue research based on textual data or plan to do so, or want to gain an overview on different analytical techniques before deciding what kind of data they need to answer their research questions.
Course Prerequisites
The course does not require any technical prior knowledge and does not use computer-aided techniques. Some general understanding of qualitative research in the social sciences is recommended.
Background Reading
Goffman, Erving (1974): Frame Analysis – An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: North Eastern University Press.
Levinson, Stephen C. (1983): Pragmatics (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Van Eemeren, Frans H., Rob Grotendorst and Francisca Snoek Henkemans (1996): Fundamentals of Argumentation Theory – A Handbook of Historical Backgrounds and Contemporary Developments. Mahwah/New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Wodak, Ruth and Michał Krzyżanowski (eds) (2008): Qualitative Discourse Analysis in the Social Sciences. Barsingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.