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Discourse Analysis as a Qualitative Approach to Study

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 Discourse Analysis as a Qualitative Approach to Study
Information Sharing Practice in Malaysian Board Forums

1,2,3
Alice Shanthi, Lee Kean Wah, Denis Lajium (Dr)
1,2,3
Faculty of Psychology and Education,
Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Sabah, Malaysia
alice_shanthi@yahoo.com.my

ABSTRACT

There are numerous approaches to qualitative research, and discourse analysis

is one of them. The study of naturally occurring language in any social context
is discourse analysis, and it makes use of various qualitative methods to increase
our understanding of human experience. The researchers build upon Herring’s
(2004) work, which used discourse analysis approach to explore communication
taking place in mediated environment using Computer-Mediated Discourse
Analysis (CMDA) toolkit. In this article the researchers will discuss how to
conduct a study using the discourse analysis approach in computer-mediated
environment specifically in discussion board forums by analysing the naturally
occurring asynchronous communication using Herring’s CMDA toolkit to
reveal how language is used to perform the many actions needed to share and
exchange information online.

Keywords: qualitative analysis, discourse analysis, computer-mediated discourse

INTRODUCTION

For novice researchers the choices available to analyse qualitative data is aplenty,
and it could be quite perplexing and overwhelming. Creswell (2013), mentioned the
narrative research, phenomenology, grounded theory, ethnography and case study as five
approaches for a qualitative study. While Merriam (2009), added an extra of two more
approaches to Creswell’s list; basic qualitative and critical qualitative research. Denzin
and Lincoln (2005, cited by Merriam, 2009: 20) identify six research strategies namely
case study, ethnography, grounded theory, life and narrative approaches, participatory
research and clinical research. Wertz et al., (2011) explain five approaches of conducting
qualitative research in social science, namely; phenomenology, grounded theory,
discourse analysis, narrative research and intuitive inquiry.
While the approaches to qualitative research by renowned writers suggest
there is no clear conformity as to how to categorize “the baffling numbers of choices or
approaches” to qualitative analysis (Creswell, 2007:6), therefore, Denzin and Lincoln’s
(2013:13) statement about qualitative analysis will be taken as the core definition for
qualitative approach in this study; qualitative research is a set of complex interpretive
practices where no specific method or practice can be privileged over another.
Discourse Analysis as a Qualitative Approach to Study Information Sharing Practise in Malaysian Board Forums

This article starts of with a brief discussion of research paradigms selected for
this study which would help to unify the type and the specific methods of collecting
and analyzing data. Next it will move on to explain how discourse analysis can used to
conduct qualitative research in Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) specifically
in discussion board forums by analysing the naturally occurring asynchronous
communication to reveal how language functions to perform the many actions needed to
share and exchange information online.

REASEARCH PARADIGMS

The starting point for any qualitative research would be to decide on the philosophical
ideas which is described using different terms such as worldview (Creswell, 2013:6),
paradigm (Denzin & Lincoln, 2013:17), or epistemology perspectives (Merriam,
2009:11), but they refer to the same ideas that lace the background of a study. Deciding
on the worldview or paradigm is important because it will help a new researcher to
choose the correct research design and method of analysis that would best help to answer
the research question of the study. In short, the paradigms guides the researcher how to
examine a concrete empirical problem (Denzin & Lincoln, 2013: 29).
In this study discourse analysis is used to analyse thread-level asynchronous
communication to shed some light on the language strategies used by members of online
discussion board forums as they interact online to share and exchange information,
hence, it would adopt the Interpretivism philosophy also known as constructivism.
This paradigm emphasises conductions study in their natural settings by attempting to
make sense of, or interpret the meanings people bring to them by searching for pattern
embedded in the data source itself (Creswell, 2007). The data source could be in the
form of interviews, observation or review of documents. Constructivists do not generally
begin with a theory rather they generate or inductively develop a theory or pattern of
meanings (Creswell, 2003: 9 cited by Starks & Trinidad, 2007).
However, the choice of qualitative analysis that a researcher uses to arrive
at the end meaning that people bring to the data, whether by using grounded theory,
phenomenological, narrative, discourse analysis, etc., makes the difference in a
qualitative study. With that, Starks and Trinidad (2007) summarised that the objective
of a study that uses phenomenology approach is to study how people make meaning of
their lived experience; discourse analysis scrutinizes how language is used to accomplish
interpersonal and social interaction; and grounded theory develops explanatory theories
of basic social processes studied in context.

QUALITATIVE METHODS FOR DATA ANALYSIS

Constructivism or interpretivism paradigms are normally associated with studies that

adopt a qualitative approach, where the emphasis is placed on studying social issues

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 Alice Shanthi, Lee Kean Wah & Denis Lajium

that evolves around the lives of people. It involves “studying things in their natural
setting, attempts to make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings
people bring to them” (Denzin & Lincoln, 2013:7). It is also about collecting data using
several common methods associated with qualitative research such as participant/s
observation/s, field notes, recordings, interviews, photographs and memos. In qualitative
method the data collected to examine a social phenomenon could be in the form of
spoken transcripts, written text and/or other forms of documents that are analysed in an
attempt to understand human behaviour and experience in a social setting. Thus, in a
qualitative study, “researchers are keen on gaining understanding of people’s behaviour
and/or experience in a rich and complex setting that specific for the particular group of
people or setting that is being studied, and not in obtaining information which can be
generalized to other larger groups” (Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill. 2009:127).
Wertz, et. al., (2011) distinguishes five ways of doing qualitative analysis in
social science, namely; phenomenology, grounded theory, discourse analysis, narrative
research and intuitive inquiry. Of these five methods they go on to explain that discourse
analysis belongs to “a family of contemporary approaches that emphasises human
language as a socially contextual performance” (Wertz, et. al, 2011: 4). Since discourse
analysis is categorised as one of the contemporary approaches in the field of qualitative
research, it shares some of the same analytical methods with other more established
qualitative methods such as grounded theory. These include steps such as coding, sorting
of categories, identifying themes, and relationships and drawing conclusions to answer
the research questions. In fact literature reveal that it has been noted that most of the
qualitative methods share some form of commonalities in their analytical approaches
(Starks & Trinidad, 2007; Saunders, Lewis, & Thornhill, 2009; Wertz, et al., 2011).
However what differentiates them is their choice of philosophy or paradigm, goals and
the final product of their investigation. As mentioned by Stark and Trinidad (2007) greater
differences between these qualitative methods are observed at the beginning and the final
results of the study as seen in Table 1 which shows a comparison between Discourse
Analysis (DA) and Grounded Theory (GT) methods which share a lot of commonalities.

Table 1 Similarities and Differences of the Two Interpretive Approaches With Respect To History, Goal,
Philosophy, Methodology, Analytic Method and Product.

Discourse Analysis Grounded Theory

History Linguistics/semiotics Sociology
Philosophy Knowledge and meaning is Theory is discovered
produced through interaction with by examining concepts
multiple discourses grounded in the data
Goal Understand how people use Develop an explanatory
language to create and enact theory of basic social
identities and activities. processes

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Discourse Analysis as a Qualitative Approach to Study Information Sharing Practise in Malaysian Board Forums

Methodology

• Formulating a research question “What discourses are used and “How does the basic social
how do they shape identities, process of [ X ] happen in
activities and relationships?” the context of [ Y ]
• Sampling Those situated in one or more of Those who have
the discourses of interest. experienced the
phenomenon under
different condition.
• Data Collection: -Observation Observe participants in Observe participants where
conversation in their natural the basic social process
environment. takes place.
-Interview Both engage in dialogue; Participants describe
interviewer probes for intertextual experience; interviewer
meaning probes for detail, clarity
Analytic Methods Examine how understanding is Open, axial, and selective
produced through a close look at coding: examine concepts
the words. Interested in how the across their properties and
story was told, what identities, dimensions; develop an
activities, relationships, and shared explanatory framework that
meaning are created through integrates the concepts into
language. a core category
Audience Policy makers & interventionist Researchers & practitioners
who need to understand the who seek explanatory
discourses in use to craft affective models upon which to
messages. design interventions.
Product Description of language-in-use; Generate theory from the
identify how different discourses range of the participants’
shape how identities , relationship, experience.
and social goods are negotiated
and produced.

Source: Starks and Trinidad (2007)

BACKGROUND ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS

Language helps us to understand each other when we communicate. Language by

itself is meaningless; “in human communication it is through the shared, mutually
agreed-on use of language that meaning is created” (Starks &Trinidad, 2007:1374).
Communication that takes place in different context and genre is called discourse.
According to Androutsopoulos (2011:47), discourse is defined as language-in-use or
spoken language that comes about from communication that takes place naturally in
social context. Underlying the word ‘discourse ‘is the general idea that language is
structured according to different patterns that people’s utterances follow when they take
part in different domains of social life, familiar examples being ‘sociological discourse’,
‘medical discourse’, ‘computer-mediated discourse’, ‘political discourse’ etc.

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 Alice Shanthi, Lee Kean Wah & Denis Lajium

The analysis of these patterns in language is termed as ‘Discourse analysis’

(Jorgensen & Phillips, 2002). Therefore it can be concluded that the study of naturally
occurring language in any social context is discourse analysis (DA), and it makes use
of various qualitative methods to increase our understanding of human experience, and
according to Gale (2010), discourse analysis as method to study language-in-use has
had a major impact on social sciences over the years. Hence it can be said that discourse
analysis is a broad term used to analyse written and spoken text of people’s discourse
(text and talk) in everyday social context.
Another fundamental representation of discourse analysis is that “language
must be seen as action” (Wood & Kruger, 2000: 5). This notion arises from the famous
Oxford philosopher J.L.Austin. In his famous lecture entitled “How to Do Things with
Words”, Austin (1962) showed that many utterances do not simply describe a state of
affairs but perform an action (Silverman, 1999:120). Therefore whether in the text or talk
form, words set forth to perform actions and those actions have meaning attached to it
according to the intentions of the speaker/sender and how the reader/listener interprets
and acts accordingly. Since discourse analysis seeks to analyse the activities present in
talk(words spoken or written), it cannot be seen as having a single rigid form of meaning,
but as differing according contexts, genre and to the meaning created by its users.
Hence, depending on the context and the different types of genre under scrutiny,
discourse is found in a broad range of approaches to study human experience. This
has paved the way for different variants of discourse analysis based on the language
variant used by different people in different settings. For example, there is Conversation
Analysis (CA) where the focus is on a very technical analysis of talk-in-interaction, and
“the analysis is almost always used to analyse language found on audio (radio) or visual
(television) recordings of interaction, that is painstakingly transcribed” (Have, 2006),
making Conversation analysis a prevailing method to study spoken in media. Next
variant of discourse analysis is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), according to (Wodak,
2008), this field’s foremost practitioner, “CDA [is] fundamentally interested in analysing
opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination,
power and control when these are manifested in language. Another is grammatical
analysis (GA), where the researcher will study a set of single sentences illustrating a
particular feature of the language (lexical and grammatical items). However the focus of
this study lies with computer mediated communication (CMC). According to Thurlow,
Lengel, and Tomic (2004), “the history of computer-mediated communication (CMC) is
more than fifty years old and, has become very attractive to scholarly attention (since the
mid-1990s) because of the fast-growing popularity and ubiquity of personal computers”.
Computer mediated communication (CMC) and the study of language used in
CMC for communicative purpose is pointed out as computer-mediated discourse (CMD).
Fitzpatrick and Donnelly’s (2010) define CMD, as chiefly text-based human to human
communication in a mediated environment using computers or mobile telephony in public
spheres, which encompasses human communication via email, discussion boards, blogs
and wikis. Further computer-mediated discourse (CMD), according to Herring (2004)
refers to naturally occurring written language in human-to-human communication via
computer networks.

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Discourse Analysis as Qualitative Analytical Method

This study specifically sets forth to examine how language is used in online communication,
what they achieve and how these language functions are used to exchange and share
information in online discussion board forums. By using DA as a research approach, the
researcher hopes to up with new knowledge on how information is shared and exchanged
in a mediated environment. This study will explore discourse as a social practice that is
taking place in online discussion board forums in the Malaysian context. In comparison
to the broader interdisciplinary study of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC),
computer-mediated discourse (CMD) is the finer study of discourse found in CMC.
As there are many different approaches to the study of discourse; hence,
as with all research projects, choosing the right method of analysis that best guides
the researcher to answer the inquiry of the project is of utmost importance. Rourke,
Anderson, and Garrison (2007), have recommended that researchers investigating
online discussions should utilize frameworks that build on prior research. As such,
in this study the researcher builds upon Herring’s (2004) work, which used discourse
analysis approach to explore communication taking place in mediated environment
using Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) Framework. CMDA focuses
specifically on language and language-use in computer networked environment and
makes use of methods of discourse analysis (Herring, 2004).
CMDA comprises “any analysis of online behaviour that is grounded in
empirical textual observation” (Herring, 2004). In structuring the scope of CMDA,
Herring illustrates that CMDA has already been used for the investigation of numerous
linguistic phenomena on a micro-level (e.g. online word-formation, lexical choice,
sentence structure, and code-switching) as well as on a macro-level (e.g. coherence,
community, gender equity, and identity). CMDA assumes that discourse exhibits
recurring patterns which are produced consciously or unconsciously and the basic goal
of discourse analysis is to identify patterns in discourse that are inherently to the present
study. In her CMDA toolkit, Herring presents step by step guide to study online social
behaviour captured through the lens of language-use as depicted in Table 2, and “its
interpretations are grounded in observations about language and language use” (Herring,
2004) in online communication. CMDA adapts the “traditional typology of discourse
to the online environment including modality, participation, text type and discourse
type, as such has developed into a faceted classification scheme for computer-mediated
communication” (Fitzpatrick & Donnelly, 2010).
As is seen in Table 2, CMDA can be used to examine data at five levels of
analysis such as the structural level, meaning level, interaction level, social behaviour
level, and participation level using different methods of analysis. At structural level of
analysis is objective as it entails counting of CMC phenomena such as lexical items,
phrases, and syntactic patterns. The meaning level of analysis includes the semantic or
the functional level of speech acts analysis which involves interpretive and subjective
terms. The interactional level includes topic development and negotiating of interactive
exchanges. The participation level calls for a descriptive analysis that includes a count

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 Alice Shanthi, Lee Kean Wah & Denis Lajium

of the number of postings and their responses, number of participants, and thread length.
In short, CMDA, as put forward by Herring (2004) is a systematic observation of online
language behaviour and is grounded in observation about language and language use
in CMD. A researcher studying CMD does not necessarily use or choose all levels of
CMDA analysis as depicted in Table 2, but to choose only levels that are necessary to
answer the inquiry of the study. For this study the researcher will start off with analysis
at participation level and proceed to meaning level which would require analysis for
different aspects of language-use that would show a pattern of language used for CMD
found in online discussion board forums in Malaysia.

Table 2 Five domains of CMDA analysis

Domain Phenomena Issues Methods

Structure discourse schemata genre characteristics structural analysis

Meaning meaning of words, what the speaker pragmatics, semantics

utterances intends, what is
accomplished through
language
Interaction turns, sequences, interactivity, topic conversation analysis
exchanges, threads etc. development
Social face-management, contextual influence interactional
Behaviour discourse styles sociolinguistics

Participation Number of messages, Engagement, roles descriptive statistics

responses, thread length,

Source: Herring, S. (2004)

DATA COLLECTION

To study the discourse in a mediated environment, ideally one obvious way to collect
data would be to download all accessible online interaction; however this would produce
a massive size of data set that might prove to be unmanageable for the researchers to
handle. In addition, the sampling for qualitative data collection in CMDA is rarely
done randomly, since random sampling sacrifices context, and context is important
in interpreting discourse analysis results (Herring, 2004). In discourse analysis, the
researcher is the primary instrument for data collection and analysis (Merriam, 2009:15),
and therefore has to decide on the number or size of data to be gathered as corpus for the
study. This is because in Mason (2010) voice a number of issues can affect sample size in
qualitative research; however, the guiding principle should be the concept of saturation.

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Discourse Analysis as a Qualitative Approach to Study Information Sharing Practise in Malaysian Board Forums

This concept (data saturation) is quite different from the data saturation which
originated from grounded theory and termed as theoretical saturation. The difference
between these two concepts is explained by Green and Thorogood, 2004 (cited by
O’Reilly & Parker, 2012):

“the notion of saturation [in grounded theory]does not refer to the point
at which no new ideas emerge, but rather means that categories are
fully accounted for, the variability between them are explained and the
relationships between them are tested and validated and thus a theory
can emerge”. (p.192)

O’Reilly and Parker (2012:192) then go on to explain the concept of saturation

as, the point at which there are fewer surprises and there are no more emergent patterns
in the data. Therefore in DA data should continue to be collected until nothing new
is generated at such point the researcher can claim that his/her data has reached the
saturation point. And while selecting the data, in this case online discussion board
forums, the researcher should seek information-rich cases that are collected according
to certain criteria set by the researcher that could best help to answer the research
questions of the study.
When the size of corpus to be studies is sorted out, and data is collected
accordingly, the first step of analysis using CMDA, the researcher starts at participation
level. The researcher has to determine how many messages were posted for each forum,
the number of responses that each participant in the forum contributed to the respective
discussion, and the ratio of participant to number of posting and/or how often others
referred to the messages, as decided by the researcher. This will provide a first impression
about the communicative activity that is taking place in the online discussion forums.
The next step would be at meaning level. The researcher will code the data for language
strategies that the participants used to communicate in online discussion forums. The
coding process will be described in detail in the following section.

Coding and Categorising

In the coding process, coding refers to the action while codes refer to the names given to
the concepts derived through coding (Corbin & Anselm, 2008:66). Shaheen and George,
(2011), explain that the main purpose of coding is to break down the data, rearranging
and grouping it into identified categories and subcategories which bring together data
about a topic which has so far been scattered across sources, and ultimately allow
comparison within the data.
Hence while coding, the researcher could use two approaches, firstly the
researcher could code the utterance using emergent coding; whereby the researchers
approaches the data with no prior set coding categories, but allows the categories and
names of categories to emerge from the data. The researchers immerse themselves in

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 Alice Shanthi, Lee Kean Wah & Denis Lajium

the data to allow new insights to emerge (Kondracki & Wellman, 2002 cited by Hsieh
& Shannon, 2005), thus using an inductive way to identify category development that
points to the language used to exchange and share information in CMD. Many qualitative
methods share this initial approach to analyse the data.
The second approach would be to approach the data with a pre-set list of coding
categories (priori coding) as prescribed by prior research that were carried out in the
same field, or based on existing theory or literature (Corbin & Anselm, 2008: 68) The
category names may be derived from the data itself, existing theory or literature (Strauss
& Corbin, 2008). The researchers could also sort to combine both approaches. However,
in CMDA categories are treated as produced in discourse rather than as pre-existing
(Wood & Kroger, 2000: 17). As such the researcher would be using the first coding
method to allow categories to emerge from the data collected from the online discussion
forum, rather than those prescribed by the researcher based on existing theories. Next
while coding, it is necessary to determine the unit of analysis or coding. The coding
“can range in magnitude from a single word to a full sentence to an entire paragraph of
a text” (Saldaña, 2013: 3). He further explains that in any qualitative research including
discourse analysis,

“a code is a researcher generated construct that symbolises and thus

attributes interpreted meaning to each individual datum for later purpose
of pattern detection, categorization, theory building and other analytic
processes (pg.4)”.

Next, while coding it is of absolute necessary to read the data within the
context and not in isolation because the actual intended action of an utterance may be
misconstrued or taken for granted. For example the statement, “Are you coming” taken
in isolation could be taken as an act of questioning by the speaker to get confirmation
from the listener on his/her intention to come to an event. However, in another context it
could also be taken as an act of treat by the speaker who is warning his/her listener not
to enter a certain place, and if the listener continues to come then some form of danger
might be awaiting the listener. Therefore in discourse analysis there is an absolute need
to read and reread the text or data several times while coding so that the researcher can
adequately analyse the utterances for their correct and intended meaning.
When all the data has been coded, language functions identified by categories,
the researcher should now be in a position to talk about the content of the data as
the language patterns or strategies used to share and exchange information in online
discussion board forums would emerged giving the researcher a good idea on what to
report to answer the research questions of the study.

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Discourse Analysis as a Qualitative Approach to Study Information Sharing Practise in Malaysian Board Forums

CONCLUSION

This article has provided a broad outline of the steps which may be taken when analysing
qualitative data focusing on the process of data collection and coding using the discourse
analysis method to analyse naturally occurring text only data taken from asynchronous
online communication namely discussion board forums.

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