Oct 23 2023 45 mins
This podcast is the sixth and final instalment in the series commissioned by the Research Methodology in Education Special Interest Group to showcase the variety of methodologies and methods being undertaken by researchers in education. In this episode, Dr Bukola Oyinloye, co-convenor of the RME SIG, is in conversation with Dr Kathryn Spicksley. They discuss corpus assisted discourse analysis, an approach which uses computer programmes to explore patterns of grammar and vocabulary in selected text or corpora. They discuss its main element, discourse analysis, including its more critical type, and compare with other ways of interrogating text such as thematic analysis. Dr Spicksley recommends Hansun Zhang Waring’s book ‘Discourse Analysis: The Questions Discourse Analysts Ask and How They Answer Them’ as a helpful introduction to discourse analysis, as well as Norman Fairclough (Discourse and social change) and James Paul Gee (An introduction to discourse analysis) for useful frameworks on discourse analysis. In her article, ‘The very best generation of teachers ever’: teachers in post-2010 ministerial speeches, Dr Spicksley applies corpus assisted discourse analysis to government speeches in the UK.