Date: 21-Aug-2006
From: Lelija Socanac <elijasocanacyahoo.com>
Subject: Analysing Citizenship Talk
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-861.html
EDITORS: Heiko Hausendorf; Alfons BoraTITLE: Analysing Citizenship TalkSUBTITLE: Social positioning in political and legal decision-making processSERIES: Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and CulturePUBLISHER: John Benjamins Publishing CompanyYEAR: 2006ANNOUNCED IN: http://linguistlist.org/issues/17/17-861.html
Lelija Socanac, Law Faculty, University of Zagreb, Croatia
The main thread bringing contributions by different authors together is asociolinguistic interest in forms of citizen participation in the contextof modern biotechnology. Thus, citizen participation is discussed withrespect to various communicative processes in which it is manifested indiscourse in an effort to make clear the theoretical, methodological andempirical implications that go along with such an approach. The bookpresents results of an interdisciplinary European research project calledPARADYS (Participation and the Dynamics of Social Positioning), funded bythe European Commission. The project consortium included sociological andlinguistic research teams from Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands,Sweden, the UK and Germany and was coordinated by the editors. Thecontributions comprise papers that were read at the first internationalproject conference which was held in order to clarify the theoreticalconcept of the project and its methodological basis. The conference tookplace at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at the University ofBielefeld (Germany) in 2000. Differences between the papers with respect tothe style of formulation, argumentation and presentation stem from thenature of this international and interdisciplinary project which mark thenature of such a project and its different points of view and differentscientific 'cultures'.
The book deals with participatory discourse that emerges whenever apolitical decision-making process requires the 'public' to be included. Ittypically aims at 'citizenship' as a mode of including people in thepolitical system that goes beyond the formal mechanisms of representativedemocracy in favor of 'good governance'. Participatory discourse comprisesa broad variety of communicative events, such as debating between experts,politicians and the public, written objections and/or letters fromconcerned citizens, frequently asked questions pages on governmentalwebsites, face-to-face interaction or media communication, formal andinformal gatherings, local meetings or gatherings of focus groups. The booktakes a first step towards the sociolinguistic exploration of this field ofdiscourse, including the analysis of theoretical, methodological, andempirical aspects. As to the empirical aspect, the research presented isrestricted to the study of a single specific local public meeting betweencitizens, experts and applicants which took place in the late 1990's in asmall town in Northern Germany in response to a planned GMO field trial inthe region. The book shows that micro-analytical approaches such asconversation analysis (CA), critical discourse analysis (CDA) and socialpositioning theory (SPT) can fruitfully be applied in a field of researchwhere law and legal regulation play a major role and which has so far beenmainly a research field for socio-legal and political science.
The concept of communicating citizenship is presented in a threefold way:theoretical, methodological and empirical. Concerning theoretical aspects,a communication-oriented view of citizenship and citizen participation isintroduced and discussed. As far as methodological aspects are concerned, asociolinguistic grasp of communicated citizenship is developed usingdifferent approaches. Regarding empirical aspects, the form of findingsfrom concrete data analysis is illustrated by a set of case studies thatfollow different aspects of social positioning in citizenship talk.Accordingly, the book is divided into three parts: Part I.: ''CommunicatingCitizenship as Research Subject'', Part II: ''Communicating Citizenship as aMethodological Challenge'' and Part III: ''Communicating Citizenship inDiscourse: Empirical Aspects''.
Part I begins with the contribution ''Communicating citizenship and socialpositioning: theoretical concepts'' written by the editors, Alfons Bora andHeiko Hausendorf. The concept of communicating citizenship is introduced asthe central subject of research. It is shown that rather differentapproaches such as Habermas' theory of deliberative democracy, systemstheory, rational choice and game theory can shed light on the relevance ofprocedures for the achievement of citizenship. It is then argued that thekind of results that can be expected from this theoretical approach can bepresented in terms of communicatively manifested images of self and others.At this point sociolinguistic approaches towards the manifestation ofroles, standpoints, social voices, positions and identities have to be usedin order to shed light on participatory discourse. Finally, the content ofbiotechnology is taken up because of its importance for the study ofparticipatory discourse. It is shown that the present debate on improvinggovernance by means of citizen participation is often linked with the claimto 'democratize' scientific and technological expertise.
The first part of the book includes two other contributions which approachdirectly the field of GMO applications in Europe. Alfons Bora, in hiscontribution on ''Licensing Plant GMOs – A brief overview over Europeanregulatory conditions for the deliberate release of genetically modifiedplants'', presents the scientific debate about the regulation of so-called'green' biotechnology and sketches out the European regulatory conditionsof citizen participation in the field of the deliberate release of GMOs.These conditions can be seen as the political and legal context for theconcrete participation process across different European countries.
The contribution on ''Procedure and participation: A social theoreticalassessment of GM licensing procedures in Ireland and the UK'' by PatrickO'Mahony and Siobhan O'Sullivan, outlines the characteristics of the GMOdebate, its history in the EU public space and its heuristic relevance forsociological reflection. Although focusing on the national UK and Irishcontexts, this chapter can be taken as representative for the broadersocial background of the issues dealt with in the book.
Part II contains sociolinguistic papers which introduce differentmethodical approaches to the analysis of citizenship talk, such asconversation analysis, critical discourse analysis, social positioningtheory, and speech act theory.
The methodological part is opened by the contribution entitled''Reconstructing social positioning in discourse: Methodological basics andtheir implementation from a conversation analysis perspective'' by theeditors, Alfons Bora and Heiko Hausendorf. Social positioning is introducedas conversational work with communicative tasks for the participants, withpragmatic and semantic means to fulfill these tasks and with verbal formswhich manifest these means at the surface level of discourse. Assigning(persons according to social categories), ascribing (category-specificproperties and modes of behavior) and evaluating (category-specificascriptions) are introduced as the basic tasks and it is shown how thesetasks can be fulfilled.
In the chapter on ''Critical Discourse Analysis and citizenship'', NormanFairclough, Simon Pardoe and Bronislaw Szerszynski point out that any kindof relevant research in this field has to be informed about the social andtheoretical preconceptions of citizenship. Rather than adopting one ofthese preconceptions or neglecting them completely in favor of naiveempiricism, analysis should be oriented to the tension between thesepreconceptions and the actual communicative achievements. Criticaldiscourse analysis is introduced as a theoretical framework designed totake up such a challenge. The authors present a threefold distinctionbetween discourses, genres and styles/voices as a conceptualization ofsocial and institutional practices. The dimension of discourses is relatedto the ways of representing the social world from different perspectives.The dimension of genres refers to the ways of acting and interacting withother people according to socially recognizable ways of speaking andwriting. Styles/voices are related to the ways of identifying self andothers according to social and institutional identities. Discourses, genresand styles/voices are a part of chains of events and texts. Theyparticipate in the intertextuality and interdiscursivity of social andinstitutional practices. Introducing such a framework, the authors putspecial emphasis on the point that CDA does not offer special forms ofconcrete empirical analysis but aims at providing a resource to set updialogue between linguistic analysis of text and talk on the one hand, andsociological and political theory on the other.
Tracey Skillington's contribution entitled ''A critical comparison of theinvestigative gaze of three approaches to text analysis'' takes the exampleof citizenship to explain the ways in which CA, CDA and SPT account for itsrelevance in text and talk. It is shown that CDA primarily aims at makingmore visible the presence of ideology in discourse. The investigative gazeaims at uncovering mechanisms of domination and repression. While CA oftenclaims to leave the text as it is, to take it as naturally 'complete', CDAreaffirms the 'fiction of the incomplete text' (Lacan) with regard to theunderstanding of text as manifesting 'disorders of discourse' (Wodak). TheSPT approach has a lot in common with CDA, but there are differences aswell. Namely, SPT assumes that there is a mobilization potential inherentin discourse and allows for a creative use of ideological resources bydiscourse actors.
In her contribution ''Communicating citizenship in verbal interaction:Principles of a speech act oriented discourse analysis'', Marina Sbisàcriticizes the view of communicating citizenship as the expression andtransmission of representations of citizenship in terms of cognitivecontents. Instead of asking for mental representations, she argues forasking 'who is doing what to whom'. Communicating citizenship appears to bea certain type of interactively produced manifestation of interpersonalrelationships. Interpersonal relationships are then described in terms ofwhat participants can or should do. Rights and obligations are suggested tobelong to the same domain of communicated deontic modal competences.Citizenship is viewed as a certain set of deontic modal attributes ofsocial actors which is in itself affected by the participants'illocutionary acts. Applying her approach to the data presented in theannex of the book, Sbisà takes up and redefines Austin's typology ofverdictives, exercitives, commissives and behabitives.
The contribution on ''Communicative involvement in public discourse:Considerations on an ethnographic inventory and a proposal for the analysisof modes of citizenship'' by Thomas Spranz-Fogasy seeks to add anethnographically oriented approach to those presented before.'Ethnographical' orientation is understood as a necessary complement to(linguistic) approaches which draw upon the transcribed (verbal) materialsas the only relevant source for analysis. Ethnographical orientationimplies exploring the framing of the event, participants' points of view,their motivation and strategies, spatial surrounding, etc. by means ofparticipant observation, inspection of written materials and interviews.Beyond the individuality expressed through the participants' physical andmental presence, there are 'social voices' that are heard which displayarguments, points of view, and implications of engagement. Discourseprofiles are concrete manifestations of what is called the intertextualityand the chain of discourse events in CDA and SPT traditions.
The third and last part of the book provides empirical analyses of concreteoutcomes of citizenship talk around the planting of GM crops. Referring toa typical social arena of debate between experts and laypeople,representatives of involved organizations, and locally concerned citizens,different aspects of citizenship talk are analyzed. Most of thecontributions refer to the same empirical data, namely an audio-taped andtranscribed local public meeting in Northern Germany that had beenorganized by a town committee in order to discuss a field trial of GM cropsin the vicinity. Relevant parts of the transcription of this meeting areincluded in the appendix, including an English translation.
In the contribution entitled ''Opening up the public space: On the framingand re-framing of a discussion meeting about GMO field trials'' by IngridFurchner and Peter Münte, special emphasis is put on the participation ofthe (local) public as crucial for the citizenship talk. The emergence ofthe public space is a genuine communicative achievement, beginning with thechairperson's opening talk, but also holding for the ongoing interactionand its further elements. Like other communicative tasks, the task offraming is achieved during the entire event. The authors point out thatthese (re)framings are part of what is contested between the participants,namely the relevant concepts of participation according to underlyingimages of citizens. In their conclusions, the authors point out that thedifferent framings and re-framings of the event can be related to theadministrative permitting procedure and its complex way of decision-making.
The contribution ''Personal reference, social categorization and thecommunicative achievement of citizenship: Comments on a local publicmeeting on GMO field trials'' by Zsuzsanna Iványi, András Kertész, KornéliaMarinecz and Nóra Máté deals with the linguistic tools that are appliedwhenever framings in terms of social categorizations and positioning areperformed. Taking up the CA interest in social categorization according tomembers' activities, the authors search for the linguistic forms ofpersonal reference in terms of which social categorization is manifested.Special emphasis is put on the ''surface linguistic means'' which thespeakers apply to fulfill the categorization tasks of assigning, ascribingand evaluating.
Jana Holsanova, in her contribution on ''Quotations as a vehicle for socialpositioning'', investigates the social functions that make quotations apreferred means of social positioning. Quotations systematically exploitthe assumption that participants tend to infer social positions from socialvoices, so that social positions can be realized without having been namedor introduced explicitly. Quotations are viewed as constructions – more orless free to vary, to select, and to create what has yet to be demonstratedas something that has been said before. Furthermore, they are viewed asvoices within the framework of the 'polyphony' of oral discourse. They are,finally, viewed as a means of social positioning. Due to the extent towhich quotations can be seen as devices to signal that a speaker isactually borrowing his own voice from other voices, quotations letintertextuality become a reality of discourse immediately available forparticipants. The author points out that this kind of manifestintertextuality is necessarily accompanied by ''re-contextualization'': whatis said to have been said or written before, is not only re-constructed butalso and even primarily constructed and 'designed' in favor of actualargumentative purposes.
The contribution by Henrike Padmos, Harrie Mazeland and Hedwig te Molder,''On doing being personal: Citizen talk as an identity-suspending device inpublic debates on GMOs'' explores when and how participants describethemselves or others as 'citizens'. The authors conclude that speakers caninvoke this category in order to enable the expression of 'private'thoughts and feelings toward public issues. In doing so, the speaker seemsto be capable of distancing himself from his 'official' identity in termsof speaking as a representative of an institution or organization.Citizenship talk can be interpreted as an 'identity suspending device',i.e. a device which overrides a social position introduced before.Accordingly, 'citizen' does not represent a social position of its own butprimarily serves to suspend other positions assumed to be already relevant.
Subsequent to the empirical chapters, the materials of the local publicmeeting that are dealt with throughout most of the contributions in themethodological and empirical part of the book, are made available in somedetail. The material is valuable in itself as far as it documents theparticularities of participatory discourse in the case of modernbiotechnology. The book also contains a Name index and a Subject index.
Findings presented in the book are relevant to anyone interested inpolitical, social and cultural processes from alinguistic/discourse-analytic point of view. The book is a valuablecontribution to the interdisciplinary fields of research at the interfacebetween linguistics and social sciences.
REFERENCES
Austin, John L. 1975. How to Do Things with Words. 2nd rev. edition.Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Translatedand edited by V. McGee, C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin: University ofTexas Press.
Fairclough, Norman 1989. Language and power. London: Longman.
Fairclough, Norman 1992. Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Goffman, Erving 1981. Forms of talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.
Habermas, Jürgen 1996. Die Einbeziehung des Anderen. Studien zurpolitischen Theorie. Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp.
Lacan, Jacques 1998. The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis.London: Vintage.
Van Dijk, Teun A. 1998. Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Sage.
Wodak, Ruth 1996. Disorders of Discourse. Essex: Longman.
Wodak, Ruth and Meyer, Michael 2001. Methods in Critical DiscourseAnalysis. London: Sage.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Lelija Socanac is Assistant Professor at the Modern Language Department,Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Croatia. Her research interestsinclude sociolinguistics, multilingualism, language policy and planning,language and law.
|