TY - JOUR

T1 - Zeitlichkeit im Diskurs

T2 - Methodologische Herausforderungen und der Vorschlag eines quantifiziert-qualitativen Ansatzes

AU - Hamann, Julian

AU - Suckert, Lisa

N1 - Funding information: Dr. Julian HAMANN is postdoc at the Department of Science Studies of the Forum Internationale Wissenschaft, University of Bonn, Germany. His research is concerned with various arenas of the production and (e)valuation of academics and academic knowledge. Drawing on the sociology of social sciences and humanities, higher education studies, the sociologies of knowledge and culture, and in particular the sociology of evaluation, his work touches on topics like disciplines, careers, subjectivity, and social inequality. He is currently leading a project funded by the German Research Foundation on professorial appointment procedures.

PY - 2018/5

Y1 - 2018/5

N2 - Though most sociological discourse analyses are concerned with inherently temporal research objects, temporality is rarely acknowledged from a methodological perspective. In this article we address this gap by making the methodological consequences of temporality systematically explicit. In doing so, we attempt to initiate an important methodological debate in the field of sociological discourse analysis. As a first contribution, we specify four main methodological challenges posed by temporality to discourse analytical research processes: a sequential model of reality, entities that fluctuate and move, connections that relate entities over time, and the inherently comparative nature of diachronic analyses. We argue that qualitative approaches to discourse analysis are well equipped to deal with the first three challenges. However, they can easily be overwhelmed by the wide scope of diachronic comparative analyses. Building on these insights, we propose a quantified qualitative approach to diachronic discourse analyses. We show that quantifying tools that visualize discourse are beneficial in the final stages of qualitative interpretation. To this end, we explore the potential of word clouds, co-occurrence networks and discursive fields of correspondence for visualizing change and stability and thus accounting for temporality. Both the methodological challenges and the visualization tools are illustrated by drawing on an exemplary study on the changing nature of critiques of capitalism in the context of the recent economic crisis.

AB - Though most sociological discourse analyses are concerned with inherently temporal research objects, temporality is rarely acknowledged from a methodological perspective. In this article we address this gap by making the methodological consequences of temporality systematically explicit. In doing so, we attempt to initiate an important methodological debate in the field of sociological discourse analysis. As a first contribution, we specify four main methodological challenges posed by temporality to discourse analytical research processes: a sequential model of reality, entities that fluctuate and move, connections that relate entities over time, and the inherently comparative nature of diachronic analyses. We argue that qualitative approaches to discourse analysis are well equipped to deal with the first three challenges. However, they can easily be overwhelmed by the wide scope of diachronic comparative analyses. Building on these insights, we propose a quantified qualitative approach to diachronic discourse analyses. We show that quantifying tools that visualize discourse are beneficial in the final stages of qualitative interpretation. To this end, we explore the potential of word clouds, co-occurrence networks and discursive fields of correspondence for visualizing change and stability and thus accounting for temporality. Both the methodological challenges and the visualization tools are illustrated by drawing on an exemplary study on the changing nature of critiques of capitalism in the context of the recent economic crisis.

KW - Capitalism

KW - Discourse analysis

KW - Methodology

KW - Temporality

KW - Visualization

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85044834718&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.17169/fqs-19.2.2954

DO - 10.17169/fqs-19.2.2954

M3 - Artikel

AN - SCOPUS:85044834718

VL - 19

JO - Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung

JF - Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung

SN - 1438-5627

IS - 2

M1 - 2

ER -