Yumiko Ohara Discursive Approaches to the Analysis of Language and Gender

Tokai International College, Honolulu
yumikoo@kokken.go.jp

About Yumiko Ohara

Ohara organized a 2001 symposium on "Conversation Analysis, Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis," and at the IGALA meeting in 2002 she co-organized a panel discussion on competing approaches to discourse analysis in language and gender studies. Her work stresses the need to build bridges between intellectual camps and explores the practical implications of theories in applied contexts, as evidenced by her own range of research from studies of gender and pitch in Japanese to critical discourse analyses of gender in Japanese popular media and educational contexts.

Abstract

This workshop centers on recent attempts to employ the methods and principles of conversation analysis (CA) to pursue feminist perspectives on language use (Kitzinger 2000; Ohara and Saft 2003; Stokoe and Weatherall 2002; Weatherall 2002). While some researchers have been critical of CA for failing to embrace the politicized nature of language use (Wetherell 1998, Weatherall 2000), others have begun suggesting that the close analytical detail given in CA to participantsí orientations can contribute to a ìdiscursive turnî in gender studies, where the analytical focus is placed on gender as it is constructed through discourse (Kitzinger 2000; Weatherall 2002). This workshop will follow previous research in stressing the utility of CA for gender research, but it will at the same time explore how CA principles might be combined with other analytic stances toward the development of a more informed discursive approach. To facilitate this exploration, data will be offered from three Japanese consultation television programs (soodan bangumi in Japanese) in which women and men seek advice from a set of guest panelists. Drawing on ideas from not only sequential CA but also membership category analysis (MCA) as well as the metaphor theory advocated by George Lakoff (Lakoff 1987; Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Santa Ana 2002), we will examine how the participants on the program use the interaction to construct and reinforce gendered realities. Presentation of most of the data will be done in data-session style and workshop participants will be encouraged to scrutinize the transcripts from a variety of perspectives.

Workshop Materials

Click here to download Yumiko Ohara's workshop paper in .pdf format.
Click here to download references relevant to Yumiko Ohara's workshop.


Links

Critical Discourse Analysis

Discourse & Society
Research in Critical Discourse Analysis: Homepage of Professor Teun A. van Dijk
Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Homepage of Professor Masami Saitoh (Media and Gender)
"Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf" by Professor George Lakoff
"Metaphor and War, Again" by George Lakoff
"Metaphors of Terror" by George Lakoff
"Conceptual Metaphor" by George Lakoff
Japanese Television

"Omoikkiri Terebi" official website
Books and magazines published by "Omoikkiri Terebi" (Nama denwa)
Top thirty most watched programs in Japan
Japanese TV programs



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