Interpretive Discourse Analysis in Comparative Perspective …

and influence of the narration. Matheson, while criticizing critical path¹⁶⁷ argues that it is at most accused of “misreading or over-reading its object of study in terms of the analyst’s own politics”¹⁶⁸ since ‘external perspectives’ are inevitably reflected to the language material investigated. In his opinion, similar to the situation that was faced by Marxist¹⁶⁹ sociology, this type of study is ‘guilty of not listening’ which is visible in ‘its emphasis on critique rather than understanding’¹⁷⁰. Following his words¹⁷¹:

“While I would not want to critique the political goals of this school of research, I make two specific criticisms. First, this approach, in looking for evidence of imbalances of power, is at risk of missing other aspects of the context of language use. Second, the approach’s root in the functional linguistics of Halliday exacerbates that neglect of how meaning arises in local contexts, and indeed leaves the social or political theory at times dissociated from the analysis of language use. As a result, assumptions about how society works may not be revised in the analysis”.

The interpretive approach mostly concentrates on shared meaning and common effects of the verbal and/or visual representations¹⁷² embedded in codes (messages).

Therefore, the level of analysis should not be limited to the language (or lexis), instead, words and accompanying images (be they signs, photographs, or else) should be analyzed concomitantly, for we read both words and images, such as the traffic signs.

167 Although Critical Discourse Analysis is usually taken as a method for discourse analysis by most of its supporters there also others who criticize this approach. Teun A. Van Dijk, for example, states that it is not a method, “but rather a critical perspective, position or attitude within the discipline of multidisciplinary Discourse Studies”. Since it is not a method but rather a perspective there are several different methods borrowed from other disciplines to study discourse critically. “The critical approach of CDS [Critical Discourse Studies] characterizes scholars rather than their methods: CDS scholars are socio-politically committed to social equality and justice”. According to this opinion, these scholars

“are typically interested in the way discourse (re)produces social domination, that is the power abuse of one group over others, and how dominated groups may discursively resist such abuse”. See, Teun A.

Van Dijk, “Discourse, Cognition, Society”, The Discourse Studies Reader: Main Currents in Theory and Analysis, ed. Johannes Angermuller, Dominique Maingueneau, Ruth Wodak (Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2014): 389.

168 Donald Matheson, “Critiquing the Critical: A Reflection on Critical Discourse Analysis”, University

of Canterbury Research Repository, (2008) , 4

https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10092/2669/12611999_matheson-CDA-finalproof.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. [03.04.2019].

169 Critical Discourse Analysis heavily draws upon the textual analysis of the Marxist critical linguistics school that emerged at the University of East Anglia and was embodied especially by Roger Fowler.

For a brief and fruitful history of this school, See, Michael Billig, “The Language of Critical Discourse Analysis: The Case of Nominalization”, Discourse & Society, v. 19, no. 6 (2008): 783–800.

170 Matheson, “Critiquing the Critical: A Reflection on Critical Discourse Analysis”, 8.

171 ibid, 5.

172 According to Hall “[r]epresentation means using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people”. That is to say it “is the production of the meaning of the concepts in our minds through language. It is the link between concepts and language which enables us to refer to either the ‘real’ world of objects, people or events, or indeed to imaginary worlds of fictional objects, people and events”. See, respectively, Stuart Hall, “The Work of Representation”, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, ed. Stuart Hall, 8th ed. (London:

SAGE Publications, 2003): 15, 17.

Generally speaking, the approaches to discourse studies vary based on some schools that actually somehow mingled with each other. The first name that should be noted is Ludwig Wittgenstein with his concept of the language-game philosophy where he argues the discourse is a context-based utterance (even a word or a sentence) in which meaning is conveyed according to the ‘rule’ of the ‘game’. The second name is John Langshaw Austin with his speech act theory where he maintained that discourse is a product of individual discursive practices linked to a context of social rules and norms.

Third name is surely Foucault with his Order of Things where he claims that the discursive practices determine what can or cannot be said about a particular topic¹⁷³. The interpretive investigation is mainly employed under two (macro and micro) levels of analysis. A broader aspect of discourse analysis is carried out by macro-level inspection that involves context-based content whereas a narrow aspect is engaged micro-level of analysis that is solely based on word-units. In other words, in the first level analysis, which this study also utilized, the discourse (not limited to words) that covers a wide range of representations ranking from a fixed phrase, such as stereotypes or idioms, to a full sentence is examined within a particular context to detect othering.

While doing so macro-level analysis interestingly (being opposite to its name) employs a more meticulous process than micro-level analysis since it requires different functions such as reading thoroughly, reading between the lines, reading restricted to the topic, the scopos (aim) of the utterance, etc.

Parliamentary speeches, which bear significant differences from written materials and require discourse analysis (not textual analysis), can involve three phases of transmitting messages. On the primary level, the MPs address the limited audience and channel their messages to all those present at the time of the given speech in the parliament. On the second and third levels, via the mass media, the ideas and opinions of the MPs are conveyed to national and international circles, respectively. Therefore, parliamentary speeches and (spontaneous) debates do not necessarily appeal to neither

173 Foucault’s theory of discourse involves mainly three points: Firstly, it has to be born in mind that

“[a] discourse can be produced by many individuals in different institutional settings (like families, prisons, hospitals and asylums)”. That is to say the coherence of the discourse linked neither to its locus nor to its speaker. Secondly, “[d]iscourses are not closed systems” and mingled with other previous sets of discourses to form “its own network of meanings”. And lastly, “[t]he statements within a discursive formation need not all be the same” which means “the relationships and differences between them must be regular and systematic, not random”. See, Stuart Hall, “The West and The Rest: Discourse and Power”, Formations of Modernity, ed. Stuart Hall, Bram Gieben, 4th ed. (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995): 292.

the given country’s parliamentarians nor their citizens. In the case of Greek-Turkish parliamentary debates, wary eyes can quickly discern similarities in both parliaments, where common statements flow one after another, or explanations and counterclaims appear, like in response to talks from a previous session of the other side of Aegean.

In chapters four, five, and six, where the selected discourse topics (Imia/Kardak, Öcalan/PKK, and the Helsinki Summit, respectively) appear, the Turkish and Greek political discourses studied with the tendency to reveal the hermeneutic aspects of the parliamentary speeches via applying macro-level analysis.