Sociocultural interactions of generations: research resources of the discourse analysis

Abstract

It is proposed to use critical discourse analysis (CDA) as an element of the comprehensive social-cultural study to determine the specific factors mediating interactions at the level of generation networks for the detailed temporal-space study of society and culture.

It is developed the CDA procedure based on research quality concepts proposed by E. G. Guba, Y. S. Lincoln, and J. A. Maxwell, and N. Fairclough’s three-dimensional model. In order to achieve the integral data interpretation, a step-by-step CDA procedure is proposed: (1) determination of problem cases appearing in the interactions of generations; (2) revealing of discursive features of generations’ modalities and modes within the examined cases; (3) comparative analysis and generalization of the case data.

It is described the algorithm of specifying the cases at the CDA first step for further data processing of discursive materials. At the second step, we used N. Fairclough’s linguistic and inter-textual analysis as an appropriate case study tool. To highlight the meanings created by generations, the CDA linguistic form was supplemented by sociolinguistic resources – text / contextual analysis was done. Linguistic indices and indexation orders were used as the markers of discursive mobility (time-space changes). It is defined that articulation of modalities and modes of generations helps to determine the socio-psychological features of their interactions. CDA’s third step was to determine the characteristics of generational interactions by comparing discursive patterns.

The conditions of generalization of the received data are defined: 1) data cross-validation with “alternative sources”; 2) frequency measures of determining discursive constructs; 3) concretization of thematic specifics of their contextual use. It is concluded that the described CDA procedure optimized the methodology for the analysis of socio-cultural lifestyle, which is not limited to the time period of life of a particular generation.