Gee’s Building Tasks for Discourse Analysis
Building Evidence for an Analysis of Science Discourse
Significance
“Knowledge of contexts will aid a reader’s interpretation, and indeed, knowing something about cultural and historical contexts can reveal a great deal about discourse participants, and vice versa.” (48) Haas
This describes that importance of being able to understand the background of a social Discourse. So you will be able to succeed in a new Discourse because you know how it came to be.
Practices (activities)
“Standard methods need only to be mentioned, or may be described by reference to the literature as long as it is readily available.” (19) (Nair, Nair)
When you are writing a scientific journal and you are writing your abstract, you need to follow the standard method of information to place in your abstract. This is a practice that almost all scientific authors follow, that way it is a organized Discourse with certain rules to follow.
Identities
“The value of the paper depends on what is contained in this (Results) section, and it must be presented in a absolutely clear manner in just the right number of words, neither more nor less.” (20) (Nair, Nair)
What Nair Nair is saying that readers need to be able to easily identify the results based on those standards when writing a scientific journal.
Relationships
“She viewed texts may have reflected her continuing dual roles, functioning both as a budding scientist taking her place in the community and as a student, […]”(68) Haas
She learned how to create a relationship with her readings too what she as a scientist was doing. She started to see the importance of creating that relationship between other scientists in that Discourse.
Politics
“Human agents that appeared in the interview discourse. Being, saying, and doing verbs. In order to learn more about Eliza’s conceptions of authors and discourse.”(69) Haas
This shows that in her use of certain words she was describing the level of social goods the authors of the scientific text had. The way she used her diction helped Haas figure out how she valued the information.
Connections
“She viewed texts may have reflected her continuing dual roles, functioning both as a budding scientist taking her place in the community and as a student, […]”(68) Haas
This quote from Haas also shows how it is important to be able to make connections between you and the authors. This helps when she is participating in the discourse so her language she uses with others are formal form and follow the discourse.
Sign Systems & Knowledge
“These are words by which the paper should be indexed by abstracting services. Words that appear on the title should not be repeated as keywords because titles and keywords are listed together by abstracted services.”(16) Nair Nair.
This shows that there are keywords in scientific writings that are signs of knowledge. This helps identify an educated/ correct material.
ENG110J