Cultural Discourse Analysis: Communication Ethnographic Investigation

Applied Linguistics: Discourse analysis and communication practices
Name
Course
Date
Introduction The cultural discourse analysis (CuDA) approach investigates communication ethnographically, where communication is a practice and culture is a part and product of the discourse system (Carbaugh, 2007). The public discourse with means and meanings that construct the social world. Discourse is also closely linked with cultural practices and the approach can highlight the dominant perspectives unique to a culture. For the endangered languages, culturally embedded practices are important in maintaining the culture and language of the people.  I will first look at how communication practices are dependent on the cultural contexts, next I will focus on cultural discourse, critical discourse, and intergroup discourse   I shall then discuss the function of cultural discourse in shaping language identity, and will use the cultural discourse analysis to show that identity is communicatively constructed depending on the cultural contexts and the discourses are useful to study language development and revitalization. Culture and communication practices Culture influences the communication practices, and what people make of communication depends on how it is practiced (Carbaugh, 2007). Similarly, in communication there are certain symbolic meanings that are active and present.  Cultural discourse analyses can be adapted to evaluate how people communicate and are even linked to identity (Carbaugh, 2007, p.170).  When seeking to preserve endangered languages, there is a challenge in revitalizing efforts when other people in the community are reluctant to support such initiatives. Cultural structures are accessible to the people who identify with the culture, and this influences how they communicate and share feelings. The CuDA is potentially useful in cultural explorations as there is focus on the different forms of communication. Ethnographic data and studies reveal information on languages and culture where there is exploration of shared history, similarities and differences. For those speaking minority languages, there is tendency for cultural dislocation for living in areas where there is another dominant language of communication.  There are cultural patterns that differentiate people living in the same countries, and languages are just one of the aspects.  In cultural studies, espousing discourse analysis can uncover the meanings of languages including their linguistic structures (Lin, 2014).  Additionally, culture studies focus on the link between culture and power, which indicates that the social changes that affect language use, growth and decline Cultural discourse “The concept, cultural discourse, has therefore been used systematically to organize ways of understanding how culture is an integral part, and a product of discourse systems,” (Carbaugh, 2007, p.168).  After discourse, there is focus on the meaning of being and identity when people engage in communication practices (Carbaugh, 2007).  This is relevant when seeking to revitalize the endangered languages as how they perceive themselves affect how they communicate with each other. If more people are concerned with the loss of languages and culture they are more likely to engage in activities that support their cultural identity. The use of first languages is one way to achieve this, and when people believe in a common identity they have a shared identity through language, cultural practices, and social norms.  There are culturally distinctive vocabularies used in group identity, to describe actions and how people relate to each other, which can be expressed explicitly and implicitly.   Critical discourse  Besides cultural discourse analysis, the critical discourse analysis looks more deeply into the connection between language use with the social and political contexts.  Focus on discourse highlights how language use reflects power and ideology in a society.  This further indicates that the discourse is linked with social patterns like exploitation, domination, discrimination, naturalization and dehumanization (Waugh et al. 2015). In the case of Tlingit language, there were efforts to anglicize and sideline the language that younger people lost aspects of their culture (Twitchell, 2015).   When using CuDA the intersection of language, ideology, and identify is apparent in the case of the Tlingit people, who were dissuaded   from performing certain ceremonies by church missionaries and English settlers that this even influenced their language identity. The challenge for the people who are dominated by another numerically and economically powerful people is how to maintain their culture and languages even as they adapt to the reality of bilingualism. For instance, Twitchell, (2015) stated that, ‘”This man could thumbs-up or thumbs-down anything, and the first things they banned across most of Alaska were our languages and mask dancing.” Using critical discourse analyses the impact of power, language policy and ideology on language u...