感觉冯小旦同学赐稿！
按：我认为James Paul Gee这本An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method很好（据说重印过五次）。深入浅出，重要的是例子都很清晰和具体，尤其是第七章的case study（是关于working class和中产家庭的孩子在作I-statements时候的一些倾向），把前面理论的部分一个步骤一个步骤地apply，非常直接和实用。我在这个note里主要是整理了理论部分，可能前半部分大家都似曾相识了。当然实例我也写了几个。如果大家对这书感兴趣，一定要去看看他的实例，我这个笔记应该可以为大家省去读理论的时间。（斜体为原文quote）附一下他本人的网站：https://jamespaulgee.com
James Paul Gee introduces discourse both through empirical (context of actual situations) and theoretical perspectives.
“We continually and actively build and rebuild our worlds not just through language, but through language used in tandem with actions, interactions, non-linguistic symbol systems, objects, tools, technologies, and distinctive ways of thinking, valuing, feeling, and believing.”
In Chapter 2 he listed six things in which we simultaneously create/construct when speaking or writing, the six things are: meaning and value of the material world, activities, identities and relationships, politics, connections and semiotics. 在我们运用语言的同时，也同时建构了意义、价值、活动、身份、关系、政治、关系与符号这六样东西。
Though language, identities (and relevant activities) are always socially situated, different roles (aka different who-doing-what) is utterly communicated through oral or written language, and this is the wider notion of language. The negotiation of identity through language does not happen often in an abstract way as one may think, “licensing” and “recognizing” in practice often times are actually very straight-forward. 语言的negotiation对于彼此身份的建构并不是一样很玄的东西，达到认可的相关过程是非常直接和可视、可分解的。
Gee uses the “real Indians” example to illustrate his point, emphasizing the subjective and objective aspects contributing to the making of such identification. 作者用了社会对于“真正印第安人”的认定来阐释这一认定过程所涉及的方方面面，尤其是主客两方在语言及上面提及的六方面如何构建认同的场域(not to elaborate here, key words: networking avoidance, mutual acknowledgement, cultural competency establishment, showing accordance, complex system of obligations, role appropriation, The paradox of prose for Athabaskans) 这里的关键词有（部分）人际网络的刻意忽略、不言而喻的共同知悉、对于共同文化认知能力的确立、复杂的身份义务系统、角色合理化等。
He argues - the key to Discourse is “recognition”. (p26) 话语（体系建立）的关键即是“识别、认可”à discourses through language and deeds, keeps on conversation going and finally it takes charge of the coordination of language and all those “other stuff”.
“Discourses always involve coordinating language with ways of acting, interacting, valuing, believing, feeling, and with bodies, clothes, non-linguistic symbols, objects, tools, technologies, times and places.”
He also briefly points out several other points regarding discourses: discourses could be split to several or meld together, Discourse is changing overtime, there are old ones die and new ones emerge as well. Since discourses are interconnected, they influence other ones when dying, emerging or changing. Gee uses abundant examples to elaborate his points (eg. the example of Jane’s two types of language in making moral criticisms of the same story towards her parents and boyfriend, in “making visible and recognizable” two ways in which she establishes her social language). （针对同一个体）的不同话语体系之间可以拆分、融合，话语体系在不断推陈出新。这里作者用了女孩Jane在面对父母和男朋友时对于一个moral dilemma的判读所树立的两个不同的social language系统为例论证。
In Chapter 3 Situated meanings and cultural models, Gee goes down to the words and phrases themselves, arguing that the meanings of them are not stable and consistent. Later he also extends his view in relation to human cognition, saying human minds function as “pattern recognizer”, extracting patterns from stored experiences, and continue to shape their further experiences. 他接着就涉及到人的认知层面了，他认为在DA当中，人的认知起了“模式识别”的作用，这个对于读过认知论、分哲记忆研究的同学应该很熟悉，争议也很大，他的观点可能更近似于representation theory，这里不展开。(sounds like representation theory of memory?)
“Pattern” here in Gee’s sense seems to refer to assumptions people gain in casual-effect situations through personal experiences. Gee的“模式”所指就是个人因果经验而造成的一些既定假设，这个又很休谟。 People form own “theories” to make sense of the patterns, these theories are sociocultural in nature.人们针对这些“模式”开发自己的认知理论，这些理论完全就是在社会文化的框架当中，这个具体是怎么work会在下面详细展开。
“Different contexts invite different assemblies”, in a forward-looking sense, Gee argues our past experiences contribute to the assemblies that people perform instantaneously or on the spot. Language in terms of words and phrases trigger assemblies, given the new situation, new situated meanings are generated. It is then unavoidable to discuss the mechanism (or nature of human mind) that makes this happen which Gee indeed does so in the following part. He emphasizes the flexibility of minds’ operation in coping with the pattern formation functioning, rather than operating primarily under “general or decontextualized rules”. 这个是Gee有意思的一个conception，他觉得不同的环境导致不同的“装配方式”，过去的经历使得“装配”得以以非常灵活的方式在当下成为人们行为的导向。当下语言当中的词句，激发了这种“装配”的发生，赋予其崭新的situated meanings（情境意义），他强调这一过程的灵活性和发生的即兴性，而不是说，这一过程是由某种笼统和脱离情境的“规则”所引领。
“Situated meanings are not static and they are not definitions. Rather, they are flexibly transformable patterns that come out of experience and, in turn, construct experience as meaningful in certain ways and not others […] Situated meanings are, then, a product of the bottom-up action and reflection with which the learner engages the world and the top-down guidance of the cultural models or theories the learner is developing.”
In talking about “the social mind” Gee also defends his position concerning the highly possibly objection of mind being pattern recognizer could possibly constraint one into one’s own private world. Gee也反驳答辩了一个很可能的objection，就是这样去理解“social mind”（作为“模式识别器”）是否意味着一个人很可能就囿于一个非常私人和极度受限的世界。
He argues that individuals belong to multiple social groups with cultural models and patterns mixing and mingling, thus the process is accordingly always open for negotiation, discipline and renorm. 他说因为每个个体都属于很多不同的社会小组，有着不同的文化模型，对于它们的识别是互相影响的，这一过程因此在不断的发生重塑、规训等等。
Furthermore, he argues “situated meaning” always prompt one into thinking about the meta-level or normative questions concerning validity, reasonability, legitimacy and etc. concerning discourse of a certain context, acting as “tools of inquiry”. 探寻情境意义使得人不断在元层面去看待DA较之于特定情境的产生的合理性。
In the final part of the chapter, Gee argues the potential for meaning interpretation by uncovering the “intertextual” and “historical” nature of language, which effects should also be taken into consideration.
In Chapter 4 Gee further explains the conception of “cultural model”.
“Another way to think about cultural models is this: Cultural models are rather like “movies” or “videotapes” in the mind, tapes of experiences we have had, seen, read about, or imagined.”
When talking about “situated meaning” it is a forward-looking or projective concept which deals with forthcoming scenarios, while the conception of “cultural model” deals with the pre-stage formation of the pattern-recognition process. In 4.4 Gee uses the example of middle-class parenting to discuss “cultural model in action”. He argues that due to the fact parents are very much concerning with (a
ddicted to) “stage” and “development” of their children (this was certainly a fostered cultural model), they tend to interpret very different behaviors (or even potentially negative behaviors) among kids as the same, signaling the same developmental stage such as “independent”. 这里再次强调，“情境意义”是一个具有即兴性的构建过程，是针对于未来情形谈的，“文化模型”则是往后看的，是针对模式识别发生之前的铺垫和经验而言。Gee在这里（针对文化模型）举了一个中产阶级育儿的例子，说因为中产阶级的DA习惯于“stage”“development”这些模式，很多时候孩子们截然不同的行为都会被interpret成同一个stage（比如说孩子开始寻求独立了）因为那似乎是应当发生的。
“These parents, situated within their own social, cultural, and class-based Discourses, have a set of connected cultural models about child development, stages, interaction between parents and children, and independence.”
Gee uses the example of American’s cultural model towards “success” to uncover that one who does not live in accordance or affirmation with the existing local cultural model may (finally) be “colonized” by it, it is inescapable in the sense that one who attempts to resist may finally be repressed to a certain level of low self-esteem. Different tendencies and inclinations imbe
dded in different cultural models may also cause complete bias and ignorance among people. Gee的另一个例子我们都比较熟悉，就是一个地域（比如说美国文化）对于成功的构建，是非常个人主义的和成就导向的。在这种环境下，与这一文化模型背道而行的人（比如更加注重家庭生活的人）就容易被colonized，很难逃离和反抗，容易导致较低程度的自尊。不同的文化模型都是有所偏向的，身处其中的很难detect。
Cultural models also have the role as “tool of inquiry” according to Gee, asking questions regarding to the assumptions, representations of interests, texts, media, experiences and institutions which give rise to those models offer one good frameworks in discourse analysis.
Chapter 5 is in fact where Gee unfolds his theoretical construction of discourse analysis. After revisiting his conceptions of “situated meanings”, “cultural models”, “social language” and the concept of reflexivity, Gee starts to debrief what he refers to as “situations”, according to him situations at least are connected with the following aspects:asemioticaspect, an activity aspect, a material aspect, a political aspect and a sociocultural aspect, they co-create a situation network and are tightly connected with each other. Discourse analysis, then is concerning with language used in this network. Then how does language construe the situation network? There are six building tasks according to Gee, they aresemiotic building, world building, activity building, sociocultural-situated identity and relationship building, political building, connection building.These are the means through which language trigger specific situated meaning.
第五章是作者recap和提出他的应用理论框架的部分，对于“情境”的描述作者又进行了一番展开，情境是由符号象征的、活动的、物质的、政治的、社会文化的方面所共同构成，它们使得情境变成一张网，而DA就是语言如何在这张网里头展开和应用。语言又通过哪些过程而在网里展开呢？这中间对应着六种intermediaries，及符号构建、世界构建、活动构建、社会文化身份和关系构建、政治构建和语言的连结构建。
“Different social languages contain different sorts of cues or clues, that is, they use grammar in different ways as a resource for the six building tasks.”
Therefore, social languages are constituted by those concrete and fundamental elements and qualities, then those qualities are “circulated” into those six building tasks.
Gee then goes to pursue the practical side of discourse analysis, using examples to illustrate in what circumstances could we treat “minor” detail as “major” importance for interpretation. (after transcription) He then listed the important questions to ask in using his theoretical framework of discourse analysis. 接下去就慢慢进入到理论运用的部分了，Gee首先罗列了十八个问题，这些问题是作为引导我们思考和解构DA的重要框架。
He then claims that there are four criteria in constituting the validity of his theory. Those four elements are: convergence, agreement, coverage and linguistic details, and those are regarding to the answers obtained through the eighteen questions. 他自然也提及了如何确保这一框架的有效性。提出了聚合性、一致性、覆盖面、语言细节这四个标准（针对十八个问题的答案）。
The case study in Chapter 7 is very interesting, through analyzing two groups of children’s “I-statements” (self-revealing I-statements) of working class and upper-middle-class teens, Gee elaborates his findings such as upper-mi
ddle-class teens, when talking about activities and relationships, they tend to generate in-direct reference towards future and projective achievements and success, while the working-class teens seem to talk about activities and relationships without such projective implications for future. One more: such as upper-mi
ddle-class teens tend to talk in a “viewpoint/argumentative” way while working-class teens are less impersonal, and speak with more narratives involved.
He strictly applied the theory he proposed in this example by examining one-by-one: Co-constructing sociocultural-situated identitiesà Building socially-situated identities and building different worldsà Social languagesà Connection buildingà Building meaning in narrative.
我在前面提到，第七章是一个大案例working class和中产家庭的孩子在作自我revealing时候的一些倾向，他通过细致的访谈材料分析得出结论包括，中产阶级的孩子在谈到当下的活动和关系时，倾向于间接地、隐性地将它们和未来所可能取得的成就活着projections联系起来，而工薪阶层的孩子并不会这样。中产阶级的孩子的话语构成很多都是非个人化的观点、论点（某种程度上是因为他们也许并未直接接触到racism的情形），而工薪阶层的孩子就会出现很多关于自己的叙述。这一个案例篇幅几十页，强烈推荐大家亲自去看，他如何将他前面所提出的框架一步一步地导向他的结论。看完这个案例应该会做一些基础却详实的discourse analysis了。
（Sociological 理论大缸 348期。感谢作者赐稿）
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