Dorien Van De Mieroop

An integrated approach of quantitative and qualitative analysis in the study of identity in speeches

Identity is usually analysed by focusing on a single case and scrutinizing relevant text fragments. This approach rules out the possibility of doing research on larger corpora, such as my corpus of 40 speeches. To this end, an integrated approach of both quantitative and qualitative analysis is proposed here. For the quantitative method, pronouns were selected as markers of the three main types of identity in my corpus, namely that of the speaker, the audience and the company the speaker represents, the latter being the focus of this article. This institutional identity construction of the company has the highest frequency in the corpus. In order to get an in-depth insight into the strategies used to build this institutional identity, extremely institutional speeches were selected and qualitative analysis was applied to this sub-corpus. This showed that three main techniques were present here, namely identification, company presentation and the suggestion of excellence.Identity is usually analysed by focusing on a single case and scrutinizing relevant text fragments. This approach rules out the possibility of doing research on larger corpora, such as my corpus of 40 speeches. To this end, an integrated approach of both quantitative and qualitative analysis is proposed here. For the quantitative method, pronouns were selected as markers of the three main types of identity in my corpus, namely that of the speaker, the audience and the company the speaker represents, the latter being the focus of this article. This institutional identity construction of the company has the highest frequency in the corpus. In order to get an in-depth insight into the strategies used to build this institutional identity, extremely institutional speeches were selected and qualitative analysis was applied to this sub-corpus. This showed that three main techniques were present here, namely identification, company presentation and the suggestion of excellence.

Identity negotiations in narrative accounts about poverty

Focusing on three interviews with people who were in debt and participated in the collective debt mediation program of the Belgian social services, I study the way these interviewees negotiate their identities. In spite of the diversity of their stories, which were framed as accounts, all interviewees shift the blame for their current situation and put forward their membership of an alternative category, namely that of the responsible parent. As such, they — in co-construction with the interviewer — counter the theme of personal blame and construct an identity that is ‘recipient designed’ and acceptable both from a local and a global contextual point of view.Focusing on three interviews with people who were in debt and participated in the collective debt mediation program of the Belgian social services, I study the way these interviewees negotiate their identities. In spite of the diversity of their stories, which were framed as accounts, all interviewees shift the blame for their current situation and put forward their membership of an alternative category, namely that of the responsible parent. As such, they — in co-construction with the interviewer — counter the theme of personal blame and construct an identity that is ‘recipient designed’ and acceptable both from a local and a global contextual point of view.

A Discourse Analytical Perspective on the Professionalization of the Performance Appraisal Interview

Over the years, performance appraisal interviews have become increasingly professionalized. This is clearly noticeable in the different rating scales and questionnaires that are distributed among supervisors and employees as a support during the preparatory and interviewing phase of the performance appraisal process, as is also in line with current advice given to practitioners. Using discourse analysis as a methodology to study sequential features and discourse strategies in three performance appraisal interviews, this article zooms in on the effect of such a questionnaire (based on the organization’s competencies) on the interview itself. The analyses reveal a nuanced picture, demonstrating on the one hand advantages of these questionnaires such as the use of a well-defined agenda that gives the interview structure. On the other hand, disadvantages such as the inefficient use of expensive institutional time due to lengthy terminological explanations are exposed as well.

Master Narratives, Identities, and the Stories of Former Slaves

This book is intended for researchers in the field of narrative from post-graduate level onwards. It analyzes the audio-recordings of the narratives of former slaves from the American South which are now publically available on the Library of Congress website: Voices from the days of slavery . More specifically, this book analyses the identity work of these former slaves and considers how these identities are related to master narratives. The novelty of this book is that through using such a temporally diverse and relatively large corpus, we show how master narratives change according to both the zeitgeist of the here-and-now of the interview world and the historical period that is related in the there-and-then of the story world. Moreover, focusing on the active achievement of master narratives as socially-situated co-constructed discursive accomplishments we analyze how different, inherently unstable and even contradictory versions of master narratives are enacted.

Standard and Colloquial Belgian Dutch pronouns of address: A variationist-interactional study of child-directed speech in dinner table interactions

Abstract This paper presents a corpus-based analysis of child-directed speech during Flemish family dinner table interactions. Specifically, we study parents’ style-shifts, that is, their alternation between Standard Dutch and Colloquial Belgian Dutch, a non-standard supraregional variant of Dutch, when interacting with their children. By integrating insights and methods from variationist and interactional sociolinguistics, we pay attention not only to macro-social categories (such as the age of the children), but also to the micro-social and pragmatic context (e. g. frames) of the style-shifts. The fact that this study focuses on a single case-study is a consequence of opting for this combination of course-grained quantitative analyses and fine-grained qualitative analyses. We rely on detailed transcriptions of three hours of recordings for one Flemish household with four children (age nine months, and four, five and seven years old). Our results reveal significant variation in the style-shifts of the mother (age 35) and the father (age 39) with respect to the four children. These results were interpreted against the background of comments made by the parents during a sociolinguistic interview that followed the recordings. Generally, our analyses allow us to provide a nuanced insight into the social meaning of the two language layers (Standard Dutch and Colloquial Belgian Dutch) as they are distributed across the speakers and situations in this family, thus revealing a link between the attested patterns of child-directed speech and the acquisition of sociolinguistic norms.

A rehearsed self in repeated narratives? The case of two interviews with a former hooligan

This article investigates the identity constructions of a former hooligan in two repeated narratives, obtained through interviews with a time lapse of six years. In both narratives, the interviewee constructs a similar heroic identity and opposes it to other categories such as cowards and followers. However, when relating how he became a hooligan, the interviewee presents himself as a follower. This contradiction with the heroic identity shows his struggle with group membership and that ‘identity work’ is an ongoing process. On the other hand, the striking similarity between the identity constructions in both interviews supports the thesis of a rehearsed self in big stories, but I argue that this is also due to other reasons, namely the role of the same interviewer who co-constructs the interview but who is also an outsider, and the influence of previous ‘rehearsals’ of the story, both within the group of hooligans and in real life.This article investigates the identity constructions of a former hooligan in two repeated narratives, obtained through interviews with a time lapse of six years. In both narratives, the interviewee constructs a similar heroic identity and opposes it to other categories such as cowards and followers. However, when relating how he became a hooligan, the interviewee presents himself as a follower. This contradiction with the heroic identity shows his struggle with group membership and that ‘identity work’ is an ongoing process. On the other hand, the striking similarity between the identity constructions in both interviews supports the thesis of a rehearsed self in big stories, but I argue that this is also due to other reasons, namely the role of the same interviewer who co-constructs the interview but who is also an outsider, and the influence of previous ‘rehearsals’ of the story, both within the group of hooligans and in real life.

Implicit and explicit identity constructions in the life story of one of Hitler's elite soldiers

We study the life story of a former SS Leibstandarte soldier and we focus on the way the narrator deals with face threats by negotiating his identity constructions. The interviewee positions himself as a sportsman and an ignorant soldier, thus constructing denial of knowledge of and agreement with Hitlers ideology. These identities can be considered to be complementary, but they are built in quite different ways: the narrator explicitly presents himself as a sportsman, but mitigates his implicit construction of ignorance. Given the social and historical context, this contrast in degree of explicitness is expected since the ignorance claim has been the subject of many previous discourses and debates of this subject.

The interactional negotiation of group membership and ethnicity: The case of an interview with a former slave:

We examine the way group membership and its relation with ethnicity is interactionally constructed in an interview between an interviewer who presents himself as favorable towards black music and black people and an interviewee who is a former slave. The interview, which took place in the 1940s Deep South in a context in which racial inequality was still institutionally embedded, focused both on the interviewee’s memories of slave life and on current life and opinions about music. The discussion of each period is characterized by a different genre: while extended turns and lengthy stories occur while discussing the antebellum period, the discussion of the postbellum period is characterized by short and heavily negotiated question and answer sequences. However, throughout the entire interview, the interviewee maintains coherence by frequently shifting alignments and basing group memberships on quite diverse criteria, as such challenging its relation with ethnicity as initiated by the interviewer.

Negotiating Identities in the Context of Social Work Goals: The Case of an Intercultural Institutional Interaction

We discuss the implications of identities constructed by an Afghan client in a conversation with her Dutch social worker. In this institutional interaction, the professionals dominant position is both underlined and mitigated, and there is room for topic initiation by the client as well. We singled out 2 crucial client identities that appear to produce diverging interpretations: (a) the fearful woman and (b) the shameful woman. The former is discussed at great length and is linked to the institutional agenda. The latter, however, does not seem to comply with the empowerment discourse currently present in Dutch social work. In spite of the social workers attempts to reframe this identity, the client persists and relates her feelings of shame to her cultural background, which functions as an explanatory factor in the interaction. The enacted roles of both participants lay bare the social work tension of intervening in peoples lives while taking into account the clients perspective and social work goals. Furthermore, this interaction is a good illustration of the way a migrants identities are performed and negotiated in an encounter with a host country “other.”We discuss the implications of identities constructed by an Afghan client in a conversation with her Dutch social worker. In this institutional interaction, the professionals dominant position is both underlined and mitigated, and there is room for topic initiation by the client as well. We singled out 2 crucial client identities that appear to produce diverging interpretations: (a) the fearful woman and (b) the shameful woman. The former is discussed at great length and is linked to the institutional agenda. The latter, however, does not seem to comply with the empowerment discourse currently present in Dutch social work. In spite of the social workers attempts to reframe this identity, the client persists and relates her feelings of shame to her cultural background, which functions as an explanatory factor in the interaction. The enacted roles of both participants lay bare the social work tension of intervening in peoples lives while taking into account the clients perspective and social work goals....

Negotiating professional and leader identities in interviews with female Indian professionals

Abstract Existing research on women’s construction of professional identities and, more specifically, on leader identities in the workplace, has traditionally focused mainly on western contexts. This article aims to extend this focus by investigating the position of women in the workplace in India. We do this by discursively analyzing audio-taped semi-structured interviews with women who are working in the corporate sector in India. The aim of these analyses is to present a number of case studies about the unique challenges that women face at the workplace in the urban Indian context, especially when they take up leadership positions. The issues they grapple with are the collision of the traditional dominant discourses on appropriate female behavior and the new professional identities that these women wish to embrace. The paper discusses how these female professionals mainly construct two quite diverging identities: either as nurturing mentors or as aggressive professionals who are involved in activities traditionally viewed as “a man’s domain”. Conclusions are then drawn regarding how these professional identities acquiesce to, counter, or — as is the case in one interview — carefully mould, hegemonic discourses of femininity in India.