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Abstract
The field of intercultural communication has been criticized for failing to produce studies which focus on actual practices of communication, especially of intercultural encounters. Of particular interest have been cultural analyses of social interactions, as well as analyses of the intercultural dynamics that are involved in those interactions. This article addresses these concerns by presenting a framework for the cultural analysis of discourse that has been presented and used in previous literature. Indebted to the ethnography of communication and interpretive anthropology, this particular analytic procedure is one implementation of the theory of communication codes. As such, it takes communication to be not only its primary data but moreover, its primary theoretical concern. The framework responds to specific research questions, addresses particular kinds of intellectual problems, includes five investigative modes, and uses a special set of concepts. In this essay, each of the modes is discussed as analytically distinct, yet as complementary to the others, including theoretical, descriptive, interpretive, comparative, and critical analyses. Special attention is given to the interpretive mode and to intercultural interactions as a site for the application and development of cultural discourse analysis.
Notes
Notes
[1] The acronym, CuDA is used to identify Cultural Discourse Analysis as distinct from Critical Discourse Analysis (e.g., Fairclough, Citation2007).
[2] The concept, function, here is used in the pragmatic tradition of John Dewey, capturing what is done in conjoint action; it is not being used in the functionalist sense of Talcott Parsons’ sociology.
[3] This point introduces the cyclical quality of this research design, as well as the analyst's critical reflection on the perspective taken to the inquiry. These points are discussed in much more detail elsewhere (Carbaugh & Hastings, Citation1992).
[4] Of course, there is the special case where participants themselves are critiquing the practices through which they communicate (see Carbaugh, Citation1989/1990).
[5] The emphasis in this report is on the CuDA framework. The fieldwork literature cited throughout provides ample illustration of actual workings of this in the ethnographic literature. Specific pieces can be consulted for detailed demonstrations of these analyses.