“Are You Religious or are You Saved?”

2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-63
Author(s):  
Stephen Pihlaja
Keyword(s):  
Multimodal Approach ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Evangelical Christian ◽  
Video Images ◽  
User Comments ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Longitudinal Observation

Using membership categorization analysis, this article investigates membership categories in a YouTube video made by an Evangelical Christian in which he differentiates between “saved” and “religious” users. Analysis will take a discourse-centred, multimodal approach grounded in longitudinal observation, using analysis of video discourse to instruct analysis of video images and user comments. Findings will show that categorization is accomplished by using recognized categories with ambiguous descriptions of category-bound activities that include metaphors, such as “being hungry for God” and not “hanging out with atheists.” These categories are recognized by commenters on the video, but the category bound activities applied to the category members are disputed. Findings will also show that scriptural reference plays an important role in categorization in the video, drawing on direct Bible quotes as well as paraphrases of key passages.

Undoing the Legal Capacities of a Military Object: A Case Study on the (In)Visibility of Civilians

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (02) ◽  
pp. 377-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Kolanoski
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Sequential Approach ◽  
Object A ◽  
Legal Documents ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Civil Proceeding ◽  
The Military

International law dictates that actors in armed conflicts must distinguish between combatants and civilians. But how do legal actors assess the legality of a military operation after the fact? I analyze a civil proceeding for compensation by victims of a German-led airstrike in Afghanistan. The court treated military video as key evidence. I show how lawyers, judges, and expert witnesses categorized those involved by asking what a “military viewer” would make of the pictures. During the hearing, they avoided the categories of combatants/civilians; the military object resisted legal coding. I examine the decision in its procedural context, using ethnographic field notes and legal documents. I combine two ethnomethodological analytics: a trans-sequential approach and membership categorization analysis. I show the value of this combination for the sociological analysis of legal practice. I also propose that legal practitioners should use this approach to assess military viewing as a concerted, situated activity.

Memberschip Categorization Analysis. Een frame-analyse van open interviews met jonge kinderen op een etnisch gemengde school

KWALON ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ineke Graumans ◽  
Harry van den Berg
Keyword(s):  
Kwalitatief Onderzoek ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Harvey Sacks

Harvey Sacks, die vooral bekend is als grondlegger van de conversatie-analyse, heeft daarnaast in de jaren zeventig van de vorige eeuw ook de basis gelegd voor een veelbelovende theoretisch-methodische benadering van sociale categorisering: Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) (Sacks 1979, 1992). Die benadering heeft lange tijd weinig aandacht gekregen, maar staat sinds de jaren negentig van de vorige eeuw opnieuw in de belangstelling. Een belangrijk doel van kwalitatief onderzoek is het reconstrueren van de belevingswereld van mensen en groepen. MCA is een methode die daar bij uitstek geschikt voor is (Lepper, 2000). De belangrijkste redenen daarvoor zijn dat MCA gebaseerd is op een strikt participantgerichte (emic) benadering van alledaagse gesprekken en dat het een zeer systematische werkwijze presenteert.

scholarly journals Dissonant roles: the experience of Maori in cancer care.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Dew ◽  
L Signal ◽  
C Davies ◽  
T Huia ◽  
C Hooper ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Survival Rates ◽  
Quality Of Healthcare ◽  
Sick Role ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Care Access ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Insight Into

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. Indigenous peoples have poorer health outcomes than their non-indigenous counterparts and this applies to cancer outcomes for Maori in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Differential access to and quality of healthcare contributes to poorer survival rates for Maori. This research provides insight into some of the mechanisms that hinder and facilitate care access. Thirty four people who had undergone cancer treatment (19Maori and 15 non-Maori) were interviewed by two Maori researchers. The analysis of the interview transcripts was informed by membership categorization analysis. This form of analysis attends to the categories that are used and the activities and characteristics associated with those categories. From this analysis it is argued that the classical patient role, or sick role, inadequately captures the kind of role that some Maori take in relation to their healthcare. Maori can also have culturally specific family (whanau) influences and a greater draw towards alternative approaches to healthcare. Dissonant roles contribute to a different experience for Maori. A better understanding of the categories and roles that are relevant to those who have cancer provides opportunities to attenuate the monocultural impacts of healthcare.

Analyzing equivalences in discourse

Pragmatics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sigurd D’hondt
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Discourse Theory ◽  
The Political ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Dance Class ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Political Talk ◽  
Explanatory Concept

Facing a crucial leap from political philosophy to empirical analysis, the approach to discourse analysis that arose in the aftermath of Laclau and Mouffe (1985), and that is currently known as the Essex school of discourse theory (DT), has in recent years repeatedly been accused of suffering from a methodological deficit. This paper examines to what extent membership categorization analysis (MCA), a branch of ethnomethodology that investigates lay actors’ situated descriptions-in-context as practical activity, can play a part in rendering poststructuralist DT notions such as articulation and equivalence analytically tangible in empirically observable discourse. Based on a review of Laclau and Mouffe’s foundational text as well as on Glynos and Howarth’s recent exposition of the framework (2007), it is argued that MCA empirically substantiates many poststructuralist claims about the indeterminacy of signification. However, MCA consistently falters - and willingly so - at the point where DT would articulate emerging equivalences between identity categories as part of a second-order explanatory concept, such as Glynos and Howarth’s notion of political logic. Nevertheless, MCA also contains the kernel of an “endogenous” notion of the political that comes fairly close to DT’s all-pervasive understanding of the concept. To support these arguments, a variety of empirical sources are mobilized, ranging from the transcript of a political talk show, a newspaper report regarding a discrimination case in a dance class, to data drawn from earlier research on the way that minority members are treated by the Belgian criminal justice system.

ELF and migrant categorization at family clinics in Finland

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-123
Author(s):  
Päivi Iikkanen
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Language Ideology ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Native Speaker ◽  
Working Life ◽  
English Language Proficiency ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Membership Categorization ◽  
Standard Language Ideology

Abstract The aim of this paper is to examine how nurses in family clinics use language, and clients’ perceived English proficiency in particular, when categorizing their non-Finnish-speaking clients in their talk. Through membership categorization analysis (Schegloff, Emanuel A. 2007. A tutorial on membership categorization. Journal of Pragmatics 39(3). 462–482), this study shows that perceived proficiency in English, along with migration status and reliance on the native English speaker norm, seemed to be the most decisive elements in how the nurses categorized their migrant clients. The findings demonstrate the power of categorization as an instrument in institutional decision-making and highlight the role language plays in these categorizations. In particular, the study shows how influential perceived English language proficiency and the native speaker norm are in how nurses categorize their migrant clients. The findings suggest that being able to interact with clients in English is becoming a more and more important skill in working life in Finland, also in the health care sector. It would be important to understand how influential perceived language proficiency is in the way nurses conceptualize their clients, and to what extent this relates to the standard language ideology (Milroy, James. 2001. Language ideologies and the consequences of standardization. Journal of Sociolinguistics 5. 530–555).

scholarly journals Enriching CA through MCA? Stokoe’s MCA keys

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Conversation Analysis ◽  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Systematic Application ◽  
Membership Categorization

In this commentary on Stokoe’s article, ‘Moving forward with membership categorization analysis’, I take up the challenge to apply her keys for MCA to an extract of conversation recorded in a restaurant. The strengths of conversation analysis have not included – and indeed have not attempted to achieve – successful engagement with beyond-the-immediate-talk aspects of culture and the commonsense workings of society. The aim of the article is to explore what MCA might add to an analysis of a stretch of talk using conversation analytic tools. It was found that a systematic application of the keys did indeed provide a richer account of what was going on. Whereas categories alone did not appear to provide more insights than commonsense can tell us, when the broader array of MCA tools and keys were applied, an enhanced analysis of the passage of talk emerged. An exploration of whether this can be extended as a method for a rigorous investigation of culture and society while still being grounded in participants’ mutual, moment-by-moment orientations to categories seems at the very least worth the serious attention of scholars interested in interaction.

Categorial systematics

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Stokoe
Keyword(s):  
Membership Categorization Analysis ◽  
Membership Categorization

In this response article, I focus on two issues. First, I discuss the problem, raised by the commentators, of ‘categorial ambiguity’ in membership categorization analysis, and make suggestions about how to approach it. Second, I argue that, as conversation analysts have demonstrated the ‘systematics’ of interactional practices, membership categorization analysis should also begin to build a robust corpus of studies of ‘categorial systematics’.

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