TEXT ANALYSIS:
PRINCIPLES
Miriam Matejova, PhD
November 19, 2024
Agenda
1) Documents as sources of data
2) Interpreting documents: content analysis,
semiotics, hermeneutics, discourse analysis,
rhetorical analysis
Sources of data
◦ Letters, diaries, newspapers, magazines, photographs,
etc.
◦ They are “out there” waiting to be assembled and
analyzed
◦ Not from the process of field work
How to evaluate documents?
◦ Authenticity: Is the evidence genuine and of
unquestionable origin?
◦ Credibility: Is the evidence free form error and
distortion?
◦ Representativeness: Is the evidence typical of its kind,
and if not, is the extent of its untypicality known?
◦ Meaning: Is the evidence clear and comprehensible?
Personal documents
◦ Diaries, letters, autobiographies
◦ Potential issues:
◦ Authenticity
◦ Credibility: factual accuracy, whether
they reflect the true feelings of writer
◦ Representativeness: the literate and the
middle class; women under-represented
◦ Meaning: abbreviations and codes used
by author; damage to documents
Visual objects
◦ Photographs, other?
◦ What do pictures reveal about families?
◦ A record of ceremonial occasions and recurring events
(weddings, Christmas, etc.)
◦ Idealizations, natural portrayals, demystification
◦ Need to probe beneath the surface of an image
◦ Representativeness: what is not photographed?
Official documents from the state
◦State as a source of statistical information,
textual material
◦Issues with state documents:
◦ Credibility: is the source biased?
◦ Representativeness: these documents are often
unique
Official documents from private sources
◦ Company documents (annual reports, mission statements, etc.)
◦ Authors may have a particular point of view – depends on their
position in the company
◦ Cannot be treated as fully objective and need to be examined
in the context of other sources of data
◦ Representativeness: do we have access to the full set of
documents?
Mass-media outputs
◦ Newspapers, magazines, TV programs, films, etc.
◦ Authenticity often difficult – outputs likely genuine but
authorship may be unclear (e.g., editorials)
◦ May also need to be aware of context
Virtual documents
◦ Anything on the Internet…
◦ Authenticity: anyone could set up a page
◦ Credibility?
◦ Constant flux – can never know how representative the
websites are on certain topics
◦ May need inside knowledge to understand what is being
said
Interpreting documents
◦ Qualitative content analysis, semiotics, hermeneutics, discourse
analysis
◦ Qualitative content analysis: a search for underlying themes
◦ Semiotics: “science of signs”, analysis of symbols to uncover hidden
meanings
◦ Signifier = points to an underlying meaning; signified = the meaning to
which the signifier points
◦ Hermeneutics: about interpretation of text; bringing out the
meanings of a text from the perspective of its author.
◦ Brings attention to social and historical context within which the text was
produced
Discourse analysis
◦ An approach to language that can be applied to forms of
communication other than talk (i.e., texts)
◦ Michael Foucault – discourse denotes the way in which a
particular set of linguistic categories relating to an object and the
ways of depicting it frame the way we comprehend that object
◦ The version of an object comes to constitute it
◦ A discourse is constitutive of the social world that is a focus of interest or
concern
Rhetorical analysis
◦ A mode of analysis often used in its own right
◦ Emphasis on the ways in which arguments are constructed
either in speech or in written texts
◦ Role that various linguistic devices (metaphor, analogy,
irony) play in the formulation of arguments