Constructing social reality in conversation : a generic and transitivity analysis of life history texts

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dc.contributor.authorRowe, Joyen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2014-09-08T09:40:01Z
dc.date.available2014-09-08T09:40:01Z
dc.date.issued2003en_ZA
dc.descriptionBibliography: leaves 75-78.en_ZA
dc.description.abstractLanguage is a primary medium through which members of society construct a social reality in which they may meaningfully conduct day-to-day lives. The choices speakers make in language encode experiences and notions of the world in particular ways but may be constrained by context. In this study, I analyze the life history interviews of two gay black HIV-positive South African men to explore how speakers use contextually-available linguistic resources to negotiate meaning. Linguistic resources of speech genre, story type, and transitivity offer structural options to speakers but also introduce constraints. Using Fairclough's Foucauldian conception of 'orders of discourse', I establish that life history interviews are a unique hybrid of genre types that draw on conventions of casual conversation and interview genres, providing speakers with new resources for articulating their social world. Generic analysis, incorporating insights from Fairclough (1995), Eggins and Slade (1997), and systemic functionalism, is used to examine the story types that speakers may draw upon to structure their experiences. Given structural and functional constraints within story types, I look at the transitivity choices that speakers make to represent their social realities. Transitivity analysis, also based on systemic functionalism, is used to investigate choices of process (verbs) and their associated participants (nouns) that encode speakers' experiential meanings. The purpose of this study is threefold: to establish that the genre of life history interviews offers speakers opportunities to negotiate power relations and influence genre conventions; to demonstrate that generic analysis may be usefully applied to oral texts to understand speakers' deeper systems of life order; and to describe through generic and transitivity analysis the individual social realities of two gay HIV -positive men. Results include a structural analysis of life history interviews, a structural argument for including Observation and Reminiscence texts within the 'story' typology, and an in-depth analysis of two unrepresented voices of South Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationRowe, J. (2003). <i>Constructing social reality in conversation : a generic and transitivity analysis of life history texts</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,African Studies. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6936en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationRowe, Joy. <i>"Constructing social reality in conversation : a generic and transitivity analysis of life history texts."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,African Studies, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6936en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationRowe, J. 2003. Constructing social reality in conversation : a generic and transitivity analysis of life history texts. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Rowe, Joy AB - Language is a primary medium through which members of society construct a social reality in which they may meaningfully conduct day-to-day lives. The choices speakers make in language encode experiences and notions of the world in particular ways but may be constrained by context. In this study, I analyze the life history interviews of two gay black HIV-positive South African men to explore how speakers use contextually-available linguistic resources to negotiate meaning. Linguistic resources of speech genre, story type, and transitivity offer structural options to speakers but also introduce constraints. Using Fairclough's Foucauldian conception of 'orders of discourse', I establish that life history interviews are a unique hybrid of genre types that draw on conventions of casual conversation and interview genres, providing speakers with new resources for articulating their social world. Generic analysis, incorporating insights from Fairclough (1995), Eggins and Slade (1997), and systemic functionalism, is used to examine the story types that speakers may draw upon to structure their experiences. Given structural and functional constraints within story types, I look at the transitivity choices that speakers make to represent their social realities. Transitivity analysis, also based on systemic functionalism, is used to investigate choices of process (verbs) and their associated participants (nouns) that encode speakers' experiential meanings. The purpose of this study is threefold: to establish that the genre of life history interviews offers speakers opportunities to negotiate power relations and influence genre conventions; to demonstrate that generic analysis may be usefully applied to oral texts to understand speakers' deeper systems of life order; and to describe through generic and transitivity analysis the individual social realities of two gay HIV -positive men. Results include a structural analysis of life history interviews, a structural argument for including Observation and Reminiscence texts within the 'story' typology, and an in-depth analysis of two unrepresented voices of South Africa's HIV/AIDS epidemic. DA - 2003 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2003 T1 - Constructing social reality in conversation : a generic and transitivity analysis of life history texts TI - Constructing social reality in conversation : a generic and transitivity analysis of life history texts UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6936 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/6936
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationRowe J. Constructing social reality in conversation : a generic and transitivity analysis of life history texts. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,African Studies, 2003 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6936en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentAfrican Studiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherAfrican Studiesen_ZA
dc.titleConstructing social reality in conversation : a generic and transitivity analysis of life history textsen_ZA
dc.typeMaster Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelMasters
dc.type.qualificationnameMPhilen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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