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Outline of Analysing Documentary Realities

This document outlines a methodology for analyzing documentary realities in qualitative research. It discusses how documents: 1) Construct particular versions of social reality through genre conventions, language features, and relationships to other texts. 2) Embody cultural values and assumptions shared by members of an organization. 3) Implied authorship and readership shape how documents claim authority and restrict meaning. The methodology examines documents' formal properties, production and consumption, and intertextual links to understand their role in social settings.

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521 views2 pages

Outline of Analysing Documentary Realities

This document outlines a methodology for analyzing documentary realities in qualitative research. It discusses how documents: 1) Construct particular versions of social reality through genre conventions, language features, and relationships to other texts. 2) Embody cultural values and assumptions shared by members of an organization. 3) Implied authorship and readership shape how documents claim authority and restrict meaning. The methodology examines documents' formal properties, production and consumption, and intertextual links to understand their role in social settings.

Uploaded by

lornagonzalez1
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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ED 221G Week 2 Supplemental Reading

Atkinson, P. & Coffey, A. (1997). Analysing documentary realities. In David Silverman (Ed.),
Qualitative research: Theory, method, and practice (pp. 45-62). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

I. Introduction: Documentary Realities


a. Problem: Many contemporary social organizations engage in some form of
documentary work (institutional - record-keeping, filing, archiving, reports, etc.;
records of person-person encounters – inform future decisions)
i. Problem in the field of qualitative & ethnographic research: Many
researchers omit study of documentary activities, instead focusing on wholly
oral aspects of a group/organization. This omission implies a void in such
(literate) practices, rendering the research incomplete.
ii. Purpose of this chapter: The authors intend to offer methods for conducting
qualitative research in contemporary social settings where the documentary
activity embodies many functions of an organization’s social life.
b. Thesis: Inquiry must consider “how documents are produced, circulated, read, stored,
and used for a wide variety of purposes” (p. 46).
i. Such documents are NOT “transparent representations of organizational
routines, decision-making processes, or professional diagnoses” (p. 47).
ii. Therefore, focus on: role in the organization, cultural values attached to the
doc, distinct genre.
c. Methodology
i. Documents are distinctive items for analysis because they offer a specific
version of social life; not intended to validate or support other data.
ii. Ethnographic approach with semiotic perspective: “documents can be
examined of systems of conventional signs and modes of representation” (p.
48). Consideration of: 1) form of textual materials; 2) uses of language in
text; 3) relationships between texts; 4) genre conventions.
Note: Authors demonstrate analytical techniques on account audits and institutional/academic
audits.

II. Documentary Language and Form


a. Genre – documents depend on language and form common to people within the
organizational culture. The result is a construction/representation of the organization.
i. “Such codes of practice reflect and prescribe the kinds of assumptions and
conventions that are used to generate and interpret such representations” (p.
49).
ii. Register – common vernacular familiar to people within the business culture.
iii. Example: account audit “Statement of Source and Application of Funds”.
The document does not indicate either action in its title, except to someone
familiar with this business practice because the genre is common across
business types.
iv. Example: Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA) self-assessment of a
department in a UK educational institution.
1. Form: bullet-point layout = important document; ideas are marked
as deserving attention; list implies order and importance
Note: On one document, individuals collectively communicated shared understanding of cultural
assumptions. This is a particular version of reality.
III. Intertextuality – relationships between documents
a. Principle: “documents do not exist in isolation” (p. 55). They refer to other
documents and realities.
b. Examples (accounts & academic): Audit trails refer to other documents, and
auditors are trained to look back at these other records and texts, using principles
of sequence and hierarchy. Some texts reflect and others refer to other texts.
i. “We can therefore analyse texts in terms of these intertextual
relationships, tracing the dimensions of similarity or difference” (p. 57).
c. Temporality: Notice conventions shared between documents, links to series,
sequences of decisions, suppression of time, movement through social networks,
identification of roles and positions within social settings.
i. Documents decontextualize events & create “their own versions of
hierarchy and legitimate authority” (p. 58).

IV. Authorship and Readership (actual or implied)


a. WRITER –Just because someone writes a document does not equal authorship,
but there may be ownership (e.g. an administration)
i. Notice in what ways documents claim authority
ii. Absence of implied personal author can be a rhetorical movement to
construct official/authoritative voice.
b. READER –implied reader can be restricted to certain groups. “Reading is an
activity, not the passive receipt of information” (p. 60). Readers bring
schema/background knowledge to the reading.
i. People with context-specific information can interpret a text differently
(e.g. medical notes understood by workplace colleagues).

V. Conclusion
Methodological Points:
a. Texts are constructed as part of a social reality.
b. Examine texts for formal properties: rhetorical features, language, genre
conventions
c. Authorship/production & readership/consumption
d. Intertextuality of documents – links to other texts, sequence & hierarchy,
decontextualization of events

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