Critical Narrative Analysis: The Interplay of Critical Discourse and Narrative Analyses
Source: International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Volume 27, Issue 2, 2014, pages 159-180.
In this article, the author questions the micro–macro separation in discourse analysis, the separation of personal and institutional discourses.
She applies a mostly macroanalytic perspective (critical discourse analysis [CDA]) to inform a predominantly microanalytic perspective (analysis of conversational narratives) and vice versa.
In the combination of these two analytic approaches to data analysis, the author explores the connections between macro-level power inequities and micro-level interactional positionings, thereby establishing critical narrative analysis (CNA).
She examines the focus of CDA on institutional discourses and problematize the definition of power discourses by looking closely at the intertextual recycling of institutional discourses in everyday narratives and at the adoption of everyday narratives in institutional discourses.
Ultimately, the article proposes that CNA unites CDA and narrative analysis in a mutually beneficial partnership that addresses both theoretical and methodological dilemmas in discourse analysis.