DISCOURSE ANALYSIS I
This post introduces the second workshop, namely “Discourse and discourse analysis”. Within the help Rose’s text, the notion of discourse analysis I will be explained. Furthermore, a reflection on Elliot’s example of Starbucks will be provided with relation to discourse analysis I. As Rose (2001) states in her book, discourse analysis is conceived as one of the most relevant methods under discussion in the branch of cultural studies. Discourse analysis was first built on Foucault’s definition and it has further developed into several variations of its concept. According to Rose (2001), Foucault sees discourse as everything that creates how the world is seen by groups of statements. In the first place, Foucault explains discourse in terms of productive power, in the sense that it produces both the world and the human subjects which inhabit it, as it understands them (Rose, 2001). Moreover, discourse creates a power-relation between the discourse itself and the human subjects, as “Discourse disciplines subjects into certain ways of thinking and acting […]” (Rose, 2001, p. 137). In the second place, Foucault argues that power not only produces the ideas of how we understand things, but it also creates knowledge (Foucault in Rose, 2001). More specifically, Rose (2001) claims that since power characterises discourse, and discourse is characterised by knowledge, knowledge, in turn, is defined by power.
Rose (2011) defines discourse analysis as a qualitative research method, which investigates how concepts are socially created. Discourse analysis I differs from discourse analysis II in terms of the objects which are investigated: whereas the first kind of discourse explores images and texts, the second type focuses more on the practices of the discourse, such as institutions and technologies (Rose, 2001). Rose (2001) claims that discourse analysis I is pursued by a “rhetorical organization” which follows seven steps. The first one entails to study our sources with “fresh eyes”, by neglecting the notions we probably have already acquired before (Rose, 2001). The second step implies a complete diving into the sources under study, which consequently brings us to the third task: looking for key terms (words or images) and finding relations among them (Rose, 2001). As a consequence, Rose (2001) presents the fourth step, which is focused on the way a particular discourse persuades in order to convince that its knowledge is true. Rose (2001) moves then to the last part of the discourse methodology, characterised by individualising the contradictory and complex structure of the discourse, as well as the “invisible” parts which are not explicitly grasped at a first glance. At the last step, Rose (2001) advices to read the source more carefully in order to identify every single detail.
In relation to this methodology, Elliot (2001) investigates Starbucks’ marketing policy while starting within a critical analysis of Starbucks’ discourse. In opposition to the first step explained by Rose, which entails to start your analysis with fresh eyes, Elliot (2001) states that academic scholars “[…] have turned a critical eye” to global communication. Indeed, her analysis has got a critical voice at the beginning of her text: Elliot (2001) defines the “cross-cultural consumption paradigm” to explain the attempt from the First World countries to ascribe a local meaning to goods imported from the Third World. More precisely, Elliot (2001) presents Starbucks’ coffee as a commodity which has shaped Western consumer identity: Starbucks’ products changed the idea of drinking coffee. However, this aspect will be better discussed below, after having introduced Elliot’s general analysis on Starbucks’ discourse.
For the sake of clarification, it will be first provided an analysis of Elliot’s discourse analysis by relating several steps introduced by Rose. Rose (2001) explains that a discourse analysis implies the study of different texts and the connection of their key terms with a process of intertextuality. This is exactly what Elliot does when studying Starbucks’ discourse: according to her, Starbucks marketing entails new texts, concepts, and objects: coffee is a “cultural text” which becomes knowledge (Elliot, 2001). Therefore, Starbucks educates its customers by providing the origin of the coffee beans, explaining what the beverage is made of, and naming several types of coffee with Italian resonances (Elliot, 2001). Starbucks’ rhetoric is not about selling coffee, rather is it about selling experiences: when the customer enters the store, he experiences the smells, the colours, the tastes of the natural world (Elliot, 2001). In accordance to this intertextuality between coffee and nature, Elliot (2001) presents Edward Said’s “Orientalist discourse”, namely the reconstruction of African and Eastern countries’ descriptions by the Western gaze. A good example that Elliot (2001) provides is the description that Starbucks gives to one of its infinitive types of coffee: the “Arabian Mocha Sanani”: “A wild and wonderful coffee with an intense berry flavour and hints of spice, rum and cocoa” (Starbucks in Elliot, 2001, p. 378). The connotations within coffee exotic and savage descriptions, and the associations within Italian and French names gives to Starbucks’ stores authenticity and originality (Elliot, 2001). At the end of her text, Elliot (2001) criticises Starbucks’ Orientalist discourse and its attempt to combine the global within the local, as it gives stereotyped meanings and representations to the Third World countries.
List of References
Elliott, C. (2001). “Consuming caffeine: The discourse of Starbucks and coffee”. Consumption, Markets and Culture, 4(4).
Rose, G. (2001). Visual methodologies: An introduction to researching with visual materials. London: Sage.