My internal examiner (who I've never met) is an expert on discourse analysis. I've not used this, but have used qualitative interviews and thematic analysis.

What should I know about how he may pick apart my work?

are there any 'things' that discourse analysis highlights as important that he may be obsessed about?

Discourse analysis is a method of ( usually) textual analysis, looking for the patterns in which information is presented, and using those to "decode" ( for lack of a better word coming to mind :$) the way in which information has been presented, and how arguments or discussions have been structured. In a general way, perhaps something akin to grounded theory coding--in that it looks past the face value of the written word to see what lies beneath.

There are different kinds of discourse analysis. There is political discourse analysis, rhetorical discourse analysis, and I think a branch even of historical discourse analysis, etc. You might want to find what branch your examiner has worked with. You might anticipate methodological questions from someone like this, so you may need to be prepared to distinguish between his methods and your chosen methods ( eg how did you analyse the content of your interviews? Have you provided a paper trail that shows the path of analysis?) and defend your methods as appropriate for your overall research aims.

Hope that helps!

Thanks Olivia, your post was informative, yet also made me think "sh!!!!!!t" - after i've done my work today, I'll go and look up his papers etc. I've analysed my interviews using 2 types of qualitative analysis. I think I've paper-trailed them ok. eeeeek!

I'm apparently a pragmatist though and also using quantitative stats etc in two of my studies - do you reckon that will cause problems?

My sup doesn't really know him either and only selected him cos it was a politically good move for her :-s

Hi Sneaks - I've done quite a lot on discourse analysis (and conducted discourse analysis) but not yet in my PhD - what type(s) are you using? If you PM me your internal's name I should be able to email you some papers or help you out a bit more - I have quite a lot of material on the subject.

thank you! I've pmd you both the name just in case you've heard of them. eeeeek!

I am doing DA for analysing qualitative data. If someone is expert in DA, it is always better to know about DA at least even you have not applied. PM me yr internal's name, may be I will be able to suggest some literature.