Discourse Analysis of Naturally Occurring Data: The Relational Development of Mindfulness

Abstract

Discourse analysis allows qualitative researchers to investigate the ways people relationally construct realities through language use, especially through speaking and writing. To understand talk and text as relational practices, we pay close attention to the active dimensions of discourse: its construction, function and variation in specific social and historical contexts. The data used in this exemplar is provided by Dr Steven Stanley from Cardiff University and Dr Rebecca Crane from the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice at Bangor University and is taken from a project investigating the social construction of mindfulness within Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). The project received ethical clearance from the research ethics and governance committee of the School of Psychology at Bangor University and the North Wales Research Ethics Committee. The project contributes findings to developing traditions of mindfulness research, training of mindfulness teachers, and qualitative research on education, training, health, medicine and psychotherapy. The data comprises a transcription of institutional interaction between a MBCT teacher and her students. In this session there are just three participants present – the other three course members are absent due to illness. The course is held in an outpatient oncology unit. The students meet weekly for 2-hour sessions. MBCT is an eight-week psychoeducational course and our data is an extract taken from week two of a course for people with cancer. Six people are enrolled on the course and three female participants are present during this class. The exemplar will help you to analyse naturally occurring interaction, think about power dynamics and teacher dilemmas in pedagogy, and the possible functions of psychological terms in interaction such as ‘mind’.