Methodes Et Pratiques Formalisees D'Analyse De Contenu Et De Discours Dans La Recherche Sociologique Francaise Contemporaine. Etat Des Lieux Et Essai De Classification

Abstract

Formalized Methods and Procedures in Content and Discourse Analysis in Contemporary French Sociological Research—State of the Arts and a Classification Attempt. An initial awareness is needed of the debates regarding the choice of research approaches in sociology and the diversity and specificity of methods currently being used in the domain of textual data analysis in France. In general the influence of the French socio-linguistic tradition looms large, including, on the one hand, the older works of Michel Pécheux on the “discursive formations” and his A.A.D. (Analyse Automatique du Discours, 1969), and on the other hand, two main perspectives of the “Ecole Française d'Analyse du/de Discours”—which refer to the speech actconcept and to the problematics of enunciation, and emphasizes the processes and “sociodiscursive practices” between socially-located speakers. Such theoretical conceptions and specific requirements lead to build on methodologies different from the classic, theme-based content analysis, though not yet translated into an operational software. Then the main software developments currently having an impact (at least potential) on practices of computer-aided sociological analysis of textual data, in France, are classified: from the lexicometric using procedures of French Data Analysis (‘Analyse Factortelle des Correspondances’ of Benzecri, and so on…), to a set of “expert-systems” working on specific theoretical frameworks, through more classical methods of content analysis and coding-sorting-retrieving socio-semantic procedures. eventually with various statistical methods. Content Analysis Methods. Discourse Analysis Methods, French Sociological Research.