Investigating digital sex talk practices: A reflection on corpus-assisted discourse analysis

Abstract

Corpus-assisted discourse analysis (CADA) is an approach that is used either on its own or in support of other forms of discourse analysis (Baker 2010). It takes lexical markers (i.e. words and phrases) as its focus, deploying computer software to count and compare these markers in order to learn more about the discourses of which they are a part. To the uninitiated, CADA and research on digital practices would appear to be a perfect match because data is generally pre-digitised, with no transcription required (two processes which vex corpus compilers of printed text and spoken discourse). But as I have explored elsewhere (see King 2009), CADA itself has both affordances and constraints in relation to data, people and practices in digital research, and this reality produces formidable challenges for corpus compilation and analysis. Here these points will be reviewed and updated, but with a shift in focus towards the practice orientation of this volume (see also Jones 2013; Norris and Jones 2005; Scollon 2001), which will permit a more direct focus on things that participants and researcher are using language to do. That is, rather than framing chat room discourse strictly as text, I will frame it as one component of a set of digital practices.