88 anchorage and relay, is followed by a discussion of discourse analysis theory, consulting the works of Fairclough and Gee.
89 Furthermore, van Leeuwen and Kress (2011: 113) and Fairclough, Mulderrig and Wodak (2011: 358) define discourse as a social phenomenon that plays a very important role in shaping societies, and is in turn shaped by societies. They explain that even though discourses are socially constructed, since they basically “form and describe content of texts and
communicative events”, they have no “physical existence” because they are taken to refer to knowledge and mental resources. To Fairclough et al. (2011: 358), a discourse is also important because “it helps to sustain and reproduce the social status quo, in the sense that it contributes to transforming it”. Although, in the case of HIV not every discourse is useful, because some discourses tend to fuel the spread of HIV in the form of myths that contradict medical information. Looking particularly at youth and young adults in tertiary institutions, learners are more receptive to adopting discourses that are mostly influenced by their
institution’s culture, peer pressure and media. These discourses, depending on what is being said, may place them (learners) at risk of contracting HIV just because they want to ‘belong’
to the crowd. It is a common practice for learners, to adapt to the institution’s way of life, even if it means doing things that they know are against their families’ terms and conditions for good conduct; these include such misconduct as consumption of alcoholic beverages and co- habitation. Hingson, Strunin, Berlin and Heeren, (2004: 731) explain how alcohol or other drugs are thought to interfere with judgment and decision making and are some of the major contributors to sexual risk-taking. They also argue that freedom of association and peer pressure, which characterise tertiary institution culture, are major factors that can lead to learners experimenting with irresponsible use of alcoholic beverages and drugs. Furthermore, Hingson et al. (2004: 731) warn that all these factors, often articulated through peer group discourses, may contribute to learners experiencing decreased judgment that can possibly result in increased likelihood for undertaking risky sexual behaviour.
Accordingly, in the case of this study, HIV messages that are supposed to be communicated through print IEC materials should be research based. In order for educators to be able to produce ‘target specific’ print IEC materials that can contribute to transforming risky youth or young adult behaviour into desired behaviour, they need to first find out how their target audience uses language, behaviour and relationships as discursive social practices as well as
90 how much knowledge their target audience already has. In other words, what is their current thinking and how can they ‘profitably’ move forward from that position so that they can be said to have acquired new knowledge that would help them to achieve the desired behavioural and attitudinal change. This is in line with the principles of teaching in adult education
(Knowles, 1980), which emphasize that the learning process should build on the experiences of learners. One of the principles for facilitating learning is that the teacher must help the learners exploit their own experiences as resources for learning (build on what they already know) through the use of such techniques as discussion, role-playing, and case study to help them to apply the new learning to their experiences and make it more meaningful. In the case of this study, it is expected that such learning can be demonstrated through attitudinal
(language and action) change after the learners’ interaction with print IEC materials.
Shifting the focus from ‘discourse’ as a concept, how meaning is derived from discourses through discourse analysis theory is examined. Since institutional discourses are a core feature of tertiary institution learners’ social norms and practices amongst their peers, it is important to recognize discourses in the learner responses to the study’s questions. As has already been mentioned, this discussion is framed by the works of Fairclough and Gee, with the works of other authors also used to solicit support or debate. Discourse analysis explores what
influences interpretation of the text and pictures, specifically looking at such aspects as language, pre-existing knowledge and meaning that the respondents attach to messages in relation to their context, personal biographies and cultural backgrounds.
3.4.2 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS THEORY
In analyzing discourses, Fairclough (2015) distinctively focused on discursive practice because he wanted to analyze even the discursive formations (conventions of talk or patterns of behavior) that contribute to shaping a person’s world and that are born out of societal practices. That is, he focused on the effects that the discursive formations may have on social structures, social relations and social struggles, which he believed societies more often than not ‘take for granted’ or are unaware of. Hence, the main concern of the research, from a health education perspective, was to study links and struggles that exist between social
91 structures and the way that text as spoken language by learners is constructed, distributed and expended in their responses to text IEC materials, specifically looking at what Fairclough (1996: 29) calls “discursive practice”. The center of interest for this discursive practice lies in how text is being produced, distributed and expended. How this three-dimensional conception of Fairclough’s discourse analysis applies to this study can best be understood from diagram 10 below.
Diagram 10: DISCOURSE AS TEXT, INTERACTION AND CONTEXT
TEXT
(HIV messages)
DISCURSIVE PRACTICE
(Interaction. learners’ discussions - process of interpretation)
SOCIAL PRACTICE
(Social conditions of interpretation and also the context which influences learners’ discussions)
Source: adapted from Fairclough (1996).
When analyzing discourses there are three indispensable traditions that need to be observed (Fairclough, 1996), and these are: the tradition of close textual and linguistic analysis within linguistics; the macrosociological tradition of analyzing social practice in relation to social structures; and the interpretivist or microsociological tradition of seeing social practice as something which people actively produce and make sense of on the basis of shared
commonsense procedures. Based on Fairclough’s (2005: 8) explanation that “texts as elements of social events” are capable of influencing people’s knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, values, the focus here was on how discourse can reveal multiple interpretations according to context.
92 Hence, discourse analysis was used alongside semiotic analysis and as a means of interpreting the discourses and discourse behaviours of the learners.
Fairclough (1992: 103) warns that the intertextuality of a text is rather complicated or ambivalent because of the relationships it has with the genres, discourses, styles and activity types which make up an order of discourse. So such questions as ‘can you use the condom for your own good’ could be viewed as a question, a request, an order, a suggestion, or even a complaint, depending on the ‘context’ in which it was sourced. It was useful to take a closer look at the intertextuality of the texts materials and the learner responses to them so as to gain a deeper understanding of the kind of ambivalence and how it is generated in texts in order to analyze the suitability of print IEC materials for youth and young adults in their context as literate young Basotho adults (tertiary institution learners), even though the study does not focus on discourse analysis in detail.
As was indicated at the beginning of this chapter, the above theoretical framework also connected to a learning theory that talks about the transformation of adult learning, looking particularly at one of the stages in Mezirow’s learning cycle: transformative learning.