The issue of textual and contextual analysis is that we may read certain texts as the site of a partial notion to provide a particular view and a particular social/historical context. Whichever way we look at and read film texts, they are always from human subjective points of view, and those views are mobile and open-ended. For this reason, it can be useful to draw the theoretical conceptions of discourse into our research methods, in other to address and shape issues of subjectivity, power, and identity. This makes up for the disadvantages of textual analysis and highlights the theoretical similarities of these approaches to the historical/social/filmic spaces. Therefore, I would like to draw attention to identifying the distinction between text and discourse, which is the first step towards shaping the definition and contextualisation of discourse analysis. Despite the fact that they are more or less synonymous, “‘discourse’ and ‘text’ can be used in a much broader sense to include all language units with a definable communicative function, whether spoken or written” (Crystal 1987:116; emphasis in original, cited in Mills 2004:3). They can both be defined in terms of meaning, cohering text and discourse to shape the meaning of the whole (Nunan 1993). The differences between “text” and “discourse” have been noted for a long time. For example, Hawthorn (1992:189, cited in Mills 2004:4) drawing upon Michael Stubbs’ (1983) treatment of text and discourse, attempts to comment on differentiating them in the detailed interaction between structure and function:
1. Text: may be written, non-interactive, short or long, and must be possessed of surface cohesion.
73 2. Discourse: is spoken, interactive, a certain length, and must be possessed of a deeper
coherence.
On the other hand, Mills (2004:3), also drawing upon David Crystal’s (1987) attempts to set down the meaning of “discourse” in language forms, by comparing and contrasting with the concept of textual analysis, stated that:
1. Text analysis focuses on the structure of written language, as found in such “texts” as essays, notices, road signs and chapters.
2. Discourse analysis focuses on the structure of naturally occurring spoken language, as found in such “discourses” as conversations, interviews, commentaries and speeches. In other words, as I have discussed in the earlier section on Textual/Contextual Analysis, (film) text focuses on the structure of written language, leading to the provision of a “data set” of “primary sources” and an “interpretative orientation”. It can be seen, then, that discourse not only lists the functions of text, but also offers a deeper and broader sense, against written language and structure, focusing on representations of personal/social communications to embody a requirement of the spoken/written ideology of social meaning, beliefs, values, and categories of classification. This is how Hawthorn defines discourse:
“Discourse” is speech or writing seen from the point of view of the beliefs, values and categories which it embodies; these beliefs etc. constitute ways of looking at the world, an organization or representation of experience – “ideology” in the neutral non-pejorative sense. Different modes of discourse encode different representations of experience; and the source of these representations is the communicative context within which the discourse is embedded. (Hawthorn, 1992:48, cited in Mills 2004:5)
This coheres with Foucault’s (1972:49) conception that discourses are practices which “systematically form the objects of which they speak”, which produces the conception, effect, representation, relationship, and so on. Discourse is an important element of Foucault’s thought; it embeds a productive function of shaping the relationship between power and social effects within a particular context. In other words, discourse transmits and produces power. I agree with Foucault (1981:52-53) that “discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized.” Therefore, I would like to set out my understanding of the characteristics of textual analysis and discourse analysis, according to the previous literature, in order to show how I will apply them in practice in the data chapters:
74 1. Textual analysis: concrete (what is written), surface cohesion (what is shown), and
meaning (what is its significance).
2. Discourse analysis: abstract (what is spoken), deeper coherence (what is to be shown under the surface), and power (what is its ideology/identity).
Therefore it can be considered that in this research, discourse analysis will shape a deeper discussion in the social, cultural and historical contexts. Film is illusory, but it bears a reflection or mirror of “real” society. Looking back to the notion of “New Film History”, in this respect, a film can be considered not only as a text but also as a discourse to show/speak a power/ideology. “Writing as if all you have to offer are ‘the facts’ or ‘the truth’ is also a
way of writing, a way of using language to enact an activity and an identity” (Gee 1999:4).
This project began epistemologically with different ideologies/knowledges/discourses in relation to Western and Han Chinese recognition of “Tibet”. They both insist that each of their writings is “the facts” and “the truth”. However, which one is “real” truth? What is “truth”? As Foucault states:
This a priori is that, in a given period, delimits in the totality of experience a field of knowledge, defines the mode of being of the objects that appear in that field, provides man’s [sic] everyday perception with theoretical powers, and defines the conditions in which he can sustain a discourse about things that is recognized to be true. (1974:158)
As we can read from Foucault, discourse analysis influences us to consider the factors of power, knowledge, and truth in the different cultural contexts and post-structural backgrounds. It can be argued that human thinking and behaviour in relation to a particular issue comes from our prior knowledge concerning that issue, that social power can be acquired by knowledge, and that this power enables one to claim the “truth” of certain statements, all of which shapes a type of discourse in one particular context and influences the further production of knowledge.
I agree with both Mills (2004) and Foucault (1981) that power is the key/important element in the discussion of discourses. Therefore, I would like to connect discourse analysis to the postcolonial approach, which tells us that power does not only exist in the relations between different groups/discourses, but also is a force to identify social classes/groups, and to shape the opposite classifications through, for example, treating one as dominant/elitist and others as subaltern groups. Subaltern studies has also been employed in this research. In other words, relying on discourse analysis to examine the “speech” of the “subaltern” within the
75 postcolonial context – what is spoken through New Tibetan Cinema, what is shown through the film text, what are the results of self-representation as power? In general, there are three macro discourses and ideologies to be found in this research: Western, Han Chinese, and Tibetan. I intend to explore New Tibetan Cinema to cohere the conceptions of subaltern studies (Can the subaltern speak?) by examining the “speech” through discourse analysis. Alternatively, the application of discourse analysis in this thesis indicates that New Tibetan Cinema has been put in the context of the social relations – the relations of powers and the relations of conflicts within the ideological layer and sociological purpose and discussion, in which discourse analysis as a genetic bridge coheres methodologically film space (text) and social space (context), film studies and sociology.