Cultural Discourse Analysis: Communication Practices and Intercultural Encounters

The field of intercultural communication has been criticized for failing to produce studies which focus on actual practices of communication, especially of intercultural encounters. Of particular interest have been cultural analyses of social interactions, as well as analyses of the intercultural dynamics that are involved in those interactions. This article addresses these concerns by presenting a framework for the cultural analysis of discourse that has been presented and used in previous literature(e.g., Carbaugh, 1988a, 1990, 2005; Carbaugh, Gibson, and Milburn, 1997). Indebted to the ethnography of communication (Hymes, 1972), and interpretive anthropology (Geertz, 1973), this particular analytic procedure is one implementation of the theory of communication codes (Carbaugh, 2005; Philipsen, 1997; Philipsen, Coutu, and Covarrubias, 2005). As such, it takes communication to be not only its primary data but moreover, its primary theoretical concern. The framework responds to specific research questions, addresses particular kinds of intellectual problems, includes five investigative modes, and uses a special set of concepts. In this essay, each of the modes is discussed as analytically distinct, yet as complementary to the others, including theoretical, descriptive, interpretive, comparative, and critical analyses. Special attention is given to the interpretive mode and to intercultural interactions as a site for the application and development of cultural discourse analysis.