Adding Quantitative Corpus-Driven Analysis to Qualitative Discourse Analysis: Determining the Aboutness of Writing Center Talk

Abstract

We discuss the benefits of using corpus linguistic analysis, a quantitative method for determining the "aboutness" of talk, in conjunction with discourse analysis in order to understand writing center talk at a micro- and macrolevel. We exemplify this mixed-method approach by examining a specialized corpus of 20 writing center conferences totaling more than 75,000 words. Our analysis also uncovered words that differentiated writing center talk from reference corpora and this helped reveal the aboutness of the writing center talk. For example, student writers said "I don't know" far more frequently than other 4-gram, and tutors said "You're going to" far more frequently than other 4-grams. We close by discussing the possibility of creating a corpus of writing center talk that researchers could use to ask and answer a broad range of research questions.