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“groups,” and want to see them as individual actors who, if they are children, need nurturing, and if they are adults, need to take responsibility for themselves. Such teachers, in fact, actively work to “undo” the attempts of university
academics to place people in social and cultural categories, especially children.
Thus, the university professor trades on cultural models that distance her from local circumstances, and, thus, too, from teachers like the one above, and students like Marcella, a student “of color,” who live in her city. On the other
hand, the teacher trades on cultural models that place her closer to local affairs, institutions, and students like Marcella. Note that neither one of these perspectives is inherently “right.” In fact, in respect to a student like
Marcella the professor’s perspective is liable to be paralyzing and the teacher’s will only encourage the tendency we have already seen that she has to ‘‘blame the victims,” including herself.
4.9 Cultural models as tools of inquiry
As I did in the case of situated meanings in the last chapter, I have here spoken of cultural models realistically as existing in the mind and in the world of texts and social practices. But, in fact, I am primarily interested in their
role as a “tool of inquiry.” They lead us to ask, when confronted with a piece of talk, writing, action, or interaction, questions like these:
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What cultural models are relevant here? What must I, as an analyst, assume people feel, value, and believe, consciously or not, in order to talk write, act, andor interact this way?
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Are there differences here between the cultural models that are affecting espoused beliefs and those that are affecting actions and practices? What sorts of cultural models, if any, are being used here to make value
judgments about oneself or others?
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How consistent are the relevant cultural models here? Are there competing or conflicting cultural models at play? Whose interests are the cultural models representing?
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What other cultural models are related to the ones most active here? Are there “master models” at work?
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What sorts of texts, media, experiences, interactions, andor institutions could have given rise to these cultural models?
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How are the relevant cultural models here helping to reproduce, transform, or create social, cultural, institutional, andor political relationships? What Discourses and Conversations are these cultural models
helping to reproduce, transform, or create?
We always assume, until absolutely proven otherwise, that everyone has “good reasons” and makes “deep sense” in terms of their own socio-culturally-specific ways of talking, listening writing, reading, acting, inter
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acting, valuing, believing, and feeling. Of course, we are all members of multiple cultures and Discourses and so the analytic task is often finding which of these, and with what blends, is operative in the communication. The
assumption of “good reasons” and “deep sense” is foundational to discourse analysis. It is not only a moral principle. It is based, as well, on the viewpoint, amply demonstrated in work in cognitive science, applied
linguistics, and in a variety of different approaches to discourse analysis, that humans are, as creatures, sense makers par excellence. Within their cultures and Discourses, they move to sense, the way certain plants move to
light.
We obviously do not gain our evidence for cultural models by opening up people’s heads. And we don’t need to. Besides closely observing what they say and do, we look at the texts, media, social practices, social and institutional
interactions, and diverse Discourses that influence them. As in the case of context and situated meanings in the last chapter, we can always gain more information. Thus, our conclusions are always tentative. However, here, too, we
hope that eventually more information does not lead to substantive revision of our conclusions. This issue is related to the larger one of validity, an issue I take up in Chapter 5.
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5 Discourse analysis
5.1 Situated meanings and cultural models revisited
