Selves, Bodies and the Grammar of Social Worlds Reimagining Social Change

This book is an invitation to researchers who are committed to social change to look for ideas about transformation in an unexpected place – that is, in the data generated from empirical research. Informed by Critical Discourse Analysis and postmodern theory, it proposes a method of locating, through close grammatical analysis of everyday descriptions of the social world, the desire for alternative transformative structures. Drawing upon insightful analysis of conversational data collected over a period of 12 years from both ‘marginalised’ and ‘mainstream’ participants, it reveals innovative ways of imagining social structure. Clark proposes a view of the social world as in an embodied relationship with embodied selves.

1 Grammar and social worlds.- 2 Structures, centres and transformation.- 3 The empirical project of imagining social change.- 4 Selves, bodies, centres.- 5 The embodying community.- 6 The social body.- 7 Disruptive bodies.- 8 Openings.- Appendix Transcription conventions.- Bibliography.

Jodie Clark is Senior Lecturer in English Language at Sheffield Hallam University, and Course Leader for the BA (honours) English degree. She is the author of Language, Sex and Social Structure (2012, Palgrave). She hosts an accessible podcast about her research ideas at www.structuredvisions.wordpress.com.