Title:
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Written intertextuality and the construction of Catholic identity in a parish community : an ethnographic study.
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This thesis is a study of the role of written texts in processes of identity construction
and maintenance in a Catholic parish community. It is based on a critical realist
understanding of society which sees social practice as the locus of continuity and
change and requires detailed observation of social activity explained within a
theoretical framework to achieve an understanding of the mechanisms at work in
society. Social practice is understood as "habitualised ways, tied to particular times
and places, in which people apply resources (material or symbolic) to act together in
the world" (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 21). Social practices are drawn on and
continued in social activity, a process which articulates four moments: material
activity, social relations and processes, mental phenomena, and meaning-making
processes. These moments are not understood as being discrete but rather as existing
in dialectical relations of reciprocal intemalisation. Language and literacy are
analysed in terms of their embeddedness within this model of social practice. Identity
is conceived of as particular ways of being which are realised in social activity as
people engage in particular social practices.
Within this framework, the study analyses data consisting of written texts and
fieldnotes describing the practices within which those texts were embedded, which
was collected during a year's participation-observation in three domains of a Catholic
parish community, using a grounded approach. Three concepts are developed to
explain the role of text in each of these domains: recontextualisation of identity,
negotiated legitimation, and synchronisation of communities. These mechanisms are then explained in terms of the social contexts within which they are situated. Finally,
the role of these mechanisms within social practice is analysed. It is argued that in
each of them, the crucial role of written text is to provide an intertextual means by
which relational links can be made between different communities and different
elements of individuals' identities.
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