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Discourse is a generalization of the notion of a
conversation Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...
to any form of
communication Communication (from la, communicare, meaning "to share" or "to be in relation with") is usually defined as the transmission of information. The term may also refer to the message communicated through such transmissions or the field of inqui ...
. Discourse is a major topic in social theory, with work spanning fields such as
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
,
anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
, continental philosophy, and discourse analysis. Following pioneering work by Michel Foucault, these fields view discourse as a system of thought, knowledge, or communication that constructs our experience of the world. Since control of discourse amounts to control of how the world is perceived, social theory often studies discourse as a window into power. Within
theoretical linguistics Theoretical linguistics is a term in linguistics which, like the related term general linguistics, can be understood in different ways. Both can be taken as a reference to theory of language, or the branch of linguistics which inquires into the ...
, discourse is understood more narrowly as linguistic information exchange and was one of the major motivations for the framework of dynamic semantics, in which expressions'
denotation In linguistics and philosophy, the denotation of an expression is its literal meaning. For instance, the English word "warm" denotes the property of being warm. Denotation is contrasted with other aspects of meaning including connotation. For insta ...
s are equated with their ability to update a discourse context.


Social theory

In the
humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at t ...
and
social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of s ...
s, discourse describes a formal way of thinking that can be expressed through language. Discourse is a social boundary that defines what statements can be said about a topic. Many definitions of discourse are largely derived from the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault. In
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
, ''discourse'' is defined as "any practice (found in a wide range of forms) by which individuals imbue reality with meaning".
Political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...
sees discourse as closely linked to politics and policy making. Likewise, different theories among various disciplines understand discourse as linked to power and state, insofar as the control of ''discourses'' is understood as a hold on reality itself (e.g. if a state controls the media, they control the "truth"). In essence, ''discourse'' is inescapable, since any use of language will have an effect on individual perspectives. In other words, the chosen discourse provides the vocabulary, expressions, or style needed to communicate. For example, two notably distinct discourses can be used about various guerrilla movements, describing them either as " freedom fighters" or " terrorists". In
psychology Psychology is the science, scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immens ...
, discourses are embedded in different rhetorical genres and meta-genres that constrain and enable them—language talking about language. This is exemplified in the APA's '' Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'', which tells of the terms that have to be used in speaking about mental health, thereby mediating meanings and dictating practices of professionals in psychology and psychiatry.


Modernism

Modernist theorists were focused on achieving progress and believed in the existence of natural and social laws which could be used universally to develop knowledge and thus a better understanding of society.Larrain, Jorge. 1994. ''Ideology and Cultural Identity: Modernity and the Third World Presence''. Cambridge: Polity Press. . Retrieved vi
Google Books
Such theorists would be preoccupied with obtaining the "truth" and "reality", seeking to develop theories which contained certainty and predictability. Modernist theorists therefore understood discourse to be functional.Strega, Susan. 2005. "The View from the Poststructural Margins: Epistemology and Methodology Reconsidered." Pp. 199–235 in ''Research as Resistance'', edited by L. Brown, & S. Strega. Toronto: Canadian Scholars' Press. Discourse and language transformations are ascribed to progress or the need to develop new or more "accurate" words to describe new discoveries, understandings, or areas of interest. In modernist theory, language and discourse are dissociated from power and ideology and instead conceptualized as "natural" products of common sense usage or progress.
Modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
further gave rise to the liberal discourses of rights, equality, freedom, and justice; however, this rhetoric masked substantive inequality and failed to account for differences, according to Regnier.


Structuralism (Saussure & Lacan)

Structuralist theorists, such as
Ferdinand de Saussure Ferdinand de Saussure (; ; 26 November 1857 – 22 February 1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher. His ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in both linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century. He is wide ...
and
Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and ...
, argue that all human actions and social formations are related to
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
and can be understood as systems of related elements. This means that the "individual elements of a system only have significance when considered in relation to the structure as a whole, and that structures are to be understood as self-contained, self-regulated, and self-transforming entities". In other words, it is the structure itself that determines the significance, meaning and function of the individual elements of a system. Structuralism has made an important contribution to our understanding of language and social systems. Saussure's theory of language highlights the decisive role of meaning and signification in structuring human life more generally.


Poststructuralism (Foucault)

Following the perceived limitations of the modern era, emerged postmodern theory. Postmodern theorists rejected modernist claims that there was one theoretical approach that explained all aspects of society. Rather, postmodernist theorists were interested in examining the variety of experiences of individuals and groups and emphasized differences over similarities and common experiences. In contrast to modernist theory, postmodern theory is more fluid, allowing for individual differences as it rejects the notion of social laws. Such theorists shifted away from truth-seeking, and instead sought answers for how truths are produced and sustained. Postmodernists contended that truth and knowledge are plural, contextual, and historically produced through discourses. Postmodern researchers therefore embarked on analyzing discourses such as texts, language, policies, and practices.


Foucault

In the works of the philosopher Michel Foucault, a ''discourse'' is “an entity of sequences, of signs, in that they are enouncements (''énoncés'').” The enouncement (''l’énoncé'', “the statement”) is a linguistic construct that allows the writer and the speaker to assign meaning to words and to communicate repeatable semantic relations to, between, and among the statements, objects, or subjects of the discourse. There exist internal relations among the signs (semiotic sequences) that are between and among the statements, objects, or subjects of the discourse. The term ''discursive formation'' identifies and describes written and spoken statements with semantic relations that produce discourses. As a researcher, Foucault applied the discursive formation to analyses of large bodies of knowledge, e.g.
political economy Political economy is the study of how economic systems (e.g. markets and national economies) and political systems (e.g. law, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied phenomena within the discipline are systems such as labour ...
and natural history. In '' The Archaeology of Knowledge'' (1969), a treatise about the
methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for br ...
and
historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians h ...
of systems of thought (“epistemes”) and of knowledge (“discursive formations”), Michel Foucault developed the concepts of discourse. The sociologist Iara Lessa summarizes Foucault's definition of discourse as "systems of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, courses of action, beliefs, and practices that systematically construct the subjects and the worlds of which they speak." Foucault traces the role of discourse in the legitimation of society's power to construct contemporary truths, to maintain said truths, and to determine what relations of power exist among the constructed truths; therefore discourse is a communications medium through which power relations produce men and women who can speak. The inter-relation between power and knowledge renders every human relationship into a power negotiation, because power is always present and so produces and constrains the truth. Power is exercised through rules of exclusion (discourses) that determine what subjects people can discuss; when, where, and how a person may speak; and determines which persons are allowed speak. That knowledge is both the ''creator'' of power and the ''creation'' of power, Foucault coined the term '' power-knowledge'' to show that an object becomes a "node within a network" of meanings. In ''The Archaeology of Knowledge'', Foucault's example is a book's function as a
node In general, a node is a localized swelling (a " knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics * Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph * Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, line ...
within a network meanings. The book does not exist as an individual object, but exists as part of a structure of knowledge that is "a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences." In the critique of power–knowledge, Foucault identified Neo-liberalism as a discourse of political economy which is conceptually related to governmentality, the organized practices (mentalities, rationalities, techniques) with which people are governed.Foucault, Michel. ''The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979'' (2008) New York: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 0000. Interdiscourse studies the external semantic relations among discourses, because a discourse exists in relation to other discourses, e.g. books of history; thus do academic researchers debate and determine “What is a discourse?” and “What is not a discourse?” in accordance with the denotations and connotations (meanings) used in their academic disciplines.


Discourse analysis

In discourse analysis, ''discourse'' is a conceptual generalization of
conversation Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...
within each
modality Modality may refer to: Humanities * Modality (theology), the organization and structure of the church, as distinct from sodality or parachurch organizations * Modality (music), in music, the subject concerning certain diatonic scales * Modaliti ...
and
context Context may refer to: * Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary Computing * Context (computing), the virtual environment required to s ...
of communication. In this sense, the term is studied in
corpus linguistics Corpus linguistics is the study of a language as that language is expressed in its text corpus (plural ''corpora''), its body of "real world" text. Corpus linguistics proposes that a reliable analysis of a language is more feasible with corpora ...
, the study of language expressed in '' corpora'' (samples) of "real world" text. Moreover, because a discourse is a body of text meant to communicate specific data, information, and knowledge, there exist internal relations in the content of a given discourse, as well as external relations among discourses. As such, a discourse does not exist ''per se'' (in itself), but is related to other discourses, by way of inter-discursive practices. In Francois Rastier's approach to semantics, ''discourse'' is understood as meaning the totality of codified language (i.e., vocabulary) used in a given field of intellectual enquiry and of social practice, such as legal discourse, medical discourse, religious discourse, etc. In this sense, along with that of Foucault's in the previous section, the analysis of a ''discourse'' examines and determines the connections among
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
and structure and agency.


Formal semantics and pragmatics

In formal semantics and
pragmatics In linguistics and related fields, pragmatics is the study of how context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the int ...
, discourse is often viewed as the process of refining the information in a common ground. In some theories of semantics such as discourse representation theory, sentences'
denotation In linguistics and philosophy, the denotation of an expression is its literal meaning. For instance, the English word "warm" denotes the property of being warm. Denotation is contrasted with other aspects of meaning including connotation. For insta ...
s themselves are equated with functions which update a common ground.


See also


References


Further reading

* * *— (1980). "Two Lectures," in ''Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews'', edited by C. Gordon. New York;
Pantheon Books Pantheon Books is an American book publishing imprint with editorial independence. It is part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.Random House, Inc. Datamonitor Company Profiles Authority: Retrieved 6/20/2007, from EBSCO Host Business Source ...
. * * * * * Howard, Harry. (2017).
Discourse 2
" ''Brain and Language'', '' Tulane University''. owerPoint slides * *


External links


DiscourseNet
an international association for discourse studies.
Beyond open access: open discourse, the next great equalizer
''
Retrovirology A retrovirus is a type of virus that inserts a DNA copy of its RNA genome into the DNA of a host cell that it invades, thus changing the genome of that cell. Once inside the host cell's cytoplasm, the virus uses its own reverse transcript ...
'' 2006, 3:55
Discourse (Lun) in the Chinese tradition
{{formal semantics Discourse analysis Semantics Sociolinguistics Anthropology Concepts in social philosophy Debating