Blending Structuralism with Discourse Theories

An Introduction to Discourse Analysis "If you only read one book on discourse analysis, this is the one to read. If you're a specialist, you'll find much to enjoy here as well. Gee's book shows us that discourse analysis is about a lot more than linguistic study; it will help us all to see how to keep from, as he says, 'getting physically, socially, culturally, or morally "bitten" by the world'."

South African Journal of Psychology, 2000

Postmodern critiques problematlse the Import of social psychology into non-western contexts on epistemological and Ideological grounds. Yet, British approaches to the discipline remain popular with critical social psychologists In South Africa. One such Import product is discourse analysis, which, as a 'postmodern" social psychology, seemingly resolves challenges of "intellectual colonialism" by endorsing a constructionist understanding of social psychological phenomena. However, by extending a conception of language Into a discursive ontology enables only a partial social psychological understanding of the often Insidious nature of experience and social conduct even when discourses change. What Is required Is an understanding of these aspects of social agency as also pre-reflexively and non-propositionally patterned, making necessary a conception of culture that works, so to speak, directly on the body. This remains Impossible In a theoretical system that has to fall back on the notions of reflexivity and Ideology In order to explain the social and political determination of experience and meaningful conduct.

2014

Tracy and Robles: Questions, questioning, and institutional practices 131 Questions, questioning, and institutional practices: an introduction

Jezikoslovlje, 2019

This paper gives a critical overview of analytical approaches dominating the field of discourse studies in the last three decades, from the perspective of their philosophical and formative bases: social constructionism and linguistics. It explores different conceptions of the theoretical nexus between these two bases leading to the emergence of three distinct yet complementary strands of thought (i–iii). The paper starts with poststructuralist views of discourse salient in (i) Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory. Laclau and Mouffe’s assumption that no discourse is a closed entity but rather transformed through contact with other discourses is taken as the introductory premise to present a large family of (ii) critical discourse studies, characterized as text-analytical practices explaining how discourse partakes in the production and negotiations of ideological meanings. Finally, the paper discusses (iii) three recent discourse analytical models: Discourse Space Theory, Critical Me...