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established by means of inter discourse and interdiscursivity. Hence, within a eld of intellectual enquiry, the
practitioners occasionally debate What is and What is
Discourse (from Latin discursus, meaning running to
and from) denotes written and spoken communications not discourse, according to the conceptual meanings (denotation and connotation) used in the given eld of study.
such as: [1]
In semantics and discourse analysis: A generalization of the concept of conversation within all modalities and contexts.
1 The humanities
In the humanities and in the social sciences, the term discourse describes a formal way of thinking that can be ex The totality of codied language (vocabulary) used pressed through language, a social boundary that denes
in a given eld of intellectual enquiry and of social what can be said about a specic topic.
practice, such as legal discourse, medical discourse,
Discourses are seen to aect our views on all things;
religious discourse, et cetera.[2]
it is not possible to avoid discourse.
For example, two notably distinct discourses can be used
In the work of Michel Foucault, and that of the so- about various guerrilla movements describing them
cial theoreticians he inspired: discourse describes either as extquotedblfreedom ghters extquotedbl or
an entity of sequences, of signs, in that they are extquotedblterrorists extquotedbl. In other words, the
enouncements (noncs).[3]
chosen discourse provides the vocabulary, expressions
and perhaps also the style needed to communicate.
An enouncement (from French lnonc, meaning the Discourses are embedded in dierent rhetorical genres
statement) is not a unit of semiotic signs, but an ab- and metagenres that constrain and enable them. That
stract construct that allows the signs to assign and com- is language talking about language, for instance the
municate specic, repeatable relations to, between, and American Psychiatric Association's DSMIV manual tells
among objects, subjects, and statements.[3] Hence, a which terms have to be used in talking about mental
discourse is composed of semiotic sequences (relations health, thereby mediating meanings and dictating pracamong signs) between and among objects, subjects, and tices of the professionals of psychology and psychiatry.[5]
statements. The term discursive formation conceptually describes the regular communications (written and Discourse is closely linked to dierent theories of power
spoken) that produce such discourses. As a philosopher, and state, at least as long as dening discourses is seen to
Foucault applied the discursive formation in the analyses mean dening reality itself. This conception of discourse
of large bodies of knowledge, such as political economy is largely derived from the work of French philosopher
Michel Foucault.
and natural history.[4]
In the rst sense-usage (semantics and discourse analysis), the word discourse is studied in corpus linguistics. In
the second sense (the codied language of a eld of enquiry), and in the third sense (a statement, un nonc), the
analyses of discourse are eected in the intellectual traditions that investigate and determine the relations among
language and structure and agency, as in the elds of
sociology, feminist studies, anthropology, ethnography,
cultural studies, literary theory, and the philosophy of science. Moreover, because discourses are bodies of text
meant to communicate specic data, information, and
knowledge, there exist internal relations within a given
discourse, and external relations among discourses, because a discourse does not exist in isolation (per se), but
in relation to other discourses, which are determined and
2 Modernism
Modern 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.[6] Modernist
theorists were preoccupied with obtaining the truth and
reality and sought to develop theories which contained
certainty and predictability.[7] Modernist theorists therefore viewed discourse as being relative to talking or way
of talking and understood discourse to be functional.[8]
Discourse and language transformations are ascribed to
progress or the need to develop new or more accurate
1
5 SEE ALSO
Structuralism
5 See also
Analysis of subjective logics
Critical discourse analysis
Discourse Community
Episteme
Interdiscursivity
Parrhesia
Postcolonial literature
The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity - A 1985
essay by Jrgen Habermas, regarded as an important
contribution to Frankfurt School critical theory.
Notes
[13] I. Lessa (2006). Discursive struggles within social welfare: Restaging teen motherhood. British Journal of Social Work 36 (2): 283298. doi:10.1093/bjsw/bch256.
[14] Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972-1977. M Foucault. Selected interviews and
other writings 1972,1977, 1980 - Pantheon
[15] M. Foucault (1972). Archaeology of knowledge. New
York: Pantheon. ISBN 0-415-28752-9.
[16] Foucault, M. (2008) The Birth Of Biopolitics: Lectures at
the Collge de France, 1978-1979. New York: Palgrave
MacMillan.
References
M. Foucault (1977). Discipline and Punish. New
York: Pantheon. ISBN 0-394-49942-5.
M. Foucault (1980). Two Lectures, in Colin Gordon, ed., Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews.
New York: Pantheon.
8 External links
Interdisciplinary research portal discourse analysis.
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Beyond Open Access: Open Discourse, the next
great equalizer, Retrovirology 2006, 3:55
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