Discourse Analysis

Recent years have brought a flurry of excitement about the concept of discourse and the importance of discourse analysis in the human and social sciences. This has led to a growing set of contested definitions and competing theoretical assumptions, as well as [Page 274]rival methods and research strategies. But it has also meant that the concept of discourse and the methods of discourse analysis vary widely with respect to their scope and complexity. Alongside traditional concerns with the importance of ‘talk and text in context’, which includes conversation analysis, speech act theory and various forms of hermeneutical research, Foucault and his many followers have developed archaeological and genealogical approaches to analyze scientific discourses and systems of power or knowledge; Norman Fairclough and others have elaborated ‘critical discourse analysis’, whilst Wodak has articulated a distinctive form of ‘historical discourse analysis’. In the fields of policy analysis, Maarten Hajer has developed a form of ‘argumentative discourse analysis’, while Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe and others have articulated a post-Marxist theory of discourse, which they apply to the emergence, sedimentation and transformation of social formations.

Such expansion in the scope and complexity of discourse analysis in the human and social sciences arose in part because of the impact of speech act theory and the evolution of linguistic philosophy, which has gradually moved the study of language away from a concern simply with the meanings of individual words, signifiers, phrases and sentences to a consideration of the wider linguistic and non-linguistic contexts within which these linguistic events or occurrences take place. What is more, the contexts are seen to include the associated forms of action and behaviour that are entailed by different forms of speaking or writing. As some philosophers have argued, linguistic utterances like ‘I promise’ are not just words, signs or even assertions but acts and discursive practices that carry a certain force and consequence. Action researchers may utilize discourse analysis, particularly in the context of doctoral research.

In an important sense, the various kinds of approaches elaborated in the social sciences reflect the different starting points of the various theorists or researchers involved, as well as the specific conceptual and theoretical resources they draw upon in elaborating their perspectives. For example, what might be called post-structuralist or post-Marxist discourse theory stems from initial attempts to use the work of Antonio Gramsci to tackle problems of class reductionism and economic determinism in Marxist theories of politics and ideology, which can be captured under the sign of essentialism in general.

Discourse and discourse analysis have been used to explore multiple themes and objects in the social sciences. But one set of questions that casts its shadow over many of these themes is the relationship between power, subjectivity and social practice. How, then, should this critical set of connections be conceptualized in the social sciences? Amongst the various approaches that have sought to connect these elements, the work of Foucault and his followers, on the one hand, and the writings of Laclau and Mouffe and their followers, on the other, are probably the most developed, and this entry examines their accounts in more detail.

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