What Is Discourse? PDF

5 What is discourse? 5.1 Introduction In this chapter, I attempt to define one of the most elusive concepts in language studies: discourse. Book length treatises have been written on the meaning of discourse. Yet, few scholars use the term in exactly the same way. The object of this chapter, then,...

5 What is discourse? 5.1 Introduction In this chapter, I attempt to define one of the most elusive concepts in language studies: discourse. Book length treatises have been written on the meaning of discourse. Yet, few scholars use the term in exactly the same way. The object of this chapter, then, is to provide an operationalization of discourse as it is used for the purposes of this book. I begin by artificially and somewhat simplistically dividing definitions of discourse into two discrete categories, for the sake of practicality. I briefly trace the roots of the term, highlighting some of the most influential thinkers in the development of current understandings of discourse. I also gloss over some of the critical approaches to discourse analysis and dis- course studies and their main exponents. In order to give the reader a feel for the kinds of work that are undertaken outside the central critical discourse domains, I touch on some of the topics that are commonly the object of critical discur- sive inquiry. Some of the key tenets of this tradition of analysis are highlighted throughout the chapter, namely, critique, power, and ideology. The chapter ends with a rationalization of what a discourse analytical approach can offer to herit- age language studies. 5.2 Defining discourse Norman Fairclough, one of the leading figures in critical discourse studies, refers to discourse as a “slippery” term (1992). Indeed, a multitude of competing defi- nitions of discourse can be found in a variety of related scholarly traditions. This may be, at least in part, a direct consequence of the term discourse becoming “common currency in a variety of disciplines: critical theory, sociology, linguis- tics, philosophy, social psychology and many other fields” (Mills 2004: 1). Mills goes on to object to the term being used with the assumption that it is common knowledge and therefore left undefined. However, she claims that this term may have “the widest range of possible significations within literary and cultural theory” and possibly in the social sciences and the humanities. Its ambiguity may be given away by the number of books attempting to define it. Examples include: Discourse: A Critical Introduction (Blommaert 2005), Discourse Analysis (Brown and Yule 1983), Discourse (Cook 2004), Discourse (Howarth and Howarth 2000), and Discourse: The New Critical Idiom (Mills 2004). Therefore, attempting to unproblematically synthesize such conceptual complexity would most likely prove futile, particularly in the context of just a book chapter; as a result, the https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614513841-005 Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 2/9/20 6:36 AM  5.3 Origin, development and perspectives 71 following is a simplified summary of the work of a selection of influential think- ers and discourse conceptualizations, which I hope facilitates the operationaliza- tion of the term, as it may be useful for understanding the discursive construction of HL development. In general terms, discourse refers to extended text—that is, text beyond the sentence level—and is commonly understood to include oral and written lan- guage. While purely linguistic studies may see discourse only in linguistic terms as language in use while concerning themselves with the analysis of elements like syntactic structures, critical discourse analysis (CDA) and critical discourse studies (CDS) acknowledge the social nature of language and regard discourses as social practice. Additionally, it would be possible, given their diversity, to place conceptualizations of discourse on a continuum from narrowly to broadly defined, with branches starting at various points and moving in different direc- tions while intertwiningly crisscrossing one another. For the purposes of this dis- cussion, however, it may suffice to simply look at both ends of the continuum. 5.3 Origin, development and perspectives Discourse can be viewed as mainly linguistic. Almost a century ago, the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure proposed his two-sided model of the linguistic sign, which contained a signifier (the word) and a signified (the object or idea referred to). He also made the distinction between langue (language as system) and parole (roughly equivalent to speech). To Saussure, parole was the external expression of language; a speaker’s actual utterances. Today, we can generically define discourse as language in use, more or less in the Saussurean sense. There- fore, narrower views of discourse may refer to the classic understanding of dis- course as “language above the sentence or clause” (Schiffrin 1994: 23). The focus of analysis from this perspective, then, is on the linguistic structure of linked speech or writing extended beyond the sentence (Savignon 1987). Given that in this book the central appeal of the notion of discourse is its interrelationship with the social, broader definitions are the main focus. Gee (2005) distinguishes between two types of discourses: small “d” and big “D” Discourse. To him, small “d” discourse is language in use, in some ways as regarded in the classic notion, but in other ways going beyond structure itself. He defines this discourse as “how language is used ‘on site’ to enact activities and identities” (7), thus bridging small “d” with big “D” discourse through its functions. Gee goes on to explain how identities and activities are seldom enacted through language in isolation, so to him, when small “d” discourse is combined with what he calls “non-language ‘stuff’” then “big D” Discourses are also at play. Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 2/9/20 6:36 AM 72 5 What is discourse? Gee views language as more than a mere tool for the exchange of information. He argues that language is deeply political in the ways it is used to make visible who we are (identity) and what we do (practice) given that this performance does not only entail language. It is a process that involves valuing, thinking, acting, and interacting in ways that others can recognize as the specific kind of individual we are and the particular activity in which we are engaged. Gee’s understanding of Discourse is much too broad for our purposes, but his emphasis on social practice as the site where Discourses are enacted is central to the present discussion. The broad conceptualization of discourse as seen by Gee can be grouped under the discourse-as-social-practice umbrella. This view is more closely exemplified by scholars using interdisciplinary approaches within the CDA and CDS para- digms. Much of the work conducted from these perspectives has drawn on criti- cal theory, mainly following a European intellectual tradition (Blommaert 2005). Specifically, critical discourse approaches have been influenced by the work of a long list of thinkers—many themselves influenced by Marxist thought—that include Mikhail Bakhtin, Michael Halliday, Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu, Antonio Gramsci, and Michel Foucault. Gramsci, for instance, an Italian thinker who wrote from prison after being incarcerated by Mussolini’s Fascist regime, contributed in several ways to aspects of what became CDS. His conceptualiza- tion of hegemony and other associated terms has become a key factor in critical discourse studies given its suitability for explaining how dominant groups main- tain their positions of power—and thus other aspects of the status quo. Although violence and other forms of coercion are used for such purposes, control is largely maintained through ideological means—embodied in discourse—leading to the formation of a common sense whereby the masses see their own good as depend- ant on the good of the bourgeoisie, in Gramsci’s (1971) terms. Given that this ide- ological work is embodied in discursive practices, it becomes of central impor- tance to our understanding of discourse. To conclude this section, then, we may see understandings of discourse from opposing vantage points. Pennycook (1994) argues that there are two distinct positions that emphasize different factors related to discourse. On the one hand, he argues, language can be seen as the larger concept and discourse only as an instance of language use. On the other hand, discourse can be seen as operating at a higher level and language use being only an instance of discourse. Therefore, I argue that it is possible to see discourse understandings on a multidimensional continuum. One end would contain linguistically based notions of discourse that are interested in how text is connected. The other end, after going through the entire gamut of conceptualizations and variations, would be occupied by notions that privilege the social realm and examine how inequalities are perpetuated Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 2/9/20 6:36 AM  5.3 Origin, development and perspectives 73 through discourse. It should be obvious by now that the arguments advanced in this book take one position or the other at different times. 5.3.1 Michel Foucault’s contributions Arguably, the most influential scholar in this area is Michel Foucault, who saw discourse as social. Foucault was a French philosopher, social theorist, and historian of knowledge. He wrote on power, knowledge, and discourse, making foundational contributions to the conceptualization and development of discourse studies. Foucault was the most cited humanities scholar in 2007, according to the Web of Science. This is a testament to the enormous influence his work on discourse, knowledge, and power continues to have on the whole spectrum of disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities. Foucault’s work focused on public institutions, such as mental hospitals and prisons, and pursued issues like the history of human sexuality. In his book Madness and Civ- ilization (1965), Foucault goes all the way back to the Middle Ages to analyze how lepers and other individuals were excluded from society. Later on, when leprosy had largely disappeared, madness became a cause for social and physical exclu- sion—through institutionalization or banishment—the way leprosy had been in the past. In later works, Foucault became increasingly concerned with the relationship between knowledge and power, especially in Discipline and Punish (1975) and The Archaeology of Knowledge (1972). He conceptualized knowledge as power and often hyphenated both terms as power-knowledge as if they were one and the same. Foucault (e.g., 1980) also saw discourse and practice as the same thing, which is particularly meaningful for the subject of the present book. He acknowledged the fact that discourses are made of signs, but stressed the need to look beyond the linguistic sign. He explained that language does much more than designating things, making it necessary to direct our attention to everything else that discourses do. 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” (2006: 285). In Foucault’s view, social context, particularly institutions, deter- mine the existence of discourse and at the same time, discourse makes possible the production and continuation of the social context (Mills 2004). Institutions are not only discursively produced, but actually produced and reproduced by dis- course. It is within the spectrum of these definitions that most of the work con- ducted from a CDA/CDS perspective takes place, to which we now turn. Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 2/9/20 6:36 AM 74 5 What is discourse? 5.3.2 Critical discourse analysis and critical discourse studies There are at least three distinct—but interrelated—approaches to analysis from a CDA/CDS perspective, which engage in productive intellectual and empirical cross-pollination. Fairclough’s approach uses textual analysis and is largely based on Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (1978), also drawing on Bakhtin’s (1981, 1986) notions of interdiscursivity and dialogism. The critical and sociolog- ical aspects of his work draw on Gramsci (1971), Bourdieu (1977), and Foucault (1972, 1980), among others. Drawing on the above, Fairclough’s work uncovers how discourses come to be formed as a result of a combination of pre-existing dis- courses, genres, and texts, with particular social and political goals (Jaworski and Coupland 1999). Fairclough’s scholarship includes examinations of advertising, media, and political discourse. For instance, in his most cited book, Language and Power (2001), Fairclough uses the concept of synthetic personalization to refer to how language is crafted in mass-oriented discourse in order to create a sense of direct contact with and concern for the consumer of the discourse. Wodak and colleagues have developed the discourse-historical approach, which uses textual analysis in combination with other elements that are under- stood historically—that is, considering their development over time. Departing from Fairclough’s examination of discourse produced for massive consumption, the scholarship from this perspective investigates, often through ethnographic methods, the mechanisms of social inequality achieved through naturally occur- ring discourse. Thus, their work in the Austrian context has analyzed the con- struction of national identity, as well as how discourses can contribute to main- taining the status quo, by, for instance, justifying and obscuring discriminatory practices in society (Wodak et al. 1999). Teun A. van Dijk’s sociocognitive approach addresses, among other issues, the reproduction of racism and prejudice toward different stigmatized groups in Europe, more recently in Spain, and also in Latin America. Van Dijk makes many of his books freely available on his personal website for download, which at the time of writing contained over a dozen volumes. For instance, in the downloada- ble Elite Discourse and Racism (1993), he argues that public elites, such as politi- cians, scholars, and journalists, work in complicity with the mass media, which he describes as “white institutions and business corporations” that work for the “cause” of the dominant groups in society by shaping the attitudes and ideolo- gies toward the powerful majorities. Thus, van Dijk’s work along these lines has analyzed media to demonstrate how knowledge, beliefs, and ideas are internal- ized in people’s minds, leading, on one hand, to the construction of the elite in particular ways (e.g., as benevolent), and on the other, justifying different forms of discrimination against other groups in society. Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 2/9/20 6:36 AM  5.3 Origin, development and perspectives 75 5.3.3 The dialectics of discourse Foucault has famously stated that discourses are systems that talk about and also form the same objects to which the discourses refer. Echoing Foucault, Fairclough claims that language and society exist in a dialectical relationship, thus forming each other. In this view, analyses of language as a system independent of society, its culture, and its power structures suffer from a peculiar paucity—like studying X by only looking at Y. Therefore, analyses using critical discourse approaches see discursive events as two-way processes: they are products of social struc- tures, institutions, and situations, but also producers of them (Fairclough and Wodak 2004). Although there are many differences in how scholars using these approaches may define and analyze discourse, what they share is an interest in challenging and critiquing particular discourses and in investigating how these constitute and are constituted by other social and cultural phenomena. There- fore, a key goal these scholars share is to expose the purposes served by the dis- courses under study. Given that a key commonality CDA/CDS approaches share, as explained in detail by Wodak and Meyer (2009), is the inclusion of four ele- ments: discourse, critique, power, and ideology, all of the work of these scholars deals with how discourses are used to exert power, oppress, or otherwise other individuals and groups for political reasons. Because of the nature of these goals, it is not surprising that the work of the leading scholars in CDA/CDS—and that of others working across disciplines in the rest of the world—often focuses on nega- tively deployed discourses. 5.3.4 Discourse, critique and power across disciplines In his work, Foucault sought to make explicit the ways in which power is found in discourses. When viewed through a Foucauldian lens, discourses always encompass forms of power. Scholarly work that has as one of its central goals the examination and uncovering of discourses of domination cannot be sepa- rated from power and ideology. For instance, Steuter and Wills (2009) analyze the discourses of dehumanization through an examination of how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are covered in Canadian newspaper headlines. They show how the “enemy” (Arab and Muslim leaders, as well as citizens) is constructed as sub-human through the use of animal metaphors, which lead to a positioning of these as expendable. They argue that beyond rhetorical representations, these practices lead to racist abuses and even genocide. In a similar vein, Bhatia used a corpus of official United States government documents and public political discourse produced between 2001 and 2004 in order to analyze the Bush admin- istration’s portrayal of the war on terrorism. She found that, unsurprisingly, the Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 2/9/20 6:36 AM 76 5 What is discourse? rhetoric was full of dichotomizing discourses making us vs. them divisions. More interesting, however, was the construction of discourses that automatically positioned people disagreeing with such ideologies as condoning the actions of terrorists. Critical feminist scholars within cultural studies and in other disciplines often employ analytic approaches from a critical discourse perspective. Iyer (2009), for instance, examined the discourses of patriarchy based on popular media news articles in India, which covered stories of women entrepreneurs in stereotypical ways. Smythe (2006) conducted a Foucauldian analysis of literacy advice given to mothers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing on over three hundred literacy advice publications from Britain and North America, she shows how this type of advice is grounded in conceptualizations of the “good mother,” with implications for the reproduction of gender inequalities in society, among other consequences. Pennycook (1998) wrote a highly cited book length treatment of the colo- nial discourses still attached to English, from a Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) perspective. He argues that the central ideologies within TESOL are rooted in the cultural constructions of colonialism. He posits, for instance, that theories, practices, and contexts of English language teaching should be understood in the historical context of colonialism. He adds that colo- nialism produced the prevalent ways of thinking and behaving in the West. Some of these ways of thinking are present in the discourses that construct dichoto- mies between self and other. Furthermore, Pennycook claims, these dichotomiz- ing discourses construct the West as masculine and mature and the Orient, for instance, as feminine and childish.1 These negatively deployed discourses about the East and West also contain sub-discourses that depict children and women in pejorative ways. A key departure between the study of discourse from a CDA/CDS perspective and the one taken in this book is that my intention is not to uncover such types of discourses—that is, negatively oriented ones—but rather, to make explicit the ways in which linguistic minorities discursively construct the continuation of their languages in the new generations. Hackett and Moore (2011) provide an accessible definition of discourse that fits the focus of this volume. To them, dis- courses are “those shared, structured ways of speaking, thinking, interpreting, and representing things in the world” (4). Following this conceptualization, I take discourses to mean a collection of ideas and opinions—ideologies—about a particular topic, or more concisely, the shared ways of thinking and speaking 1 Pennycook draws to some extent on Said’s (1978, 1993) analyses of some of these issues. Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 2/9/20 6:36 AM  5.4 Discourse and ideology 77 about things in the world. In other words, the book deals with how families that participated in an ethnographic research project talked about HL development. Thus, in this book discourse is operationalized as shared ways of thinking and speaking about HL development. Many of the analysts working in these traditions have attempted to expose, challenge, and substitute discourses of exclusion with discourses of inclusion. As a result of the work of these scholars and many others working within crit- ical studies, cultural studies, feminism, queer theory, ethnic studies, race studies, to name a few, a new community has emerged: the political cor- rectness discourse community. Therefore, even within the work of discourse studies, the dialectics of discourse becomes evident. In other words, talking about exclusionary and oppressive language has the effect of creating a coun- ter-discourse that challenges and changes the way people, objects, and topics are talked about. Subsequent iterations of this dialectic, then, have the poten- tial to change ideology, transform society, and establish a more just social order. 5.4 Discourse and ideology Attempts to define discourse would be incomplete without at the very least a mention of the nature of language. Indeed, ways of understanding discourse are inherently connected to theories of language. A definition of discourse from a critical perspective sees language beyond referentiality. In other words, lan- guage is not only reflective of the world, but constitutive of the world. Thus, rather than just seeing language as neutral, transparent, and transmissive, critical discourse analysts view language as political, interested, and directly implicated in power relations and in the reproduction of inequality. Therefore, echoing Gee and other scholars discussed in this chapter, language is seen and treated as highly ideological. A critical probe into discourses is bound to uncover ideologies, and ideolo- gies of language have particular bearing on the present analysis. As we saw in the previous chapter, language ideologies refer to people’s and communities’ implicit and explicit beliefs, attitudes, and values regarding the worth of their languages. These ideologies also include how those languages ought to be used in their daily lives (Baquedano-Lopez and Kattan 2008). Pêcheux saw discourse as “the place where language and ideology meet” (Fairclough and Wodak 2004: 262). Indeed, ideologies—including ideologies of language—are most commonly expressed dis- cursively; therefore, I maintain that the concepts of discourse and ideology are intimately and necessarily intertwined. Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 2/9/20 6:36 AM 78 5 What is discourse? 5.5 Chapter summary Based on a review of conceptualizations of, and approaches to viewing, the notion of discourse, in this chapter I have developed a tentative definition of this term in relation to heritage languages. Thus, HL discourses can be understood as shared ways of thinking and speaking about HL development and maintenance. Given that this is a rather broad and encompassing definition, it obscures the remarkable variation found across disciplines and areas of research that utilize this notion in one way or another. There are good reasons why discourse has been labeled elusive and inde- finable. Common operationalizations range from purely linguistic to holistically social. On the linguistic extreme, the focus of analysis is on the structures of text beyond the sentence, whereas social perspectives view discourse as social practice. The latter, often exemplified by critical approaches such as critical dis- course analysis and critical discourse studies, see discourse as not neutral, but highly ideological. Therefore, definitions of discourse from these perspectives are always implicated in discussions of ideology, critique, and power. However, an argument can be made that regardless of whether a discursive approach privi- leges linguistic structure or broader social practices, this does not automatically preclude the utilization of critical analytical lenses or the incorporation of cri- tique. As I demonstrate in Chapters 11 and 12, it is possible to conduct microlin- guistic analyses of parent-child interactions from a critical perspective. In these chapters, I attempt to include examinations of power relations as expressed through discourse as well as the way power is established, enacted, maintained, and embodied in discourse. This book does not align entirely with critical discourse analysis and criti- cal discourse studies given that these approaches often look at the ills of society and their relationship to discourse. Instead, this book’s conceptualization of dis- course seeks to describe how minorities discursively construct the continuation of their languages. Yet, the perspective taken in this book does attempt to follow Foucault’s view that the existence of discourse is determined by social context, particularly institutions, and at the same time, discourse makes possible the pro- duction and continuation of the social context. In this view, institutions are not only discursively produced, but actually produced and reproduced by discourse. It is within the spectrum of these definitions that much of the work presented in the book takes place. Brought to you by | Cambridge University Library Authenticated Download Date | 2/9/20 6:36 AM