Discourse studies, development and issues

Vuk Vukotic,
PhD student,
Institute of Lithuanian Language

Introduction – focus on discourse

DA is by no means an exclusively linguistic field. The attention discourse received in

social research has brought language (and, thus, linguistic analysis) in the focus of social
sciences. The revolutionary thought that started this was that language was no longer considered
a mirror of the social world; it is in fact central to constructing that world (Nikander, 2008: 2).
This was a part of the great philosophical shift that happened around the time of the Second
World War, central to the philosophy of social constructionism.

Defining discourse today is not an easy task, not even after it has played an extremely
important role in the development of social sciences in the past five-six decades or so. To
illustrate this, let us take a geographical difference in understanding of the term discourse:

“For example, in British research, the term “discourse” is frequently used

synonymously with “text,” meaning authentic, everyday linguistic communication.
The French “discours,” however, focuses more on the connection between
language and thought, for instance meaning “creation and societal maintenance of
complex knowledge systems” (...). In German pragmatics “Diskurs” denotes
“structured sets of speech acts.” In the analysis of discourse, the meaning of the
notion of discourse is therefore closely linked to the particular research context and
theoretical approach” (Wodak, 2006: 597)

Giving a complete analysis of the position of DA in philosophy and the field of social
sciences is beyond the scope of this task, therefore I limit the aim of this paper a historical
overview of the development of and discourse analysis (DA) in the field of linguistics. I begin
from the relationship between discourse studies (DS) and structural linguistics of Ferdinand de
Saussure, continuing to the place it received in the development of many linguistic fields in the
past 70 years, as well as contemporary theoretical and methodological trends.

Relationship to structuralism

The beginnings of DA thought in the field of linguistic science can be traced back to
criticism directed towards Ferdinand de Saussure’s structuralist linguistic tradition. This was also
an argument for functionalist against formalist linguistics: Through study of discourse, we can
find usage-based explanations of languages’ inner logic. In this section, I will present the
development of discourse as a term used in linguistics and social sciences, as well as the main
features and theoretical basis of DS.

If we go back to the origins of linguistic as an academic field, we see that Saussure’s

tradition of linguistic research was focusing on one part of the dichotomy he himself made:
between the langue and parole. Here, langue was the supposed object of linguistic study
(Norrick, 2003). The first limitation of this approach was that it was looking at the morpho-
syntactic level of language at highest. The lack of interest for linguistic structures higher than a
sentence was another point for criticism of structural linguistics. Just after the Second World
War, an important name in structuralist linguistics, Zellig Harris (1952) added this next level of
analysis to structural linguistics and, ironically enough, the article that introduced this level was
the first study to carry the name “Discourse analysis”. However, this was not DA in today’s
understanding. Harris treats discourse without context, or in other words, as a part of langue in
the Saussure dichotomy. This structuralist treatment of discourse receives such criticism (van
Dijk, 1980: 14) where it is pointed out that Harris’ discourse analysis was a theory of syntactic
structures. Van Dijk suggests that, if a third level needs to be added it must be the pragmatic level
(1980: 3), or, a level focusing on language use.

“Above” language structure

This brings us the next aspect introduced to DA, because van Dijk was referring to the
growing field of pragmatics. Discourse received different treatment in the Speech Acts Theory
(Austin, 1960, Searle 1969), which laid ground for understanding of discourse as linguistic
action, guided by wider conventions, social and cultural norms. Interest for language beyond the
borders of a sentence and text had become significant, but by now already with the focus on
utterance as a non-arbitrary. This is the logic we we find in Bakhtin (1986), who sees words and
sentences as elements of language and he calls elements of communication - utterances. For him,
utterance is defined not by the linguistic elements, but by the expressive values. A more concrete
development of the supra-sentence level of linguistic analysis was proposed by Beaugrande in
his "Introduction to Text Linguistics" (1981). He listed specific criteria for a text to be considered
discourse (Cohersion, Coherence, Intentionality, Acceptability, Informativeness, Situationality,
Intertextuality).

What also is often neglected is that this new understanding of discourse added another
aspect of language, which in the dominant structuralist tradition was not even considered a part
of the language system, namely phonetics. Intonation, for example, ss Couper-Kuhlen (2001)
points out, received first proper treatment in discourse analysis from an unexpected field, namely
language teaching. She further makes an argument that the book Discourse intonation and
language teaching (Brazil, Coulthard & Johns, 1980) was of key significance for the realization
of the importance of intonation in discourse.
 Going beyond text – sociolinguistics and context

Another level beyond text, the dynamics of conversation was examined by Goffman in
his early works from non-linguistic such as drama, games and ethology (Psathas, 1995).
Arguably the first work to draft issues of everyday talk was Goffman’s work on self-
presenatation (1959), and the first systematic was later systematicized Lakoff’s work (Gordon &
Lakoff, 1971), Forms of talk (Goffman, 1981), and gained the established name Conversation
analysis (CA) in work of Silverman (1998). CA introduced important concepts such as turn-
taking, and introduced real-time analysis of discourse, using recorded and video material –
grounding this field of linguistics very rigorously into the empirical data.

Another aspect of language that was not analysed in Saussurean and Chomskyan
formalist traditions was context of language use, which, for the sake of comparing with structural
linguistics, can here be understood as another supra-linguistic aspect that influences language
and its use. In structuralism, it was denounced as arbitrary, situational, based on individual
choice, a relationship Saussure calls in absentia (1916: 171), meaning is has a psychological,
unobservable reality. In one way, we could say that parole was missing from analysis, but we
also meet serious criticism of the need for such a distinction, as we will see in the following
paragraphs. The first and strongest criticism, from the side of functionalist linguistics, was that
parole (language in context) is the only observable language, while langue isn’t (Weinreich,
Labov, & Herzog, 1968).

The sociolniguistc tradition had great impact on understanding the nature of discourse.
Context was introduced through Labov’s ground-breaking work, all which included discourse
analysis as the main research tool. Firstly, through analysing discourse markers of black New
York speakers, Labov (1968) found different Englishes in speech of New York. He thus
introduced contextual factors such as age, gender, profession to his analysis, starting thus a
tradition of variational sociolinguistics. Revisiting the ideas of the father of linguistics, what
these socilinguistc developments have shown is that the relation between langue and parole, is
not arbitrary or dependant solely on individual choices, but on a great number of variables,
which can be studied systematically. After Labov’s pioneering work, discourse and context
gained much more attention. Around the same time, Gumperz and Hymes had started developing
and innovative approach to studying communicative acts, in which context was systematically
included (arguably for the first time), and they edited a monograph entitled Directions in
sociolinguistics: the ethnography of communication (1972). This gave us a new approach,
heavily influenced by ethnography, called interactive sociolinuistics (Scheffrin, 1994). The
approach provided a method of researching culturally and socially specific meanings in
communication, discourse was now analysed as indexing of contextual information (age,
ethnicity, aggressiveness, collaborative-ness etc.). The goal of such research is to bring detailed
explanations of very specific contexts (such as the workplace) and has proven useful in analysing
cross-cultural communication and is often used in that sphere (Holmes, 2014: 178)
 So far, we have seen elements that make up discourse in relation to text: it has expressive
functions, pragmatic functions, contextual dependency and contextual meanings. This led to
some the main definitions of discourse as “text in contetxt” (Van Dijk, 1990: 164), “language-in-
use” (Brown & Yule, 1983: xiii). To conclude this section, discourse was in the centre of focus
before discourse analysis became established as a field in linguistics, and linguistic theoretical
framework.

Theoretical and methodological trends in DA today

Linguistic study of discourse started gaining firmer theoretical grounds in the ninth
decade of the 20th century. Being such a young field of study and having multidisciplinary roots,
the development of DA in linguistics today non-linear and various, hence the goal of this section
is to present the ongoing debates in the development of DA.

One of the interesting things about discourse is that it has, just like communication
science, been developed in the age of the revolution of research methods in social sciences, and
is in essence multidisciplinary. This poses a question of whether discourse study into a “separate
discipline” is necessary at all. DA was developed from multiple disciplines, and no wonder it
cross-cuts so many disciplines within linguistics, humanities and social sciences. The newest
edition of a comprehensive reader on discourse (van Dijk i ed., 2011), features 18 chapters, each
on a different aspect of DS, of which I only have not mentioned discourse and semantics,
discourse and cognition, discourse racism, discrimination gender and power (studied in CDA),
discourse and culture and discourse and identity.

Nikander (2008: 5) divides the field of DA by two criteria: critical-constructivist and

macropolitical-microlinguistic. The traditions developed that were described in the previous
chapter were based on investigations of the language on the micro level (speech act theory,
variational sociolinguistics etc.), but the focus in DS has turned to the broader political and social
aspects in recent years. Gaining more popularity and becoming the dominant paradigm in
discourse analysis is the Critical discourse analysis (CDA).

CDA builds upon the tradition of criticism of ideology, that same philosophical grounds
in which discourse analysis began in social research and social philosophy. It, therefore, takes its
main social-theoretical roots in works of Michelle Foucault, Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu
(van Dijk, 2001: 364) and Antonio Gramschi (van Dijk, 2001: 355). It starts from the idea that
ideologies are expressed through discourse, not necessarily all the time, but this is the case most
often. Power analysis and social critique are central to CDA; “regular” or “common sense”
thinking about and doing of things is in the service of the powerful, and against the
discriminated, according to scholar considered to be the father of CDA, Norman Fairclough
(1989: 77). The focus of CDA research is for example, public discussion, political debates, hate
speech and discriminatory speech – the broader societal ideologies and power relations are
contained within language.
 As we have seen so far, many schools of thought exist within DA, some even operate on
a very different philosophical basis (CDA, which is based on critique of ideology, which views
ideology as a “mistake” in reasoning, and a constructionist tradition, which views it as inherent
to human nature).

Apart from theoretical, certain methodological issues arise too.Unlike language,

discourse is not too difficult to define, or at least the definitions do not contradict each other.
However, there are issues here too, methodology is one of them. To illustrate the two different
approaches to methodology, we can use Foucault’s words. He listed what discourse is not, and
that is a system of elements/concept that make up a (research) object, but a set of relationships
between discursive events (Wodak, 2006: 596). Wodak means, much in overlap with what
Foucault is saying, that methodology should be retroductive – traceable from the results back to
the premises. Others think that DA should have principles and that students have to be trained in
DA (Widdowson, 2004), which seems like a difficult task, given the area and variety of data
covered by DA. A solution in between is proposed by Jan Bloomaert (2005), who lists five
principles of analysis

1. Analysis must focus on what language means to the users.

2. We need to contextualize language and use in a model for every analysis, because
language operates differently in different situations and environments.
3. The unit of analysis is “actual and densely contextualized forms in which
language occurs in society” (Jan Bloomaert, 2005: 15, italics in original)
4. Language use is not free, but often follow repertoires, which limit the possibility
of elements used. The distribution of these elements is always, in every society, unequal.
The notion of voice is used to relate to sociolinguistic factors mitigating communication –
as a bridge between sociolinguistics and DA.
5. Communication is influenced by the “structure of the world system”, meaning
contextualization should not only be on the level of society, but must include societies in
the world system, as defined by Wallerstein (1983).

Blommaert, like many leading DA theoreticians, think that ideology and social relations
in the global era must not be ignored, and draws on a neo-Maxist (Wallerstein’s) explanation of
the globalized world and economy to illustrate that context is global. This is one of the main
theoretical divisions in DA today, and one point of criticism – it seems that CDA authors use
Foucault’s words, but analyse power relations held by actors, not taking into consideration
Foucault’s understanding of discourse as “subject-less” (Wodak, 2006: 602). Here I also wish to
mention the issue of the multidisciplinary nature of discourse. Lakoff (2004) calls for a theory of
discourse as interdisciplinary: She illustrates her point, using an analysis of the discourse of
apology (a particularly difficult type of discourse with many sub-types) to show that what is in
play is everything from phonology to neurology and sociology. Whether this is the solution to the
diverse nature and traditions in DA, we cannot know, but we know that discourse is gaining
much attention in the last years (major publications – from textbooks and readers to monographs
– on discourse are still published greatly), we can surely say that interesting theoretical debates
are yet to come.
References (chronologically):

 De Saussure, F. (1959). Course in general linguistics, trans. Available on:

https://archive.org/details/courseingenerall00saus.
 Harris, Z. S. (1952) Discourse Analysis. Language, 28, 1-30.
 Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life.

 Austin, J. (1960) How to do things with words. London: Clarendon Press.

 Labov, W. (1968). A Study of the Non-Standard English of Negro and Puerto

Rican Speakers in New York City. Volume II: The Use of Language in the Speech
Community.
 Weinreich, U., Labov, W., & Herzog, M. (1968). Empirical foundations for a theory of
language change.

 Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech acts: An essay in the philosophy of language.

Cambridge university press.
 Gordon, D., & Lakoff, G. (1971). Conversational postulates (pp. 63-84).
University of Michigan.
 Labov, W. (1972). Sociolinguistic patterns (No. 4). University of Pennsylvania
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 De Beaugrande, R. A., & Dressler, W. U. (1981). Introduction to text linguistics
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 Brazil, D., Coulthard, M., & Johns, C. (1980). Discourse intonation and language
teaching (pp. 1-82). London: Longman.

 Van Dijk, T. A. (1980). Text and context: Explorations in the semantics and
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 Goffman, E. (1981). Forms of talk. University of Pennsylvania Press.

 Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (No. 8). University of
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 Norman, F. (1989). Language and power. London and New York: Longman.

 Van Dijk, T. A. (1990). Social cognition and discourse. Handbook of language

and social psychology, 163-183.

 Schiffrin, D. (1994). Approaches to discourse (Vol. 8). Oxford: Blackwell.

 George Psathas. (1995). Conversation analysis: The study of talk-in-
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 Silverman, D. (1998). Harvey Sacks. Social science and conversation analysis.

Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

 Kohn, M. (2000). Language, power, and persuasion: toward a critique of

deliberative democracy. Constellations, 7(3), 408-429.

 Phillips, N., & Hardy, C. (2002). Discourse analysis. London: Sage.

 Norrick, N. R. (2003). Discourse and Semantics. The handbook of discourse
analysis, 76.

 Lakoff, R. T. (2003). 10 Nine Ways of Looking at Apologies: The Necessity for

Interdisciplinary Theory and Method in Discourse Analysis. The handbook of discourse
analysis, 199.

 Widdowson, H. G. (2004). Text, context, pretext. Critical issue in discourse

analysis. Oxford: Blackwell.

 Wodak, R. (2006). Review focus: boundaries in discourse analysis. Language in

Society, 35(04), 595-611.

 Nikander, P. (2008). Constructionism and discourse analysis. Handbook of

constructionist research, 413-428.
 Van Dijk, T. A. (Ed.). (2011). Discourse studies: A multidisciplinary introduction.
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 Holmes, J. (2014). Doing discourse analysis in sociolinguistics. Research
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