Poststructuralist Discourse Studies: From Structure to Practice

doi:10.1017/9781108348195.012

11 - Poststructuralist Discourse Studies: From Structure to Practice

from Part II - Perspectives and Modes of Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2020

Johannes Angermuller

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Anna De Fina and

Alexandra Georgakopoulou

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Anna De Fina: Affiliation:
Georgetown University, Washington DC
Alexandra Georgakopoulou: Affiliation:
King's College London

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Summary

Poststructuralism has brought social, cultural and political theories into a productive exchange with methods and tools for analyzing text and talk. My contribution outlines the contours of poststructuralist discourse studies (PDS), which is an interdisciplinary field of discourse research inspired by poststructuralism. It gives an overview of poststructuralism, tracing its evolution and identifying its key questions. I then spell out the consequences of poststructuralism for discourse studies, where it has given birth to the new field of PDS. PDS critically relates to the structuralist, top-down tendencies that have characterized some of the pioneering “French School” and “Critical” strands in discourse studies. It defends posthumanist and antiessentialist views on power and knowledge. Perceiving language as a socially constitutive practice, it places emphasis on the critical and reflexive dimensions of discourse research. Situated at the interdisciplinary intersection of language and society, PDS aims to bridge structure- and practice-oriented strands of discourse research and to overcome the divisions between linguistics and other disciplines in the social sciences and humanities.

Keywords

Discourse social practice poststructuralism reality as social construction French School critical approaches representation agency reflexivity

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Discourse Studies , pp. 235 - 254

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108348195.012 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2020

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