Discourse

GEE AND CAPITAL/BIG 'D' DISCOURSE

At its basic level, Gee (1999) describes discourse as "the sequence of sentences...It is the ways in which sentences connect and relate to each other across time in speech or writing...Discourse concerns how various sentences fl owing one after the other relate to each other to create meanings or to facilitate interpretation. If we applied the word to film, it would mean a sequence of frames that compose a part or all of a film." (p. 18). Another meaning Gee introduces is that "discourse is language-in-use (language actually used in specific contexts)...[in this frame] language [is] not just as an abstract system (“grammar”), but in terms of actual utterances or sentences in speech or writing in specific contexts of speaking and hearing or writing and reading" (p. 19). This second sense is like studying how people interpret films as they watch them (p. 20). Sometimes linguists say language in context is actually the term pragmatics (p. 20). Discourse is affected by "saying (information),

doing (action), or being (identity)" (p. 20). Gee foregrounds identity and argues that everything we do is filtered through our identities (p. 20).

According to Gee, "So discourse is interactive identity-based communication using language. We therefore need another term for interactive identity-based communication using both language and everything else at human disposal. We call this “Discourse” with a capital “D” or “big D Discourse”" (p. 24). So Big D discourse is not just about language but is also about the social identities and practices involved. "D/discourse theory is concerned with enacting and recognizing socially significant identities. It is about recognition of “kinds of people” in performances in context" (p. 25). "A Discourse is a characteristic way of saying, doing, and being. When you speak or write anything, you use the resources of English to project yourself as a certain kind of person, and a different kind of person in different circumstances" (p. 47). According to Gee, the difference between "d" and "D" discourse is the following, “Discourses” with a capital “D” are "such socially accepted associations among ways of using language, of thinking, valuing, acting, and interacting, in the “right” places and at the “right” times with the “right” objects (associations that can be used to identify oneself as a member of a socially meaningful group" (p. 51)...and "“discourse” with a little “d,” refers to "language-in-use or stretches of language (like conversations or stories). “Big D” Discourses are always language plus “other stuff” (p. 52).

INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE

According to Ericson and Haggerty, “Discourse is the institutional construction of knowledge…What are constructed are representational frameworks: classifications and categories that stand for objects, events, processes, and states of affairs in the world. These frameworks provide the basis for shared understanding, including an understanding of what knowledge is required to enhance, modify, or deny the representation.” (p. 83). Discourse constitutes and is constituted by practice because information must fit a particular form in order to be "stable, mobile, combinable, and comparable" (p.84). To be distinct though, the difference between discourse and practice is that discourse is socially organized, and "social organization is conditioned by discourse" (p.85).

Language

Social language is language without the practices. Add in practices, and you have Discourse. Gee (2013) states, Keep in mind that “social languages” and “Discourses” are terms for

different things. I will use the term “social languages” to talk about the role of language in Discourses. But, as I said above, Discourse always involve more than language. They always involve coordinating language with ways of acting, interacting, valuing, believing, feeling, and with bodies, clothes, nonlinguistic symbols, objects, tools, technologies, times, and places" (p. 63).

According to Gee (2013), "Social languages are different varieties of language that allow us to express different socially significant identities (e.g., talking and writing as a mathematician, doctor, or gang member) and enact different socially meaningful practices or activities (e.g., offering a proof in mathematics, writing a prescription in medicine, demonstrating solidarity with a fellow gang member)...to study language-in-use we need to study more than language alone, we need to study Discourses. Discourses are ways in which we humans integrate words, deeds interactions, thoughts, feelings, objects, tools, times and places to enact and recognize different socially-situated identities." (p. 61).

Capital C Conversations

According to Gee (2013), "As I noted in the previous chapter, I use “Conversations” (with a capital “C”) to refer to debates in society or within specific social groups (over focused issues like smoking, abortion, or school reform) that large numbers of people recognize, both in terms of what “sides” there are to take in such debates and what sorts of people tend to be on each side." (p.61).

Discourse Theory

According to Bernard-Wills, there was the Essex School of discourse theory, and this was drawn on by Laclau and Mouffe (1985). More recent work in social research was done by Glynos and Howarth (2007). Glynos abd Howarth come to two main conclusions: 1) "all practices and regimes are discursive entities" (p. 167) and 2) "any field of discursive social relations is marked by radical contingency" (p. 167). This means that objects have their meanings placed on them by others through systems of meanings (discourses), and are pulled together into regimes by shared discourse. Also, there is no "fully formed constitutive essence of any practice, regime or object," so there is no concept of a fixed meaning (p. 168). "Hegemony then refers to the way that particular discourse dominate articulatory practice, becoming powerful ways of speaking and understanding the world. The conspt of hegemony is therefore really a way of speaking about fixity and discursive power within a context of radical contingency" (p. 169).

References:

Ericson, R. V., & Haggerty, K.D. (1997). The Risk Society. In R.V. Ericson & K.D. Haggerty (Eds.) Policing the risk society (pp. 81-130). U of Toronto: Toronto.

Gee, J.P. (2013). An introduction to discourse analysis theory and method. London: Routledge.

Jansson, A.,& Christensen, M. (2014). Media, surveillance and identity: Social perspective. New York: Peter Lang.