1,721,082 research outputs found
Minority activism as a technology of the self: an illustrated outline for an interpretive and functional approach to discourse and subjectivity
No full textAbstract: Political activism is an umbrella term for a multiplicity of activities through which subjects publicly (re-) articulate social relations and redistribute various forms of capital by means of imagined public action. Activist practices do not only impact on (one’s relationship towards) society but also on one’s relationship towards oneself (Zienkowski 2013). It therefore functions as a technology of the self through which one constructs a particular mode of awareness of who and what one is as a human being (Foucault 1982, 1988, Holstein and Gubrium 2000). Changes in this awareness are frequently marked in talk about self and politics. This will be evidenced with reference to interviews conducted with Moroccan activists and intellectuals in the Flemish (Belgian) minority debates (Zienkowski 2011). An understanding of the way activists shape a sense of coherence requires insight into their linguistic and metalinguistic strategies (Mertz and Yovel 2009, Zienkowski 2012, Verschueren 2004, Hübler and Bublitz 2007). The establishment of a critical world-view requires a complex articulation of oneself to a whole set of experiences, individuals, institutions and practices. With reference to poststructuralist and linguistic pragmatic insights, the author argues that these processes are frequently indexed in concrete language use (Verschueren 1999, Robinson 2006, Verschueren 2011, Glynos and Howarth 2007, 2008). A focus on these indexical references allows for an analysis of the large-scale interpretive processes that prompt political activism. Keywords: discourse theory, linguistic pragmatics, subjectivity, politics, activism, interviews, self-technique Bibliography Foucault, Michel. 1982. "Technologies of the self." In Michel Foucault: ethics: subjectivity and truth, edited by Paul Rabinow, 223-251. London: Penguin Books. Foucault, Michel. 1988. "The political technology of individuals." In Michel Foucault: power: essential works of Michel Foucault, edited by James Faubion, 403-417. London: Penguin Books. Glynos, Jason, and David Howarth. 2007. Logics of critical explanation in social and political theory. London: Routledge. Glynos, Jason, and David Howarth. 2008. "Structure, agency and power in political analysis: beyond contextualised self-interpretations." Political Studies Review no. 6:155-169. Holstein, James A. and Jaber F. Gubrium. 2000. The self we live by: narrative identity in a postmodern world. New York: Oxford University Press. Hübler, Axel, and Wolfram Bublitz. 2007. "Introducing metapragmatics in use." In Metapragmatics in use, edited by Wolfram Bublitz and Axel Hübler, 1-26. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mertz, Elizabeth, and Jonathan Yovel. 2009. "Metalinguistic awareness." In Cognition and pragmatics, edited by Dominiek Sandra, Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, 250-271. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Robinson, Douglas. 2006. Introducing performative pragmatics. London / New York: Routledge. Verschueren, Jef. 1999. Understanding pragmatics. 2003 ed. London: Arnold. Verschueren, Jef. 2004. "Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use." In Metalanguage: social and ideological perspectives, edited by Adam Jaworski, Nikolas Coupland and Dariusz Galasinski, 53-74. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Verschueren, Jef. 2011. Ideology in language use: pragmatic guidelines for empirical research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zienkowski, Jan. 2011. Analysing political engagement: an interpretive and functionalist discourse analysis of evolving political subjectivities among public activists and intellectuals with a Moroccan background in Flanders. Phd, Dept. of Linguistics, University of Antwerp, Antwerp. Zienkowski, Jan. 2012. "Overcoming the post-structuralist methodological deficit: metapragmatic markers and interpretive logics in a critique of the Bologna process." Pragmatics: quarterly publication of the international pragmatics association no. 22 (3):501-534. Zienkowski, Jan. 2013. "Marking subjectivity in interviews on political engagement: interpretive logics and the metapragmatics of identity." In Was machen Marker? Logik, Materialität und Politik von Differenzierungsprozessen, edited by Eva Bonn, Christian Knöppler and Miguel Souza, 85-112. Berlin: Transcript.info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe
Critique and reflexivity in discourse on racism's relativity in Flanders
No full textThis paper provides a theoretical exploration of the double-edged issue of critique and reflexivity in discourse studies. The analysis is based on the notion of articulatory practice as developed within Essex discourse theory and on pragmatic understandings of metalinguistic awareness. The author argues that any adequate understanding of the critical and reflexive dimensions of discourse as conceptualized in discourse theory has a lot to gain with an integration of pragmatic perspectives on meta-discourse. In order to demonstrate what such an enriched notion of articulation implies for empirical discourse studies, the author will analyse the debate on the relativity of racism as it has been waged for the past three years in Belgium in newspapers and mainstream media. The author will focus on the way principles of reflexivity and critique are marked in critiques of the racism-is-relative trope uttered by a new generation of Flemish nationalist. Doing so, he seeks to reconstruct the metapragmatic structure of this debate while simultaneously arguing in favour of a notion of articulation that takes the metalinguistic features of discursive practice into account.info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe
Politics and the political in discourse studies: state of the art and a call for an intensified focus on the meta political dimension of communication
No full textBased on an overview of the ways in which politics and the political have been thought in critical discourse analysis (CDA), the author calls for a focus on the metapolitical dimension of discourse. The author develops his notion of metapolitics on the basis of post-foundational insights into politics, the political and processes of (de-) politicization. Metapolitics refers to projects and struggles where conflicting modes and models of politics clash. Metapolitical debates potentially reshape the structure of the public realm as well as the entities, borders and processes that constitute it. The author differentiates his use of the term from the way this signifier has been used by the New Right and its heirs. Doing so, he demonstrates that metapolitical projects can be democratic as well as anti-democratic. In order to facilitate discourse analyses of metapolitical projects, debates and struggles, the author suggests that the metapolitical dimension of contemporary debates can be explored further by integrating insights from governmentality studies, studies of political rationality and the discourse theoretical logics approach further into existing approaches within critical discourse studies.info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe
Marking a sense of self and politics in interviews on political engagement :Interpretive logics and the metapragmatics of identity
No full textThis paper explores the relationship between notions of self and politics in discourse on political engagement. By means of a heuristic inspired by the poststructuralist notion of logic and the pragmatic concept of metapragmatic awareness, the author argues that metapragmatic markers play an important role in communicating interpretive processes that inform preferred and disavowed modes of subjectivity. He relies on an interview conducted with an activist involved in Flemish minority politics in order to show how activists distinguish between preferred and disavowed modes of politics. In dealing with the multiplicity of identities and issues that constitute political debates, activists need to establish and communicate some degree of coherence. Metapragmatic awareness allows interlocutors to establish patterns of coherence that can be described in terms of interpretive logics. The author presents a strong case for taking the reflexive awareness of language users into account when studying society-wide debates.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Critical discourse interventions of public intellectuals as counter-hegemonic strategies
No full textThis paper investigates the ‘critical discursive interventions’ (CDI) of Flemish intellectuals in the debates about the austerity reforms proposed by the winning political party of the triple regional, federal and European elections in Belgium of 2014. CDI’s can be defined as strategic performances aimed at a re-articulation of existing social, economic and / or political inequalities in the public realm through publicly accessible media. Debates are thereby considered in terms of negotiations over the adaptable (meaning of) resources, identities, practices and concepts that define our societies. In principle, every type of citizen can participate in such debates. However, in this paper the author focuses on the discursive strategies used by academic and public intellectuals. Special attention will go to discussions about the ‘index’ through which the Belgian government automatically adapts wages to changes in the costs of key products of consumption. This Belgian welfare policy has been one of the main objects of critique that the winning neoliberal and nationalist party called N-VA (New Flemish Alliance) attacked. The author will provide an interpretive and functional discourse analysis based on pragmatic and poststructuralist heuristic principles. This will result in an analysis of the types of critique Flemish intellectuals articulate in online and offline texts. The author will ask how and to what extent the CDI’s under investigation challenged the fantastic dimensions of the hegemonic project underlying the proposed austerity measures. As such, this paper is intended to contribute a more accurate understanding of the interface between academic and political discourse.info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe
Critique as a performative practice of (re-)articulation: on the need to elaborate on the pragmatic dimension of discourse in Essex style discourse theory
No full textEssex style discourse theory has always taken issues of power and inequality as its main objects of theoretical and empirical reflection and critique. However, in spite of some promising recent innovations, its register is frequently deemed to be too fuzzy or abstract, its program to impractical, its strategies too vague for its critique to be effective for anyone outside the circle of its practitioners. In addition, the approach is haunted by a methodological deficit. The author of this chapter argues that many of these issues could be addressed by a more careful consideration of the pragmatic dimension of articulatory practice. The most basic element of discourse in Essex style discourse theory is the analytic unit of ‘articulation’. Articulations are usually conceived of as semiotic links between elements whose meanings are changed in the very process of linkage. The elements in question may be sentences, statements, texts, identities, practices, and/or institutions. The author argues that while valid, this emphasis on articulation as a linkage often leads to a formalism that abstracts discourse from concrete contexts of enunciation, severely hindering the critical potential of poststructuralist discourse theoretical analyses. The most powerful forms of social and political critique involve a reflexive and performative re-articulation of existing power relations into discourses that are able to open up space for counter-hegemonic voices and projects. Critique does not merely imply an awareness of the way discourses are constructed through difference and equivalence. It also implies an awareness of the specific ways in which such links and dissociations are performed and called into being. Effective critical performances need to be alienating enough to allow for new meanings to emerge but also need to retain some kind of link to the contexts in which the criticized discourses were articulated in the first place. The author proposes to consider the pragmatic dimension of articulatory practices more carefully in poststructuralist discourse analysis and critique. In order to explore the heursitic and theoretical implications of such a perspective, he will provide a brief analysis of a debate on labor unions and their right to strike in the context of Flemish (Belgian) austerity politics. All power is relational and all relationships need to be performed if they are to endure in ontologically instable social and political environments. In this analysis, the author will show how subjects can be shown to be partially aware of the contingent ways in which social and political relationships are established discursively. He argues type of metapragmatic or metadiscursive awareness is the sine que non for political awareness to emerge.info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe
Articulating metalinguistic and political awareness in Flemish discourses on integration and allochthony
No full textAbstract: This article focuses on the way actors involved in the Flemish minority debates construct alternative modes of subjectivity and political awareness in the debate on the integration of allochthon minority members. Resistance to hegemonic discourse requires articulatory practices marked by a high degree of metalinguistic awareness. This type of awareness is necessary in order to distinguish between preferred and disavowed modes of activism and subjectivity. Through his analyses of the decision of newspaper De Morgen to ban the notion of allochthony and of an interview with a former Arab European League member, the author demonstrates that subjects can grip ideological elements actively through metalinguistic strategies. He argues that an understanding of resistance to hegemonic logics requires an understanding of metalinguistic awareness as marked in concrete texts and interactions. The author argues in favour of a methodological and theoretical articulation of poststructuralist discourse theory and linguistic pragmatics
Challenging nationalist definitions of racism: critical discursive interventions in the Flemish debates on racism's relativity
No full textThis paper proposes a notion of critique as a public metadiscourse that allows subjects to recognize, rearticulate and/or reconfigure the logics and rationalities that lead to social suffering. It analyses the way critique operates in a controversy triggered by Flemish nationalist politicians who claim that racism is [a] relative [concept]. The author proposes to analyse the associated debate by means of an interpretive and functional discourse analysis. This heuristic operationalizes the poststructuralist concept of articulation. The author identifies different types of critical discursive intervention (CDI) that delineate the boundaries of the racism-is-relative debate: hegemonic claims, ideological disqualifications, metalinguistic disqualifications, and concretization strategies. Such interventions haven been articulated by citizens, activists, academics, and politicians across a variety of mostly written media between 2013 and 2015. It is through the play of discursive interventions that social actors challenge and negotiate political boundaries for interpretation. The article demonstrates that most critiques on assertions of racism being [a] relative [concept] do not undermine the logics and rationalities informing racism- is-relative discourse. It also shows that discourse analysts need to differentiate between different modes of critique in order to examine the complex acts of rearticulation that take place in any debate.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
Active interviews in interpretive and functional discourse studies
No full textThis paper explores the implications of treating interviews as interactional self-techniques in discourse studies. After a brief exploration of the way interview data have been conceptualized in social science and in the humanities, the author proposes to consider interviews as language games performed by active interviewers and interviewees (Briggs, 2003; Gubrium and Holstein, 2003b; Briggs, 2009; Briggs, 1986; Gubrium and Holstein, 2003a). He then shows how such a postmodern perspective on the interview can generate useful knowledge for researchers active in the field of discourse studies (Zienkowski, 2016). Discourse studies can be understood as a transdisciplinary field of inquiry whose investigators focus on different dimensions of the functional and interpretive relationships between language(s), signs, practices, institutions and histories. Consequently, interview data need to be dealt with through interpretive and functional research questions and strategies that are compatible with the epistemological and ontological frameworks informing contemporary understandings of discourse.info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublishe
Politics and the political in critical discourse studies: state of the art and a call for an intensified focus on the metapolitical dimension of discursive practice
No full textBased on an overview of the ways in which politics and the political have been thought in critical discourse analysis (CDA), the author calls for a focus on the metapolitical dimension of discourse. The author develops his notion of metapolitics on the basis of post-foundational insights into politics, the political and processes of (de-) politicization. Metapolitics refers to projects and struggles where conflicting modes and models of politics clash. Metapolitical debates potentially reshape the structure of the public realm as well as the entities, borders and processes that constitute it. The author differentiates his descriptive and analytic use of the term from the way this signifier has been used programmatically by the anti-democratic New Right and its heirs. He demonstrates that metapolitical projects can be democratic as well as anti-democratic. In order to facilitate discourse analyses of metapolitical projects, debates and struggles, the author suggests that the metapolitical dimension of contemporary debates can be explored further by integrating insights from governmentality studies, studies of political rationality and the discourse theoretical logics approach with CDA. Moreover, a further exploration of the linguistic and textual underpinnings of metapolitics constitutes a promising pathway for future investigation. The study of metapolitics should be part and parcel of the transdisciplinary domain of critical discourse studies so that our understanding of the linguistic and non-linguistic features of metapolitical projects can be developed in equal measure at multiple levels of abstraction.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe
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