Connecting the dots: Mapping the field of discourse by reading across texts

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Connecting the dots Mapping the field of
discourse by reading across texts

• The reading program and practices (Sue Phil)
• Chris
• Connecting power in texts (John)
• Intertextual mappings (Phil Sue)
• Seeing ghosts (Jenni)
• Weaving texts (Ann)

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The intertextual reading program

• Primary texts
• The big names
• eg Volosinov, V. N. (1986). Marxism and the
  Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, Mass.
  Translated by L. Matejka I. R. Titunik, Harvard
  University Press.

• Survey texts
• Different mappings of the field
• eg Threadgold, T. (1986). The semiotics of
  Volosinov, Halliday and Eco. American Journal of
  Semiotics, 4(3), 107-142.

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Reading group practices

• collaborative reading
• making visible our readings to others
• marking texts
• reading aloud
• drawing the discussion
• using metaphors
• word tracing

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Reading the shape of the argument

• As a living, socio-ideological concrete thing, as
  heteroglot opinion, language, for the individual
  consciousness, lies on the borderline between
  oneself and another. (Bakhtin 1981, p.293)

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Reading aloud (1)

• In any given historical moment of
  verbal-ideological life, each generation at each
  social level has its own language moreover,
  every age group has as a matter of fact its own
  language, its own vocabulary, its own particular
  accentual system that, in their turn, vary
  depending on the social level, academic
  institution (the language of the cadet, the high
  school student, the trade school student are all
  different languages) and other stratifying
  factors.
• Bakhtin 1981, Discourse in the Novel p.290

Red emphasised Blue de-emphasised
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Reading the quotation marks
And finally, at any given moment, languages of
various epochs and periods of socio-ideological
life cohabit with one another. Even languages of
the day exist one could say that todays and
yesterdays socio-ideological and political day
do not, in a certain sense, share the same
language every day represents another
socio-ideological semantic state of affairs,
another vocabulary another accentual system,
with its own slogans, its own ways of assigning
blame and praise. Bakhtin 1981, Discourse in the
Novel, p.291
And finally, at any given moment, languages of
various epochs and periods of socio-ideological
life cohabit with one another. Even languages of
the day exist one could say that todays and
yesterdays socio-ideological and political day
do not, in a certain sense, share the same
language every day represents another
socio-ideological semantic state of affairs,
another vocabulary another accentual system,
with its own slogans, its own ways of assigning
blame and praise. Bakhtin 1981, Discourse in the
Novel, p.291
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Some metaphors for intertextuality

• Mapping
• Layers
• Ghosts
• Echoes
• Weaving
• Net(works)
• Rays
• Collage

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Intertextual mappings
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Althusser
Pecheux
Lacan
Sawyer
Bourdieu
Foucault
Threadgold
Lemke
Volosinov
Bakhtin
Halliday
Bernstein
Eco
Saussure
Kress
Chomsky
Labov
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Sawyer
Foucault
Threadgold
Lemke
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Althusser
Pecheux
Lacan
Sawyer
Foucault
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The geography of discourse
Discourse French theory?
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Time and Space
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Dislocations
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The Anglo take-up of discourse (Sawyer 2002)
British Marxists late 70s Hindess
Hirst Laclau Hall
Althusser Lacan Pechêux
Gramsci
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Threadgold introduces Halliday to the USA
Bakhtin
Eco
Halliday
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Stop!
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• One tries in this way to discover how the
  recurrent elements of statements can reappear
  dissociate recompose gain in extension or
  determination, be taken up by new logical
  structures, acquire, on the other hand, new
  semantic contents

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The concept of discourse is crucial to
post-structural accounts of the relation between
individuals and socially available meaning
systems (Agger 1991 Baker 1995 Davies 1993a a
1989, 1992 Gee 1990 Loveridge 1990 Luke 1995
Luke Luke 1992 Parker 1992 Smith 1990
Walkerdine 1988 Weedon 1987). Discourse can be
understood to have both a general and a specific
meaning. The term 'discourse' is used in
post-structural theory to refer in a general way
to the continual process of constituting social
reality through language and practice. This use
of discourse originates with Foucault whose
socio-historical analyses have demonstrated that
not only particular classes of persons (eg the
delinquent, the homosexual), but
taken-for-granted modes of experiencing social
reality, have been made possible through the
speaking of them into existence (Foucault 1990
Rabinow 1991, Sheridan 1980). It is in this sense
that theorists refer to discourse as an agent
able to act in the world. Gee (1990), for
instance, states It is not individuals who
speak and act, but rather ... historically and
socially defined Discourses speak to each other
through individuals. (p. 145) 'Discourse' is also
used to refer to specific meaning systems which
are identified both by their characteristic
structural features and by their characteristic
effects. Structural features might include
relations between key terms (eg 'mother' and
'baby') while effects might involve particular
institutional practices (eg the practice of
infant health checks). Effects can also be traced
at the level of individual subjectivity (eg in
the terms mothers commonly use to describe
themselves in relation to their baby) (Urwin
1984).