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The paper examines the challenges of implementing Habermas's formal-pragmatic theory of discourse within the context of urban regeneration in Ferguslie Park, Scotland. It critiques the gap between idealized rational discourse and actual discourse practices, particularly how social identities influence meaningful participation in discussions aimed at forming a general community will. Through a case study of community partnership efforts, the authors explore the discrepancies and barriers faced, advocating for a better understanding of rational procedures to foster just norms in practice.
Communication Theory, 1997
In Habermas's formal-pragmatic theory of discourse a rational (emancipated) society will be one which tends towards institutionalizing procedures characteristic of an ideal speech situation. Particular strategic interests are to be subsumed, for the purposes of rational discussion of social ends, in a larger process of rational will formation. This involves a movement from the I or the Us of the particular individual or group interest, to the we of the general interest. The problem of institutionalizing the procedures which are to facilitate such a movement raises two sets of questions. The first is to do with formal procedures and invites us to “measure the gap” between the ideal and the actual. However, the problem of institutionalization requires also that we explain this outcome, and seek to identify obstacles to the desired movement. This second question of explanation raises issues to do with the social identities of participants in the process. This paper seeks to address both of these questions in the context of one, at least apparent, attempt to institutionalize procedures similar to those advocated by Habermas in our locality.
2008
Laclauian discourse theory, as well as its main source of inspiration, deconstruction, aims to underline change, instability, process. If the theoretical “foundation ” can be put to a single line, it would be the affirmation of un-limitability of the productivity of a signifying chain. However, as both Laclau and Derrida have pointed out several times, dissemination only takes place on the background of some kind of stability, some kind of fixity. The question is how to conceive of this fixity or reproduction. Within social science one traditional answer has been to affirm institutions as some sort of middle layer between (social) structure and agency. Discourse theory offers a conceptualisation where institutions are concieved of as a moment or a logic working at the same time as destabilising or de-institutionalising moments or logics. The prime concept in Laclau’s discourse theory for thinking fixations and stabilisations is (a reinterpretation of the Husserlian concept of) sedim...
Critical Discourse Studies, 2010
Academy of Management Review, 2006
The conceptualization of human agency is one of the oldest and most debated challenges in political theory. This essay defends the continuous relevance of this endeavour against a proliferating theoretical pessimism. Instead of engaging the much rehearsed structure-agency debate, the author conceptualizes agency in relation to discourses. However, such an approach inevitably elicits suspicion. Is discourse not merely a faddish term, destined to wax and wane with fleeting intellectual trends of the postmodern and poststructural kind? Does the concept of discourse, as many fear, suck us into a nihilistic vortex and deprive us of the stable foundations that are necessary to ground our thoughts and actions? Not so, argues this essay, and defends an anti-essentialist stance as the most viable chance for retaining an adequate understanding of how people situate themselves as agents and influence their socio-political environment. The ensuing analysis, which focuses on everyday forms of resistance, demonstrates how the very acceptance of ambiguity, often misrepresented as relativism, is a crucial precondition not only for the conceptualization of human agency, but also for its actual application in practice.
Journal of Language and Politics
Discourse & Society, 2011
From an interdisciplinary framework anchored theoretically in Critical Discourse Analysis and using analytical tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics, this article accounts for a crucial use of language in society: the process of legitimization. This article explains specific linguistic ways in which language represents an instrument of control (Hodge and Kress, 1993: 6) and manifests symbolic power in discourse and society. Taking into account previous studies on legitimization (i.e. Martín
2016
This dissertation was made possible through the generous support of many individuals, both within and outside the classroom. I am especially grateful to my dissertation committee-Drs. Beth Brunk-Chavez, Kate Mangelsdorf, and Keith Erekson, as well as to the person who got me into this mess in the first place, Dr. Maggy Smith, chair of UTEP's English department. In addition, I extend many thanks to the Graduate School at UTEP for funding much of my research on archives through a Dodson Research Grant. Of course, there is my family who supported me every step of the way. This includes my dear mother, Junene, and my wife, Patricia, my mother-in-law, Davie Johnson, and the rest of the clan. I wish to extend a hearty thanks to my cohort, including the newly minted doctors of rhetoric and composition, which include
2010
1. Introduction: social actors and contextsThis chapter investigates how the two notions of social actors and contexts, both of which are central in critical discourse analysis (CDA), can be drawn on in the analysis of collective identity in discourse. The concept of social actors used here is indebted to van Leeuwen's (1996) taxonomy of social actor representation, which is combined with a description of other linguistic features such as evaluation, process types and modality.
2004
Abstract We argue that the processes underlying institutionalization have not been investigated adequately and that discourse analysis provides a coherent framework for such investigation. Accordingly, we develop a discursive model of institutionalization that highlights the relationships among texts, discourse, institutions, and action.
2013
In this essay, I aim at putting forward a development of a specific achievement of John R. Searle’s speech acts theory and social ontology on the normative constraints build into the structure of mind and language, through an integration with Margaret Gilbert’s notion of joint commitment (1989; 1996; 2006) and Jürgen Habermas’ notion of illocutionary bind (1984), which leads to highlighting the critical role of collective recognition in both communicative and institutional games. I want, more specifically, to develop a critical perspective on social ontology that prefigures the role of a special moral criterion of validity for all our acts—linguistic as well as institutional—that I identify as a criterion of fairness. I find some trace of it in John L. Austin’s intuition of the role of justness as a criterion for the assessment of the felicity of advice, reprimands, and verdicts. However, unlike Austin, I aim to show that the criterion of fairness is not an analogue of truth, but an...
This article takes a critical approach to the study of the SARS notices and their translation from the perspective of discourse analysis. Drawing upon the insights of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and critical discourse analysis (CDA), this study explores how language is used by different governmental institutions in shaping their social power and hierarchy. By conducting a comparative study of the SARS notices and their translations, focusing on speech roles, speech functions, modality types and modality orientation, the authors argue that choices made in producing the texts reflect the institutions’ social roles and their relationship with each other and with the audience. They also argue that the application of concepts from SFL in detailed text analysis and from CDA in the overall discussion may better reveal how different models of discourse analysis can supplement each other and be applied to translation studies.
Habermas maintains that the democratic nature of the public sphere can only be maintained within the context of the ideal speech situation. Truth, in this framework, means democratically arrived at consensus, free from domination. If consensus breaks down, that is if validity claims cannot be vindicated because they have been critically challenged, then truth claims may only be recovered through conditions of discourse in argumentative reasoning. This involves the cooperative search for truth. If not allowed to progress because all participants have not been allowed to raise or challenge truth claims involving the four speech acts, then what results is a situation involving conflict and ideology. Conflict arises when "consensus concerning distribution of opportunities for satisfying needs breaks down" (Held 346). What is necessary then is a critique of ideology through the "considerations of universal pragmatics" in order to determine the degree to which communicative action has given way to strategic action and particular interests of a dominant group as opposed to the generalizable interests of the entire community (Habermas 1979, 112-113). It is therefore important to analyze the normative structure of particular socio-cultural systems and institutions in order to determine whether all participants have equal opportunities to employ all speech acts including communicatives, representatives, regulatives, and constatives. In the event that all actors are not able to employ and therefore fulfill their obligations which are necessary for establishing the ideal speech situation, then it is possible that what exists is a culture whose norms are entirely disconnected from justification. This paper suggests that Universal Pragmatics as constructed by Habermas can be used as a practical methodology for analyzing various institutional cultures. Keywords: Habermas, Universal Pragmatics, Ideal Speech Situation, Public Sphere, Culture, Democracy
Academy of Management Review, 2006
2001
This essay will analyse the relation between discourse, power and society. Its concern will be to design a model that accounts for the different ways in which power is present in discourse and thus in society a model which might be used as a basis for the development of a framework for discourse analysis as well as for the conceptualisation of social change and its relation to language change. In the first part I shall discuss what ‘discourse’ is and what role it plays with regard to the individual’s identity, to the construction of social relationships, the interpretation of psychological processes, and to the creation of meaning. The second part will focus on how power is contained in discourse: I shall develop a concept of power which subsequently can be used to show how different aspects of discourse are related to different forms of power. The final part will briefly discuss some of the implications of the model developed in the preceding parts, especially with regard to discou...
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