DISCOURSE AS SOCIAL PRACTICE:
Language is centrally involved in power, struggles for power and it is so involved through its ideological
properties:
Language and discourse: language as social practice determined by social structures.
Discourse and orders of discourse: discourse is determined by orders of discourse, sets of conventions
associated with social institutions.
Class and power in capitalist society: orders of discourse are ideologically shaped by power relations in
social institutions and in society as a whole.
Dialectic of structures and practices: discourse has effects upon social structures as well as being
determined by them.
The properties of a discourse are determined by social conditions, by the relationship between the
members in our society. The way people interpret features of texts depends upon which social conventions
they are assuming to hold.
(LANGUE-PAROLE)
DISCOURSE AS SOCIAL PRACTICE: language is a social practice because is part of society and is a social
process, and is a socially conditioned process.
The relationship between language and society is internal and dialectical.
Linguistic phenomena: are social because when people speak, listen, write or read, they do so in ways
which are determined socially and have social effects.
Social phenomena: are linguistic because the language activity is a part of social processes and practices.
TEXT vs DISCOURSE
Text, written or spoken, is a PRODUCT rather than a process.
DISCOURSE: refers to the whole process of social interaction of which a text is just a part. In addition to the
text it includes process of production and process of interpretation.
TEXT ANALYSIS is only a part of discourse analysis which includes analysis of productive and interpretative
processes.
Language is determined by other non-linguistic parts of society. People internalize what is socially
produced.
DISCOURSE involves social conditions, which can be specified as social conditions of production and of
interpretation. These are relate to three different levels of social organization: the level of social situation,
of social institution and of the society as a whole.
3 DIMENSIONS of DISCOURSE: TEXTS, INTERACTIONS AND CONTEXTS.
3 DIMENSIONS OF CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS:
