The study of discourse is entirely context-dependent because conversation involves situational knowledge beyond just the words spoken. Often times, meaning cannot be extrapolated from an exchange merely from its verbal utterances because there are many semantic factors involved in authentic communication.
For example, we can conceptualize political discourse the sort of language used in political contexts or media discourse language used in the media. In addition, some writers have conceived of discourse as related to particular topics, such as an environmental discourse or colonial discourse Such labels sometimes suggest a particular attitude towards a topic e.
Related to this, Foucault In particular, discourse is analyzed by those who are interested in language and talk and what people are doing with their speech. This approach [studies] the language used to describe aspects of the world and has tended to be taken by those using a sociological perspective," Ogden Discourse is a joint activity requiring active participation from two or more people, and as such is dependent on the lives and knowledge of two or more people as well as the situation of the communication itself.
Herbert Clark applied the concept of common ground to his discourse studies as a way of accounting for the various agreements that take place in successful communication. In fact, sender and receiver are metaphors that obfuscate what is really going on in communication. Specific illocutions have to be linked to the message depending on the situation in which discourse takes place Clark compares language in use with a business transaction, paddling together in a canoe, playing cards or performing music in an orchestra.
A central notion in Clark's study is common ground. The joint activity is undertaken to accumulate the common ground of the participants. Then they learn to discourse eloquently on the benefits of commerce, whilst in reality they are completely indifferent to it. Let your articulation be easy, clear, correct in accent, and suited in tone and emphasis to your discourse. The application of this text to the legend of the Assumption is obvious, and occupied the first division of the discourse.
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As evident in the previous example of the discourse that states that coldness and wetness can cause a cold, discourse entails underlying assumptions about the nature of the world and of particular social values and beliefs.
In contemporary continental philosophy, this understanding of discourse as the covert embodiment of social values is taken on a more critical, political level-discourse is seen by some philosophers as a means of the legitimization of social and political practices.
The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci wrote about ideology as "a conception of the world that is implicitly manifest in art, in law , in economic activity and in all manifestations of individual and collective life" Gramsci, For him, discourse mediates ideological justifications of the status quo that come to be accepted as "common sense.
Through the proliferation of discourse , beliefs and ideas that are actually socially and historically specific are legitimized by their seemingly universal and natural appearance. An example of this sort of discourse might be advertising discourse in capitalist society.
Advertisements may portray luxury products as naturalized needs; this discourse thereby reinforces a consumption-driven culture. Using a similar theory of discourse as ideology, Louis Althusser sees discourse as naturalizing "subject-positions," or social roles. Althusser writes, "Like all obviousnesses, including those that make a word 'name a thing' or 'have a meaning' If subject positions are an ideological effect, then individuals are given social identities that are established by discourse , a discourse that at the same time naturalizes such subject positions and conceals this very process.
The discursive production of the subject has been theorized in other ways that do not utilize the concept of ideology. For Foucault, discourse is a medium through which power and norms function. Foucault describes how, in modernity, scientific discourses such as the "human sciences" which claim to reveal human nature actually establish norms and prescribe optimum modes of conduct.
These discourses also establish ways of identifying, understanding, and managing "deviant" subjects. Click on a collocation to see more examples of it. See all collocations with discourse. Translations of discourse in Chinese Traditional. See more. Need a translator? Translator tool. What is the pronunciation of discourse? Browse discourage. Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes.
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