In this blog post, I outline some key differences between ‘critical discourse analysis’ and ‘poststructuralist discourse theory’, by asking how discourse relates to society and subjects. This blog is based on my recent publication:
Newman, J. (2020). ‘Critical realism, critical discourse analysis, and the morphogenetic approach‘. Journal of Critical Realism.
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In a recent publication, I explore and clarify the underlying social theory of critical discourse analysis, specifically in relation to critical realism and the morphogenetic approach. Over a series of blog posts, I am going to explain some key ideas from the paper using language that is hopefully accessible to most readers.
In this post, I’m going to outline some key differences between two influential approaches to discourse analysis: critical discourse analysis (CDA) and post-structuralist discourse theory (PDT). This is not an attempt to undertake a comprehensive comparison, but is rather a specific consideration of two key philosophical issues on which CDA and PDT diverge. These issues, which inevitably arise in the study of discourse, are as follows:
- How does discourse relate to the ‘non-discursive’ aspects of society?
- How does discourse relate to individual subjects?
Post-structuralist Discourse Theory
Post-structuralist discourse theory is a philosophy of society that focuses on the centrality of ‘discourses’ as the meaningful practices through which human subjects experience and understand themselves and others. It has developed primarily from a number of French-language philosophers of the 20th Century, especially Jaques Derrida and Michel Foucault, who (among many things) challenge two established approaches: (a) they challenge traditional Marxist and elitist models of society in which one class exercises power over another; (b) they challenge ‘scientific’ approaches that claim privileged access to universal truths. Instead, post-structuralists (a) see power as a phenomenon that flows through society, working to the advantage of certain positions and perspectives, and (b) they argue that ‘science’ does not give access to truth, but is merely a discourse (a way of speaking/acting) that happens to hold more power than other discourses.
In 1985, Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe published Hegemony and Socialist Strategy, a major landmark in the emergence of the ‘Essex School of Discourse Analysis’, which still exists institutionally at the University of Essex as the ‘Centre for Ideology and Discourse Analysis’. The ‘Essex school’, which can be thought of as a theoretical approach as well as an institution, is synonymous with ‘poststructuralist discourse theory’. One of the best introductions to its underlying social theory comes from Howarth and Stavrakakis (2000), who offer an insightful summary of its key concepts and assumptions.
According to Howarth and Stavrakakis (2002), PDT understands ‘discourses’ as “systems of meaningful practices that form the identities of subjects and objects” (pp. 3-4). Two crucial assumptions can be inferred here.
1. In PDT, there is no philosophical distinction between discourses and practices. This means that when we create meaning by talking to friends, composing work emails, or writing blog posts, we are simultaneously performing actions. It is therefore impossible to act without meaning, and impossible to create meaning without acting. This means that we cannot talk of society as having non-discursive aspects; an economic crash or a football match are as discursive as a political speech or a newspaper headline.
2. In PDT, there is no philosophical distinction between discourses and subject identities (i.e. the identities of individual people). This means that we cannot think of ‘identity’ as belonging exclusively to a subject, because that identity is composed of cross-cutting discourses that exist at a societal (or ‘intersubjective’) level. Similarly, we cannot think of discourses as being external to identities; instead discourses ‘flow through’ the human subject, and compose the identities of individuals.
These assumptions create some difficulties for PDT. Crucially, if we want to consider how an individual’s identity has emerged, we cannot say it has been ‘caused’ by a discourse or discourses. Indeed the very distinction between the individual and the discourse is only possible as an analytical device. Similarly, we cannot say that a particular practice is caused by a particular discourse or vice versa, and again, any distinction between practice and discourse is a purely analytical device.
Therefore, in PDT, it is not possible for discourses to be causes or to be effects of other social processes. This is due to a rejection of philosophical distinctions between discourse, practice, and subject. How can A cause B when A and B are one and the same thing and when they can only be distinguished conceptually? Therefore, PDT explores social change with the alternative formulation that A might constitute B. In other words, they ask ‘how is A a part of B?’ or ‘how is A interconnected with B?’. The ‘constitution’ of discourse changes according to flows of power, which might, for example, lead to A and B being ‘articulated’ together, which then reconstitutes their interconnections.
Critical Discourse Analysis and my modifications
Having considered some basic assumptions of PDT, let us now turn to critical discourse analysis (CDA). It is important to start by noting that there are numerous strands of ‘CDA’, which differ and overlap in various ways (see especially Teun Van Dijk and Ruth Wodak). I am focussing here on Norman Fairclough’s CDA, which is perhaps best introduced in the 3rd edition of his book Language and Power (2014). The best practical guide is probably Analysing Discourse (2003). The social theory is most thoroughly outlined in Fairclough’s collaboration with Lillian Chouliaraki, Discourse in Late Modernity (1999). CDA combines a huge range of theoretical influences, including poststructuralist influences, making its underlying social theory both an incredibly fertile approach to social analysis and a tangle of unintegrated concepts.
In my most recent paper, I seek to untangle these concepts without destroying CDA’s fecundity. To summarise some of these ideas, the rest of this blog post will consider CDA in terms of the same two questions outlined above: (1) how does discourse relate to the ‘non-discursive’ aspects of society? and (2) how does discourse relate to individual subjects?
1. The central task of CDA is to explore the interaction between the discursive and non-discursive aspects of social reality. In order to theorise this relationship, CDA characteristically proposes a range of different distinctions and approaches. Crucial for the practitioner of CDA, a distinction is imposed between three levels of analysis that must be undertaken: analysis of text; analysis of discursive practice; and analysis of social practice. At the same time, CDA also turns to David Harvey’s (1996) concept of ‘moments’, which are basically six aspects of any social practice: (i) ‘discourse/language; (ii) power; (iii) social relations; (iv) material practices; (v) institutions/rituals; and (vi) beliefs/values/desires’ (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, 6). In addition to the ‘three levels of analysis’ and the ‘six moments’, CDA is also more broadly grounded in the philosophy of Critical Realism (see Collier 1994 for an introduction), which offers a range of relevant theoretical distinctions that complicate matters further.
My modification: In my paper, ‘Critical Realism, Critical Discourse Analysis, and the Morphogenetic Approach‘, I argue that this complex combination of theoretical underpinnings ultimately leads to contradiction and confusion. As a replacement, I propose that CDA conceives of social reality in terms of three layers: the material (things that have a physical existence; e.g. atoms, rocks, buildings, ink on paper, bodies), the cultural (things we can think; e.g. ideas, languages, discourses, written rules), and the social (things that are made of interpersonal relations; e.g. institutions, organisations, power relations, hierarchies, rules-in-action). These three layers are philosophically distinguishable because they are qualitatively different, but they are also interconnected because they exist in an emergent relationship (see Elder-Vass 2010 for a good introduction to critical realist emergence). From the material (e.g. paper and ink) emerges the cultural (e.g. a legal text), and from both emerges the social (e.g. the legal relation between a landlord and tenant).
2. In CDA, there is a distinction between social structures, social practices, and social agency (Fairclough 2014). Social structures are held to be the deep-level and relatively stable systems that underpin society. Social practices are held to be the activities through which society is reproduced and changed at all levels. Social agency is the power of individuals to effect that reproduction and change.
My modification: In my paper, I don’t reject CDA’s basic approach to the structure-agency issue, but I do argue that CDA does not offer a clear modelling of the interaction between structure, agency and discourse, nor does it offer practitioners clear guidance on including this dialectic in their research. I seek to clarify CDA’s position by turning to the ‘morphogenetic approach’ (see Archer 2013 for a brief introduction). In my own interpretation of this approach, we can consider structure-agency as interacting over the three levels: the material, the cultural, and the social. This interaction can be modelled using the morphogenetic cycle: (i) agents are positioned within material structures (e.g. their bodies or their geographical location), within cultural structures (e.g. their beliefs or their spoken languages), and within social structures (e.g. their citizenship or their employment); (ii) agents act within material practices (e.g. using or moving bodies), cultural practices (e.g. taking part in rituals or conversations), and social practices (e.g. voting or applying for a job); (iii) agents bring about reproduction and change of the material, cultural, and social structures. Discourses can be seen as relatively stable ways of representing the world, and can be thought of as part of cultural structure. They are used, reproduced, and changed by agents who act within cultural and social practices.
Conclusion
Discourse analysis unavoidably throws up these two central questions: how does discourse relate to other aspects of society, especially social structures? and how does discourse relate to individual subjects? Poststructuralist discourse theory (PDT) challenges the possibility of making any clear distinctions in response to these two questions, which ultimately leads to questions of how discourse, practice, and identity mutually constitute one another. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) builds from a critical realist philosophy that insists on distinctions between discursive structures, relational structures, and human agency. This leads to the development and deployment of models of social change in which these various social elements causally interact.
In my paper, I argue that CDA needs to develop clearer models of social change. One option is to turn to the ‘morphogenetic approach’ of Archer (1995) and Porpora (2015). My approach selectively imports some morphogenetic concepts into CDA’s social theory. As a result, I offer a model of social change comprised of three emergent levels (the material, the cultural, and the social), which can each be modelled according to Archer’s morphogenetic cycle: (i) material/cultural/social structures condition agents; (ii) agents react, act, and interact within material/cultural/social practices; (iii) the relevant material/social/cultural structures are changed or reproduced. In my next blog post, I’ll explore this model in more detail.
References
Archer, M. (1995). Realist social theory: The morphogenetic approach. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Archer. M. ed. (2013). Social Morphogenesis. New York: Springer.
Chouliaraki, L. and Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in Late Modernity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Collier, A. (1994). Critical Realism. London: Verso.
Elder-Vass, D. (2010). The Causal Power of Social Structures. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing Discourse. London: Routledge.
Fairclough, N. (2014). Language and Power. 3rd Edition. London: Routledge.
Howarth, D., Norval, A., and Stavrakakis, Y. (2000). Discourse theory and political analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Laclau, E. and Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. London: Verso.
Newman, J. (2020). ‘Critical realism, critical discourse analysis, and the morphogenetic approach‘. Journal of Critical Realism.
Porpora, D. (2015). Reconstructing Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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