Pretest Discourse Analysis

Part A

    1.      Discourse analysis is defined as concerned with language use beyond the boundaries of a sentence/utterance with the interrelationships between language and society with the interactive or dialogic properties of everyday communication.

     2.      Major Areas of Discourse Analysis:

     3.      Experts :

·         Laclau and Mouffe’s, their work is Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985).

·         Toni Fairclough, his work is Critical Discourse Analysis in Transdisciplinary research (2005).

·         Gary Wickham, his work is Critical Discourse Analysis, Description, Explanation, Causes: Foucault's Inspiration versus Weber's Perspiration (2005).  

4.       

Part B

     a.       Discourse

Discourse is defined as any practice by which individuals imbue reality with meaning. When defined in these terms, discourse is found in a wide range of forms. Indeed, any social practice from a dance, ritual or a piece of music to a job contract, myth or culinary custom can be analyzed discursively. Yet the discourse of greatest interest to sociologists is that which takes a verbal form, be it written or spoken. The reason for this special interest in verbal discourse is twofold: a practical one and a theoretical one. In practice, verbal discourse is discourse that can be accessed and examined by the analyst. Indeed, analyses of other forms of discourse, for example visual discourse, often rest on translating the discourse into a verbalized format by means of detailed descriptions.

    b.   Discursive Psychology

Discursive psychology is an approach to social psychology that has developed a type of discourse analysis in order to explore the ways in which people’s selves, thoughts and emotions are formed and transformed through social interaction and to cast light on the role of these processes in social and cultural reproduction and change. Many discursive psychologists draw explicitly on post structuralist theory. Its main focus is not internal psychological conditions.

    c.       Social Practice

Social Practice theory is a framework for social science researchers to describe how individuals in different societies around the world shape and are shaped by the cultural atmosphere in which they live. It attempts to articulate the ways in which identity and individual agency rely on and produce cultural forms.