Discourse: A Concept for Information and Communication Sciences

212 Pages·2019·3.841 MB·English

by  Jean-Paul Metzger

Discourse
Concepts to Conceive 21st Century Society Set
coordinated by
Valérie Larroche and Olivier Dupont
Volume 4
Discourse

A Concept for Information and
Communication Sciences

Jean-Paul Metzger
First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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ISBN 978-1-78630-307-3
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Part 1. Epistemological Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Introduction to Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Chapter 1. The Art of Discourse: Rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.1. Thinking, speaking out, persuading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.2. Ethos, pathos, logos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.3. The rhetorical system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.3.1. Invention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.3.2. The Disposition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.3.3. Elocution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
1.3.4. The action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.3.5. The memory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.4. Contemporary rhetoric . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Chapter 2. Discourse Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.1. What do we mean by discourse? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
2.2. A diversity of points of view . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2.3. The different approaches in discourse analysis . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.3.1. The enunciative approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
2.3.2. The communication approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.3.3. The sociolinguistic approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.3.4. Interactionist and conversational approaches . . . . . . . . . 46
vi Discourse
2.3.5. The pragmatic approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
2.3.6. The semiological approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Chapter 3. Interdiscourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.1. Bakhtin and Foucault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
3.2. Verbal interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.2.1. Dialogism and polyphony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
3.2.2. Further developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
3.3. Sociohistorical approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.3.1. The statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
3.3.2. Discursive formation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
3.3.3. Discourse control procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
3.3.4. The method of analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Chapter 4. Discourse and Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.1. The problem of communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
4.2. Linguistics and discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
4.3. The communicability of sense and reference . . . . . . . . . . . 96
4.4. The communicability of the force of discourse . . . . . . . . . . 99
4.5. The communicability of noetic intention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Part 2. Discourse Analyses Developed in the
Information and Communication Sciences. . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Introduction to Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Chapter 5. Sociolinguistic Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.1. A brief history of discourse analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
5.2. The interdisciplinarity of discourse analysis . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.3. Discourse analysis and comprehensive sociology . . . . . . . . 116
5.4. Other approaches to discourse analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Chapter 6. Content Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
6.1. Production conditions for statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
6.2. Empirical description of attitudes and opinions . . . . . . . . . . 122
6.3. More linguistic methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.4. Taxonomic analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
6.5. Systematic analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.6. Observation or experimentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Contents vii
Chapter 7. Documentary Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
7.1. Representation of the content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
7.2. Index and concordances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
7.3. Documentary interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
7.4. The Syntol system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
7.5. Metalanguage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
7.5.1. The three components of metalanguage . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
7.5.2. The basic relational unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
7.5.3. The calculation of relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
7.5.4. The procedure for interpreting a text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Chapter 8. Logometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
8.1. What is logometry? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
8.1.1. The question of the corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
8.1.2. The units of the text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
8.1.3. Quantitative and qualitative tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
8.2. The logometric approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
8.2.1. Logometry, between reading and interpretation . . . . . . . 165
8.2.2. The descriptive and heuristic capacity of logometry . . . . . 165
8.2.3. Going beyond the hypothetical-deductive method . . . . . . 167
8.3. Logometric software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
8.3.1. Morphosyntax lemmatizers and analysers . . . . . . . . . . . 169
8.3.2. Logometry software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
8.3.3. The TXM platform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
8.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
8.4.1. Number has meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
8.4.2. Meaning comes from context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
8.4.3. An alphanumeric study of texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Index of Names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Index of Common Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Preface
This book is part of the set: “Concepts to Conceive 21st Century
Society”. This set is a state of the art collection of the latest theoretical
developments started by researchers in Information and
Communication Sciences (ICS) embracing their discipline. The
authors of the set have put forward an interplay of concepts employed
in the ICS community. These concepts are also used in other
disciplines related to the humanities and social sciences (history,
sociology, economics, linguistics, psychology, etc.) besides often
fitting in line with the concerns of science and technology researchers
(ergonomics, artificial intelligence, data analysis, etc.).
In this set, we aim to highlight the theoretical approaches used in
ICS, which is often regarded as a cross-disciplinary field, from a
deliberately conceptual point of view. We thought that this was the
right choice to supplement the different epistemological works that
have already been carried out in the field.
To describe in further detail the perspective adopted in each of
these works, we should point out that it represents the point of view of
researchers in ICS with a didactic aim and an epistemological focus.
We will start by considering ICS as an academic discipline that
contributes to the creation and dissemination of knowledge related to
information and communication.
Thus, our theoretical reflection will be based on the analysis of a
series of concepts widely used by the ICS community, and we will
x Discourse
aim to make it accessible to humanities and social sciences students as
well as useful for teachers and researchers in several fields and for
professionals who wish to consider their practices. This interplay of
concepts allows us to conceive 21st Century society in its social and
technological aspects. It also helps shed light on human and
technological relations and interactions.
So far, this series is expected to include a dozen works, each of
which presents one of the following concepts, which are widely used
in ICS: power, discourse, mediation, the dispositif, memory and
transmission, belief, knowledge, exchange, public/private, representation,
writing and aesthetics.
Each book in this set shares the same structure. A first part, called
“Epistemological foundations”, summarizes and allows us to compare
the theories which over time have developed and then re-examined the
concept in question. A second part presents recent problematics in
ICS, which involve the concept with the aim of establishing or
analyzing the topic researched. This organization of the content can
get rid of the restrictive meanings that concepts may take on in the
public or professional sphere, or even in various disciplines.
The first four books examine in turn the concepts of power,
discourse, mediation and dispositive (dispositif). In these first texts we
come across two concepts with a strong historical background: power
and discourse; and the two others have emerged instead in the
contemporary period: mediation and the dispositive.
These books are the fruit of collective reflection. Regular meetings
among the different authors have made collaborative development of
these four texts possible. The content of these works and of the
preparatory work on the other concepts also forms the basis that has
been offered in several types of education for the past ten years or so.
Thus, it has been tested before an audience of students at different
levels.
Some authors have already been asked to write about the other
concepts. The series coordinators will see that these authors follow the
logic of the set and the structure of the first books.
Preface xi
Acknowledgments
Thanks go to Jacqueline Deschamps (2018), Olivier Dupont (2018)
and Valérie Larroche (2018), the three other teacher-researchers involved
in the project of the set “Concepts to Conceive 21st Century Society”,
for their commitment, perseverance and rich thinking which made it
possible to develop this book. Although I take full responsibility for its
content, I consider them to be co-authors.
Introduction
Originally, the term discursus (from the Latin discurrere, running
on different sides) did not really relate to language. When in the
4th Century AD discursus took on the meaning of discourse, it was
first of all that of a winding path, that of conversation and discussion,
before designating any expression, spoken or written, of thought; the
Greek rhetoric of logos and the Latin rhetoric of oratio, then become
the rhetoric of discourse, of its parts (verb, complement, etc.), its
disposal (exordium, proposal, narrative, etc.) and its genres
(demonstrative, deliberative, judicial). The history of the term and its
uses parallels the history of thought; thus, it was in the 17th Century,
which became the century of transparency of language and thought in
representation, that René Descartes was able to write a Discourse on
the Method, in the sense of this ordered journey of which the adjective
discursive still maintains its meaning.
However, even with rhetoric, discourse is not only a means of
expressing thought, but above all an autonomous event; flowing from
a speaker to a listener or reader, it is an act aiming for a certain effect,
as shown by any discourse since that of the sophists. Modern
linguistics proposes a broader definition of discourse, as a discrete and
unique enunciative process, where the speaker or author makes
language concrete in speech, in the Saussurean sense of the terms
(Benveniste 1966), and describes, with John Langshaw Austin for
example, the various acts (oral, illocutionary, perlocutionary) that
discourse performs (Austin 1971). Psychoanalysis and sociology