Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis (Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics)

185 Pages·2008·1.8 MB·English

Discourse and Practice
OXFORD STUDIES IN SOCIOLINGUISTICS
General Editors:
Nikolas Coupland
Adam Jaworski
Cardiff University
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Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis
Theo van Leeuwen
Discourse and Practice
New Tools for Critical
Discourse Analysis
Theo van Leeuwen
1
2008
3
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Leeuwen, Theo van.
Discourse and practice : new tools for critical discourse analysis / Theo van Leeuwen.
p. cm.—(Oxford studies in sociolinguistics)
ISBN 978-0-19-532330-6; 978-0-19-532331-3 (pbk.)
1. Critical discourse analysis. I. Title.
P302.L433 2008
401'.41—dc22 2007023090
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To Jesse,
who has just experienced
his fi rst day at school
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PREFACE
T
his book brings together most of my work on critical discourse analysis of the
past 15 years, focusing on the theoretical and methodological papers and drawing
occasionally on the more “applied” papers for additional examples. In this work
I developed an analytical framework for discourse analysis which derives, on the
one hand, from Michel Foucault’s concept of discourses as semantic constructions of
specifi c aspects of reality that serve the interests of particular historical and/or social
contexts, and, on the other hand, from Michael Halliday’s concept of “register” as a
semantic variety of language, a social dialect which is distinct in its semantics rather
than in its phonology and lexicogrammar.
The approach behind my framework is Bernstein’s concept of recontextualiza-
tion. In the move from the context in which knowledge is produced to the pedagogic
context in which it is reproduced and disseminated, Bernstein argued, semantic shifts
take place “according to recontextualizing principles which selectively appropri-
ate, relocate, refocus and relate to other discourses to constitute its own order and
orderings” (Bernstein, 1990: 184). My work broadens this concept beyond peda-
gogic discourse and starts from the assumption that all discourses recontextualize
social practices, and that all knowledge is, therefore, ultimately grounded in practice,
however slender that link may seem at times.
The recontextualizing principles that are the subject of this book are therefore
linked to key elements of social practices: actors and their roles and identities, actions
and their performance styles, settings, and timings. In the process of recontextualiza-
tion, aspects of any of these may be excluded from the discourse or transformed, and
recontextualization may also add elements such as purposes and legitimations for the
actions. As a result, some recontextualizations eliminate much of the actual detail of
the social practices they recontextualize and focus, for instance, mostly on legitimation
viii PREFACE
or critique, while others focus on the social practices themselves and contain few
elements of legitimation or critique. This book provides a detailed account of these
recontextualizing principles, describing how, for instance, social actors, or the timing
of social practices, can be recontextualized and exemplifying how they are in fact
recontextualized in specifi c discursive contexts.
Discourses, as I conceive of them in this book, can be realized, not only linguis-
tically, but also by means of other semiotic modes. In the fi nal chapter, the two main
areas in which I have worked, critical discourse analysis and multimodal semiotics,
come together when I show how social actors can be recontextualized visually and in
children’s play, through Playmobil, a children’s toy “system” specifi cally designed
as a resource for representing the social world in play.
Six of the book’s nine chapters have been previously published more or less in
the form in which they are included here, though I have removed repetitive material
and integrated the chapters as best as possible. The introductory chapter, the chapter
on the recontextualization of space, and the fi nal chapter have not been published
before.
Chapter 1 builds upon my article “Genre and Field in Critical Discourse Analy-
sis: A Synopsis,” in Discourse and Society 4(2):193–225 (1993), and “Language and
Representation: The Recontextualisation of Participants, Activities and Reactions,”
my Ph.D. thesis, University of Sydney, chapters 1, 2, and 3.
Chapter 2 is a slightly changed version of my essay “The Representation of Social
Actors,” in C. R. Caldas-Coulthard and M. Coulthard (Eds.), Texts and Practices:
Readings in Critical Discourse Analysis (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 32–70; used
by permission of Thomson Publishing Services.
Chapter 3 is a slightly changed version of my article “Representing Social
Action,” in Discourse and Society 6(1):81–106 (1995); used by permission of Sage
Publications.
Chapter 4 is a reworked version of my article “Time in Discourse,” Linguistics
and the Human Sciences 1(1):125–45 (2005); used by permission of Equinox Pub-
lishing, Ltd.
An earlier version of chapter 6 appeared as Van Leeuwen (2007), “Legitimation
in Discourse and Communication,” in Discourse and Communication 1(1):91–112;
used by permission of Sage Publications.
Chapter 7 is a slightly altered version of Van Leeuwen (2000a), “The Construc-
tion of Purpose in Discourse,” in S. Sarangi and M. Coulthard (Eds.), Discourse and
Social Life (London: Longman), pp. 66–82; used by permission of Pearson Educa-
tion Ltd.
Chapter 8 is a revised version of Van Leeuwen (2000b), “Visual Racism.” In
M. Reisigl and R. Wodak (Eds.), The Semiotics of Racism: Approaches in Critical
Discourse Analysis (Vienna: Passagen Verlag), pp. 330–50; used by permission of
Passagen Verlag.
The research for chapter 9 was part of the research program Toys as Commu-
nication led by Professor Staffan Selander of the Institute of Education, Stockholm,
and fi nanced by a grant from the Swedish Royal Bank. Videos of children playing
with Playmobil in a Birmingham preschool and in their home settings were recorded
by Dr. Carmen Caldas-Coulthard.
PREFACE ix
I would like to thank Jim Martin, who supervised the Ph.D. thesis in which I
began this work and whose work on activity sequences was a key inspiration, and
Michael Halliday, without whose help with grammar the work could not have been
done. Norman Fairclough, Teun van Dijk, Ruth Wodak, and Gunther Kress, the
original “critical discourse analysis group,” were supportive colleagues and friends
throughout the years in which I did this work. Thanks also to Nik Coupland and
Adam Jaworski, colleagues and friends from my Cardiff years, who helped to con-
ceive of this book in its early stages and agreed to include it in their series, and to Roz
Ivanic, who, perhaps more than anyone else, used my ideas in her teaching and fed
back to me her own comments and those of her students.