Discourses in Action: What Language Enables Us to Do

209 Pages·2020·3.886 MB·

by  Klaus Krippendorff and Nour Halabi

Discourses in Action
This interdisciplinary collection brings together leading and emerging scholars
of discourse, conceptualising how discursive practices shape social, political,
and even material realities today.
Discourses in Action presents a wide range of essays that explore fundamental
concerns for the social consequences of text, talk, and discursively informed
actions and possibilities of discursive engagement. It opens new perspectives on
what language does and the differences that scholarly and practical contributions
canmake.Chapterscoverdiversetopics,rangingfrompoliticalstruggles,climate
change, social revolutions, ethnicity, violence, and other often unexpected pat-
ternsofdiscursiveconsequences.Itsessaysalsoexploretheculturalcontingencies
that underlie discourse practices which are usually ignored when analysed from
withinataken-for-grantedculture.
Providingausefulexaminationofcurrentdiscoursestudies, thisinterdisciplin-
ary volume is ideal for students and researchers within media, communication,
discourseanalysis,linguistics,culturalstudies,andthesociologyofknowledge.
Klaus Krippendorff (PhD, PhDhc) is the Gregory Bateson Professor for
Language, Cybernetics, and Culture at the Annenberg School for Communica-
tion,UniversityofPennsylvania.Hepioneeredworkoncommunicationtheory,
content analysis, and methods of design semantics.As a critical scholar he exam-
inesdiscursiveconstructionsofrealitiesandpathsofliberationfromoppression.
Nour Halabi (PhD) is a Lecturer of Media and Communication at the
University of Leeds and the Vice-Chair of the MeCCSA Race Network. Her
interdisciplinary research examines the interactions between mobility, social
movements, and global media. She received her doctorate from the Annenberg
School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and her Master’s
from The London School of Economics.
Shaping Inquiry in Culture, Communication and
Media Studies
Series Editor: Barbie Zelizer
Dedicated to bringing to the foreground the central impulses by which we
engage in inquiry, the Shaping Inquiry in Culture, Communication and Media
Studies series attempts to make explicit the ways in which we craft our intel-
lectual grasp of the world.
The Changing Faces of Journalism
Tabloidization, Technology and Truthiness
Edited by Barbie Zelizer
The Politics of Reality Television
Global Perspectives
Edited by Marwan M. Kraidy and Katherine Sender
Making the University Matter
Edited by Barbie Zelizer
Communication Matters
Materialist Approaches to Media, Mobility and Networks
Edited by Jeremy Packer and Stephen B. Crofts Wiley
Communication and Power in the Global Era
Orders and Borders
Edited by Marwan M. Kraidy
Boundaries of Journalism
Professionalism, Practices and Participation
Edited by Matt Carlson and Seth C. Lewis
Discourses in Action
What Language Enables Us to Do
Edited by Klaus Krippendorff and Nour Halabi
For more information, visit: www.routledge.com/Shaping-Inquiry-in-Culture-
Communication-and-Media-Studies/book-series/SICCM
Discourses in Action
What Language Enables Us to Do
ff
Edited by Klaus Krippendor and
Nour Halabi
Firstpublished2020
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Names:Krippendorff,Klaus,editor.|Halabi,Nour,editor.
Title:Discoursesinaction/editedbyKlausKrippendorffand
NourHalabi.
Description:London;NewYork:Routledge,2020.|
Series:Shapinginquiryinculture,communicationandmediastudies|
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2019044870(print)|LCCN2019044871(ebook)
Subjects:LCSH:Discourseanalysis–Socialaspects.|Discourse
analysis–Politicalaspects.|Languageandculture.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Listofcontributors viii
Introduction:whydiscoursesinaction? 1
KLAUSKRIPPENDORFF
PARTI
Divergentapproachestodiscourseanalyses 15
RACHELSTONECIPHER
1 Analysingthepoliticsofdenial:criticaldiscoursestudiesand
thediscourse-historicalapproach 19
RUTHWODAK
2 Discourseasventriloquy:apragmatic/relationalanalysisofmedia
asagents 37
FRANÇOISCOOREN
3 Discursiveconstruction:asociologyofknowledgeapproachto
discourseanalysis 51
REINERKELLER
4 Discursivepsychology:anon-cognitivistapproachtopractices
ofknowing 71
JONATHANPOTTER
vi Contents
PARTII
Threeprototypicalstudiesofdiscoursesinaction 87
NOURHALABI
5 Re-contextualizingvisualrepresentations:thevideosofand
aboutpoliceaccountabilityinthreecompetingdiscourses 89
MARYANGELABOCK
6 Discoursesfortransformation?climatechange,powerand
pathwaystothefuture 104
ANABELACARVALHO
7 Thecirculationofconstitutionaldiscourse 120
GREGURBAN
PARTIII
Culturalcontingenciesofdiscursivepractices 139
KATEZAMBON
8 Duelingdiscoursesofpowerandresistance:thecultural
contextsoftheshiftingrevolutionaryrhetoricofthree
Egyptianpoliticalactors 143
SAHARKHAMIS
9 Onecase,twoverdicts:theverticalinterplayofauthoritative
discoursesinChina 158
HAILONGTIAN
10 Discoursesofdissent:theroleofspeechandactioninIsraeli
grassrootsactivism 173
TAMARKATRIEL
Index 187
Acknowledgements
This edited volume emerged from the final symposium of the Scholars Pro-
gram in Culture and Communication at the Annenberg School for Communi-
cation, University of Pennsylvania before it was transformed into the Center
for Media at Risk. It followed several similar discursive events on a variety of
issues. However, the essays made available here do not merely report the per-
formance of scholarly discourse, they expose different approaches to studying
the social roles and consequences of diverse discursive practices, the realities
that discourse communities enact. They also demonstrate how scholarly dis-
course can affect society and the intellectual responsibilities this entails.
To start, we want to thank Professor Barbie Zelizer, head of the Scholars
Program, now the Center for Media at Risk, and a colleague at the Annenberg
School. Her invitation to organise this symposium quickly evolved into a col-
lective effort. Emily Plowman, the able coordinator of the Scholars Program,
got us started, Kate Zambon continued throughout the planning process.
A number of graduate students became animated by the possibility of shaping a
cutting-edge symposium that would contextualise discourses in the actions they
encourage. For this, we would like to thank Leah Ferentinos, Yilang Peng,
Sandra Ristovska, Rachel Stonecipher, Yunning Helen Wang, and Natacha
Yazbeck for lending their ingenuity, intellect, and time to this project, as well
as Annenberg alumni Mariaelena Bartesaghi and Charles Goodwin for provid-
ing us with valuable leads. We are equally grateful to Rachel Stonecipher and
Kate Zambon for writing introductions to two sections of this volume.
Last but not least, it is the scholars of discourse who accepted our invitations
thatdeservemostofourgratitude.Theycamefromallovertheworld,presented
their ideas, debated important issues, established new connections, and finally
contributedtheirworktothisvolume.Theenthusiasmthatfueledthisdiscursive
eventwastrulyinspiringandsoisthediversityofcontributionstheyleftbehind.
Klaus Krippendorff
The Annenberg School for Communication,
University of Pennsylvania
Nour Halabi
School of Media and Communication,
University of Leeds
Contributors
Mary Angela Bock is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at
Austin School of Journalism. She is a former journalist focused on the soci-
ology of photographic practice and how visual messages shape our ideas
about social justice. Bock is the author of Video Journalism: Beyond the
One-Man Band. She has over 20 years of experience in broadcast, news-
paper, and radio news and her research has appeared in publications such
as the Journal of Communication, Journalism Practice, and Journalism and Mass
Communication Quarterly.
Anabela Carvalho is an Associate Professor of Communication at the Uni-
versityofMinho,Portugal.Herresearchfocusesonvariousformsofenvir-
onment, science, and political communication with a particular emphasis
onclimatechangeandpublicengagement.Sheiseditor,interalia,ofCom-
municating Climate Change: Discourses, Mediations and Perceptions (2008),
Citizen Voices: Enacting Public Participation in Science and Environment Com-
munication (with L. Phillips and J. Doyle; 2012), Climate Change Politics:
Communicationand Public Engagement (withT.R.Peterson; 2012). Carvalho
has had leading roles at the International Environmental Communication
Association (IECA) and the Science and Environment Communication
Section of the European Communication Research and Education Associ-
ation(ECREA).
François Cooren (PhD) is a Professor at the Université de Montréal,
Canada. His research focuses on organisational communication, language
and social interaction, and communication theory. He is the author of
three books and over 50 articles, The Organizing Property of Communication
(2000), Action and Agency in Dialogue: Passion, Incarnation, and Ventrilo-
quism (2010), and Organizational Discourse: Communication and Constitution
(2015), and the editor of five volumes for Polity, Oxford University
Press,Routledge,JohnBenjamins,andLawrenceErlbaum.Hewastheformer
President of the International Communication Association (2010–2011) and
the current president of the International Association for Dialogue Analysis
(IADA).
Contributors ix
Nour Halabi is a Lecturer of Media and Communication at the University
of Leeds and the Vice-Chair of the MeCCSA Race Network. Her inter-
disciplinary research examines the interactions between mobility, social
movements, and global media. Recent publications include “The Spatial
Politics of the Syrian Revolution,” in Middle East Critique (2019), “If
These Walls Could Speak: Borders and Walls as Communicative Devices,”
in Interventions: Communication Research and Practice (Peter Lang, 2018), and
“The Contingency of Meaning to the Party of God: Carnivalesque Humor
in Revolutionary Times” in The International Journal of Communication
(2017). She received her doctorate from the Annenberg School for Com-
munication at the University of Pennsylvania and her Master’s from The
London School of Economics.
Tamar Katriel is a Professor (Emerita) in Communication and Education at
the University of Haifa. She conducted ethnographic research on cultural
patterns of communication in Israel and the USA. She is the author of
Talking Straight (Cambridge University Press, 1986); Communal Webs
(SUNY Press, 1991); Performing the Past (Erlbaum, 1997); Dialogic Moments
(Wayne State University Press, 2004); a Hebrew collection, Key Words
(University of Haifa Press, 1999). She recently co-edited a volume entitled
Cultural Memories of Nonviolent Struggles (Palgrave, 2015).
Reiner Keller is a Professor of Sociology at Augsburg University. His research
centres on knowledge and culture, discourse studies, sociological theory,
pragmatist sociology, risk and environment, and French sociology. Recent
publications include The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse:
Investigating the Politics of Knowledge and Meaning-making (Routledge, 2018;
co-edited with Anna Hornidge and Wolf Schünemann), Doing Discourse
Research (Sage, 2013), as well as “The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to
Discourse” in Human Studies (2011) and “Entering Discourses: A New
Agenda for Qualitative Research and Sociology of Knowledge” in Qualita-
tive Sociology Review (2012).
Sahar Khamis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication
at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her area of expertise is Arab
and Muslim media. She is the co-author of Islam Dot Com: Contemporary
Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Egyptian Revo-
lution 2.0: Political Blogging, Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013). She is the co-editor of Arab Women’s Activism and Socio-
Political Transformation: Unfinished Gendered Revolutions (Palgrave Macmillan,
2018).
Klaus Krippendorff (PhD, PhDhc) is Professor Emeritus at the Annenberg
School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. He is a Past Presi-
dent of ICA, elected fellow of ICA, AAAS, NIAS, IASCYS and several
other academic institutions. His publications contribute to communication
theory, discourse analysis, cybernetics, social scientific methodology, and the