Norman FAIRCLOUGH, Discourse and social chang

Pujolar, Joan

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Links & Letters 3, 1996 143-163 Norman FAIRCLOUGH, Discourse and 1992. 259 pages. In this book, Fairclough presents his pro- posal for a Critical Discourse Analysis as a method for using language analysis in the study of social change. The notion of «social change» should be understood in a broad sense, as focussing on the study of social relations as these are manifested in discourse practice from a dynamic, his- toricai or processuai perspective. The term «critical>r usually refers to the political motivations of research which seeks to uncover hidden mechanisms of social domination and to empower disadvan- taged social groups. This framework is therefore being used by researchers interested in gender issues, classroom re- search, race relations, media discourse, social domination, bilingual studies and other aspects of social relations that are likely to have some political significance. Fairclough defines his work as a con- tribution to the interdisciplinary ethos that is now developing more and more within linguistics and the social sciences as researchers realise that language plays a key role in the processes of social and cultural change. This is an important departure from more cognitive and for- malistic paradigms that seek to uncover structures and synchronic regularities in language and society. In chapter 1, Fairclough reviews some traditional social change. Cambridge: Polity Press, approaches to linguistics and discourse anaiysis and argues that these usuaiiy over- look the fact that oower relations are cre- ated, maintained and transformed in social interaction. However, he does recommend that discourse analvsts inte- grate analytical tools from pragmatics, grammar and semantics. In chapter 2, he proposes to draw upon the work of Michel Foucault (1972) in order to build a predominantly social theory of discourse. With Foucault, Fairclough sees discourse as constitutive and constructive of social reality. However, he argues that he avoids the more deterniinistic reading of Foucault because of h;; own focus on the details of concrete instances of social interaction. He  claims that his particular contribu- tion is to use Foucault's principies for a text oriented discourse analysis, and that this analysis should provide evidence of the processes whereby power relations and their accompanying belief systems or ideologies are created, struggled upon, changed or negotiated. It is also impor- tant to note that, in adopting Foucault's ideas, Fairclough also integrates a post- structuralist conceptualisation of subjec- tivity which is empirically orientated, and where identity appears as dynamic, some- times unstable and contradictory rather 144 Links & Letters 3, 1996 Reviews than static and pre-deterrnined by social factors. In chapter 3, he describes the rnain principles of his rnethod with more detail. It is based rnainly on the analysis of texts and concrete instances of social interac- tion. He adopts Halliday's view of lan- guage as 'rnultifunctional', that is, as «sirnultaneously representing reality, en- acting social relations, and establishing identities.)) (p. 9). The linguistic analyses are then used in order to theorise on issues of sociological relevance. He proposes, therefore, three levels of analysis: the text (the written or spoken product of social interaction), the 'discursive practice' dimension (where the situated processes of text production and interpretation are investigated) and the 'social practice' dirnension (which considers the signifi- cance of the speech event studied within the institutional and social context where it is located). Fairclough also proposes to study the cideologies)) that are irnplicit in social in- teraction. This interest is based on the assurnption that our knowledge and beliefs about the social world are created and changed in social interaction, and that these play a key role in the rnaintenance or change of power relations. Therefore, texts can also be analysed in terrns of struggles to legitimise or 'naturalise' particular views of the world. In these struggles, dorninant groups seek to rnake their views appear as natural or commonsensical in order to defend their interests and establish their hegemony. Hegernony designates the poli- tical and ideological domination exerted by a social group within society, and which is sustained by the political rela- tions and alliances between different social groups. These processes of ideological struggle can also be located through linguistic analysis (for instance, changes in wording) and intertextual analysis (as different social groups adopt different discourses in different ways). One of the key ideas also adopted by Fairclough is Bakhtin's (1981, 1986) and Kristeva's (1986) notion of ((intertextua- lity)) (chapter 4). In simple terrns, ((intertextuality)) rneans that each text pre- sents traces of other texts because each utterance is historically located in rela- tion to other discourses that exist within society. One of the examples given by Fairclough is the impact of the privatisa- tion of traditional services such as educa- tion, health care and the arts. He argues that these changes have forced social actors to adopt «new discourse practica within existing activities)), whereby the discourses of marketing, advertising and business have colonised the discourse of the adrninistration and changed the social relations and identities of people working in these areas. A close analvsis of texts produced by these institutions provides evidence of these political changes in the ways in which the different discourses are articulated and cornbined. The investi- gation of social change through Critica1 Discourse Analysis is very rnuch based on analysing these tensions between dis- courses and the resulting forrns of hybri- dity in which texts appear. Although this brief surnrnary of Fairclough's rnethod may appear very the- oretical, his book is actually quite read- able. It has been written for oeoole I I working in a variety of disciplines outside linguistics and who are not supposed to be familiar with difficult jargon. Chapters 5 ,  6 and 7 are devoted to showing prac- tical instances of how his analysis can be done and how his concepts can be used, which 1 cannot really reproduce here. Each one of these chapters corresponds to one of the three levels of analvsis: text, discursive practice and social practice. Finally, chapter 8 is even more basic, as it deals with the more practical issues of data gathering, sampling, transcribing and coding in critica1 discourse analysis. However, it is also irnportant to bear in Reviews Links & Letrers 3, 1996 145 rnind that people corning frorn main- strearn linguistics and from positivistic sociological approaches rnay find this type of analysis difficult to understand. This is because of its predorninantly construc- tivist and post-structuralist basis, which encourages a very different attitude in the way data are analysed and categories are constructed as compared with traditional structuralisrn. Structuralist research is often geared towards finding formal fea- tures and evidence of existing «systems», and it predominantly contains a realist- based notion of validity. In this sense, 1 believe that it is necessary that critica1 discourse analysts develop a greater aware- ness of the episternological or philo- sophical basis of this framework in the future. Otherwise, readers rnay think that they are simply dealing with another relativistic frarnework, which is clearly not the case. Joan Pujolar Lancaster University Jan RENKEMA, Discourse Studies. An Introductory Extbook. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjarnins, 1993. ix +224 pages. Renkerna's book is a com~rehensive and thorough introduction to discourse studies intended to farniliarize students at university leve1 with the key concepts and rnajor issues in this field. It is sub- divided in three parts, preceded by a short introductory chapter in which the author presents and outlines the rnain topics dealt with in the text. Part 1 (chapters 2-5) constitutes a general introduction to the field. Thus, in chapter 2, devoted to language as verbal cornrnunication, we are introduced to Bühler's Organon rnodel (1934), Grice's cooperative principie and conversational rnaxims (1975), the concept of convers- ational irnplicature, and the politeness stra- tegies which are brought to bear when language is used. Chapter 3 is concerned with speech acts and their interpretation in discourse. A clear definition of discourse and an explanation of such essential con- ceots in the field as the seven standards of textuality and the various types of cohes- ion can be found in chapter 4. Last but not least, chapter 5 deals with the terrn ((functionn as it is used in discourse stu- dies, while stressing its dependence on the situation in which language is used. To  this end Del1 Hyrnes' SPEAKING rnodel (1972) is ernployed. Part 2 (chapters 6-9) is an introduc- tion to basic phenomena. Chapter 6 is devoted to propositions, rnacrostructures, superstructures, and topics, or, in the author's words, «the building blocks of discourse~, while chapter 7 is concerned with «the cernent between the blocks)~, namely anaphora, deixis, and the various types of discourse relations. The dicho- tornies written language and verbal in- teraction, everyday and literary language are effectively dealt with in chapter 8, and several possible discourse typologies are proposed. Finally, chapter 9 discusses the question of what «style» is and the way in which stvlistic variation can be de- scribed, while providing exarnples of stylistic research and exploring the role of rnetaphor in everyday language. Part 3 (chapters 10-12) is concerned with specific types of discourse. Hence, chapter 10 examines key concepts in the analvsis of conversation. narnelv trans- cription systems (focusing on score and dramaturgical notation), the turn-taking rnodel developed by Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson (1974), and various types of sequential organization (turns, adjacency pairs, three-part sequences, etc.) descri- bed by Schegloff (1977) and Mehan (1979). Chapter 11, in turn, deals with 

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