What's an isogloss?

 What's an isogloss?

 

Linguists plot out dialect map into more detailed isoglosses, which are boundary lines between places or regions that differ in a particular linguistic feature. Maps of the dialects of the United States (and other countries) can also be constructed based on the ways in which particular sounds are produced. 

The process of drawing a regional dialect map consists of collecting samples of the way people call certain objects, usually object used everyday or found in nature. A group of people have the same dialect if they share many of the words for things. Here is an example of an isogloss, for the regional words for "dragonfly":

Isogloss Map of Words for Dragonfly in the Eastern States

 

How do linguists identify dialects?

How do linguists identify dialects?

 

We can learn a lot about the history of a people from studying their dialects. The way Americans speak - the words and sounds of their speech - reveals the migration patterns as the United States was settled over 400 years, starting with settlers who arrived on the East Coast. These pioneers blazed trails and roads as they moved west, sometimes using existing trails created by the Indian tribes of the area or following rivers. They fanned north and south as well as west, taking their customs and language with them. Sometimes the movement of people was so big that whole communities and economies changed nearly overnight, such as the influx of people seeking gold during the gold strike in California of 1949 and northward migration of freed former slaves after 1865.

The Order of Discourse

Michel Foucault – from “The Order of Discourse”

Michel Foucault, from “The Order of Discourse”
R. Young, ed. Untying the Text (1971), pp. 52-64

In a refreshing change in structure from that of many other theorists, Foucault actually begins this excerpt with a thesis that he proceeds to explain and explore in the remainder of the piece: “in every society the production of discourse is at once controlled, selected, organised and redistributed by a certain number of procedures whose role is to ward off its powers and dangers, to gain mastery over its chance events, to evade its ponderous, formidable materiality” (210).

From there, Foucault goes on to detail what he calls the “procedures of exclusion” (210). He notes that the prohibition of discussing certain topics (namely sexuality and politics) “very soon reveal [discourse's] link with desire and with power” (211); that is, “discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized” (211).

Next, Foucault discusses the exclusive procedure inherent in the reason / madness binary, noting that the terms are, to a certain extent, defined (or perhaps delineated) arbitrarily and that how and where that distinction is made determines the manner in which one accepts the discourse coming from either side of the binary. In a bold move, he then asks if one could not, in a similar manner, “consider the opposition between true and false as a third system of exclusion” (212). To make this move, one must not think “on the level of a proposition, on the inside of a discourse” but instead “on a different scale [by asking] what this will to truth has been and constantly is, across our discourses, this will to truth which has crossed so many centuries of our history” (212). Just as standards of reason and madness can vary from one society or era to another, Foucault argues, standards of how truth and falsehood are measured can change. To be more specific, a given society’s value system can directly affect what is and is not considered true; to demonstrate this phenomenon, Foucault notes that “a day came [in the course of Western history] when truth was displaced from the ritualised, efficacious and just act of enunciations, towards the utterance itself, its meaning, its form, its object, its relation to its reference” (212).

The will to truth, which Foucault calls “that prodigious machinery designed to exclude” (214), is institutionally supported and reinforced (by libraries, laboratories, etc.). Furthermore, while the will to truth “exerts a sort of pressure and something like a power of constraint… on other discourses” (213), it is also the procedure least noticed, for “‘true’ discourse, freed from desire and power by the necessity of its form, cannot recognise the will to truth which pervades it” (214).

Having thus discussed “procedures for controlling and delimiting discourse [which] operate in a sense from the exterior,” Foucault moves on to discuss “internal procedures… which function rather as principles of classification, of ordering, of distribution, as if this time another dimension of discourse had to be mastered: that of events and chance” (214). These internal procedures include commentary (“a kind of gradation among discourses” (215)), the author (“a principle of grouping of discourses, conceived as the unity and origin of their meanings, as the focus of their coherence” (216)), and disciplines (a principle of organization “defined by a domain of objects, a set of methods, a corpus of propositions considered to be true, which Foucault asserts “is itself relative and mobile; which permits construction, but within narrow confines” (217)). The most significant of these three is the procedure of disciplines, because it allows Foucault to make the following observation: “Within its own limits, each discipline recognises true and false propositions: but it pushes back a whole teratology of knowledge beyond its margins… In short, a proposition must fulfil complex and heavy requirements to be able to belong to the grouping of a discipline: before it can be called true or false, it must be ‘in the true,’ as Canguilhelm would say” (218). Clearly, this notion of being “within the true” limits truly radical progress within disciplines; if an idea is so strange as to be outside of the true, it, no matter how much validity or usefulness it caries, will nevertheless be viewed as false.

Finally, Foucault discusses “a third group of procedures which permit the control of discourses [which operates by] determining the condition of [discourses'] application, of imposing a certain number of rules on the individuals who hold them, and thus of not permitting everyone to have access to them” (219). These final procedures are rituals, societies of discourse, doctrines, and social appropriation of discourses. “Ritual defines the qualification which must be possessed by individuals who speak” (220). “‘[S]ocieties of discourse’ …. function to preserve or produce discourses, but in order to make them circulate in a closed space [distribute] them only according to strict rules, and without the holders being dispossessed by this distribution” (220). “Doctrine… tends to be diffused, and it is by the holding in common of one and the same discursive ensemble that individuals (as many as one cares to imagine) define their reciprocal allegiance” (221). The social appropriation of discourses refers to the fact that “[a]ny system of education is a political way of maintaining or modifying the appropriation of discourses [that is, the transference of discourse(s) from one person / social group to another], along with knowledges and powers which they carry” (222).

Foucault, then, could possibly be called a superdeconstructionist, that is, one who deconstructs the social superstructures in which language (the structure on which deconstruction focuses and which a pure deconstructionist would see as inclusive of all of reality) operates. Foucault’s work is more (for lack of a better word) practical than the seemingly abstract work of most deconstructionist; rather than a concern for any theoretical underlying linguistic foundation, a careful eye for observable but often unobserved phenomena controls Foucault’s work, and it is through this more material grounding that Foucault may have found friends where Derrida was met with skepticism or frustration.

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What causes these distinctly different dialects?

What causes these distinctly different dialects?

 

So what causes these distinctly different dialects?

There are a number of reasons that dialect changes throughout America. 

1. The patterns of settlement when the area was first discovered and developed have a huge impact. James Lantolf, Penn State professor of Spanish and linguistics and director of the Center for Language Acquisition, points out that the regional dialect of New Orleans is largely attributable to the many different nationalities that developed the area. French, Irish, African American, Creole, Spanish and other European influences can all be heard within the Crescent City version of American English.
2. A region's geographic location also has a direct influence on the development of a local tongue. Isolated areas, such as New Orleans, develop different dialects. Where there is no contact between regions, entire words, languages and vernaculars can grow and evolve independently.
3. Social standing and education also affect the vernacular of an individual person—and that extends to a particular area as well. There is certainly a difference in the speech of the lower, middle and upper classes.

Much of Pennsylvanian dialect is a reflection of the influence of English and Irish settlers. Scranton has a particularly heavy Irish influence. The pioneer settlers in Pennsylvania's anthracite region (which encompasses Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, and surrounding towns) were largely Irish and German Catholics who worked in the area's coal mines. Many Europeans—particularly Slavic and Italian immigrants—followed and contributed to the distinctive Coal Region culture and dialect. The English spoken by their descendants is colored by their mother tongues: The word brogue itself (to describe an Irish accent) originally meant a "stout coarse shoe worn formerly in Ireland and the Scottish Highlands," and insultingly implied that the Irish spoke English so poorly, it sounded like they had a boot in their mouths.

The impact of Italian is heard in the regional tendency to elongate words—turning Acme supermarket into "Ack-a-me. And when locals replace the "th" sound in words with a "t" sound—"three" becoming "tree" or "cathedral" becoming "cateedral"—you're hearing the influence of Polish and other Slavic languages.

Pennsylvania's urban centers such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have their own vernacular. The word "yunz"—a kind of Northern "y'all,"—is quintessential Pittsburghese, whereas Philadelphians favor "yiz" to mean the same thing, a plural of "you" that doesn't exist in standard English. These might seem like local slips of the tongue, but really they are the aspects of language that make dialects unique regionally.

We call America the 'melting pot' because it eliminates the differences between individuals. But language—and its development—retaliates against that concept. Regional dialect separates people, to an extent. One region speaks this way, another region speaks that way; and the differences between the cultures that have influenced those regions become obvious in the language alone.

 

 

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ACCENT AND DIALECT....

 

Are dialect and accent the same thing?

These are two terms which should not be confused. While a dialect is a distinct variation of a language bound to geographical regions or a social stratification, the accent is a blend of linguistic background with speaker effort to pronounce the standard language or a distinct dialect of a completely different language group. The accent speaks may show hence only occurs when they use a language variety or a language different from their own, like when a person speaks French with an English accent. 

"Hagar the Horrible" © 1996 King Features Syndicate

FACTORS AFFECTING DIALECT FORMATION

What factors speed up or hinder the formation of dialects?   

Since language naturally changes all the time, a language spread out over a large territory or over a geographically diverse territory such as a series of mountain valleys is prone to differentiate into dialects.  Language unity can still be maintained by a unified system of education, by the influence of the mass media, by the social mixing that occurs within a highly mobile population.  Common culture and political institutions also tend to resist the emergence of new dialects. 

Some languages are very homogenous, showing little dialectal variation.  Political unity over a wide area for a long period of time tends to minimize the formation of dialects.  Russian is a good example:  there are only three dialectal areas over a vast territory.  Other languages have very many dialects, some of which are not mutually intelligible.  These dialects are the result of speech communities being isolated from one another over long periods of time.  As a rule, the less groups communicate, the more their language forms will diverge.  A good example of this is the Basques, who inhabit a tiny territory of northeast Spain.  Since villages and regions are separated by mountains, the Basques speak at least half a dozen very different dialects.  German has so many dialects today because of centuries of political disunity, during which time each province or town developed its own way of speaking; the main division today is between High and Low German.

Because dialects very often emerge because of language spread and subsequent isolation, they may often be described in terms of geography.   In such cases linguists usually find a dialect continuum.  The difference between one regional dialect and another is often a gradual series of changes, not an abrupt change in any one location, such as the gradual transition from High to Low German.  Instead of marking the boundaries of dialects on maps, linguists often mark the distribution of various features with maps called isoglosses (such as the pronunciation of greasy [s] vs. [z] south of Pennsylvania.)  Main dialects tend to be separated by coincidences of isoglosses.  (e.g., New York and New England vs. the rest of the country; or the South vs. the rest of the country.) More on isoglosses coming up.

In addition to geography, other factors may lead to dialectal change.  One is ethnicity, the cultural, religious and racial differences that separate groups of people.  The dialect of an ethnic group within a larger speech community is often marked by certain unique features.  This process also is apparent among various ethnic groups in the United States today.  The lingo of American teenagers is another example of intentional and deliberate language divergence. 

Another factor in the development and perpetuation of dialects is social differentiation.  In England the upper classes speak different dialects than the lower classes.  Usually, dialects developed on the basis of several interacting factors.  The classes of Britain, for example, originate in large part from historical differences in ethnicity.  Even today, Britain's lower classes tend to trace their ancestry to the original Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles who were defeated by the Anglo-Saxons.  Many upper class British families trace their ancestry back to the Norman French who conquered England in 1066.

LANGUAGE VARIATIONS

Are today's languages once dialects of another language?

It could be argued that most languages spoken today were once simply dialects of another language.  When a single people migrates in separate directions and the resulting groups no longer maintain close communication with one another, then dialects emerge and in time can evolve into separate languages (cf. Indo-European).  

The Romance languages are an example for this development. Originally, French, Spanish, and Italian were very much alike. They were all variations of Latin, and a citizen of the late Roman period would have regarded them as dialects of the same Latin. Today, the Romance languages are much more distinct. We can still see that they are closely related to each other, but they are definitely not dialects. These are national variations of the Romance language family - completely separate languages that are genetically related (more on language families in an upcoming module.)

Map of the Romance Languages, including Italian, French, Spanish, and Latin (Italy)

The many peoples that inhabit Germany, for example, the Frisians, Saxons, Bavarians, and many more each constitute a distinct group of people. But unlike the different language groups of the Romance languages, the varieties of German spoken from the north to the south of Germany are only regional variations of the same language. The variations remain regional because the German peoples have maintained close ties with one another throughout history. 

Map of the Germanic Languages, including German

In many areas it is the geography that allows a speech community to either merge or diverge. The vast mountain ridge of the Pyrenees dividing France and Spain, for example, separated the speech communities so that their linguistic development diverged. As you can see, languages distinguish themselves from one another or they may merge. Presently, the dialects of the German tongue are merging, for example. Some of its rare dialects have even become extinct.

So when people are cut off from each other--either by geography, by ethnic separatism, or by political separation-- which group tends to change the least and retain the older forms of a language?  It turns out that the language spoken by the group that is most isolated from the mainstream tends to change the least (for example, Appalachian English is most like 17th century English.)  We'll look at the history of language in a coming module.

LANGUAGE AND DIALECT

What's the difference between  "language" and "dialect"? 

To study dialects we must first decide how to determine when two similar forms of a language are merely dialects of the same language and when are they separate languages.  The difference between dialect and language is not clear-cut, but rather depends on at least three factors, which often contradict one another.

1. The first criterion is purely linguistic, mutual intelligibility.  Although this is a distinction that we have all heard of, it isn't clear that there is any clear distinction that can be drawn between the two. A criterion ofmutual intelligibility is often applied as a test of whether a pair of speakers is speaking two different languages or one or two dialects of the same language: if the two speakers can understand one another, then they must be speaking the same language.  Can the speakers of two different language forms readily understand one another?  If they cannot, then the two forms would normally be considered separate languages -- at least by linguists.  Such is the case with Dutch, German and English, which are not mutually intelligible, or are mutually intelligible only to a small degree.  There are at least 5000 forms of speech across the world that are as different from one another as German is from English.  These would normally be considered separate languages.  If language differences cause only minimal problems in communication, there is a tendency to call the variants dialects of a single language: such is the case with British, Australian, American English and the English of India--all dialects of English.       
2. The second criterion is cultural and takes into account the opinion of the speakers:  do the speakers themselves think of their form of language as a variety of a more standard form of speech?  Is there a neutral or standardized form of the language that speakers look to as the norm?  This is certainly true of the varieties of English spoken in the United States.  Most anyone speaking Southern English or Brooklynese would consider their language forms to be local variants of American English; they would also recognize certain newscasters as speaking English without an accent.  In fact, some people use the word dialect to mean "an accent," although an accent is only the sound aspect of a dialect; dialects also differ in grammar and vocabulary.  Most speakers of American English would also consider American English and the English spoken in Britain--which subscribes to a slightly different standard--to be variants of a single language.  (As you know, there are differences in vocabulary, pronunciation, punctuation, etc. between standard American English and British English.) On the other hand, the Germanic languages of Scandinavia show a high degree of mutual intelligibility, but few if any Danes or Norwegians would claim that their language is a substandard dialect of Swedish.  Each language--Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic--has its own, separate literary standard, even though the language forms themselves show a fairly high degree of mutually intelligible. 

Most language forms that share a single literary standard are mutually intelligible.  A few are not.  The several main dialects of Chinese are not at all mutually intelligible in their spoken form.  The best known, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese, are more different from one another than German is from English.  Yet all of them use a single standard written form.  This is possible because Chinese characters are based only very loosely on sound.  Therefore, many Chinese speakers consider their very divergent spoken forms to be variants of a single standard language, unified by the use of written characters with shared meanings.  In terms of spoken form, the so-called "dialects" of Chinese could easily be considered separate languages;  in the speakers' view, they are dialects of the same language--at least as far as the written language is concerned.

3. A final criterion in differentiating language from dialect involves a language's political status, a factor that is external to the form of the language and sometimes even at variance with the culture of the speakers.  Do the political authorities in a country consider two language forms to be separate languages or dialects of a single language? Extremely different, non-mutually intelligible language forms may be called dialects simply because they are spoken within a single political entity and it behooves the rulers of that entity to consider them as such:  this was the case with Ukrainian and Russian in the days of the Russian Empire, where Ukrainian (called Little Russian) was considered a substandard variety of Russian (called Great Russian). This could also be said to be the case with the so-called dialects of Chinese in the People's Republic of China.

On the other hand, language forms that are quite mutually intelligible can be considered separate languages also for purely political reasons.  Such is the case with Serbian and Croatian in the former Yugoslavia.  Linguistically, these two language forms are more similar than the English spoken in Texas and New York; linguists, in fact, usually called them both by the name Serbo-Croatian.  However, for entirely political reasons the Serbs and the Croats have deliberately invented separate literary standards to render their language more divergent than it really is.  Furthermore, the Croats, being Catholics, use the Latin alphabet, while the Orthodox Serbs use a version of Cyrillic.   A similar situation pertains is other cases, notably Hindi/Urdu, and Bengali/Assamese. 

The best we can do in defining a dialect as something different from a language is to say the following:  If two language variants are mutually intelligible, they are dialects of the same language rather than separate languages -- provided, of course, that there is no overriding political reason to think otherwise.  And, if two language variants are not mutually intelligible, they are different languages -- unless there is some overriding political or cultural reason to consider them the same language.  One exasperated linguist, Uriel Weinreich, said that a language is simply a dialect with an army and navy. Thus, the difference between dialect and language is partly linguistic and partly a matter of opinion based on extra-linguistic considerations.

Dialect

What is a person's dialect?

As we are learning, the study of language in society is called sociolinguistics. The real basis for much of sociolinguistics is that the variations -- the differences -- in language among members of a speech community or between different regions speaking different varieties of the same language are often meaningful for society. Not everyone who speaks a given language speaks it in the same way.  Actually, every individual uses language in their own unique way.  This is evident from an analysis of writers' vocabulary usage, for example.  It is possible to prove the authorship of an anonymous work based on statistical studies of word usage.  An individual's particular way of speaking is called an idiolect.  Language variants spoken by entire groups of people are referred to as dialects.  

Dialectology is a branch of sociolinguistics that studies the systematic variants of a language.  The term dialect was first coined in 1577 from the Latin dialectus, way of speaking.  Dialectal variation is present in most language areas and often has important social implications

 

Lets KNOW "Michel Foucault"

Michel Foucault, a contemporary French philosopher born in Poitiers in 1926, is regarded as a strong continental influence on present day cultural criticism - and perhaps the strongest influence on American cultural criticism. His work has been taken up or has impacted upon a wide range of disciplines - sociology, history, psychology, philosophy, politics, linguistics, cultural studies, literary theory, and education. At the center of his work has been a series of attempts to analyze particular ideas or models of humanity which have developed as the result of very precise historical changes, and the ways in which these ideas have become normative or universal. In an interview he explained: My role - and that is too emphatic a word - is to show people that they are much freer than they feel, that people accept as truth, as evidence, some themes which have been built up at a certain movement during history, and that this so-called evidence can be criticized and destroyed. To change something in the minds of people - that’s the role of an intellectual. (Martin et al. 1988:10)

Foucault’s theory of discourse is a central concept in his analytical framework. Discourses are about what can be said and thought, but also about who can speak, when , and with what authority. Discourses embody meaning and social relationships, they constitute both subjectivity and power relations. Discourses are ‘practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak. . . Discourses are not about objects; they do not identify objects, they constitute them and in the practice of doing so conceal their own invention’ (Foucault 1974: 49). Thus the possibilities for meaning and for definition are preempted through the social and institutional position held by those who use them. Meanings thus arise not from language but from institutional practices, from power relations. According to Foucault, discourse lies between the level of pure a temporal linguistic ‘structure’ (langue) and the level of surface speaking (parole): it expresses the historical specificity of what is said and what remains unsaid.

This theme is adopted by radical educational theorists in the development of Critical Pedagogy, wherein the development of the student’s subjectivity is analyzed through the discourses of the school and the power relations within the structures of education.   What is analyzed is why, at a given time, out of all the possible things that could be said, only certain things are said. Critical theory is concerned with how schools, as generators of an historically specific (modern) discourse, that is, as sites in which certain modern validations of, and exclusions from, the ‘right to speak’ are generated. According to Ball, educational institutions control the access of individuals to various kinds of discourse.

Foucault is concerned with the different modes by which, in our culture, human beings are made subjects. That is the objectification of the subject by processes of classification and division.

As a Postmodernist, Foucault attempted to develop a new theory of society through the study of the development of the “Subject” - that is, how a person becomes who and what they are. The key concepts in Foucault’s exploration of the problem of the Subject are those of power and knowledge, or more accurately, that of power-knowledge, which Foucault believes to be a single, inseparable configuration of ideas and practices that constitute a discourse. Discourses are constituted by exclusions as well as inclusions, by what cannot as well as what can be said. These exclusions and inclusions stand in antagonistic relationship to other discourses, other possible meanings, other claims, rights, and positions. This is Foucault’s principle of discontinuity: “We must make allowance for the complex and unstable powers whereby discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling block, a point of resistance and a starting point for an opposing strategy” (Foucault 1982: 101) Power and knowledge are two sides of a single process. Knowledge does not reflect power relations but is immanent in them.

In a postmodern world view, there can be no universal truth or universal reason. (Lyotard, 1984; Lyotard, 1993). Often, questions arising out of postmodernism are as follows: Whose world view is it we are trying to understand? How is singular and group cultural identity constructed? How is knowledge transmitted? How many ways do people learn? Can there be any form of knowledge? How many realities are there? In its most conservative sense, postmodernism only tries to understand multiple forms of difference, multiple interpretations, multiple ways of knowing or constructing knowledge. This could be called the phenomenology or hermeneutics of knowledge. Postmodernism strives to deconstruct or unravel social, cultural, and human differences. The locus of power shifts to the underprivileged, the marginalized, and the oppressed. Critical postmodernism is about real people struggling in the everyday world within their multishaped identities and subjectivities. What the relations of race, class and gender may be to any individual will always be different and changing.

As a Postmodernist, Foucault vehemently disagrees with the “Enlightenment”, its positivistic scientific-management, and its pronouncement of absolutes and universals. Foucault believed that a true critique of society, of reality, of truth, could never be absolute, but was constantly in flux as changes occurred through the progress of history. He disagreed with the Enlightenment’s belief in the ability to locate any permanent foundation of reality or absolute truth. To the Modernist of the Enlightenment, the scientist, human nature was human nature, was universal and absolute, and who a person became was attributable to his status as a human being. To Foucault, the Enlightenment had set up false categories; these included those of the “normal” and those who were not normal. This process can be perceived as the exercise of power over knowledge, of those who are in power in the society making the decisions as to what truth is, what normal is, and based on that “knowledge” and “truth” some people were accepted as part of the dominant class while others were not. Foucault argued that our conception of what we are like as individuals or “subjects” depends essentially on expelling and controlling whole classes of people who do not fit the categories of normal as established by the Enlightenment. He believed that the same mechanisms used to understand and to control marginalized and ostracized groups were also essential to the understanding and the control - indeed, to the constitution of “normal individuals”.  Thus, the constant surveillance of prisoners that replaced physical torture as a result of penal reform came to be applied also to schoolchildren, to factory workers, to whole populations (and, we might add, to average citizens, whose police records, medical reports and credit ratings are even today becoming more available and more detailed). Who we are, in Foucault’s account, is a function of certain practices in society. What counts as a “subject”, is defined by such information and knowledge, and is the result of the exercise of power. In this sense power is “productive” and is the flip side of knowledge: Power produces knowledge . . .power and knowledge directly imply one another . . . there is no power relation without the correlative constitutions of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.

Foucault’s work includes the concept of hegemony through consent, a wide range of institutions, and the media and culture. To develop his theories of knowledge and power, Foucault studied the institutions of society - the prison, the mental hospital, the school and the classroom. He believed the prison was the model for the carceral society. Foucault reveals how this power is administered within these institutions through the process of surveillance - to watch, observe, supervise and discipline. Power, knowledge, institutions, practices and discourse are all interrelated. Everything is embedded in power.

In hegemony, the oppressed class literally “gives” to the oppressors the permission to oppress them. Much of the hegemony occurs through social practices and beliefs which neither the oppressors nor the oppressed are aware of, thus the necessity for the raising of the consciousness of the people as a prerequisite for true freedom. Although Foucault sought to develop a new theory of society, through most of his career he doubted that this freedom could actually be achieved.

Later in his career, Foucault’s opinion of the possibility for liberation began to change. According to Foucault, power maintains the status quo, keeps things going. Foucault sees power as decentralized - not wielded by someone “up there”, but internalized; we suppress and punish ourselves. This internalization is our domination which can be thrown off after self-awareness develops and the domination is identified. We can observe his changing attitude as his critique begins to focus on the possibilities:   the real political task in a society such as ours is to criticize the working of institutions which appear to be both neutral and independent; violence which has always exercised itself obscurely through them will be unmasked, so that we can fight fear.
(Foucault 1974: 171)

According to Critical Pedagogy the structure of the education system perpetuates, recreates, the unequal social stratification of our society which is based upon race, class and gender. This is accomplished mainly through discourses within the schools - what can be said, what cannot be said, who may speak and who may not speak, when they may speak, how they may speak, whose voice are heard and whose voices are silenced. Thus, discourse is interwoven with power and knowledge to constitute the oppression of those “others” in our society, serving to marginalize, silence and oppress them. They are oppressed not only by being denied access to certain knowledges, but by the demands of the dominant group within the society that the “other” shed their differences (in essence, their being, their voices, their cultures) to become “one of us”. This is evidenced in the demands for students in our schools to speak English only, in the demand that the heritage and culture of the great Western tradition be taught as the “right” tradition and culture, by asking children who come to school who are not white or middle-class to drop their experiences and cultures at the door and become acculturated into the mainstream of dominant society. Critical Pedagogy, then, not only strives to make judgments concerning the status of what things are, but seeks ways to create change for the better, striving to create what could be, conditions which are more fair and just to all.

Control of knowledge is a form of oppression - only certain groups have access to certain knowledge. Those in positions of power are responsible for the assumptions that underlie the selection and organization of knowledge in society. The task for the educator is to discover the patterns and distributions of power that influence the way in which a society selects, classifies, transmits, and evaluates the knowledge it considers to be public. Critical Pedagogists ask such questions as - What constitutes really useful knowledge? Whose knowledge will be taught? Which knowledge will not be taught? Whose interests does it serve? What kinds of social relations does it structure and at what price? How does school knowledge enable those who have been generally excluded from schools to speak and act with dignity? More than that, though, Michael Apple argues that the study of educational knowledge is a study in ideology, the investigation of what is considered legitimate knowledge by specific social groups and classes, in specific institutions, at specific historical moments.

Surveillance is another important concept in Foucault’s theory which contributes to the use of power in schools. Foucault conducted intense studies of the structures of schools; he studied how the building is constructed and arranged, the routines which were taken for granted, the testing and discipline of students. We can see in all of these that the school environment is one of total control and surveillance. Both teachers and students are under constant surveillance. Students are watched at all times by the teachers, not only in the classrooms but in the halls and other areas of school property; their every movement and their speech is controlled - being told when they have permission to speak and when to remain silent, having to raise their hand for permission to move from their seat in many classrooms. Teachers are watched by the administration and the state: having to turn in lesson plans to be checked by the principal each week, having intercoms in their rooms which principals could use to “listen in” at any time, edicts from the legislature on what curriculum to teach, how to teach it and when, pop-in walk-through inspections by the principal, teacher evaluation instruments, students’ scores on standardized tests, as well as the grades on students’ report cards are all examples of ways in which teachers experience the constant surveillance; teachers who believe that they are autonomous because they walk into their classroom and shut the door are fooling themselves by believing that they are not being watched and controlled at all times.

As Critical Pedagogists study the discourses through which power, knowledge, surveillance and control in schools are created and carried out, perhaps we can begin to unravel, or deconstruct, those power structures which serve to maintain the unhappy conditions in schools, and we can begin to create a society and an educational system which is more just, fair and democratic.

Stephen Ball offers the hope that the application of Foucauldian analysis to education will unmask the politics that underlie some of the apparent neutrality of educational reform, and reminds us of Foucault’s statement:  “I’m proud that some people think that I’m a danger for the intellectual health of students” (Martin et al. 1988: 13)

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT

The concept of “discursive fields” is used to conceptualize an aspect of the context in which discourse and meaning-making processes, such as framing and narration, are generally embedded. Discursive fields, like the kindred concepts of multiorganizational fields and identity fields, are constitutive of the genre of concepts in the social sciences that can be thought of as “embedding” concepts in that they reference broader enveloping contexts in which discussions, decisions, and actions take place. Discursive fields evolve during the course of discussion and debate, sometimes but not always contested, about relevant events and issues, and encompass cultural materials (e.g., beliefs, values, ideologies, myths) of potential relevance and various sets of actors (e.g., targeted authorities, social control agents, countermovements, media) whose interests are aligned, albeit differently, with the issues or events in question, and who thus have a stake in how those events and issues are framed and/or narrated.

Some controversies in discourse theory

Some controversies in discourse theory

 

Despite many common concerns, researchers of discourse have very different views on what exactly discourse is, how precisely it works, and what its impact might be. Also, their work may at times draw from other approaches that analyze textual sources, such as literary theory, theories of history, or different branches of linguistics, while at other times combining detailed language analyses with broad political concerns in ways that are at odds with these disciplines.  If you are planning to conduct discourse analyses, then you should be aware of the controversies and their implications. They could have a profound impact on how you set up your own research project.

Is discourse primarily language?

In a discourse analysis, you will have to decide how important you think the written and spoken word is. While most discourse analysts admit that discourse can play out in various forms of communication, their focus is overwhelmingly on language. This is particularly true for scholars who work in the Anglo-Saxon tradition of critical discourse analysis (or: CDA). CDA is a branch in the field that draws heavily from socio-linguistics, and which primarily produces what Greg Philo has called “text only” analyses (2007: 185). Important scholars in this discipline are Lilie Chouliaraki (Chouliaraki & Fairclough 1999), Teun van Dijk (1993), Norman Fairclough (1995), Siegfried Jäger (2004), and Jürgen Link (2013). Another text-based approach is called political discourse analysis, and has been championed by Paul Chilton (2004). If you are interested in the linguistic aspects of discourse, then these approaches will likely be very useful.

Other scholars emphasize that text is not the only mode in which humans communicate (MacDonald 2003), and that sounds and visuals, or even tastes and smells should also fall under the term discourse. Such multimodal discourse approaches (Kress & van Leeuwen 2001) examine things like pictures, movies, games, food, physical artifacts  statues, buildings, and public spaces – always with an emphasis on what the contents of these media types and the ways people use them reveal about social truths. Very often, these approaches link to semiotics, which is the study of how different signs stand for specific objects. If you are interested in sociological work or broader communication practices, then such social semiotics might be a way forward.

What exactly does discourse “construct”?

Discourse theorists disagree on which parts of our world are real. In other words, they takedifferent ontological stances. Extremeconstructivists argue that all human knowledge and experience is socially constructed, and that there is no reality beyond discourse (Potter 1997). Critical realists, on the other hand, argue that there is a physical reality that “talks back” as we engage with it (Sperber 1996), but that this reality isrepresented through discourse (Kress & van Leeuwen 2001). Yet others are interested mainly in the socio-economic realities that discourse shapes: In line with Marxist critical theories, such scholars argue that there are different kinds of knowledge, and that we should distinguish between “beliefs, values, ideologies” (in other words types of false knowledge), and “knowledge properly so called” (what one might call true knowledge; Fairclough 1995: 44). In this view, discourse analysts have a moral obligation to emancipate people by revealing systemic ideological shackles that reflect class affiliations.

Who is the agent in discourse theory?

A closely related question in discourse theory is where power is located. Are certain identifiable groups manipulating discourse, for instance a capitalist class, a patriarchy, a specific religious group, or an ethnic majority? If so, are members of such groups acting consciously or subconsciously when they shape discourse in the favor of their group? Or is discourse its own agent, like post-Marxist theorists argue? In such a case, power is not something that certain people use to dominate others, but is a mesh of relations and hierarchies that has its own logic, and that no one is consciously steering (Howard 2000, Laclau and Mouffe 2001).

Where does discursive construction happen?

Another matter of controversy is what exactly discourse constructs and how. Does discourse shape only objects (the knowledge of the things people speak about), or does it shape subjects as well (the people who are interacting with the objects)? One stance is that our thoughts and actions are linguistically determined, and that we cannot think (and act) outside of the things we can express. In this line of thought, language has the power to programme how people behave.

Others look towards social practices and argue that discursive truths influence the habits of people through social pressures, for instance by establishing norms and values of what is normalor appropriate (Link 2013). Such assumptions then spread through the way people interact, and ultimately inform the logic of institutions (such as prisons, or enterprises, or systems of international relations). Finally, discourse can be seen to have a cognitive dimension (Chilton 2004, Sperber 1996). In such an interpretation, discourse is the expressions of human thought, and consequently has its roots in the interaction between our minds and our physical and social environments. The key to discourse is then the cognitive experience with the world through flawed sensory organs, and the way human beings share these experiences through discourse.

What to make of all this

As you can see, there are many different positions in discourse theory, and I can only urge you to explore this fascinating literature yourself to find your own answers to the various controversies. My own view is this:

For me, discourse refers to communication practices, which systematically construct our knowledge of reality. Discourse plays out in various modes, and across all media. Language is one part in this process, but not necessarily the most important one. Non-verbal and visual communication are crucial aspects of discourse. I personally think that discourse does notprogramme human thought, like strong versions of linguistic determinism have argued (the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers an excellent introduction to such arguments, and if you want to read a scathing critique, take a look at Pinker 1994: 46-48). Instead, I find it useful to understand discourse as a representation of human thought. It has a cognitive foundation, and is consequently open to (but also limited by) the kinds of psychological manipulations that cognitive scientists explore.

This may already give you an idea of my thoughts on what discourse is not. Social practices, for instance, may include communication elements, and may produce discursive statements, but they are not in and of themselves discourse. A specific action may be meant to communicate something, for instance a gesture or some other performance, and this means that the action produces discourse. However, a social interaction like a decision-making process is not itself discourse. Neither are political institutions or the physical objects in our surrounding. So how then do social processes, institutional mechanisms, and the objects we engage with relate to discourse?

In this regard, I find Foucault’s argument very useful that discourse affects social relationsthrough the very real, often physical effects it has on our environment (Foucault 1995/1977). For instance: the way people think about a political issue like crime is a continuous negotiation process on what the “correct” view on this issue should be. This negotiation happens through discourse, and it can be manipulated and dominated by very real actors and interests groups. The general consensus that such negotiations produce then creates demands for a certain kind of legal system. It informs new laws, creates acceptance for certain kinds of punishment, and prompts governments to create places where such punishment takes place. All of this requires certain professions, such as judges, lawyers, police officers, and prison guards, and creates specific social relations.

I would therefore argue that discourse “crystallizes” into institutions, and prompts societies to create and shape the physical world they inhabit in specific ways rather than others. Discourse plays a crucial role in how human communities structure their polities and their economies. A single discourse analysis will not reveal how all of these processes work. But discourse theory highlights some of the mechanisms that are at work. In other words: discourse theory helps us think about the connection between communication and politics and the world we live in, and asks us to slowly and systematically put together the puzzle pieces that make up social relations.

If these theoretical discussions have sparked your interest, take a look at my post on how to set up a discourse analysis, at the ten work-steps that I recommend for analyzing written and spoken texts for political discourse, and at my advice on working with foreign scripts like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.