Iscursive Ideologies

Discursive Ideologies

In Discursive Ideologies, C. H. Knoblauch argues that European rhetorical theory comprises several distinct and fundamentally opposed traditions of discourse. Writing accessibly for the upper division student, Knoblauch resists the conventional narrative of a unified Western rhetorical tradition. He identifies deep ideological and epistemological differences that exist among strands of Western thought and that are based in divergent "grounds of meaningfulness.” These conflicts underlie and influence current discourse about vital public issues. Knoblauch considers six "stories” about the meaning of meaning in an attempt to answer the question, what encourages us to believe that language acts are meaningful? Six distinctive ideologies of Western rhetoric emerge: magical rhetoric, ontological rhetoric, objectivist rhetoric, expressivist rhetoric, sociological rhetoric, and deconstructive rhetoric. He explores the nature of language and the important role these rhetorics play in the discourses that matter most to people, such as religion, education, public policy, science, law, and history.

Discourse and Ideologies

This book discusses the relationship between ideology and language, especially such questions as: What are ideologies? How can they be described? and, How can they be related to the processes involved in the production or interpretation of discourse? In the main contribution, Teun van Dijk develops new theoretical notions and analytical distinctions to link explicitly structures of society, cognition and discourse. Ideologies are defined as socially shared belief systems of groups with social and cognitive functions. Their main social function is to sustain the interests of a group: they monitor group-related social practices. Cognitively, ideologies are assumed to assign an overall orientation, coherence and organisation to a cluster of attitudes. Ideologies and their structures have to be inferred from more directly observable structures of cognition, interaction and society. Therefore, the notion of 'opinion' and its complex relations to the structures of discourse and ideology are examined. Opinions are typically expressed, acquired and changed by discourse in interactional contexts. This implies that specific grammatical or other verbal means are typically associated with the expression of opinions. An analysis of a sample text illustrates how argumentation structures reflect preexisting, underlying structures of social cognition. In this way, discourse analysts can contribute to the development of a critical language awareness. Contributors to the debates include Michael Billig, Paul Chilton, David Graddol, Ulrike Meinhof and Kay Richardson.

The Discursive Construction of Subject Positioning, Power, and Language Ideologies Among Adult Immigrant Learners of English