There is Nothing Outside Discourse

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'There is Nothing Outside Discourse'

Michel Foucault describes a discourse as “a group of statements which provide a language for talking about – a way of representing knowledge about – a particular topic at a particular historical moment…Discourse is about the production of knowledge through language. But…since all social practices entail meaning, and meanings shape and influence what we do – our conduct – all practices have a discursive aspect (Hall, in Langdridge & Hagger-Johnsen, 2009, p. 432). In line with this, what can be seen as a quite radical view, Foucault, being a ‘constructionist’, states that “all social practices must be understood through their discursive construction” and that “discourse actually constructs the object or event itself” (Langdridge et al., 2009, p. 432). Discourse not only creates the object (of our knowledge) or event, it also ‘governs’ and ‘regulates’, in the sense that it ‘rules in’ and ‘rules out’ certain ways of talking about a topic, ways of conducting oneself in relation to a topic etc. (Hall, 1997).

Although some of the critics of Foucault have stated that, given the notion that all meaning and meaningful practices are constructed within discourse, he intended to claim that, in a totalizing way, indeed, ‘nothing exists outside of discourse’, Foucault was not denying the existence of real, material things in the world, but, instead, he was arguing that ‘nothing has any meaning outside discourse’ (Foucault, in Hall, 1997, p. 44-45). As it is unable to think, or understand (social) action without the involvement of language, the involvement of discourse is inevitable (Langdridge, 2009), the concepts of meaning and discourse go hand in hand.

As Hall writes, concluding: “The concept of discourse is not about whether things exist but about where meaning comes from” (Hall, 1997, p. 45).

References

Hall, S. (1997). Representation: cultural representations and signifying practices. Open University, Milton Keynes.

Langdridge, D. & Hagger-Johnsen, G. (2009). Introduction to Research Methods and Data Analysis in Pychology. Harlow: Pearson Education.