Discourse and Thought

• Alternatives to Whorf

• The symbolic interactionism of George Herbert Mead.

• The study of ideology.

Whorf and Objectification.

• Whorf raised the question of objectification meaning the making objects.

• Language signs are objects for the representation of the world.

• Without this objectivation, our world is subjective (rather than intersubjective).

• Doesn’t this have some significance?

Language and thought revisited.

• Discourse, as opposed to Grammar, effects the way we perceive the world.

• Mead does this.

• This is also evident in the study of ideology.

George Herbert Mead:George Herbert Mead:Mind, Self and SocietyMind, Self and Society

• Symbolic Interactionism– React to the intention of the other (not to the

stimulus of the other)– Stimulus Response

versus – Stimulus Sign Response– Note that the interaction between two people

implies a society as a precondition.

Self and Mind

• The Concept of Role (Mother/Funcle...)– Julie is my aunt v Julie is an aunt.

• The “I” versus “me.”– I = impulsive self; me = social self– The struggle between the I and the me.

• Whenever this struggle (dialectic) occurs creativity and change is possible

• Mead called this struggle “mind”; Marx called it consciousness.

• Note the shift in orientation between speaker -> listener and self <–> other

Cassirer (1944:24)

• Obviously this [human world forms no exception to those biological rules which govern the life of all the other organisms. Yet in the human world we find a new characteristic which appears to be the distinctive mark of human life. The functional circle of man is not only quantitatively enlarged: it has also undergone a qualitative change. Man has, as it were, discovered a new method of adapting himself to his environment. Between the receptor [response] system and the effector [stimulus] system, which are to be found in all animal species, we find in man a third link which we may describe as the symbolic system. This new acquisition transforms the whole of human life. As compared with the other animals, man lives not merely in a broader reality, he lives, so to speak, in a new dimension of reality.

Ideology

• The term covers a wide range of topics.• Ideology versus World View • Marx versus Manheim – two extremes• Marx: Ideology = false consciousness:

expose the falseness of the ideology and people will see the truth.

• Manheim’s view is much closer to culture or worldview. Knowledge which people use to understand the world.

Our Approach

• Both views are important:• People use knowledge (worldview).

because it helps them understand the world• Some knowledge (ideology) represents a

view favorable to one group at the expense of others.– This is the privileging element of ideology.– Different from truth (ideology can be both true

and privileging.

Examples of PrivilegeHow are they privileging?

1. The poor will always be with us.

2. The cream always rises to the top.

3. Right to life versus Pro Choice.

4. Galileo and the moons of Jupiter.

5. The CIA is a university without students.

6. The war was a success despite the colleteral dammage.

• Questions of legitimacy of institutions are often areas of struggle (examples 3 and 5) over representation.

• The concept of “political correctness.”– Challenging the left’s characterization of the world.

– Some of the assertions of political correctness were inane.

Our view versus Marx and Mannheim

• This view differs from Marx in two important ways:– Ideology does not have to be false.– Ideology is not limited to the dominant class.

• This view connects with Manheim because it associates ideology with knowledge that helps us to understand.

Where to find ideology

• Look to institutions

• Legitimations– The justification of institutions and institutional

practice. The earlier examples were legitimations.

• Discourse– The use of language in the institutional domain.– Overt and Covert discourse.

Overt Discourse

• Overt discourse appears in the text.

• Legitimations always use overt discourse.

• Ideology is often a struggle over representations. – If a given representation prevails then the

position it represents prevails – – That is it is privileged.

Covert Discourse

• Texts, Fairclough says, are not coherent in themselves.

• They require the filling of gaps either with background knowledge or inference.

– Background knowledge is what the speaker already knows.

– Some background knowledge is ideological.

– Inferencing involves guessing at the background knowledge needed to understand the text.

• Gap filling allows things to be said without saying them.

• Inferencing is a way of learning.

The Paras’ new leader

THE wife of the new CO of the 2nd Parachute Batallion spoke last night of her fears for her husband’s safety.

As she played in the sunshine with her four children, Jenne Keeble said she hoped her husband would not have to go into battle again.

She said: “I pray he and his men have done enough. But if they do go on I know that he is a man who will do his job to the best of his ability and I am certain he and the 2nd Parachute Battalion will succeed.

Major Christopher Keeble, a 40-year-old devout Roman Catholic, is to succeed Colonel Herbert Jones who died leading his men against an Argentine machinegun post in the battle for Goose Green.

Yesterday Jenny Keeble’s family and friends gathered around in the garden of her old vicarage home – a rambling Tudor bulding at Maddington on Salisburry Plain – for a picnic afternoon as she tried to maintain an air of normility for the children’s sake. Source: Daily Mail, June 1, 1982

He’ll do his job well says major’s wife.

Examining the text

• What additional knowledge do you need to know to understand the text.

• What does the text imply about gender roles?

• What does the text infer about the roles of soldiers?

• What institutions are in play here?

More on (background) knowledge

• Knowledge is seen as what is understood as opposed to what is true.

• Common sense: knowledge that is held in common.

• If unchallenged termed hegemonic.

– Without challenge, this knowledge often naturalizes.

– E.g., human nature is ___________.

• If challenged one finds an orthodox and heterodoxic views.– E.g., prowar and antiwar positions.

– The acceptance of nuclear weapons.

Newcastle Coal Strike Threatens British Economy

• Who is responsible for the strike?

• Who makes the major decisions in Britain about the economy?

• How would you react to this headline if you were the owner of a coal company?

• How would you react to this headline if you were a striker?

The Power of the Press

• To determine what is said and what is not.– The falseness of the report that Iraq tried to buy

uranium was public knowledge outsied of the US as was the fact that Blair’s intelligence was based on the work of a graduate student in the US of Iraqi orign.

• To legitimize what is said by repeating it.

More editorial comments.

• [anti-fascist rally] The evening combined emotive reminders of the rise of Nazism with diatribes against racial discrimination and prejudice today.

• [Black sections] In the more ideologically-blinkered sections of his [Kinnock’s] party ... they seem to gain pleasure from identifying all difficulties experienced by immigrant groups, particularly Afro-Caribbeans, as the result of racism...

• [Worker accused of racism] The really alarming thing is that some of these pocket Hitlers of local government are moving into national politics. It’s time we set about exposing their antics while we can. Forewarned is forearmed. Mail

Racism and the press

When confronted with evidence of racial bias, van Dijk received the following denials.

• In particular, what you state about the coverage of minorities remains unproven and an unacceptable caricature reality. Your thesis ‘that the tendency of most reports is that ethnic minorities cause problems for us’ is in my opinion not only not proven, but simply incorrect. [in response to an article like this]

• Your so-called scientific research does not in any sense prove your slanderous insinuations regarding the contents of our news paper, is completely irrelevant and raises doubt about the prevailing norms of scientific research and social prudence at the University of Amsterdam.

• With such an editorial attitude towards racism, there is a general

reluctance to identify racist events as such in society at large.

Denial of Racism,Teun A.van Dijk

• I have nothing against Arabs but,... Serves as a face keeping move introducing a generally negative assertion.

• Uhh... how they are and that is mostly just fine, people have their own religion have their own way of life, and I have absolutely nothing against that, but it is a fact that if their way of life begins to differ from mine to an extent that...

• ...It sounds prejudiced, but I think if students only use English....

Discourse and Racism• Besides positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation, such

discourse signals group membership, white ingroup allegiances and, more generally, the various conditions for the reproduction of the white group and their dominance in virtually all social, political and cultural domains.

Racism and the PressDescription of a government report on race relations which said that

things were not good.

• In its report which follows a detailed review of the operation of the 1976 Race Relations Act, the Commission claims that ethnic minorities continue to suffer high levels of discrimination and disadvantage. Daily Telegraph, 1 August

• Of the Commission you say ‘it claims that ethnic minorities continue to suffer high levels of discrimination and disadvantage’. This is like saying that someone ‘claims’ that July was wet. It was. And it is also a fact supported by the weight of independent research evidence that discrimination on racial grounds, in employment, housing and services, remains at a disconcertingly high level. Daily Telegraph, 7 August

Racism and the PressDescription of a government report on race relations which said that

things were not good.

• In its report which follows a detailed review of the operation of the 1976 Race Relations Act, the Commission claims that ethnic minorities continue to suffer high levels of discrimination and disadvantage. Daily Telegraph, 1 August

• Of the Commission you say ‘it claims that ethnic minorities continue to suffer high levels of discrimination and disadvantage’. This is like saying that someone ‘claims’ that July was wet. It was. And it is also a fact supported by the weight of independent research evidence that discrimination on racial grounds, in employment, housing and services, remains at a disconcertingly high level. Daily Telegraph, 7 August