Material Discourse Materialist Analysis

Material Discourse – Materialist Analysis explores the entanglement of material realities and discourse and shows how a materialist discourse analysis can be put into practice. A cognate concern for language and discourse, as well as well as materiality and materialism can look back on a long tradition in the Social Sciences and Humanities. This book makes their relation an explicit focus. Located at the intersections of materialism and Discourse Studies, it highlights the materiality of discourse and the entanglement of matter and meaning. The essays collected in this volume are united by a rejection of static dichotomies such as discursive / material, language / materiality or material / immaterial. Rather than presenting materialism and Discourse Studies as distinct from one another, they are shown to be intimately entwined. The book brings together theoretical and empirical contributions from a whole range of disciplines, fields, and academic contexts in a truly transdisciplinary and global manner. Material Discourse – Materialist Analysis is a timely intervention into the ongoing debates revolving around materiality, materialism, discourse, and language, as well as the intricate relations between them.

In recent decades, what is known as 'the subject' has been problematized by various old and new materialisms and today appears as decentered in and by language, split by the unconscious, deformed by social forces, governed by ideology and is either seen to have succumbed to the postmodern condition or to never have existed in the first place. Every materialist theory of the subject depends on a conception of materiality, which can delineate the character of what the material reality, which de-centers or constitutes the subject consists of. Materiality and Subject in Marxism, (Post-)Structuralism, and Material Semiotics investigates the relation between materiality and the subject in the materialist approaches of Marxism, (post-)structuralism, and material semiotics. None of these approaches subscribes to a reductionist materialism; rather, they conceive of materiality as multiple, complex, and not reducible to tangible matter. For each approach, the modalities of materiality of the respective materialism are defined. The relationship between the multiple materialities and the subject constituted and decentered in this relationship are presented as specific to the theoretical approaches discussed.

What remains of materialism’s subversive potential — i.e., its ties with heresy or atheism and republicanism or communism — and to what extent does this concept still interpellate us politically and philosophically? As neoliberal policies expanded far beyond the state, their mechanisms of control seeped into the materiality of social reproduction, solidifying a conception of matter as something inert, to be appropriated, manipulated, and exploited. If in this context the subversive nature of a reference to materiality is called into question, it has also provoked new forms of resistance, as well as fundamental reconsiderations of the political implications of the notion of ‘matter’. Against this background, the aim of this book is to show the diversity within continued engagements with materialism as a central concept for progressive politics, be it in the direction opened up by New Materialism, in renewed forms of Marxist and Spinozist based approaches, or in feminist analyses, each in their own terms, without excluding the possibility of alliances between them. Finally, this volume insists that the study of materiality and materialist approaches does not amount to a renunciation of philosophy, but rather urges us to broaden the task of philosophical thought in order to reconsider the historical and, in every sense of the word, material situatedness of all philosophical problems. Against a reductive and ahistorical conception of materialism — the straightest way back to ideology —, this book offers an analysis of its diverse emancipatory potentialities.

Empowering Students Through Multilingual and Content Discourse is a peer-reviewed research book that challenges the traditional monolingual classroom approach, where the teacher's voice dominates and only the dominant culture's language is considered the path to success. The book aims to empower students by creating classroom spaces where all voices are heard, valued, and empowered. It draws on research from scholars who study discourse and offers insights into how discourse can be used to promote language and literacy development, honor all students' voices, and empower them. This book also provides guidance on culturally and linguistically sustaining discourse practices and encourages educators to incorporate students' home languages and discourse practices in classroom instruction. It challenges educators to move away from centering White English and represent language more responsibly within the classroom. This research is a valuable resource for academic scholars and a useful tool for teachers looking to cultivate student-centered classroom practices. By encouraging discourse among students, educators can create a space where human life holds meaning, and students feel empowered to act and use their voices.

This book acknowledges the importance of discourse studies, in having produced a better understanding of the socio-political role of frameworks of intelligibility, and of materialism theory in highlighting the importance of the agentic role of materials.

This book provides an overview of a range of quantitative methods, presenting a thorough analytical toolbox which will be of practical use to researchers across the social sciences as they face the challenges raised by new technology-driven language practices. The book is driven by a reflexive mind-set which views quantifying methods as complementary rather than in opposition to qualitative methods, and the chapters analyse a multitude of different intra- and extra-textual context levels essential for the understanding of how meaning is (re-)constructed in society. Uniting contributions from a range of national and disciplinary traditions, the chapters in this volume bring together state-of-the-art research from British, Canadian, French, German and Swiss authors representing the fields of Political Science, Sociology, Linguistics, Computer Science and Statistics. It will be of particular interest to discourse analysts, but also to other scholars working in the digital humanities and with big data of any kind.

Materialist Feminism and the Politics of Discourseconfronts the impasses in materialist feminist work on rethinking ‘woman’ as a discursively constructed subject. The book looks at the problem of examining critically the social dimensions on which theories of discourse are premised: how such theories understand ‘materiality’; the relation between ‘women’s experience’ and feminist politics, and that between history and discourse. Rosemary Hennessy considers the work of Kristeva, Foucault, Laclau and Mouffe, and argues for a materialist feminist re-articulation of discourse as ideology. Concerns over identity and difference are incorporated into a rewriting of materialist feminism's analysis of women's oppression across capitalist and patriarchal structures. In adapting postmodernist theories in this way, Hennessy develops a project of social change, where feminism, while maintaining its specificity, is necessarily aligned with other emancipatory movements.

This edited volume brings together leading international researchers from across the social sciences to examine the theoretical premises, methodological options and critical potentials of the Essex School of discourse analysis, founded on the work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. In doing so, it presents a clear picture of a poststructuralist and post-foundational research program to postdisciplinary discourse research. Divided into three parts, it begins by elaborating the ontological, theoretical and methodological foundations of the Essex School’s approach to discourse analysis. The second part provides empirical case studies showing how the Essex School research program informs and instructs empirical discourse research. In the concluding third part authors explain how and with what possible consequences this strand of discourse research contributes to social practices of critique. It offers a crucial contribution to the further methodologization and operationalization of the Essex School’s approach so as to make it a viable alternative to discourse-analytical approaches that take dominant positions in today’s ‘field of discourse studies’. The book's transdisciplinary focus will attract readers who use discourse analysis in all areas of the social sciences and humanities, particularly applied linguistics, cultural anthropology, sociology, philosophy and history.