Against a background in linguistics and sociology, my research interests are centered around the discursive construction of social order. My methodological focus is on the complex organization of language in use, from the micro-level of polyphonic utterances to the macro-level of large collections of written texts. While addressing questions of power, knowledge and social change, I have pursued research on academic as well as political discourses. With a background in French linguistic discourse analysis and the qualitative traditions in the German and North American social sciences, I'm currently the PI of the ERC DISCONEX project (Discursive Construction of Academic Excellence) and the coordinator of DiscourseNet, an international and interdisciplinary network of discourse researchers at the crossroads of language and society (http://www.discourseanalysis.net, where you can register and get the latest news in discourse analysis).
Having obtained my PhD from the Universities of Paris 12 and Magdeburg in 2003, I was Professor in sociology at the University of Mainz, Germany. I am now Professor of Discourse at the Centre of Applied Linguistics at Warwick and research group director at EHESS in Paris.
Contemporary post-truth discourses put the constructivist foundations of Discourse Studies to a t... more Contemporary post-truth discourses put the constructivist foundations of Discourse Studies to a test. According to critical observers, discourse analysts have been playing into the hands of Trump, Brexit and right-wing populists by politicising scientific knowledge and undermining the idea of scientific truth. In order to respond to these concerns, this article outlines a Strong Programme in Discourse Studies. While the Strong Programme insists on truths as discursive constructions, in no way does it claim that all ideas have the same truth value or that an idea can become true because somebody wants it to be true. The Strong Programme makes the case for discourse research that is constructivist (it asks how truths are constructed practically) without being relativist (all ideas do not have the same normative quality). Taking inspiration from debates in Science and Technology Studies of the 1970s, the Strong Programme formulates principles for discourse researchers dealing with conflicting truth claims. Discourse analytical explanations of truths of first-order participants and of second-order observers should be symmetrical, heterogeneous, multi-perspectival and reflexive. The Strong Programme discourse research is grounded in the founding traditions of “French” and “Critical” Discourse Studies, which have struggled over questions of truth and reality since the beginning. While critically interrogating the structuralist heritage of these strands, the Strong Programme insists on the practices of making and unmaking ideas through language use no matter whether they appear as true or false to participants and observers. Discourse Studies are encouraged to critically reflect on how hierarchies between knowledges are not only represented but, through their representation, also constituted through discursive practices.
Whenever people use language, they participate in valuation practices, i.e. they give value to th... more Whenever people use language, they participate in valuation practices, i.e. they give value to themselves as well as to others. To account for the construction of social inequality through discursive valuation practices, discourse theorists need Marxist theory and Marxists need discourse theory. By going from the early Marx to the late Foucault, I will revisit Marx’s value theory in light of practice-oriented approaches to social inequality. I will discuss examples from two distinct arenas, the monopolization of attention by populist leaders and the academic star system, both of which are accounted for in terms of the accumulation of discursive capital. This perspective asks how the value of subject positions is constructed and hierarchies between them are established in discursive practices. Investigating the construction of valuable subject positions in discourse communities, this perspective attempts to overcome the traditional division between language, the economic and the social. Discourse not only represents value and the social order but, through representation, it also contributes to constituting the social as a hierarchical world of more or less valued subject positions.
Zum politischen Denken von Ernesto Laclau und Chantal Mouffe, 2007
... Zugleich aber stößt sie, wie sich auch an Laclaus und Mouffes empirischen Beispielen zeigen l... more ... Zugleich aber stößt sie, wie sich auch an Laclaus und Mouffes empirischen Beispielen zeigen lässt, mit Blick auf die ... Wie die poststrukturalistische Diskurstheorie Laclau/Mouffes versteht sich auch die äuße-rungstheoretische Diskursanalyse als eine Antwort auf die Krise des ...
... nach dem Ende der Hegemonie marxistischer Sprachphilosophie) und deren Integration mit der ..... more ... nach dem Ende der Hegemonie marxistischer Sprachphilosophie) und deren Integration mit der ... aber auch die Aktivität der Herstellung von Aussagen wird durch den Begriff ... Lexik (dem begrifflichen Inventar und damit den begrifflichen Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten) einer Sprache. ...
Contemporary post-truth discourses put the constructivist foundations of Discourse Studies to a t... more Contemporary post-truth discourses put the constructivist foundations of Discourse Studies to a test. According to critical observers, discourse analysts have been playing into the hands of Trump, Brexit and right-wing populists by politicising scientific knowledge and undermining the idea of scientific truth. In order to respond to these concerns, this article outlines a Strong Programme in Discourse Studies. While the Strong Programme insists on truths as discursive constructions, in no way does it claim that all ideas have the same truth value or that an idea can become true because somebody wants it to be true. The Strong Programme makes the case for discourse research that is constructivist (it asks how truths are constructed practically) without being relativist (all ideas do not have the same normative quality). Taking inspiration from debates in Science and Technology Studies of the 1970s, the Strong Programme formulates principles for discourse researchers dealing with conflicting truth claims. Discourse analytical explanations of truths of first-order participants and of second-order observers should be symmetrical, heterogeneous, multi-perspectival and reflexive. The Strong Programme discourse research is grounded in the founding traditions of “French” and “Critical” Discourse Studies, which have struggled over questions of truth and reality since the beginning. While critically interrogating the structuralist heritage of these strands, the Strong Programme insists on the practices of making and unmaking ideas through language use no matter whether they appear as true or false to participants and observers. Discourse Studies are encouraged to critically reflect on how hierarchies between knowledges are not only represented but, through their representation, also constituted through discursive practices.
Whenever people use language, they participate in valuation practices, i.e. they give value to th... more Whenever people use language, they participate in valuation practices, i.e. they give value to themselves as well as to others. To account for the construction of social inequality through discursive valuation practices, discourse theorists need Marxist theory and Marxists need discourse theory. By going from the early Marx to the late Foucault, I will revisit Marx’s value theory in light of practice-oriented approaches to social inequality. I will discuss examples from two distinct arenas, the monopolization of attention by populist leaders and the academic star system, both of which are accounted for in terms of the accumulation of discursive capital. This perspective asks how the value of subject positions is constructed and hierarchies between them are established in discursive practices. Investigating the construction of valuable subject positions in discourse communities, this perspective attempts to overcome the traditional division between language, the economic and the social. Discourse not only represents value and the social order but, through representation, it also contributes to constituting the social as a hierarchical world of more or less valued subject positions.
Zum politischen Denken von Ernesto Laclau und Chantal Mouffe, 2007
... Zugleich aber stößt sie, wie sich auch an Laclaus und Mouffes empirischen Beispielen zeigen l... more ... Zugleich aber stößt sie, wie sich auch an Laclaus und Mouffes empirischen Beispielen zeigen lässt, mit Blick auf die ... Wie die poststrukturalistische Diskurstheorie Laclau/Mouffes versteht sich auch die äuße-rungstheoretische Diskursanalyse als eine Antwort auf die Krise des ...
... nach dem Ende der Hegemonie marxistischer Sprachphilosophie) und deren Integration mit der ..... more ... nach dem Ende der Hegemonie marxistischer Sprachphilosophie) und deren Integration mit der ... aber auch die Aktivität der Herstellung von Aussagen wird durch den Begriff ... Lexik (dem begrifflichen Inventar und damit den begrifflichen Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten) einer Sprache. ...
French thinkers such as Lacan and Derrida are often labelled as representatives of 'poststructura... more French thinkers such as Lacan and Derrida are often labelled as representatives of 'poststructuralism' in the Anglophone world. However in France, where their work originated, they use no such category; this group of theorists - 'the poststructuralists' - were never perceived as a coherent intellectual group or movement. Outlining the institutional contexts, affinities, and rivalries of, among others, Althusser, Barthes, Foucault, Irigaray, and Kristeva, Angermuller - drawing from Bourdieu's concepts of cultural capital and the academic field - insightfully explores post-structuralism as a phenomenon. By tracing the evolution of the French intellectual field after the war, Why There is No Poststructuralism in France places French Theory both in the specific material conditions of its production and the social and historical contexts of its reception, accounting for a particularly creative moment in French intellectual life which continues to inform the theoretical imaginary of our time.
Dominique Maingueneau est fort probablement la figure la plus connue de l’analyse du discours dit... more Dominique Maingueneau est fort probablement la figure la plus connue de l’analyse du discours dite « à la française ». Depuis une quarantaine d’années, ses travaux ont largement contribué à renouveler la discipline et à étendre ses perspectives à l’ensemble des sciences humaines et sociales. Aussi ce livre rencontre-t-il les principales questions qui traversent l’analyse du discours aujourd’hui. La première partie croise des perspectives historiques et épistémologiques larges, dont le rendement et les limites sont ensuite éprouvés dans l’analyse de discursivités spécifiques, notamment philosophique et littéraire. La deuxième prend appui sur une notion centrale de la pensée de Maingueneau, celle de « scénographie », dont la pertinence est mise à l’épreuve des corpus les plus divers : contes, discours politique ou publicitaire, discours intime ou oral. La troisième s’ouvre aux pratiques médiatiques et polémiques, à divers genres institués ou émergents, pour articuler cette notion à deux catégories qui la complètent étroitement : la scène englobante de l’inscription sociale et la scène générique de l’inscription textuelle.
Johannes Angermuller / Martin Nonhoff / Eva Herschinger / Felicitas Macgilchrist / Martin Reisigl... more Johannes Angermuller / Martin Nonhoff / Eva Herschinger / Felicitas Macgilchrist / Martin Reisigl / Juliette Wedl / Daniel Wrana / Alexander Ziem. 2014. Das zweibändige Handbuch zur interdisziplinären Diskursforschung gibt einen systematischen und umfassenden Überblick über das neue Feld der Diskursforschung. Der erste Band versammelt nationale und internationale Tendenzen, Entwicklungen und Fragen der Diskursforschung. Der zweite Band stellt wichtige diskursanalytische Methoden am Beispiel des Diskurses über die neoliberalen Hochschulreformen vor. Mit seinem Schwerpunkt auf theoretischen Modellen und Strategien der diskursanalytischen Forschungspraxis im disziplinären und interdisziplinären Kontext richtet sich dieses Referenzwerk der Gruppe DiskursNetz an forschungsorientierte Studierende und alle Diskursforschenden, die sich für den Zusammenhang von Sprache und Gesellschaft interessieren.
11-14 September 2019, Paris Seine, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, France | Deadline: September 30t... more 11-14 September 2019, Paris Seine, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, France | Deadline: September 30th 2018
The legitimacy of "Europe" and "the West" as identifiable territorial and imagined entities is in crisis. The awareness has grown of a world becoming more polycentric. At the same time, the field of Discourse Studies is growing at a dazzling rate across the globe. Discourse Studies is known for theoretical orientations and methodological tools that account for meaning production as a social practice mobilizing languages, media and technologies. It is thus uniquely placed to observe and analyse the shifting conceptions of a post-colonial, post-Eurocentric, post-west-and-the-rest world. The different understandings of the intersection of language and society, in the range of specific schools, theories and approaches within Discourse Studies promise to inspire conflicting analyses of the world today. The focus of Discourse Studies also varies according to the specific national or regional contexts in which issues of power and language, subjectivity and inequality, language and context are being problematized. For instance, Anglophone, French-, German-, Spanish-, Portuguese-, and Russian-speaking communities of discourse analysts and theorists are marked by dynamic debates, terminologies and approaches that are not always well known outside each language community.
The third DiscourseNet Congress, which is co-organized with ALED, aims to be a site of dialogue and reflection across and about different linguistic and national traditions in Discourse Studies.
We welcome papers which re-examine existing discourse theoretical frameworks, articulate new approaches from different fields and schools, study social phenomena empirically and reflect on the critical potential of Discourse Studies. We also invite contributions that deal with theoretical and/or methodological challenges in Discourse Studies, preferably with a focus on the nexus of knowledge and power.
Researchers may focus on a wide variety of topics. We encourage contributions that seek to develop novel approaches to, for instance: subjectivity in contemporary society, discursive epistemology, indexicality, ideology, knowledge and hegemony, governmentality in the knowledge economy, protest and activism, materiality of/and discourse, critique and reflexivity, bi-, multi- and translingual communication, language policy, discourse and gender, class, migration, racism, populism, (neo-
)fascism, discrimination, argumentation and rhetorics, social cognition, institutional discourse, workplace communication, practices and identities in the workplace, multimodal interaction and discourse analysis, online media formats and digital culture, materialism and discourse, digital humanities, cross-cultural interaction, multimodality, corpus and computer-aided analysis, conversation and interaction...
While ‘discourse’ has long been an object of investigation in many disciplines, the contours of a... more While ‘discourse’ has long been an object of investigation in many disciplines, the contours of a new field of transdisciplinary research are now coming to the fore: Discourse Studies. Known for theoretical orientations and methodological tools at the intersection of language and society, discourse research usually deals with social phenomena with a particular focus on the entanglements of power and language. While Discourse Studies has resulted from the exchange between numerous strands and approaches which deal with the social production of meaning, an increasing need for interdisciplinary exchange can now be observed. The Second International DiscourseNet Congress at Warwick aims to represent the many strands, schools, and perspectives in Discourse Studies, from the humanities to the social sciences, from strictly interpretive to quantifying methodologies, from discourse as a situated practice to discourse as socially distributed knowledge.
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Papers by Johannes Angermuller
Das zweibändige Handbuch zur interdisziplinären Diskursforschung gibt einen systematischen und umfassenden Überblick über das neue Feld der Diskursforschung. Der erste Band versammelt nationale und internationale Tendenzen, Entwicklungen und Fragen der Diskursforschung. Der zweite Band stellt wichtige diskursanalytische Methoden am Beispiel des Diskurses über die neoliberalen Hochschulreformen vor.
Mit seinem Schwerpunkt auf theoretischen Modellen und Strategien der diskursanalytischen Forschungspraxis im disziplinären und interdisziplinären Kontext richtet sich dieses Referenzwerk der Gruppe DiskursNetz an forschungsorientierte Studierende und alle Diskursforschenden, die sich für den Zusammenhang von Sprache und Gesellschaft interessieren.
The legitimacy of "Europe" and "the West" as identifiable territorial and imagined entities is in crisis. The awareness has grown of a world becoming more polycentric. At the same time, the field of Discourse Studies is growing at a dazzling rate across the globe. Discourse Studies is known for theoretical orientations and methodological tools that account for meaning production as a social practice mobilizing languages, media and technologies. It is thus uniquely placed to observe and analyse the shifting conceptions of a post-colonial, post-Eurocentric, post-west-and-the-rest world. The different understandings of the intersection of language and society, in the range of specific schools, theories and approaches within Discourse Studies promise to inspire conflicting analyses of the world today. The focus of Discourse Studies also varies according to the specific national or regional contexts in which issues of power and language, subjectivity and inequality, language and context are being problematized. For instance, Anglophone, French-, German-, Spanish-, Portuguese-, and Russian-speaking communities of discourse analysts and theorists are marked by dynamic debates, terminologies and approaches that are not always well known outside each language community.
The third DiscourseNet Congress, which is co-organized with ALED, aims to be a site of dialogue and reflection across and about different linguistic and national traditions in Discourse Studies.
We welcome papers which re-examine existing discourse theoretical frameworks, articulate new approaches from different fields and schools, study social phenomena empirically and reflect on the critical potential of Discourse Studies. We also invite contributions that deal with theoretical and/or methodological challenges in Discourse Studies, preferably with a focus on the nexus of knowledge and power.
Researchers may focus on a wide variety of topics. We encourage contributions that seek to develop novel approaches to, for instance: subjectivity in contemporary society, discursive epistemology, indexicality, ideology, knowledge and hegemony, governmentality in the knowledge economy, protest and activism, materiality of/and discourse, critique and reflexivity, bi-, multi- and translingual communication, language policy, discourse and gender, class, migration, racism, populism, (neo-
)fascism, discrimination, argumentation and rhetorics, social cognition, institutional discourse, workplace communication, practices and identities in the workplace, multimodal interaction and discourse analysis, online media formats and digital culture, materialism and discourse, digital humanities, cross-cultural interaction, multimodality, corpus and computer-aided analysis, conversation and interaction...