Assignment 3. Discourse Analysis 1

The term discourse was created by Foucault and has concrete meaning. First of all, this term played a crucial role in Foucault’s theoretical arguments and in his methodology. Definition of discourse, according to Rose in her book Virtual Methodologies (2001), is “a particular knowledge about the world which shapes how the world is understood and how things are done in it” (2001, p. 136). There are many types of discourses as medical discourse, political discourse. Even art could be considered as a discourse.

 Also, there are number of terms which could help to understand discourse better. Firstly, the intertextuality  refers to the way that the meanings of any one discursive image or text depend not only on that one text or image, but also on the meanings carried by other images and texts. It works as a link between different sources as images and texts.

 

Another crucial term is a term of power Foucault was quite clear that discourse was a form of discipline, and this leads us to his concern with power. Power is everywhere, since discourse too is everywhere. Power relationships could be studied on different levels and with different examples. Also, concept of power relates to knowledge. Since discourse is a particular knowledge it could be concluded that knowledge gives power or knowledge is power. 

Nevertheless, discourse analysis I has particular points of interest. They are various kinds  of  visual  images  and  verbal  texts. On this point the intertextuality is necessary because it is one of the main methods to study images and texts. 

There are several strategies how to do this kind of analysis. For example, some of them are about:

  1. looking at your sources with fresh eyes.
  2. immersing yourself in your sources.
  3. identifying key themes in your sources.
  4. examining their effects of truth.
  5. paying attention to their complexity and contradictions.
  6. looking for the invisible as well as the visible.
  7. paying attention to details

Elliot in Consuming caffeine: The discourse of Starbucks and coffee” In: Consumption (2001) uses the methods of discourse analysis to study Starbucks. According to Elliot, coffee is a popular product, especially in USA, so the study of it helps to go deeper in the analyzing of global culture.

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