Discourse Analysis Basics

 Discourse analysis derives from the scientific/empirical traditions of linguistics, and from the
post-structuralist and Austinian/Wittgensteinian traditions in social theory and philosophy
(most work in political studies and IR comes from the latter allied traditions). These latter
traditions are less concerned philosophically with ‘what is’ and ‘what exists’ (or not), but
rather with what things mean when we ‘read’ them and what they ‘do’ in terms of power-
claims when we practise them.

 Discourse analysis adds value to ‘semantic content’ analysis – i.e. reading a text and
interpreting what it says, as commentators and historians have traditionally done.

 This added value can be ‘empirical’, i.e. counts of and patterns in single words and locutions
in datasets (from linguistic methodologies), or it can be ‘interpretive’. Examples of the latter
are metaphor and narrative analysis, performative analysis in relation to institutions, reader-
response criticism (where meaning is located in readers, rather than in authors). Interpretive
analysis is reflexively political, rather than disinterested and ‘objective’.

 ‘Interpretive’ analysis also broadens out to include any ‘reading’ of an ‘inscription’ of

meaning, so this takes in objects or artefacts, landscapes, architecture, built environment
and the like. It also broadens out to include visual analysis, taking techniques from analytical
and critical work on cinema, photography, visual and aural culture, TV and the like, also
psychoanalytic, feminist and queer-theory approaches.

 A typical ‘interpretive’ discourse analysis begins with a delimited ‘object’ (e.g. the US
Constitution) and considers its physical as well as its semantic and political aspects, e.g. the
enshrining of copies in glass cases as nationalistic objects of veneration and suchlike. It
would also include any number of techniques to ‘read’ popular culture representations and
uses of it, thus framing more conventional legal/historical/Americanist studies with added
value.

Foundational reading

Carver et al. (2002) ‘Symposium: Discourse Analysis and Political Science,’ European Political Science
2:1.
David Howarth (2000) Discourse, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Dvora Yanow and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea (eds) (2006) Interpretation and method: empirical
research methods and the interpretive turn. Armonk, N.Y.;London :M.E. Sharpe.
Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer (2009) Methods for Critical Discourse Analysis, 2nd edn, Thousand
Oaks: Sage.
Paul Baker and Sibonile Ellece (2010) Key Terms in Discourse Analysis, Edinburgh: Continuum.
Sara Mills (2004) Discourse, London: Routledge (2nd edn).
David Howarth, Aletta Norval & Yannis Stavrakakis (eds) (2000) Discourse Theory and Political
Analysis: Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change, Manchester: Manchester University
Press.
David Howarth & Jacob Torfing (eds) (2005) Discourse Theory in European Politics: Identity, Policy
and Governance, Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Jacob Torfing (1999) New Theories of Discourse: Laclau, Mouffe and Žižek, Oxford: Blackwell.
Terrell Carver and Samuel A. Chambers (eds) (forthcoming 2012) Michael J. Shapiro: Discourse,
Culture, Violence, MiltonPark: Routledge.
List of books using discourse analysis (University of Bristol/Library of Congress classmarks):
1. *David Campbell (1998) Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity,
Manchester: Manchester University Press (2nd ed.). E744 CAM
2. *Simon Dalby (2002) Environmental Security, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. GE170
DAL
3. *James Der Derian (1992) Antidiplomacy: Spies, Terror, Speed, and War, Oxford: Blackwell.
JF1525.I6 DER
4. *Roxanne Lynn Doty (1996) Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representations in North-South
Relations, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. JZ1251 DOT
5. *Jenny Edkins (2000) Whose Hunger? Concepts of Famine, Practices of Aid, Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press. HC79.F3 EDK
6. *Norman Fairclough (2000) New Labour, New Language?, London: Routledge. P95.8 FAI
7. *Karin Fierke (1998) Changing Games, Changing Strategies: Critical Investigations in Security,
Manchester: Manchester University Press. U21.2 FIE
8. *Lene Hansen (2006) Security as Practice: Discourse Analysis and the Bosnian War, London:
Routledge. JZ1253.5 HAN
9. *Charlotte Hooper (2001) Manly States: Masculinities, International Relations and Gender
Politics, New York: Columbia University Press. HQ1090 HOO
10. *Richard Jackson (2005) Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and Counter-terrorism,
Manchester: Manchester University Press. HV6432 JAC
11. *Susan Jeffords (1989) The Remasculinization of America: Gender and the Vietnam War,
Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. BF692.5 JEF
12. *Catherine Lutz & Jane Collins (1993) Reading National Geographic, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press. G1.N275 LUT
13. *Greg Marston (2004) Social Policy and Discourse Analysis: Policy Change in Public Housing,
Aldershot: Ashgate. HN29 MAR
14. *Jennifer Milliken (2001) The Social Construction of the Korean War: Conflict and its Possibilities,
Manchester: Manchester University Press. DS918 MIL
15. *Aletta Norval (1996) Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse, London: Verso. DT1757 NOR
16. *Diana Saco (2002) Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet, Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press. HM851 SAC
17. *Michael Shapiro (1997) Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War, Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press. CB481 SHA
18. *Teun Van Dijk (1993) Elite Discourse and Racism, London: SAGE. HT1521 DIJ
19. *Cynthia Weber (1999) Faking It: US Hegemony in a “Post-Phallic” Era, Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press. F2178.U6 WEB
20. *Cynthia Weber (2006) Imagining America at War: Morality, Politics, and Film, London:
Routledge. PN1995.9.N34 WEB
21. *Jutta Weldes (1999) Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile
Crisis, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. E841 WEL
22. *Francois Debrix (2007) Tabloid Terror: War, Culture and Geopolitics. Abingdon: Routledge.
HV6432 DEB
Richard Howells and Joaquim Negreiros (2012) Visual Culture, 2nd edn. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Jonathan Gray and Amanda D. Lotz (2012) Television Studies. Oxford: Polity.

Terrell Carver, Professor of Political Theory, University of Bristol

[email protected]

My MSc level ‘unit guide’ is available as a PDF on-line

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/spais/current/currentpgt/pgtunitguides/polim3024.pdf