"Discourse and society" as a concept used and misused in discourse analysis

Abstract

The dialectical relationship between discourse and society justifies the appraisal of the association of both terms as a whole concept. This reciprocal connection is reviewed through its involvement in the parameters that define the purpose of discourse analysis, in the concept of discourse itself and in the interdisciplinary nature that marks the theoretical background of discourse analysis in terms of its mutual relationship with other sciences. However, this paper tackles some other fronts, equally rooted in the concept of ‘discourse and society’, in which a faulty discursive treatment of this idea is preventing a complete development of discourse analysis itself. The interrelationship discourse- society is thus contemplated through the factors that constitute the social dimension of discourse and, especially, through the criticism of the absence of the variable of power as an inherent element in it. This incorrect theoretical view has been perpetuated by some methodological attitudes and by an incoherent link between discourse analysis and the critical discourse approach. The central link discourse-society influences and is affected by all these satellite connections, which produces a whole network of defective associations that breaks the central axiom of discourse analysis as the study of language in use in social contexts.