Poststructuralist Discourse Theory and its Methods of Analysis of Sociocultural Reality

Romashko Tatiana Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0002-9912-3697 PhD in Cultural Studies Postgraduate, Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland 40014, Finland, Jyväskylä, Keskussairaalantie str., 2, office 326.1 tatiana.t.romashko@jyu.fi

Gurova Ol'ga ORCID: 0000-0002-6531-7709 PhD in Sociology Senior researcher in circular economy and consumer, Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki, Finland 01300, Finland, Helsinki region, Vantaa, Ratatie str., 22 Olga.Gurova@laurea.fi

Poststructuralist theory of discourse and its research methodsIntroduction: Approaches to the theory of discourse

Discourse analysis combines a number of approaches to the analysis of social reality.

Jacob Torfing ^[1] identifies three generations in the theory of discourse. The first generation includes studies that treat discourse in a narrow linguistic sense, as a textual unit, and focus on the semantic aspects of spoken or written text ^{[1, p. 6]}. Torfing refers to this generation, for example, sociolinguistics, which considers the relationship between the socio-economic status of the speaker and his vocabulary, and conversational analysis, which focuses on linguistic interaction – the rules for initiating a conversation and ending it. In general, the approaches of the first generation have no interest in studying discourse from the point of view of politics or the struggle for power.

In the second generation of approaches ^{[1, p. 7]}, discourse is interpreted more broadly and includes not only written and spoken text, but also social practice. Critical discourse analysis is an influential trend, the inspiration and representative of which is Norman Fairclough. Discourse is understood as a set of social practices that are discursive insofar as they have semiotic content. A very different set of practices – speech, writing, visual images, gestures, which actors use in the process of attributing and interpreting meanings, make up the discourse. Discursive practices are ideological, since they “naturalize” certain meanings. Certain social classes or ethnic groups produce discourses in order to legitimize and maintain their dominance. In this sense, the concepts of power, hegemony, and ideology are important for critical discourse analysis. To the disadvantage of the theories of this generation, Torfing refers to the fact that discourse is linguistic in nature and is a linguistic intermediary of other structural elements of society ^{[1, p. 8]}. Among the approaches that relate to critical discourse analysis is the discursive-historical approach (p. Vodak), cognitive approach (T. van Dijk), dialectical-relational approach (N. Fairclough), multimodal discourse analysis (T. van Leeuwen).

To the third generation, Torfing refers poststructuralist approaches, where discourse no longer refers to any part of the social system, but is perceived as a social phenomenon in which meanings are created ^{[1, p. 8]}. However, the latter does not mean that discourse is a closed system or an ontological structure. On the contrary, it is not a complete and closed system of attributing meanings to phenomena. Discourse is a “dimension of structural uncertainty” in which both the identities of signs and the relations between them acquire meaning and significance through unpredictable hegemonic articulation and political autonomy ^{[2, p. xii]} (the concepts of hegemony and articulation will be discussed in our text below). The founders of the discursive theory of hegemony^[1] — Ernesto Laclos and Chantal Mouffe^[2] - justified this position on the complex of anti-essentialist ideas of Jacques Derrida, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall. We will give some of them here for a better understanding of the theory of Laclaux and Mouffe, which we will discuss in more detail later. This is necessary, among other things, because the theory of discourse is primarily a theory that has been reinterpreted into a data analysis tool.

Prerequisites of poststructuralist discourse theory: dispersion instead of structuringAs the name implies, the theory of discourse we are considering is based on the ideas of poststructuralism.

Poststructuralism proceeds from the fact that discourse is primary for understanding social reality. There is no a priori given essence of phenomena, but the discourse ascribes one or another meaning and sets a conditional coordinate system for understanding the phenomenon. If we consider social identities as an example, then colonial, racist and sexist discourses marginalize the identities of the “weaker sex” or “non-white” race, while liberal discourse establishes equality of people of all genders, races and ethnicities. Thus, at a certain historical moment, discursive formations — or discourses that have boundaries and limits of distribution/influence — set conditional characteristics for the same object. At the same time, the conventionality is explained by the absence of a structuring principle in the discursive formation itself. Most often, these provisions are associated with the currents of French philosophical thought (Zh. Derrida, M. Foucault, J. Lacan, L. Althusser).

In the lecture “Structure, sign and Play in the discourse of the Humanities”, Jacques Derrida talks about the impossibility of totalization of discourse (its exhaustibility and finiteness) and the absence of its center. Consequently, each element of the discourse is central to all the others and can function as a signifier or as a signifier of other elements in accordance with the relationship of dependence. Thus, J. Derrida demonstrates the substantial “emptiness of the signified", which is constantly replaced by the “freeplay of meanings”, that is, the spectrum of infinite variables of discourse in the absence of a center ^{[3, p. 365]}. M. Foucault comes to a similar conclusion regarding the absence of a unifying principle of discursive formation. In the “Archaeology of Knowledge” Foucault consistently refutes the possibility of such unifying factors as a reference to one object or a common theme, a common style of utterances or the constancy of concepts. What makes a set of utterances a discourse is the specific rules of the discursive formation itself, according to which objects, concepts, acts of utterance and the conditions of their existence are formed. Thus, the discourse is characterized not by the principles of construction, but by the dispersion of a new positivity, where positivity — the commonality of the elements of discourse through time and texts — acts as a condition for the existence of certain statements ^{[4, pp. 130-131]}.

Nevertheless, the impracticability of the complete totalization of discourse and the ultimate fixation of meaning allows for a partial fixation of meanings, which Jacques Lacan ^{[5, p. 6]} designated as a nodal point. The nodal point is a privileged signifier that determines the semantic chain of articulation. Saussure's analysis of language ^[6] as a system of differences allows us to comprehend the concept of articulation as a function of gaining meaning through antagonistic relations to what it is not. However, in the context, all values are defined in relation to each other, that is, a sign can get its identity only in the system of other signs. We can understand the idea of “father” when there are other relative quantities, such as “son” or “mother". On the other hand, the signified “mother” and “father” belong to the same system of concepts, but are not the same, since there is an “opposition” between them ^{[6, pp.120-122]}.

Such ideas allowed us to rethink the nature of social identity, which is not determined by the essential characteristics of a class, ethnicity or race, but largely depends on the meanings attributed to it in various discourses. For example, Louis Althusser ^[7] points to ideology as a system of representation of people “living” in it. Stuart Hall ^[8] expands the scope of the deterministic discursive field to the limits of cultural contexts, media narratives and political projects. Being a British citizen, but born in Jamaica, Hall ^[9] deconstructs his identity as “black”, which in England in the 1980s became associated mainly with negative connotations of “unemployed”, “colored”, “alien” and other political slogans of the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. S. Hall says that for the first time I began to feel “black” when I came to study at Oxford, which may be due to specific moments of British history. However, he comes to the conclusion that it is the political type of relations - “structures of domination and exploitation” - through discourse that determine how the categories of race or ethnicity are included or excluded from the reproduction of social relations ^{[9, p. 110]}. A little later, Stuart Hall ^{[10; 11]} and other followers of Antonio Gramsci will call this type of relationship “the hegemony of the political project”, which implies the dominance of the ideological principles of the ruling class and their dispersion in the daily life of the masses.

A. Gramsci was the first to draw attention to the fact that political domination or hegemony is based not only on coercion and submission, but also on the “moral and intellectual leadership” of the fundamental class, that is, on the consent of the masses with the ideology of the regime ^{[12, p. 249]}. However, such a course of Marxist thought most often led to class or economic determinism, in an attempt to find a “superstructure” that determines the formation of identities. The merit of Laclo and Mouffe ^{[2, p. 65]} is that they took a step from Marxism to post-Marxism and proposed a discursive concept of hegemony, where the Gramscian “fundamental class” is replaced by a non-essentialist concept of the identity of the “subject of hegemony” (hegemonic subject). In this sense, identity can become the subject of hegemonic regimes, ideologies, political projects or practices. Thus, poststructuralists consider the process of identity formation as a political practice of articulation or attribution of meanings in a continuous and heterogeneous struggle for dominance. Thus, the discursive theory of Laclos and Mouffe works within the framework of poststructuralism and post-Marxism and tries to explain which articulation and re-articulation mechanisms are involved in establishing hegemony and constructing identities. In the next section, the main provisions of the theory and ways of its application will be given.

Poststructuralist Theory of Discourse: an Introduction to the MethodThe poststructuralist theory of discourse originates in the philosophical and political concept of hegemony, outlined by Ernesto Laclo and Chantal Mouffe in the influential book “Hegemony and Socialist Strategy” ^[2].

Their theory has served as the source of numerous approaches to the study of socio-political reality. Some of them represent specific analysis tools for social sciences and humanities, for example, ^[13] (the book has been translated into Russian [see, 14]. Others focus on methods of political analysis and problems of ideology ^{[15; 16; 17; 18; 19]}. However, before moving on to methods and tools, it is necessary to dwell in more detail on the basic concepts of Laclo and Muff.

Based on the prerequisites of poststructuralism outlined above, Laclo and Mouffe draw several conclusions that are important for building their theory. Firstly, discourse is perceived as a horizon of meaningfulness. All meanings, objects and identities of signs arise in and through discourse, that is, in the process of articulation. The differences between discursive and non-discursive practices are rejected and “any social practice is articulatory in one of its dimensions” ^{[2, p. 107, 114]}. Therefore, discourse is the main source of studying social reality, that is, those meanings and meanings that are attributed to objects, social identities, values and practices in various configurations of the discursive field.

Secondly, there are two main logics of the dispersion of the semantic field of discourse — its semantic generation. On the one hand, all values are values of opposition — they are defined by differences in relation to what they are not. The so-called “logic of differences” (the logic of difference) tends to expand and complicate the semantic meanings of discursivity ^{[2, p. 130]}. At the same time, the semantic aggregate breaks up into many systems of differences (See Fig. 1).

Fig.1.

On the other hand, all meanings are relative - they are defined in relation to each other and create some semantic totality. At the same time, the emptiness of the internal content is filled with variable values of the external context (constitutional outside). Through the “regularity of dispersion” (regularity in dispersion), the discursive formation creates an ensemble of discursive positions, “which in certain contexts of exteriority can be designated as totality” ^{[2, p. 106]}. Since this totality is impermanent and vulnerable, it tends to fix “floating signifiers”, in other words, to localize the changeable “elements” of the external context in the “moments” of discursive integrity by assigning them a “discursive position” ^{[2, p. 106]}. The identity of a particular set of meanings is fixed by establishing a relative relationship (equivalence) between differential elements, which generalizes them in antagonism to something external to this discursive formation (see, below, the fourth conclusion). Thus, an unlimited set of discursive positions is reduced due to the “logic of equivalence”, which fixes differential elements as moments of discourse by building “chains of equivalence” ^{[2, p. 130]}. Due to this, the discursive formation self-identifies and acquires its boundaries in relation to what it is not (See Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Formulas and visualization of equivalence logic (ideas partially taken and reworked from ^[20]).

Thirdly, the moments of discourse are nodal points that attach importance to social meanings and identities, while the practice of articulation consists in constructing nodal points — fixing and shifting systems of differences. The system of differences consists not only of linguistic phenomena, but permeates “the entire material density of various institutions, rituals and practices through which the discursive formation is structured” ^{[2, p. 109]}.

Fourth, “any position in the system of differences, since it is denied, can become a locus of antagonism. Consequently, there are many possible antagonisms in society, many of which are opposed to each other” ^{[2, p. 131]}. But, it is the logic of equivalence that is responsible for “introducing negativity into the field of the social” ^{[2, p. 143]}. In other words, meaning generation occurs due to “social antagonism”, where the positivity of society is divided into two oppositional camps: “We” and “They"/ “I” and “The Other". In antagonism with respect to the “Other” or “empty signified”, the nodal points acquire meaning in a given coordinate system. Further, the nodal points adjust the moments of discourse by fixing various elements of external discursivity in equivalence relations to each other.

For example, people of the white race of different countries establish an analogy between themselves if they think of themselves as residents of “Europe” or “the Western World". However, the chain of equivalence “representative of European nationality = white European = representative of the Western world” acquires meaning only with antagonism to the “Asian” and “African world”, since without this system of meaning formation it will lose the meaning of “race” and acquire a different meaning in relation to antagonism to another “Other”. The nodal point “West“ or ”Western World" in this case functions as an empty signified. The paradox is that this concept is so full of different meanings that gradually its meaning is emasculated and only the form remains, which changes the content with each new attitude of antagonism. If in this example, “The West” has a positive connotation of the “developed world”, then in the context of Russian geopolitical discourse, “the West” represents the image of an “external enemy” with stable negative connotations, which is directly related to the hegemony of Putin's political project after 2012 [see, 21]. Laclo and Mouffe explain the different articulation of the same empty signified through the mechanism of hegemonic articulation and social antagonism.

In the theory of Laclos and Mouffe, the hegemony of discourse is a case when a constructed nodal point begins to function as an empty signified, naturalizing multiple chains of equivalence through social antagonism (see Figure 3). As a result of hegemony, ideology ceases to be perceived as such. It functions through the legislative system and socio-political institutions as something self-evident and natural. However, the emerging discursive dogma or “mode of objectification that turns a person into a subject” of a certain “regime of truth” ^[22] is not something stable and predetermined. Laclo and Mouffe argue that the hegemony of any discursive formation is the result of a political struggle on the ideological field. Thus, they propose to consider hegemony as a “political type of relationship”, which is optional and arises as a result of discursive articulations in the presence of “antagonistic forces and instability separating their borders” ^{[2, p. 138]}. The latter indicates a significant limitation of this theory, since the instability and uncertainty of the political space is a characteristic of the predominantly democratic spectrum of regimes.

Fig. 3. Formulas for acquiring meaning through antagonism and dislocation of meaning in the absence of antagonism.

Summing up this section, we can note two main methodological perspectives for applying the ideas of Laclo and Mouff. On the one hand, the theory of hegemony emphasizes the role of ideology in the reproduction of power and domination relations and can be used to study the dynamics of social relations, discursive formations and political projects. On the other hand, her post-structuralist approach recognizes the existence of political autonomy of the social subject (agency) and the anti-essential nature of identity (non-essential identity), which is essential in gender, social and cultural studies. In the next section, the main ways of applying Laclaux and Mouffe theory and its limitations will be given.

Possible procedures for the analysis of discourse using the ideas of Laclo and MouffPoststructuralist discourse theory has a wide range of applications to explain the meanings of social identities, practices, relationships, institutions, values and conflicts between them.

Since the meaning of these phenomena will vary each time depending on the external context, the analysis involves the study of the conditions of their existence in a particular discourse, namely, the establishment of rules and logic (see, ^[17]) of articulation of the object of study. Thus, using Laclau and Mouffe theory for analysis, it is necessary to study not only statements, but also the conditions of their existence in discourse, which will allow to reveal their specific meanings. 

Discourse analysis is the practice of analyzing empirical data in a discursive form ^[15]. To do this, the researcher turns to a variety of forms of textual, visual and performative data. For example, a statement (see ^[4]) can be in the form of an interview, a tweet, a post on social media, a gesture, a personal image, a public manifesto (see, analysis of the Pussy Riot campaign ^[23]) or a campaign. Archives, the content of mass media, statistical data, academic and other knowledge systems, the activity of social movements, political projects, as well as institutional declarations, government resolutions and laws — these sources can be used to study the totality of conditions for the existence and reproduction of discourses that give contextual meaning to statements in discourse and — through them — collective identities, generally accepted norms and values, social relations and discursive practices. In other words, the conditions of the existence of discourses give hegemonic or differential meaning to statements, fixing or shifting their identity through the mechanisms of politicization and depoliticization, as well as naturalization and exclusion.

Discourse analysis based on poststructuralism suggests that research should be based on theory, but it is not about testing theory as in the case of positivist research. On the contrary, the work with theory is carried out flexibly — the theory is selected for each specific empirical case and, thus, is quite “open” ^[15]. Basically, the research perspective is set by a “problem approach” in which the researcher seeks to “identify empirical, analytical or societal puzzles” and conflicts ^{[24, p. 9; 1, p. 22]}. At the same time, there is no clear set of standard procedures for conducting discourse analysis. At the same time, it is possible to outline a number of steps built around the key categories that are used in it. These key categories according to Laclos and Mouff are articulation, antagonism, nodal point, moments, elements, logic of equivalence and differentiation, hegemony.

1. Establishment of an empirical object of research — a social event, practice, phenomenon or conflict and its temporal-spatial coordinates (i.e., what was expressed, where and when);

2. identification of antagonism: identification of the parties to the conflict, public reaction or attitude to the object of research (reaction of different groups of the public, the media, professional and expert communities);

3. definition of the nodal points of discourse in accordance with its “external determinant” (a constitutive outside), its moments and elements of external discursivity;

4. comparison of the values of the nodal points in different discourses, between which there is antagonism;

5. recognition of the logic of the dispersion of discourse — the logic of equivalence or the logic of differentiation;

6. definition of hegemonic articulation — those meanings that dominate the political space and are perceived as natural by most of the population.

7. identification and explanation of the political grounds of social differences, cultural differences and social shifts or “stagnation”.

As noted earlier, this theory has its drawbacks. The following series of critical remarks are given in the literature, which allow us to outline the limitations of the poststructuralist theory of discourse (PTD). In addition to the fact that the theory of hegemony was created to comprehend democratic tendencies, it is noted that the reality in this theory is reduced mainly to discursive ^{[1, p. 18]}. The relativism of this concept is criticized ^{[25; 1]}. Other researchers ^[26] believe that PTD cannot explain, but only describes and characterizes the phenomena under study, and if it can explain them, then such an explanation is not always critical. In addition, PTD reduces explanations of phenomena to political ontology ^[27].

At the same time, there is experience in the literature of applying the poststructuralist theory of discourse and the method of discourse analysis based on it in the Russian context. For example, variable combinations of hegemony theory with methods of social and political sciences were used to study the identity politics of the “Russian World” ^[28], to analyze the transformation of Russian cultural policy ^{[21; 29]}, cultural phenomena and subcultures of Russian regions ^{[30; 31]}, as well as the phenomenon of patriotism in Russian fashion ^[32]. The peculiarity of the analysis of the Russian context is that the political regime imposes peculiarities on the interpretation of data — due to the hybridity of the political dimension, and it is often necessary to introduce additional theoretical ideas that allow it to be comprehended.

ConclusionThis article outlines the main prerequisites, principles and concepts of the poststructuralist theory of discourse ^[2] and possible ways of its application as a method of data analysis ^{[33; 13; 19]}.

Poststructuralism as a direction of philosophical thought has its origins in the works of Jacques Derrida, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall. Guided by these works, Ernesto Laclo and Chantal Mouffe developed a poststructuralist theory of discourse and outlined it in the book “Hegemony and Socialist Strategy” ^[2]. In this theory, discourse is understood as a social phenomenon in which identities and phenomena acquire a certain meaning. Thus, the study of social reality occurs mainly through the analysis of conflicting discursive formations or semantic aggregates. For the analysis, Laclo and Mouffe proposed such categories as articulation, elements, moments, nodal point, logic of equivalence and differentiation, hegemony and antagonism.

Despite the rather complex analytical apparatus of poststructuralist discourse theory, it has a wide range of applications for explaining the meanings of social identities, practices, relationships, institutions, values and conflicts, and contradictions between them. Because of the central place of political articulation, discourse analysis in the post-structuralist and post-Marxist traditions, in theory and in practice, is relevant to the study of politics or to the political interpretation of the phenomenon. Theory is applied flexibly in such studies: as a rule, each specific study implies the selection of epistemologically consistent ideas of representatives of poststructuralism and post-Marxism, which form the basis of the theoretical part of the study. The data for discourse analysis based on Laclos and Mouff's theory of discourse can be in a variety of textual, visual and performative formats (interviews, tweets and posts on social media, public actions, manifestos, political documents, archival data, etc.).

^[1] It is worth noting that several brands are attached to the works of Laclo and Mouffe and their followers - discourse theory, discursive theory of hegemony, poststructuralist theory of discourse, poststructuralist discourse analysis.  

^[2] In the Russian-language literature, there are various spellings of the surname Laclau - Laclau (English transcription) or Laclo (the original French pronunciation of the surname) ^[28]. You can also find different variants of the name Chantal - Chantal (English) or Chantal (French). We chose the original French version; Laclo and Mouffe are Belgians.