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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 14:6 (2015) ► pp.830–851

Analyzing Variations and Stability in Discourse

Hegemony, nation and Muslim immigrants

 | Tulane University |
Published online: 31 March 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.14.6.05yil
This article offers a theoretical solution to the problem of analyzing stable constructions of social structures in discourse. In this article, I first discuss epistemological and methodological issues with Critical Discourse Analysis and Discursive Psychology and combine insights from these two approaches with insight from Discourse Theory as formulated by Laclau and Mouffe (Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 2001. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd ed. New York: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Despite the fact that language use is full of inconsistencies and contradictions and thus does not provide an inventory of stable ideological patterns, it is possible to analyze stable constructions of the social world without assuming the existence of macro-structures (i.e. ideologies or mental representations) as stabilizing background for discursive practices. I demonstrate that stability is not so much a function of ideologies or representations but depends on how the ontological structure of society is imagined. The new hegemonic articulation of the social division along cultural lines limits the positions that can be taken in relation to identity categories regardless of the values one attributes to the categories.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The Problematic Link Between Ideology, Power and Discourse
  • Hegemony: Immigration, Muslims and Culture
  • Stabilizing “US” and “Them”
  • Analyzing the Stability of Categories
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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