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Discourse Theory 191 at the American Museum of Natural History in Binford, L. R., & Binford, S. R. (1968). New perspectives New York City, Wissler arranged collections and in . Chicago, IL: Aldine. exhibits according to this spatial classification. Childe, V. G. (1957). The dawn of European civilization An important difference with the German diffu- (6th ed.). London, UK: Routledge & Kegan Paul. sionists is that in Wissler’s area concept the (Original work published 1925) distribution of cultural traits is primarily seen as Daniel, G. (1964). The idea of . Harmondsworth, the result of an adaptation to environmental condi- UK: Penguin Books. tions. This idea became important to much subse- Graebner, F. (1905). Kulturkreise und kulturschichten in quent anthropological and archaeological research Ozeanien [Culture circles and culture strata in Oceania]. in America, especially the New Archaeology Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 37, 28–53. ———. (1911). Methode der ethnologie [The method of founded in the 1960s by Lewis Binford (1931– ] (Kulturgeschichtliche Bibliothek, Series 1, 2011). At the same time, Binford and his school Vol. 1). Heidelberg, Germany: Winter. criticized diffusionists for their atomistic view Kroeber, A. L. (1940). Stimulus diffusion. American of culture—the idea of diffusion was replaced in , 42(1), 1–20. European archaeology by systems thinking as rep- Menghin, O. (1931). Weltgeschichte der steinzeit [World resented, for example, in Colin Renfrew’s “culture history of the stone age]. Vienna, Austria: Schroll. process model.” Despite an interest in spatial pat- Schmidt, W., & Koppers, W. (1937). Handbuch der terns, the emphasis of the culture process model methode der kulturhistorischen ethnologie [Handbook was on local in explaining cultural on the method of the culture-historical ethnology]. change. In the 1990s, scholars like Andrew Sherratt Münster, Germany: Aschendorff. (1946–2006) developed the idea of “punctuation,” Sherratt, A. G. (1997). Climatic cycles and behavioral or rapid, revolutionary change, and the associated revolutions: The emergence of modern humans and the notion of “centricity,” a concept that includes the beginning of farming. Antiquity, 71, 271–287. idea of diffusion. More recently, the poststructural- Wissler, C. (1917). The American Indian: An introduction ist rediscovery of the significance of materiality and to the of the New World. New York, NY: interculturality has opened up new perspectives for Oxford University Press. dealing with such issues, without repeating the ear- lier mistakes. The flaws of the diffusionist approaches con- sisted, above all, in the object-like approach toward THEORY culture, an obsession with origins, and the concen- tration on abstract “influences” and “flows” of Discourse theory denotes broadly the study of aspects cultural traits. But combined with the more recent of and distinct from lin- concepts of agency and of practice, these flaws may guistic structure. Most theories of discourse none- be overcome. They may help direct our interest to theless examine the relation of language to structure. the actual contextualization of cultural forms and to In fact, during the 20th century, many debates in possible shifts of . anthropology, and the social and human sciences more generally, centered on the relation between Ulrich Veit the discursive and structural aspects of social life. Through these debates, and especially through the See also Binford, Lewis R.; Cultural Transmission; scholarship that critiqued Culture Area Approach; ; Frobenius, and , poststructural approaches to dis- Leo; Graebner, Fritz; ; Kroeber, Alfred L.; Lowie, Robert; Smith, Grafton course have taken root in anthropological theory Elliot; Wallerstein, Immanuel and methodology. Poststructuralist approaches continue to influence the trajectories of anthropo- logical thinking about discourse. This entry first Further Readings describes the structuralist account of signs, associ- Ankermann, B. (1905). Kulturkreise und kulturschichten in ated especially with , and then Afrika [Culture circles and culture strata in Africa]. recaps some poststructuralist critiques. The critiques Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 37, 54–90. reviewed are from influential French theorists, and Copyright © 2013 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution.

192 Discourse Theory then from the linguistic anthropological tradition analytic construct. He characterized this construct that maintains closer ties to linguistic . as “virtual,” meaning this state does not exist in sociohistorical reality, where change and are constant. Discourse in Structural Linguistic Theory A final important dualism for Saussure was that Until the 1980s, the term discourse was used in linguistic structure is a bipartite system of differences, anthropology with the same meaning common with basic units he called signs. Each involves a in structural linguistic analysis. Linguistic theory form, or signifier, and a related concept, or signified. takes the sentence as the limit of grammatical rela- The English phonic form tree is an example of a sig- tions and, in contrast, uses discourse to denote the nifier, while its signified is found by seeing how this manner in which words, expressions, and sentences form functions in sentences (not in utterances). In are put to use in a particular to produce linguistic analysis, the signified is very different from meaningful communicative behavior. “Sentences” a dictionary definition of a word. In fact, in this here are understood as abstracted from their con- abstract analysis, the signified is discovered by find- text, while the use of linguistic units in context is ing the difference marked by the sign, in its ability to generally called an “utterance.” The utterance can combine with other forms. For instance, the signified be a single word or a sentence long, or a very long, of “tree” might be roughly expressed as “common complex communicative form, like a whole book. noun, count noun, inanimate,” and so on. Saussure Discourse utterances are understood to have prin- was interested in debunking various theories that ciples of coherence that are distinct from the gram- posited that signifiers were somehow naturally matical coherence of sentences. Understanding related or determined by what they signified, which how an utterance coheres involves considering led him to emphasize that the relation between signi- how the parts of an utterance relate to each other fier and signified is “arbitrary.” By “arbitrary,” he and the context. In linguistics, the terms discourse meant that the system of differences between signi- analysis or discourse function are generally used fier and signified is entirely a social convention, one for these issues. that works because there is a group of speakers that The distinction between grammatical sentence continue to use it in their daily discourse. Due to and discourse utterance is based on the highly the complexity of the system, Saussure doubted that influential work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand the group of speakers could actually gain awareness de Saussure. Saussure’s final courses were pub- of it in such a way as to change it intentionally. In lished posthumously by his students in 1916 as his analytical construct, human intentionality and the Cours de linguistique générale (Course in agency, like concrete events of interaction (parole), General Linguistics). These lectures are still con- remained outside the description of linguistic struc- sidered essential for understanding language as an ture proper. This way of constructing the object of abstract structure (langue in French), including the linguistics meant that discourse remained a residual symbolic quality of producing meaning. Saussure or external phenomenon. distinguished the study of linguistic structure from In anthropology, the question has been whether speaking in context that uses the signs of language these dualistic assumptions for modeling a syn- (parole in French). The theoretical dualism of langue chronic structure can be applied to the study of and parole (or structure and use) is one of many other salient cultural patterns, including discursive dualisms that were then incorporated into anthro- ones. Saussure himself thought that his theory of pology’s interpretation of structuralism. Another of abstract langue could be a model for studying utter- Saussure’s important dualisms is the idea that, when ances. Most famously, in the mid-20th century, abstracted from contexts of use, a language can Claude Lévi-Strauss applied some of Saussure’s be described as a stable and closed system, a state methodology to analyze myth (as well as to analyze that exists at a single point in time or “synchrony.” ). With myth, Lévi-Strauss recognized that Synchrony is opposed to “diachrony”—that is, the he was dealing with an object distinct from langue, changes that happen to that language between dif- and yet he sought to set out the basic units of myth ferent synchronic states. For Saussure, modeling a as a system of differences. Such studies became a language’s structure as a synchronic system is an touchstone for structural anthropology. An early Copyright © 2013 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution.

Discourse Theory 193 critic of this structural anthropology was Clifford meaning. Furthermore, structuralism tends to depict Geertz, who sought to consider “symbols” and their this abstract system as homogeneous across the signification within a thicker description of action social or cultural group under study. in context. Although Geertz did not explicitly theo- In the 20th century, several critiques of these rize “discourse,” in a famous article on the Balinese structuralist assumptions took root. Poststructuralist cockfight, he argued for interpreting cultural per- critiques generally question what allows sign systems formances like scholars view a text (like a work of to exist, and emphasize a greater degree of heteroge- ). This came just as neity in how meaning is produced. They promote the poststructural notion of discourse was to intro- a view of speakers or participants not solely as ini- duce a wholesale critique of how structuralism pos- tiators but also as the results of discourse. Such a ited the relation between langue and parole. Geertz’s change in analytic perspective has led to new theo- arguments about symbols were themselves critiqued ries of power and polity, as well as to new discus- by others using French poststructural theories of dis- sions of how various social categories, like , course, notably Talal Asad, for insufficient attention sexuality, race, ethnicity, and class, become palpable to power and for circumscribing the symbolic realm in and through discourse. In anthropology, French of culture to a limited set of phenomena. Geertz’s poststructuralism and linguistic anthropology have approach to text was also critiqued by linguistic both been used to tap into such changes in the study , notably in a book called Natural of discourse. Histories of Discourse (1996), for ignoring cultural Perhaps the scholar with the greatest influence on notions of how texts are constituted and how such anthropological theories of discourse is the French notions are related to discursive interaction and poststructuralist and historian Michel language. Foucault. Foucault’s work explores how discourse is embedded in sites of knowledge production and helps produce subjects. He argues against conceiving Poststructuralist Approaches to Discourse of the history of knowledge-production as a result Part of the goal of poststructuralist critiques and the of the actions of scientists and scholars. He insists turn to writing about “discourse” instead of “lan- instead that subjects are an effect of discourse and guage” (as a structure) is to develop an approach that they are produced in a set of historically coalesc- to communicative practice that does not assume ing sites, or discursive formations. This approach that the speaker, or speaking subject, is autonomous underlies Foucault’s concept of power. He moves and self-constituting. In discourse theory, attribut- away from stating that power is in the hands of a ing many voices to social groups and even individ- sociological group (e.g., economic or political elites) uals, and arguing that these voices are constituted or a social organization (e.g., the police). Instead, he socially, seeks to replace the premise that speakers understands power as diffuse, stabilized through the have an interior self from which they draw their discursive formation of knowing subjects and their intentions, and that this self is fully constituted prior known objects. Probably his most famous example to the act of communication. This premise is often is the confession, a discursive practice where a per- traced back to philosophical traditions associated son must tell all his or her transgressions to a con- with René Descartes and , among fessor; both confessor and confessing subject are others. In such philosophies, language could pro- formed in the act of giving the confession. The con- vide a model of the rationality (or logos) that distin- fession as a type of communicative act is very impor- guishes humanity from other beings. tant to Foucault’s theory of contemporary sexuality. Structuralism, including its linguistic and anthro- Although the confession started as a religious insti- pological versions, already moved away from some tution, according to Foucault, it was dispersed, and of these assumptions by suggesting that commu- now versions are found in psychological and medi- nication is shaped by a social rather than an indi- cal institutions, as well as at other powerful sites. vidual phenomenon, namely, the system of langue. This dispersion creates ever more situations where However, structuralism also reiterates other assump- speakers must produce such knowledge of them- tions, by treating an abstract system as the key ratio- selves. Foucault posited that the increasing discourse nality to understanding the discursive production of about sexuality in the 19th century was part of this Copyright © 2013 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution.

194 Discourse Theory process of disseminating the confession as a way of A final influential French poststructuralist is the knowing ourselves as sexual subjects. anthropologist and sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. He The confession is an example of what famously critiqued the structuralist emphasis on Foucault calls, in The Archaeology of Knowledge communicative behavior that can be described by (L’Archéologie du Savoir, 1969, in French), a “state- formal rules, which he felt gave way to a misrecogni- ment.” In explaining the statement, Foucault shows tion of the social fields that regulate discursive prac- that his concept of discourse is developed under a tice. Preferring to speak of embodied dispositions structuralist influence. Just as Saussure sought to rather than rules, Bourdieu emphasized the social produce the concept of langue by setting out cer- process by which a standard language arises, con- tain methodological premises (like the abstraction ferring legitimacy on the actors who can speak it, from context and synchrony), Foucault also seeks to while excluding others. Despite this social process of describe discourse as an analytic construct. Roughly, producing legitimacy, Bourdieu described how many a statement is a repeated kind of act that relates sub- powerful social institutions, and especially educa- jects and objects, and it can be detected (not unlike tional institutions, misrecognize the standard as the langue) by looking for regularities in discourse across “correct” or “efficient” way of speaking rather than multiple kinds of powerful institutions. In The Order a of speaking that is associated with power- of Things (Les Mots et les Choses: Une Archéologie ful speakers. des Sciences Humaines, 1966, in French), for exam- The work of Foucault, Derrida, and Bourdieu— ple, he finds such regularities in the way three fields and others of their time—has affected the work of of knowledge—(1) , (2) natural history, and many anthropologists interested in discourse. This (3) political economy—describe and classify their work helps anchor anthropological approaches to objects in the emergence of the human sciences. Even discursive phenomena and enables an examination though these fields of knowledge do not necessarily of shifting and complex signifiers in their fields of refer to each other explicitly, the forms of the state- communicative practice. ments made within them are comparable. Foucault Another tradition of studying discourse in anthro- is then interested to show the rules that allow for the pology is linguistic anthropology, which generally formation of a statement—that is, what can be said, maintains a much closer with linguistic what cannot be said, who can and cannot do the structuralism. Sometimes also engaging with French saying, and so forth. Eschewing narrating history as theories, linguistic anthropology has produced cause and effect, his description produces the effect its own version of poststructuralism, attempting of making his object seem outside specific events, in to both integrate and question the assumptions of ways that are analogous to the description of langue. Saussure’s theory of langue. Much of this critique Another influential French poststructuralist, has been developed through a careful reinterpreta- whose impact on anthropology is more muted, is the tion of the writings of the Russian literary critic and philosopher Jacques Derrida. He critiques Saussure’s philosopher , as well as a reevalu- structuralism by questioning the stability of the ation of sign relations in light of the work of the meaning of a sign, given that it is always available American philosopher Charles S. Peirce. for use in another event of communication. Derrida Prior to the Second World War, in American cul- calls the signifier’s unstable quality iterability, by tural anthropology, linguistics was seen as a key but which he refers to the impossibility of establishing separate area of the study of humanity. The program what is both unique about a singular use of a sign for the study of language was initiated by and the potential for its repetition. His methodology and his students, who developed ideas about struc- for producing an analysis of the inherent instabil- ture similar to Saussure’s. Boas’s students were gen- ity of signs is called , and it is widely erally occupied with the description of lesser studied influential in arguments about why a text can never , especially those of the Indigenous peoples achieve a truly stable meaning. Derrida is also influ- of the Americas. In these investigations, the Boasians ential in debates about performativity—that is, the also contributed to the question of how linguistic theory associated with the philosopher John Austin structure can bias perception of the world. Such that an utterance does not simply reflect a preexist- a bias was linked to what Boas called “secondary ing world but actually helps create social worlds. rationalizations”—that is, native explanations that Copyright © 2013 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution.

Discourse Theory 195 are insufficient to account for linguistic (or other) called language , constitute one means by facts. Apart from this, they attended to discourse which conscious, directed social projects affect sign mostly through producing collections of texts, such relations. No group of speakers is without ideologies as myths. about how they and others speak, and these ideas After World War II, criticism of the basic assump- mediate social relations that are crystallized and tions of linguistics led to new directions within transformed through language use. This reflexive linguistic anthropology. Quantitative sociolinguis- attention to signs can lead to attempts by powerful tics, associated especially with William Labov, an organizations to control the parameters of meaning, American linguist, studied the demographic varia- as (to draw on the above example from Bourdieu) tion in speaking across populations, especially in in the dissemination of a prestigious linguistic stan- industrialized and postindustrialized . This dard through schooling. Linguistic anthropologi- school continues to challenge the idea of a unified cal studies of nationalism, gender, race, and other grammar within a “language,” by showing the social categories consistently show the importance complex heterogeneity of social and regional dia- of language ideologies in the functioning of institu- lects that direct structural change. At the border of tions. Structuralist dualisms like langue and parole, and anthropology, Erving Goffman helped or language structure and use, are thus shown to initiate the study of the small-scale dynamics of be in relation with a third dimension, . interpersonal interaction. His work explores how These studies also challenge Saussure’s notion that participants produce particular social identities, and structure remains out of the realm of conscious even shift between identities, as they interact with social action. Many have shown, for example, that one another. From within anthropology, grammatical elements of languages—although and John Gumperz spearheaded a cross-cultural imperfectly understood by speakers—have none- examination of how utterances are shaped by rules theless changed along grooves that are shaped by different from those of grammar, a project that consciousness. A brief example is the elimination focused attention on the relation of discourse to its of the informal “thou”/formal “ye” distinction for context. In this vein, introduced singular referents that once was found in England, the tripartite sign theory of Peirce as the basis for which functioned in parallel ways to the French tu/ the study of language, which folds into it insights vous or, to a lesser extent, the Spanish tú/Usted. As developed under Saussure’s bipartite theory of signs, Silverstein discusses, this distinction was ended in which points or shows contiguity to its object. This part due to 17th-century religious movements that theory has been enormously influential in reframing emphasized equality, including in forms of address. the study of how signifiers relate to one another and The leaders of these movements argued that using to their context. The study initiated by these postwar the plural form “ye” for a single referent was a cat- figures has led to a careful analysis of transcripts of egory mistake. This argument can be shown to be a discursive interaction, both everyday and , as a that misinterprets the grammati- means to deepening our understanding of how signs cal categories of person as well as person address function. in discourse. Yet partially under influence of this These traditions point to the difficulty of theo- ideology, and the shifts in practices undertaken by its rizing discourse due to the variation found in lan- adherents, the distinction was eliminated. guage use, and in the social and cultural conditions A second trend in linguistic anthropology is the that inform context. Once linguistic structure or broadening use of Bakhtin’s framework for study- analogous theories are shown to be insufficient to ing sociolinguistic variation, interdiscursive relations account for the “structures” found in the empiri- between utterances, and the social qualities of dis- cal analysis of discourse, the questions that emerge cursive coherence (or textuality). Bakhtin criticizes are what stabilizes the and how to Saussure for starting the analysis of language with account for the social variation in the use of signs. the abstract sentence rather than with the concrete Two significant trends in linguistic anthropology event of interaction, the utterance. By reversing this seek to answer these questions and undermine basic starting point, Bakhtin moves toward a social analy- structuralist dualisms. First, linguistic anthropolo- sis of form and function. For Bakhtin, what enables gists consider how rationalizations about language, an utterance to appear coherent is not only the Copyright © 2013 SAGE Publications. Not for sale, reproduction, or distribution.

196 Douglas, Mary structural aspect (as with grammar) but also the way Schieffelin, B., Woolard, K. A., & Kroskrity, P. V. (Eds.). in which the utterance brings together participants (1998). Language ideologies: Practice and theory. in an activity. A second important contribution from New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Bakhtin is that participants never only speak as a sin- Silverstein, M., & Urban, G. (Eds.). (1996). Natural gle unique self; rather, they always draw on, invoke, histories of discourse. Chicago, IL: University of and position their discourse in terms of sociolinguis- Chicago Press. tic variation. For example, to speak in highly for- Todorov, T. (1984). Mikhail Bakhtin: The dialogical mal English (using “big words”) in the middle of a principle (W. Godzich, Trans.). Minneapolis: University casual conversation with friends might be construed of Minnesota Press. as being pretentious, because the varieties of formal English bring to mind the stuffy contexts where that register is typically used (e.g., in the university or in DOUGLAS, MARY law courts). Participants perceive and respond to dis- course as signaling certain types of people from the Mary Tew Douglas (1921–2007), the well-known sociolinguistic world of “voices” with which they British social anthropologist, contributed widely are familiar, and this allows them to make sense of to 20th-century anthropology, the social sciences, the discourse. This approach frames current research and the humanities, including African ethnology, on register, , , and textuality. the anthropology of diverse social/religious , The past 100 years have seen a decided shift in symbols and food taboos, and social-moral solidar- anthropological theories of language and commu- ity–oriented critiques of modern economics, politics, nication, from frameworks that produce a formal and risk-blame issues in mass societies. While her analysis of linguistic structure to an emphasis on “cultural theory” tackled such concerns, Douglas social analysis of the participants or subjects that are also offered distinct anthropological interpretations constituted through discourse. Many of the insights of Old Testament texts. generated in this shift are a product of the wide- ranging critique about the extent to which structur- Early Influences and Education alist models could account for the regular patterns Margaret Mary Tew at birth, Douglas was born on or norms of discourse in social life. Debates still con- March 25, 1921, in San Remo, Italy, as the first child tinue on how best to integrate structuralist insights, of Phyllis Margaret Twomey and Gilbert Charles if at all, and how best to describe the many ways Tew, employed in the Indian Civil Service in Burma. discourse can index and thus produce the categories Closer to her mother and maternal grandfather, of subjects and objects that make up our shifting Douglas, an English Catholic of part-Irish descent, social worlds. attended the Sacred Heart Convent in Roehampton Alejandro I. Paz (southwest London) for secondary education as a boarder on scholarship. Douglas was an outstand- See also Bakhtin, Mikhail M.; Bourdieu, Pierre; Derrida, ing student, and her Catholic convent girlhood was Jacques; Foucault, Michel; Goffman, Erving; to have a deep, lifelong influence on the anthropolo- Gumperz, John J.; Hymes, Dell; Labov, William; Lévi- gist’s intellectual convictions and scholarly trajec- Strauss, Claude; Poststructuralism; Saussure, tories. The convent life, hierarchical, committed, Ferdinand de; Structuralism and closely rule governed, had awarded the teenage girl a sense of belonging and security, albeit within Further Readings a secluded women’s world. Familiar with both the Dreyfus, H. L., & Rabinow, P. (1982). Michel Foucault: quick rewards and the censures from the church Beyond structuralism and hermeneutics. Brighton, UK: authorities in a minutely ordered daily life, Douglas Harvester. grew up mostly protected from the harsher sur- Hanks, W. F. (1989). Text and textuality. Annual Review of rounding world. Anthropology, 18, 95–127. After leaving the convent at her grandmother’s Morris, R. C. (2007). Legacies of Derrida: Anthropology. suggestion, Douglas spent 6 months in Paris getting Annual Review of Anthropology, 36, 355–389. a Diplõme de civilization française at the Sorbonne