Discourse analysis as a method of discovering social reality
Discourse analysis as a method of discovering social reality

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the presented text is a report on a relatively new and not very popular pedagogical method of the examination of social reality by an analysis of discourse. This method brings vast cognitive possibilities and can be effectively used for analysing both spoken and written texts. The growth of the interest of discourse is connected with many important changes. One of them is the revolutionary change in humanistic and social sciences, which is called “the linguistic return”. The base for it is belief that it is a huge role of language in organizing and constructing social world. People agreed that language is not only “agent” between the world and individual. The language not only reflects the reality. Moreover, the language decides how we arrange different facts and phenomenons. The way of saying about something (thing, situation) leads ways of our understanding it. The analysis of discourse (as research method) appeared in 1970s of twentieth century. The popularity of this analysis is connected with the fact that it let us analyse dependences between using a language and practical human experience. The researches distinguish two types of the analysis of discourse: the analysis oriented on impartial, aspiring to an objective, the study of speech which is a descriptive-explanatory and critical analysis, which investigates the cases occurring in the discourses of domination and inequality, or any other hidden interests.

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