Exploring the Non-Discursive: A Three-Layered Approach to Discourse and Its Boundaries

Abstract

This chapter outlines a comprehensive three-layered approach to the study of discourse and its boundaries. It argues that Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) may benefit from a sociologically-informed analysis of the fuzzy boundaries between discourse and the non-discursive. This chapter starts by discussing the non-discursive in Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory and it turns, in a second step, to Foucault-inspired approaches to discourse. Building upon the latter, the proposal to study discourse and its boundaries presented in this chapter distinguishes three different levels: (1) the level of discursive and social practices, (2) the structural level, (3) and the agential and reflexive level. In the final part of the chapter, I discuss the implications of this three-layered approach for a social ontology and a practice of critique within CDS. To conclude, I contend that this approach to discourse and its boundaries expands the potential of a postfoundational CDS research agenda and strengthens the critical gaze of discourse research.