Benno Herzog

Discourse analysis as immanent critique: Possibilities and limits of normative critique in empirical discourse studies

Although discourse analysts often conceive of their work as critical, there is little theoretical discussion regarding the possibility of normative critique in the scientific community of discourse analysis. Rarely are the normative grounds and normative scope of such a critique clear. Thus, this article attempts to find theoretically robust and practical answers to the following question: ‘How is a normative critique possible?’ In seeking my answer, I first provide a short overview of the possibilities of normative critique in critical discourse analysis. Second, I offer an argument in favour of immanent critique while explaining both its advantages and its theoretical and practical problems. Finally, I demonstrate how sociological discourse analysis and immanent critique can mutually benefit from one another. The theses I formulate and defend are as follows: Although the notion of immanent critique cannot adequately answer methodological questions, these answers can be found in several recent proposals on discourse analysis. Additionally, a combination of the dialectical approaches to immanent critique and discourse analysis might help overcome the methodological deficit of Critical Theory. Finally, this combination can resolve several theoretical deficits in discourse theory.

Suffering as an anchor of critique. The place of critique in critical discourse studies

ABSTRACT If we engage in reflection on standards of critique, we are entering the terrain of metaethics, or the question of which ethical standards we should accept. The question is not only, in the sense of self-awareness, what we as individual researchers or as a critical discourse analysis community think or feel about a specific social phenomenon. The metaethical question is about what we should think or feel. The aim of this article is to argue for a specific perspective on critique, namely, an immanent critique that takes social suffering as the starting point for discourse analysis. I will show that the suffering produced by human beings or suffering that could be abolished or alleviated by human beings must be behind every informed critique in CDS. In a first step, I will present different sources of critique that can be found in CDS and argue in favor of the approach of immanent critique as a model for CDS (I). I will then develop a theory of social suffering that is sensitive to the enormous diversity of normative spheres and normative claims and that can be used as an anchor for critique (II). Finally, I will show how and when this type of critique becomes social critique, or a critique towards the fundamental structures of societies, and reconnect the approach presented here to the existing forms of critique in CDS (III). If CDS wants to not only combine discourse analysis and critique but also to perform discourse analysis as critique, then CDS must more explicitly consider not only text and talk but also silent and silenced forms of suffering. As social suffering is a complex phenomenon that requires interdisciplinary approaches based in philosophy, politics, psychology and sociology, DA must broaden its methods towards empathic understanding, affective reactions, practices, and material dispositions.

International Retirement Migration: Transforming Societies Through Purchasing Power?

Despite a more than 40-year-old tradition of international retirement migration (IRM) in Europe, relatively little social scientific research has been carried out in this field. Retired European migrants have not been considered to be politically controversial (i.e. they are not viewed as having been the causes of social problems or as needy, poor or deprived). Often, the terms used in the 1980s and early 1990s to describe these populations have been linked not to a migration model but to the model of the social agent of a tourist. The chapter is divided into three parts: (1) a general overview of the flows and socio-economic characteristics of IRM in Europe, addressing the main regions of attraction within Europe and the differences in the social profiles of their retirement migrants and an introduction into the wide range of transnational lifestyles and pensioners’ diasporic lives and leisure as part of their well-being; (2) serious social problems related to wellbeing, health care, social isolation in old age and the lack of attention by local authorities regarding the needs of this population as well as the adaptation of local, regional and national care schemes in response to these problems to address the reality of transnational migration, asking such questions as what integration means under the conditions of transnational lifestyle and what institutions are therefore needed; and (3) reflections about processes of social transformation related to IRM and some methodological problems faced by researchers who study this transnational, often unregistered and isolated type of migration.

Recognition in multicultural societies. Intergroup relations as second-order recognition

Since the 1990s, the notion of social recognition has developed into a key concept for sociological theory. Recognition theory seems especially promising as a means of understanding intercultural conflicts, as the sociology of intercultural relations often addresses claims of recognition of a specific identity that is different from that of the main society. The aim of this article is to show that recognition theory can be used as a key concept in examining group inclusion in multicultural societies. Nevertheless, the existing theoretical approaches to recognition are insufficient for that purpose. Therefore, I develop my own approach to the recognition of minority groups as second-order recognition . The concept of second-order recognition helps analyzing, understanding and evaluating conflicts in multicultural societies. It allows conflicts within groups that involve a struggle for firstorder recognition to be distinguished from conflicts between cultural minorities and the main society that involve a struggle for second-order recognition.

Invisibilization and Silencing as an Ethical and Sociological Challenge

Abstract Excluded and/or marginalized social groups frequently face problems involving representation in the public sphere. Moreover, the very notion of exclusion typically refers to communicatively or discursively produced mechanisms of being considered irrelevant in public processes of communication. Exclusion and marginalization, understood as processes of silencing or invisibilizing social groups, are particularly serious in cases involving social suffering, i.e. socially produced suffering and/or suffering that can be eliminated or alleviated socially. Making silence heard, giving voice to the silenced and bringing the invisibilized back into the public domain are therefore fundamental tasks of solidarity in reaching a higher degree of social integration. The main aim of this article is to reveal how it is possible to disclose and understand the social grammar of the normative claims of silenced and invisibilized social groups. Therefore, grounded in Axel Honneth’s Theory of Recognition, I first develop a theoretic model of criticism that elucidates silent and invisible suffering as universal normative language (I). Next, I develop a typology of silencing and invisibilizing that allows research attention to be directed towards specific fields of normative claims with different validity claims (II). Finally, I offer some general advice with regard to performing empirical research aimed at normative social criticism that considers the grammar of the silenced and invisible language of suffering (III).

Introduction special issue Marx & discourse

This year marks the 200th birthday of Karl Marx, one of the most influential thinkers of the social sciences and humanities. We take this anniversary as an opportunity to explore the various relations between Marx(ism) and Discourse Studies. From its beginnings, particularly in France, discourse analysis and theory have been heavily influenced by Marxist analyses of the social. Simultaneously, over the course of the past few decades, discourse theories and analyses have helped shape contemporary Marxism and provided much needed critiques of orthodox Marxist economism and Marxism’s neglection of phenomena traditionally counted as belonging the ‘superstructure’. This Special Issue was born out of the desire to collectively reflect on these relations and discuss the relevance of Marxian concepts and ideas for Discourse Studies today. From the French tradition of discourse analysis associated with figures such as Althusser, Pêcheux or Foucault, to the more Habermasian approaches to discourse, to the Essex School’s discourse theory, to cultural political-economic approaches and the diverse field of Critical Discourse Studies – all were, in different ways, influenced by Marxism and its concepts. Marx and Marxism study and critique social relations of domination and exploitation, ideology and power, social reproduction, and transformation in the context of capitalist modes of production. Many of Marx’s central categories – such as his notion of the reproduction of social relations, the concept of capital, the importance of conditions of production and the economy, or the concept of ideology – were often the point of departure for discourse analysts and theorists. Thus, Marxism is not only a social theory to complement discourse analyses; the notion of discourse has changed the way we perceive and understand Marxian categories today. Furthermore, emancipatory politics and the struggle for something better than the conditions of late capitalism we find ourselves in, have been a veritable concern for many discourse scholars around the world since the inception of Discourse Studies. The field of Discourse Studies today can hardly be described as a purely Marxist project. Discourse analysis in the broadest sense scrutinizes semiotic material that is appropriated and processed through practices embedded in specific contexts. In many ways, contemporary discourse theory and analysis are concerned with how discursive processes (re)produce the material conditions of existence within which they operate. Taking its departure in the 1960s, research decidedly concerned with discourse(s) and the production of meaning has now become an integral part of the academic landscape. It brings together approaches from linguistics, sociology, political sciences, gender studies, cultural studies, and many others. They reach from micro-analytical camps that analyze discourse as a set of situated practices and processes, to socio-historical and macro-sociological strands, which are more interested in the (re)production of large scale social phenomena. Within this multitude of approaches, decidedly and explicitly Marxist approaches are certainly not hegemonic. It is, however, our contention that Marx and Marxism are still of great importance to Discourse Studies.

Marx's critique of ideology for discourse analysis: from analysis of ideologies to social critique

ABSTRACT The notion of ideology is related to social and material reality and especially to the processes of social reproduction. Therefore, the analysis of ideology seems to fall into the domain of discourse analysis. The analysis of language and practices of signification in social contexts constitutes the basic triangle of discourse analysis. However, the Marxist concept of ideology always refers to some kind of falsity, that ultimately enables the researcher to not only analyse but also to criticize ideologies. Ideologies are always in some way false, injust or inadequate. It is at this point that discourse analysts usually raise the most serious objections as they understand truth itself as a discursive product, resulting from powerful struggles of domination and exclusion. The present article explores in how far the Marxist notion can be used for the purpose of discourse analysis. It argues that even the notion of falsity as present in classical Marxism can be adapted for understanding and criticizing contemporary ideologies. I start by presenting some common understandings of ideology in the field of Discourse Studies (I). In a second step I will analyse elements of the notion of ideology in Marxs early writings, especially in the debate with the Young Hegelians (II) and ask what this means for empirical discourse analysis. I will then point towards elements of the critique of ideology in Marx mature ‘political economy’ that could be fruitful for Discourse Studies (III). Finally, I will try to reconcile a Marxist concept of ideology based ultimately on a notion of falsity with such discourse analytical approaches highly suspicious of the possibility of the existing ‘politics of truth’ (IV). We will see that, due to the relation between ideas and material organization in ideologies, the critique of ideologies becomes not only a critique of practices of justifications but turns into a genuine social critique.