Discourse

It is very difficult to define In one sentence what the discourse really is. Discourse is known in different fields, for instance, philosophy, sociology, social psychology , and all of them use it in various way. The most conspicuous thing to find out the meaning of discourse is checking it in dictionary, what is connected with more general meaning. According to Gilbert Weiss In the English-speaking world , discourse is often used for both written and oral texts(str. 13). But (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975) describe it as an extended piece of text , which has some form of internal organization , coherence or cohesion (Mills, 1997,9).

French philosopher Fairclough asserts that discourse is language as a form of social practice.I use discourse for language use seen in a particular way , as a form of social practise(Fairclough1985 p.2). It means that text which is analyzing can not be separate from the prevailing situation in which texts are create. Also language is very important in society and can be treated as a part of it. Discourse is relevant in social situation as well as a contigent on social situations and create situations, social identities of and relationship between people. In regard to Gilbert Weiss, discourse, may have major ideological effect that is, they can help produce and reproduce unequal power relations between (for instance ) social classes , women and men an ethnic /cultural majorities and minorities through the ways in which they represent things and position people.(13).

According to Mills,77 discourse is something which produce something else (an utterance, a concept, an effect), rather than something which exists in and of itself and which can be analyzed in isolation ( Mills, 15). Foucault also describe discursive structure, which can be detected because of the systematicity of the ideas and ways of thinking which are formed within a particular context, and because of the effect of this behavior ( Mills, 1997,15).. It is obvious then , that Foucault theories of discourse help understand, it role within society and institutions. Uiii[[

News as a discourse

News is a kind of media discourse which is very relevant for our society. People read a newspaper because they want to know what happen in the world and they believe that news is about reality(p.274). It is clear, that to better understanding of the ideologies of the media and to realize how powerful it can be , the examination of how texts is produced is necessary. Media discourse mediate between events which have occurred and people who receive information and for instance read a newspaper. The person who creates a text has a huge impact how it will be send to recipient. It means that he can choose in what way he want to write about information , what he want to emphasise or omit. News, according to ( ktos tam p 275) is reconstruction of reality through the eyes of many people. The reality observed depends on how it is looked at. Also recipient of information does not get a new information about recent event but selected information, which editors want to present and this information may well be presented with an ideological spin that makes it very difficult for the reader to make an independent decision on what his/her actual viewpoint of these events actually is. Another important thing which concern media discourse I access. Who has a access to represent opinion and affect the way people perceived the world. People who own the press have an impact on structure of language as well as society. As Richardson (p.90) claims One key determining force is the audience. In short , without a sense of the audience, there can be no selection of what to present as the news. But this audience doesnt have active role in shaping media discourse. Thanks to it medias power in shaping reality and behaviours among users of media are relevant. . Critical linguistics According to (Fairclough 1995, p 24) Critical linguistics is a type of discourse analysis which was developed by a group based at Univeristy of East Anglia in the 1970s

Discourse as a social pracise.

Norman Fairclough wrote that discourse is a form of social practice. By using such words he claims that language is a social practice. Connection between language and society is internal and language is seen as a part of society. In this case linguistic phenomena are social phenomena and the ways in which people use their language to write, listen, speak or read are defined socially and contain social results. According to it , linguistic phenomena are social phenomena in the meaning that language activity is not only a expression of social processes and practices but it is also a part of it. Moreover , Fairclough perceiving language as a social practice he means that language is a social practice. He points the differences between text and discourse. Text is just a product and can not be perceive as a process. On the other hand , discourse is a process of social interaction and text is only a product of it. Also according to Norman Fairclough ( This process includes in addition to the text the process of production , of which the text is a product, and the process of interpretation , for which the text is a resource). (Fairlough 2001 p .20). Therefore, discourse includes not only text analysis but also analysis of productive and interpretative process. Fairclough describes the formal properties of a text as a traces of the productive process and as a cues in the process of interpretation. When discourse is perceive as a social practice, language is conditioned by parts of society. People to produce and interpret texts need to use MR (members resources), which are in their head and are cognitive. Texts are also social in some ways that they are socially generated , and nature of it is determined by social relations and struggles out of which they were generated. Fairlclough notes that ( it is not just the nature of these cognitive resources that is socially determined, but also the conditions of their use ) p.20. Therefore, discourse involves social condition in production as well as in interpretation of a text and even it shapes the way, in which text is produced and interpreted. It is obvious that people use language in different situations and how they do it depends on social situation in which they are(you wouldnt speak to someone in a pub the same way as you would in a court of law) Richardson p.10 ) Also, editors use language not to reveal things in the way in which it is really done, but they want to match it to the readers expectations , which they have buying newspapers or magazines. Thus, to analyze some discourse , ones need to analyze the text, the process of production and interpretation and take into consideration the relationship between text, processes, and their social conditions both the immediate conditions of the situational context and the more remote conditions of the situational and social structures). P.21 Fairclough The underlying figure shows the connection between text, interaction, and context.

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