Discourse

Discourse is a polysemous concept in the humanities that, in the most general sense, means speech immersed in a social, historical, and ideological context — that is, 'language in action.' In linguistics, discourse is a coherent text together with extralinguistic factors (Émile Benveniste). Decisive importance was given to the concept by Michel Foucault ('The Archaeology of Knowledge'), who understood discourse as a historically conditioned system of statements that forms objects of knowledge and is bound up with relations of power (discursive practices). Hence the notions of 'medical,' 'colonial,' and 'power' discourse. In literary studies, one distinguishes artistic, critical, and narrative discourses; discourse analysis examines how a text constructs meaning and positions the subject. The concept of discourse is central to poststructuralism, critical analysis, and feminist and postcolonial studies.