Introduction to Discourse

Y1T2
Shannon Landers
19 May 2020
 Discourse
/ˈdɪskɔːs/

Defining discourse
1.) Noun
Discourse is another word for language

2.) Verb
The way texts are enunciated (brought into meaning)
Different Types of Discourse

• Institutionalised discourse
(law, medicine, Science)

• Media discourses (television,

newspapers)

• Popular discourses (pop

music, comic strips, slang)
 Media Discourse

Theatre Television

Cinema Novel
Discourse as a Social Process

Discourse also refers to the

social process of making sense
of and reproducing reality
(enunciation)
Social Discourse about Millennials
Social Discourse in Disney Films
Social Discourse about Hair
Although discourses
may fix meaning,
these meanings are
not eternal

Hair Love is an animated film that tells

the story about a father learning to do
his daughter’s Afro textured hair for
the first time in the absence of her
mother, who is in hospital receiving
cancer treatment, and is bald.
Discourses cannot be
separated from history and
they cannot be separated
from ideology (ideas) since
they serve to make sense of
the culture in which we live REPRESENTATION
IDENTITY

RACE

GENDER POLITICS

OTHERS
 Emile Benveniste

• According to the structuralist linguist Emile

Benveniste (cited in de Toro, 1995: 6), discourse
is “every enunciation presupposing a speaker
and a listener, where the former intends to
influence the latter in some manner”

• Yet again, we can see that communicating

language is central to discourse but we also
learn from Benveniste that discourse is about
communicating meaning through language, this
can also be referred to as semiotics.
 Why is this relevant?

Medium forms part of a language system, which is governed by

codes and conventions. In this language system, there are
multiple signs working together to make meaning. These signs
develop discourses which are informed by different social
processes. There is nothing natural about this process, other
than your knowledge of the codes and conventions that
constitute this process. However, it is your job as a creative to
question, challenge, highlight and even criticise these codes and
conventions, but you can only do this if you know they exist.
 Activity
• Watch your favourite film or an episode of your favourite television/
internet-based series and answer the following questions:

1.) What is the film/series about?

2.) What is the genre of the film/series?
3.) Can you identify characteristics of the film/series that relate to the genre
(sound/music, costume, make-up, colour, camera technique)
4.) What discourses emerged from the film, based on your understanding of the lecture
slides?
5.) Do you think all films and television shows express discourses? Explain your
answer.
 Reference List

• Bignell, J. 2002. Media Semiotics: An Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

• Bordwell, D, & Thompson, K. Film History: an Introduction. McGraw-Hill: New York (Pp 714-
722).

• Carpenter, E. 1972. ‘The new languages’ (ch35), in E. Carpenter, & M. McLuhan, Explorations
in communication. Beacon Press: Boston, (p. 250-255).

• Foucault, M. 1986. ‘Of other spaces’, Diacritics, vol. 16, no.1, p22-27.

• Hayward, S. 2013. Cinema Studies. Routledge: New York. (Pp 109-110).

• Monaco, J. 2000. How to Read a Film. Oxford University Press: Oxford (Pp 48-60, 505-515).

• Sebeok, T. 2001. ‘The Basic Notions’, in Signs: An introduction to semiotics. University of

Toronto Press: Toronto.