discourse

Discourse is a term used in linguistics, sociology, and philosophy to refer to ways of speaking, writing, and representing the world that go beyond single sentences. It encompasses language use within social practices, including genres, conventions, and institutions, and it helps to produce or legitimate particular knowledge, identities, and power relations. Discourse thus refers not only to speech or text but to the broader social processes in which meaning is created and circulated.

Theoretical perspectives vary. Michel Foucault treated discourse as a system of statements that defines what can be said within a field, regulates truth, and enforces power relations. Mikhail Bakhtin introduced dialogism and heteroglossia, stressing the presence of multiple voices and forms of social meaning within any speech. Critical discourse analysis (CDA), associated with scholars like Norman Fairclough, analyzes how language and power intersect in institutions such as media, education, and politics.

Domains: political discourse, media discourse, scientific discourse, medical discourse, educational discourse, and everyday talk. In sociolinguistics, the idea of a discourse community (John Swales) refers to groups sharing communication norms and genres.

Discourse analysis uses qualitative methods to examine how discourse constructs social identities, sustains power relations, or resists them. It emphasizes context, genre, audience, and ideology. Discourse remains a central concept across disciplines for understanding how language both reflects and shapes social reality.