Concepts, Texts and Discourses: Contextualist Approaches to Intellectual-Historical Discourse Analysis

Neil Foxlee nfoxlee1@uclan.ac.uk

Intellectual History vs. History of Ideas Trad. history of ideas: reified abstractions Intellectual history: intellectual discourse (esp. political) in social context

Three Senses of Discourse 1. Language in use. 2. Discourse of social group/social activity. 3. Discourse on a given topic.

Three Approaches to Intellectual History

Cambridge School 1. John Pocock (political languages or discourses) 2. Quentin Skinner (texts as speech acts what speaker/writer was doing) Begriffsgeschichte 3. Reinhart Koselleck (history of concepts as part of social history)

Pococks Twin-Track Approach

Historian has to move between exploring: 1. [the texts] structure as a synchronously existing artifact 2. text as performance in a diachronously proceeding continuum of discourse
(Pocock 1985: 28)

Pococks Concept of a Language (Discourse)

Complex structure comprising: a vocabulary a grammar a rhetoric a set of usages, assumptions and implications

Employable by: a community of language-users for political purposes to articulate world-view/ideology

(Pocock 1996: 47)

Pocock on Languages (Discourses)

1. Difft. languages exist in confrontation, contestation & interaction with each other 2. Complex text may not only be written, but also read in a diversity of languages
(Pocock 1987: 27)

Pocock as Reception Historian

Archaeologist of interpretations Participants in political argument as historical actors, responding to one another in a diversity of linguistic and other political and historical contexts
(Pocock 1985: 23)

Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment

Roman republican discourse appropriated by: 1. Machiavelli &c in 16thc. Italy; 2. James Harrington in 17thc. England 3. US Founding Fathers (Decl. of Indep. 1776; US Constitution 1787).
(Pocock 1975)

Skinner on Contexts
1. Social context politics problems subjects of debate

2. Intellectual (argumentative) context earlier writings & inherited assumptions 3. Ideological context as expressed in normative terms.
(Skinner 1978: Preface)

E.g. Machiavelli, The Prince (1532)

1. Ideological context M. manipulates normative terms (rhetorical redescription) moral virtues often political vices (& reverse) 2. Argumentative context advice-books for princes (catalogue of virtues

Stoics)

3. Socio-political context (16thc. Florence/Italy) republic Medici princes; foreign armies/other city-states. (Skinner 1978: chap. 5; Skinner 1981: chap. 2)

Skinner on Argumentative Context

To find out what speaker/writer was doing in saying what they said: examine how utterance relates to utterances with same subject-matter other

(e.g. The Prince / conventional advice-books)

(Skinner 2002: 116)

Skinner on Ideological Context

Moral identity of society established, upheld, questioned or altered through rhetorical manipulation of normative terms
(Skinner 2002: 149).

e.g. unemployment benefit job-seekers allowance

Begriffsgeschichte (History of Concepts)

(Begriff = concept and term)

contextual accounts of how key concepts came into existence, were modified, or became transformed (Richter 2003: 95) discursive context and social context.

Basic Concepts (Grundbegriffe)

e.g. freedom, justice, democracy...
Essential elements of socio-political vocabulary highly complex combine experiences & expectations controversial & contested. (Koselleck 1996: 64)

Concepts and Semantic Fields

historical concepts do not develop [] in isolation, but rather with [other] concepts both complementary and antithetical with which they form common semantic fields (Reichardt 1998: 225)

Asymmetric Counter-Concepts
= negative term in loaded oppositions e.g. Hellenes/barbarians (us/them)
(Koselleck 2004: 16168)

democracy vs dictatorship

Democracy in Ancient Athens

MONARCHY

People power or mob rule?

DEMOCRACY

OLIGARCHY

TYRANNY

Combining Begriffsgeschichte & the Cambridge School

Begriffsgeschichte concepts other concepts in same semantic field Skinner texts

previous texts on same/related topics

Pocock discourses

competing discourses in same discursive field.

Multi-Contextualist Approach
1. Situate text in immediate context of production/reception. 2. Examine textual relationship between normative terms & key/contested concepts. 3. Reconstruct debates & discourses by identifying texts argumentative intertexts (& contextualizing them in turn). 4. Place text in socio-political & biographical contexts (inc. other writings).

Contexts in Discourse-Historical Approach

1. immediate, language or text-internal co-text & co-discourse 2. intertextual & interdiscursive relationship utterances, texts, genres & discourses between

3. extralinguistic social variables & institutional frames of specific context of situation 4. broader sociopolitical & historical context, which discursive practices are embedded in and related to.
(Reisigl & Wodak 2009: 93, revising Wodak, 2001: 67)

Comparing/Contrasting Approaches
Multi-contextualist
1. Immediate context of production / reception 2. Key concepts/normative terms 3. Argumentative context (intertexts, debates, discourses) 4. Socio-political & biographical context

Discourse-Historical
1. Extralinguistic context of situation 2. Co-text and co-discourse 3. Intertextual/interdiscursive context 4. Socio-political & historical context