Critical Realist Critical Discourse Analysis: A Necessary Alternative to Post-marxist Discourse Theory

Abstract

This article discusses the metatheoretical foundations of a critical realist approach to critical discourse analysis and counterposes them to insufficiently realist tendencies in Norman Fairclough's critical discourse analysis (CDA), on the one hand, and anti-realist post-Marxist discourse theory on the other. The first section argues that Fairclough's approach is progressive in many ways, but lacks metatheoretical rigour with respect to important demarcation problems. These mainly concern CDA's understanding of discourse as mediating entity, its underlying dialectical-relational approach and overarching concept of social practices. The discussion of Fairclough's approach necessitates a treatment of the relation of discourse and epistemology, in which the heritage of Foucault plays a crucial role and a brief engagement with (discursive) ideology, in which Althusser is a major point of departure. The thesis is advanced that, among other things, Althusserian and Foucauldian residues in CDA's metatheory establish links to non-realist discourse theories. In the second section, the flaws of post-Marxist discourse theory are critiqued along these lines. An explanation of the incompatibility of its metatheoretical assumptions with a critical realist framework is elaborated, and the ideological and inconsistent foundations of ‘post-foundationalism’ are uncovered. It is argued that its ideological blurring of central metatheoretical issues fosters a specific (implicit) ontology of the social world as one solely determined by contingent political antagonisms. This view is not only inconsistent but also detrimental to critical theory and emancipatory practice.