Poststructuralist Discourse Theory and its Methods of Analysis of Sociocultural Reality

Abstract

This paper discusses Laclau and Mouffe’s post-structural theory of discourse and its methodological tools that could be used for an analysis of social and cultural phenomena. Initially, we outline the variety of discursive approaches within the classification suggested by Jacob Torfing (2005) in order to explain the distinctions and similarities between the linguistic and discursive understanding of social reality. Then, we examine the premises of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, which is drawn critically upon structuralist and Marxist traditions of thinking. In particular, various trends of French post-structuralism and non-essentialist theories of culture and hegemony by Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall are the focus of our attention. By doing so we seek to clarify the basis of the post-structural approach and its key notions such as ‘an empty signifier’ by Jacques Derrida, ‘the nodal point’ by Jacques Lacan, and ‘discursive dispersion’ and ‘discursive positivity’ by Michel Foucault. After that, we seek to unfold the abstract logics of Laclau and Mouffe’s research programme and illustrate them with schemes and examples. Thus, we explain an analytical character of the central concepts – ‘the logics of difference and equivalence’, ‘hegemony’, ‘social antagonism’, and ‘dislocation of meanings’.