Towards the definition of discourse and discourse of identity

Abstract

Fuelled by political and social struggles as well as cultural and linguistic concerns, “identity” emerged as the central theme of linguocultural, cognitive and discursive studies in the XXI century. The article describes two fundamental notions of interparadigmal cognitivediscursive linguistic approach to identity research: discourse and discourse of identity. In doing so, it presents a brief history of discourse studies, examines debates in linguistics about discourse and text, summarizes main approaches to discourse definition and undestanding, reveals its two-aspect essence and suggests author’s understanding of the term “discourse of identity”. Identity is viewed as an emotionally charged discursive description of ourselves that is subject to change, so language “makes” rather than “finds” identity. Identities are thus discursive constructions that change their meanings according to time, place and usage. We may understand identity as regulatory discourses to which we are attached through processes of identification or emotional investment. Identity is wholly cultural and cognitive in character and doesn’t exist outside its representation in discourses. This theoretical basis enables to build up research methodology of collective identity as a cognitive-discursive result of society reflection, to construct linguocultural hyperconcept ENGLISH IDENTITY as a model for cognitive-discursive description of any ethnic-cultural collective identity and to typify the discourse of English identity in which this hyperconcept is verbalized.