Understanding organizational realities through discourse analysis: the case for discursive pragmatism

Abstract

Talk, and discourse in general, is becoming an important object of study in social sciences. This trend is part of the linguistic turn that currently is making its mark on social science (Alvesson & Karreman 2000a, 2000b). Among other things, the linguistic turn provides new ways of thinking about language and language use, and their relation to social reality. Thus, in various disciplines, including communications studies (Deetz 1992), feminist studies (Hollway 1987), organization theory (Boden 1994, Keenoy 1997 et al, Townley 1993), and social psychology (Potter & Wetherell 1987, Potter 1997), scholars stress the importance of what has been labeled “the level of talk” (Alvesson & Karreman 2000a, 2011a) for an adequate understanding of social processes. Indeed, organizational discourse analysis (ODA) has become one of the most important approaches towards understanding organizational phenomena (Alvesson & Karreman 2011a, Hardy & Grant 2012) It has also ignited debate and even controversy (Alvesson & Karreman 2011a, 2011b, 2013, BargielaChiappini 2011, Iedema 2011, Mumby 2011, Hardy & Grant 2012).