COMU1000

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• COMU1000
• Introduction to Communication
• and Cultural Studies
• Richard Fitzgerald
•  
• Discourse and Social Institutions.
•        What is Discourse?
•         What are Institutions?
•  
•         What is Institutional Discourse?
•  
•         How does it work?
• What does it do?
• How does it do it?
•  

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So What is Discourse? not an easy term to get
to grips with, partly because it is used
differently in different subject areas. However
there are Two Broad (overlapping) ways of
conceiving discourse
1. The Analysis of Discourse (language) primarily
concerned with examining the discursive
construction of text, spoken and written
2. The Analysis of the Discourse of Institutions
Primarily concerned with tracing the
institutional discourse (discourses) and the way
they organize, constrain, legitimate and promote
the institution.
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In linguistics the term Discourse is commonly
used to refer to an utterance larger than a
single sentence
In Communication, analysis of Discourse examines
the verbal and non-verbal rules and conventions
that are used, as well as the context in which
the interaction takes place, the content of the
utterances etc. i.e., it is primarily an
analysis of spoken LANGUAGE as TEXT
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DISCOURSE ANALYSIS LANGUAGE
Discourse actual instances of communication in
the medium of language Examines aspects of the
structure and function of language in use
Discourse Analysis goes beyond examining
language as structure to explore use,
construction, purpose, formation, action
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• How Discourse is shaped by the world and shapes
  the world (interpretation)
• How Discourse is shaped by language and shapes
  language (we can only say what is already said)
• How Discourse is shaped by participants and
  shapes participants
• (identity and recipient design)
• How discourse is shaped by prior discourse and
  shapes the possibilities of future discourse
• (lectures look and sound like this)
• How Discourse is shaped by the medium and
  shapes the medium
• (How discourse is presented in texts reflects
  media used)
• How Discourse is shaped by purpose and purpose
  shapes discourse.
• (who says what and why, to what end?)

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• The discourse of Institutions (Foucault)
• concerned with the meanings of language codes,

• focus is primarily on the power relationships
  embodied in those codes.

• they are always subject to the historical and
  social context of the time and prevailing power
  relationships and conflicts,

• each discourse contains a limited range of
  possible statements, by that very limitation
  defining what it is possible and not possible to
  say.

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Cont.
Some discourses are considered more legitimate
than others,
There are the discourses of radio and television
news, the discourses of medicine, science,
academia, family etc.
Discourses are ways of speaking/writing and
operate according to rules, and these rules
articulate with socio-historical arrangements and
circumstances (Cuff, et al. 261)
There is a constant ideological struggle between
discourses for example, the discourse of
free-market capitalism is now dominant,
hegemonic, whereas the discourse of Marxism is
defined as irrelevant
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Thus
Discourse is a language or system of
representation that has developed socially in
order to make and circulate a coherent set of
meanings about a topic area. These meanings
serve the interests of that section of society
within which the discourse originates and which
works ideologically to naturalize those meanings
into, as encountered as, common sense. ....
Discourse is thus a social act which may promote
or oppose the dominant ideology, and is thus
often referred to as a 'discursive practice'. In
this approach any account of a discourse or
discursive practice must include its topic area,
its social origin and its ideological work
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        The Discourse of Institutions
medical discourse, family discourse,
political discourse, media discourse.
  It is the particular mode of textuality of an
institution. I.e., It is the set of textual
arrangements which work to organize and
co-ordinate the actions, positions and identities
of the people who inhabit them (Thwaites et al)
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i.e., the institution characterizes the way we
talk, the language we use and expectations we
have concerning the language, talk or text we see
or hear within a given context/ institution  
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So, What is an Institution?   A relatively stable
set of social arrangements and relationships,
which provides a structure of roles,
relationships and functions for those who inhabit
it. (Talcott Parsons, 1937) 1) Adaption -
organize and mobilize action for
resources Environment
2) Goal Attainment - having things to do and
being successful in fulfilment of those goals.
Within and between institutions.
3) Pattern Maintenance and tension management
Loyalty, motivation, RR - stress management
4) Integration - Regulated relations between
individuals and sub groups
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2 conditions of survival for institutions
(units)   1) Effectively relate to its
environment (institutions around it, useful to
others, within relations of Power. Truth, etc)
2) Must be able to maintain internal integrity.
Distinct from other institutions through
practice, convention, knowledge.
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• Characteristics of an institution are.
•  Roles for those who participate in it
• (functions of address) husband/wife

•  Power relations carried in those roles
• (you do the washing up)

•  Familiar and routine topics
• (washing up, child care, sex, money, purchases,
  holidays mother in laws, staying out late)

•  Hierarchy of roles
• (I earn the most money so Im the head of the
  household)

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• So, What is institutional discourse?
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• The ways of doing stuff within a bounded context
  or organisation.

• We are able to move from context to context,
  adjusting our behavior according to our
  environment.

• The environment we are in is one full of routine
  ways of doing things that make sense in context.

• Ways of talking at home and ways of talking at
  work, or at university are different.

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• An institutional discourse is the sum of those
  familiar ways of doing things, the sum of
  expectations and appropriate practices of the
  institution.
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•        Each has a different set of practices
•         Each has a distinctive discourse.

Each has power relations within it.
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Institutional Power (1) relations are exercised
through discourse.   We self regulate, exercise
power through legitimate, accepted unconscious
micro-capillary, or bio, power.
The Discourse shapes, maintains and embodies the
institution.   how do we know it is a medical
drama?not only the props but the language and
texts of Hospital, or police doing arresting,
investigating. Order in Court (Humor often
works by changing the discourse for comic effect.)
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Each Institution produces and controls appropria
te discourse   to analyse the construction of
identity through..
..appropriate topics   semiotics, identity,
everyday life
..appropriate communication channels
  journals, books, lectures, essays, reviews
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• Institutional Discourse is thus  
• the characteristic ways of interacting within a
  particular institution and through which
  institutions are construct and identified.
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• There are..
•         Rules of interaction,
•   what can be said, by whom, when and to whom.
  Institutions structure the interactional
  relationships between members within the
  institution.

•         Institutions consist of a number of
  social identities,
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• student, researcher, lecturer, writer, tutor,
  supervisor, secretary

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• There is Hierarchy within institutions
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• Who can/should tell whom to do what and in what
  way.

Institutional discourse thus entails specialist
knowledge, controlled and policed, in the sense
that one must know the discourse and be seen to
be part of the institution (embody, felicitous
conditions).
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Power/knowledge. Institutional discourse
gives the ability to define or construct an
object, control that object, and mediate it for
others. What is news? - Media Discourse
What is multiple personality disorder -
Medical Discourse, How to get an extension for
your essay- Choose either. Family?
Medical? Work? What is a good
education? Education discourse
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Institutions are not self enclosed but interact
with each other. Institutions have a purpose and
so must interact with other institutions whilst
maintaining their coherence and structure.
Boundary Maintenance (adaptation)  Within
institutions members may push the boundaries of
their institutional identity the child refusing
to wash, the wife/husband flirting with the
post-man, the husband doing the shopping, the
student not wearing their regulation hat,
  Loafing, whistleblowing, maverick cops,
leaving early, starting early
These play out within the institution as boundary
maintenance keeping the institution adapting,
evolving and surviving through testing,
challenging and innovation.
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The inside and outside of institutional
discourse Institutional Discourse is both
outside, what we see, the institutional product,
- YOU and RESEARCH - and inside, what we dont
see, how the institution produces what it does.
Administration and organisation
Inside the institution. How did this course get
to be here? What had to happen in order for all
the bits to come together idea, proposal,
acceptance, planning, resources, adaptation, and
execution, and constant maintenance and evolution.
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Thus.   Institutions are not simply groups of
people who live or work together, interacting
according to the rules and conventions they also
include all the texts and genres through which
interactions take place and whereby the rules and
conventions are written down or recorded in some
way.
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Institutional practice as institutional
discourse         Within any institution,
institutional identities confer ways of
appropriate behavior and also how to get things
done. So not only do we learn how to act and
speak and interact according to the context we
are in but also how to move information about.
How to make requests, get promotion, submit
assignments, get the resources we need, provide
information.     
Moreover, each context or institution requires
its own set of interactional practices and
conventions. Particular institutions goals and
practices may have similarities and
familiarities with other institutions
(commercial child care and family, Health and
advertising health products), some institutions
remain distinct in their discourse and practice
(religion and science).
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      Some, of course, interpenetrate to such an
extent as to challenge other institutions and
their discourse. From the hallowed halls of
quiet contemplation and study, where financial
matters are relegated to paying the staff bar
tab. Where students and lecturers engage in
thoughtful debate and academic pursuits. To one
of output, customers, league tables, profit,
graduate attributes, what kind of job can I get?
outcomes.

• Marketing discourse in Higher Education.
•   Evaluation
•     Productivity
•      Customers
•      Output
•      Image
•      Advertising
• Marketing

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All institutions interact with others All
institutions engage in power relations with other
institutions as they struggle for legitimacy
(Foucault the rise of Psychiatry and the birth
of the clinic), resources, (money, raw materials
students,) and power (more important than other
institutions) (University, Sandstone, Regional,
and TAFE, GO8).
Institutions are Greedy. They are driven to
expand and secure resources for itself. The
institution becomes an object with the subjects
(people in the institutions) merely roles
rather than individuals (Webers iron cage of
bureaucracy)
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Institutions then create a de-centering of the
subject. (Or the subject as a particular
institutional object). The way of talking and
acting, of discourse, sets up a particular
position of addresser and addressee No longer
are you people within an education environment
here to develop yourself and expand your mind in
preparation for life. Higher education as
business we sell Higher Education, which means
you are positioned/constructed addressed as
customer, consumers, you are here for a service,
a service that is paid for and can be measured by
output,

• Employability,
• Graduate attributes
• Evaluation of methods (teaching).
• Rating of institutions.
• And of course the customer must want the product

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The discourse of recruitment in higher
education. UQ adverts job, students both
adverts (media discourse) yet constructed in
different ways and placed in different
locations. Discourses from the institution
Note how they are constructed, (pictures, text,
layout etc) and where they would be found
glossy magazine, promotional output. As opposed
to (logo, text, formal language, layout) found in
jobs pages, sections of the web for
recruitment.) Same institution but constructing
the addressee differently, both are adverts and
so both involve mediation.
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Summary Discourse, Discourse analysis
language Analysis of institutional discourse