Discourse and Discrimination

Discourse and Discrimination by Martin Reisigl and Ruth Wodak is an excellent account of discrimination strategies in modern time, and the methodologies to fight against it. The whole book is on a grand belief and commitment that ideologies and attitudes in modern life are not to be looked upon as neutral and natural processes and that there is a need to intervene in the favour of what is ‘good’ work against what is ‘bad’. This is mostly what has been argued by Habermas and other philosophers and sociologists who cannot prescribe and succumb to a so called value free scepticism. The idea of deliberative democracy and the role of moralities in keeping a modern lifestyle from rolling into the dangerous relativism is pre-established in theory and practice of this book.

The book is a discourse analytical approach to the phenomenon of discrimination in modern Austria and the practical projects of the book look at Xenophobia, anti-Semitism as two current discriminatory discourses.

The first chapter of the book is a very rich analysis of definitions, approaches and methodologies towards analysis of racism and anti-Semitism and reviews approaches from micro psychoanalytical approaches to macro socio-political ones. In review of approaches towards analytical framework to study discrimination, socio-cognitive approach of Van Dijk, micro discoursal of Uta Quasthoff, collective symbols of Seigfried and Margret Jager and Duisburg Group and socio-psychologist approach of Watherell and Potter in Loughborough group are mentioned and discussed.

The discourse-historical approach which is developed by Ruth Wodak and some of her colleagues seem to take a lot from these approaches. This approach is mostly an elective approach to delimit itself from too much of Micro-ism and Macro-ism at the same time and stick to the problems and the contextual and historical information pertaining to the problem under investigation. Chapter two is a detailed analysis of what such a comprehensive, contextual, discoursal, and socially committed approach entails and what categories can be classified as potential tools.

There are three comprehensive studies following in the next chapters with huge discursive analysis of a lot of data and linguistic analysis. One is on covert anti-Semitism in every day discourses, next on media political discourses of xenophobia and the last one on the institutionalized discrimination against so called foreigners in regards to the residence permits. These three are perfect examples of the type of studies that CDA can take on in investigating the issues by employing the provision of huge historical/social accounts of events and sequences as its macro level account and resorting to heavy linguistic analytical account of the data as the micro level with a clear commitment to social justice activism to support and defend the sufferers in order to facilitate political activism and awareness against sources of such discriminations.

The last chapter of the book is to account for the philosophical basis of such an approach and how CDA is an essential part of an egalitarian democracy. This chapter is heavily indebted to the ideas of Habermas and Benhabib and the notion of deliberative democracy which propagates the facilitation of an apparatus of discursive interaction on controversial issues by bringing about tools to define political decision making not merely as a technical process but rather as a transparent interaction of different levels of public who are involved in it. The last part of the chapter is a review of what actual outcome of such a CDA analysis can be in connection to changing the power equations in action. What these three studies seem to have achieved beyond a merely academic analysis of an issue is remarkable and can be an example to show how academic endeavour and social activism can intersect.

Last chapter of the book and what I am now reading on Habermas reminds me of my perception of the role of CDA in a modern society which I talked about in last pages of my MA dissertation about 6 years ago. In my more or less crude notion of an egalitarian and emancipatory democracy I had realized that such a system needs to equip itself with an apparatus of siren ringing when hegemonic –and seemingly logical and natural- directions of discourses and social ideologies could easily start to make some groups of the society fall prey to discriminatory practices. This can extend from every day discriminations in social interactions to the most despicable atrocities that humans have been convinced to do-not in very long time ago.

A modern democracy per se is just an automatic consensus formation system which cannot necessarily look into itself critically to refrain from going wholesomely in the direction of committing a collective crime. Thus, CDA is an essential element of an ethical democracy, a force which weighs the dominated side of the scale heavier when some humanistic value is endangered.

Yes, CDA is partisan, subjective, holistic and of course critical and that is exactly why it is the open eye of the society in which automatic mass production of ideologies in a market oriented culture is potentially prone to sell some evil practice to a public who is politically drowsy with media and entertainment.