Discourse as Cultural Struggle

4. Discursive Transition in Central and Eastern Europe

4 Discursive Transition in Central and Eastern Europe Norman Fairclough This chapter is an initial contribution to an area of research I am currently embarking on: the role of discourse in processes of “transition” (i.e., from socialism to capitalism and Western forms of democratic government) in central and eastern Europe (henceforth CEE). My particular focus here is on attempts in CEE, and specifically Romania, to construct a “knowledge-based economy” (KBE) and “information society” (IS). I begin with a brief sketch of the version of Critical Discourse Analysis (henceforth CDA), which I am currently working with. I then discuss discourse as an element in processes of “transition,” and the construction of “objects of research” from research topics such as “transition,” KBE, and IS. The final part of the chapter looks in particular at the recontextualization of discourses of the KBE and IS, especially the later, in Romania. I shall analyze a specific Romanian government policy text, the “National Strategy for the promotion of the New Economy and the implementation of the Information Society” (2002). Critical Discourse Analysis I have chosen some of the main features of the version of CDA I now work with (Fairclough 2003, 2000a, 2000b; Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999; Fairclough, Jessop, and Sayer 2004), listing them for the sake of brevity: 1. Discourse is an element of all social processes, events and practices, though they are not simply discourse (Fairclough 1992). 2. The relationship between abstract social structures and concrete social events is mediated by social practices, relatively stabilized forms of social activity (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999). 3. Each of these levels has a linguistic/semiotic element: languages (social structures), orders of discourse (social practices), texts broadly understood (social events) (Fairclough, Jessop, and Sayer 2004). 50 Norman Fairclough 4. Social practices and events are constituted as articulations of dialectically related elements including discourse. These are different (and they cannot, for instance, all be reduced to discourse, as some versions of discourse theory claim) but not discrete: discourse internalizes and is internalized in other elements (Harvey 1996; Fairclough 2003). For instance, in researching any social organization, one is faced with its partly discursive character, including its constitution as an operationalization (putting into practice, “translating” into its non-discursive as well as discursive facets) of particular discourses. But this does not mean that the organization is nothing but discourse, or that it can be researched exclusively through discourse analysis — which would be highly reductive. 5. Discourse figures in three main ways in social practices: discourses (ways of representing, e.g., political discourses), genres (ways of [inter] acting, e.g., lecturing, interviewing), styles (ways of being — identities, e.g., styles of management) (Fairclough 2000a, 2000b). 6. Social practices are articulated into networks that constitute social fields, institutions, and organizations. Orders of discourse are more exactly the linguistic/semiotic facet of such networks (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999). 7. An order of discourse is a social structuring of linguistic/semiotic difference, which is constituted as a relatively stable articulation of discourses, genres, and styles (Fairclough 2003). For instance, the political order of discourse, associated with the political field as an articulation of social practices, is constituted in a particular time and place as an articulation of (conservative, liberal, social-democratic, etc.) discourses; of genres such as political debate, speech, and interview; and of styles, including different styles of political leadership. 8. Social change includes change in social structures, social practices, and social events. 9. Change in social practices affects how elements are articulated together in practices; how practices are articulated together in networks; and how discourses, genres, and styles are articulated together in orders of discourse (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999). Thus the relatively recent development of “mediatized politics” is a re-articulation of the relationship between the fields of politics and media; their reconstitution as a network, which includes a transformation of the political order of discourse; its genres (e.g., the forms of political interview), discourses (e.g., the translation of political discourses into popularized, more “conversational,” forms), and styles (political leaders adopt to a degree the “show business” styles of entertainers). 10. Social change in countries, organizations, etc. is often initiated with new discourses. This operates through a dissemination across structural and scalar boundaries which “recontextualizes” new discourses. These may be Discursive Transition in Central and Eastern Europe 51 enacted as new ways of (inter)acting including genres, inculcated as new ways of being including styles, as...