Swirl of words: discourse analysis, unconsciousness, reality and otherness

Abstract

The article revisits certain of the original concepts of French Discourse Analysis (FDA) and discusses some of the reformulations these concepts have undergone. Thus, the article focuses on a number of theoretical threads which have brought together discourse analysis, materialism and psychoanalysis, by reexamining them vis a vis the concepts of unconsciousness, reality and discourse. The work focuses on some of FDA’s epistemological paths and revisits certain notions put forward by M. Pêcheux, which are still being used in a number of areas within FDA, as well as others which no longer match the author’s original ideas. Finally, the article claims that, at present, FDA is the result of two contrasting epistemological evolutions. On the one hand, there is a trend which privileges linguistic analysis detached from history (the so-called internalist movement); on the other hand, there is another trend which sees discourse analysis as an extension of speech sociology, thus disregarding language itself and establishing interaction as a whole as its object of analysis (the so-called externalist movement). This picture points to the fact that as FDA loses its Marxist traits, it is being ‘dematerialized; by the same token, as it loses sight of unconsciousness, it also loses interest and risk.