The following review is focused on the work of Eni P. Orlandi (2003), entitled Discourse Analysis in its different intellectual traditions: Brazil. The work discusses all those relevant issues, according to the author, that relate discourse analysis to the intellectual traditions rooted in Brazil, based on the French discursive thought of Michel Pêcheux. This thought places discourse as a space for observation of this relationship among subject, language, and ideology. These ideas are linked to the ideas of other authors associated with this theme and are also presented in this review. At the end, personal observations on the impact of discourse within the context of academic and research practice in Brazil follow.
Brazil is one of the countries where studies in the field of Discourse Analysis (DA) are most developed, specifically in the approach affiliated with the works of Michel Pêcheux. The presence, in Brazil, of Discourse Analysis of Pecheut’s inspiration has been constant since the end of the 1970s and has been widely disseminated with important bibliographic production and incessant production of academic works at higher education (Piovezani & Sargentini, 2011). However, Orlandi (2003) argues that the French “School” of current discourse analysis does not coincide with the analysts who currently institutionalize the practice of what they call Discourse Analysis. At the same time, there are other analysts and researchers who have no theoretical affiliation with French AD, although they have been affected by this affiliation. Therefore, the aforementioned author calls for an updated conceptualization of what this discursive school is, nowadays, in Brazil.
With regard to discourse, the reflection developed by Orlandi (2003, 2009) on discursive functioning explores and describes a corpus of diverse and heterogeneous nature. Language is a social fact, mentions the author, and attributes power of speech and knowledge. In this way, the discursive functioning is to think about the discourse according to a historical-social perspective, in a relationship that goes beyond language and speech. Machado (2012) states that it starts from the idea of discourse as a more global semantic vision of the effects of meaning in the light of dialogizing.
The discursive approach, the object of Semantics, exceeds the limits of linguistics; that is, “the relationship between the meanings of a text and its socio-historical conditions is constitutive of the meanings within themselves” (Orlandi, 2003, p.8). Consequently, language does not present itself only as an expansion from the didactic point of view, but as a process of reflection that questions theories and contradictory relationships within the field of their experience. We think of language as a fact and signify what is social, linking language and exteriority, language and ideology, and ideology and the unconscious.
Part of studying discursive functioning is understanding what ideology is. The representation gives visibility to the functioning mechanism of the ideology and the subject. Definitely, the conjunction between language and history can only be given by the action of ideology (Orlandi, 2009). The author argues that thinking about ideology from the perspective of language can lead us to understand it differently, not only sociologically. Orlandi points out that ideology is treated as a structuring mechanism of the process of meaning, therefore, this’ occultation’ within a definition of content is abandoned. It is not the concealment of reality, but a structuring organism of the process of meaning. In consequence, we can conclude that ideology is inseparably linked to interpretation as a fundamental fact that assists the relationship between history and language, insofar as it is articulated to the definition of what is exhibited as a material form.
All the aforementioned discussion leads us to reflect on the complexity, importance, and relevance of discourse as an object of investigation. It is necessary to redefine, through the various sciences, in the academia, the broad historical – social context of any country, allowing a better understanding of the social networks that develop in certain communities. The redefinition of what is political, ideological, historical, and social is important, making language intervene. In the case of language, it is essential to remember the need to rethink the relationship between semantics and lexicon, morphosyntactic aspects, syntax, etc. Furthermore, for sciences such as psychoanalysis, the notion of discourse raises questions that question the role of the subject in the world. Definitely, it is necessary to have other instruments to understand the discursive ideology which requires theoretical re-significations, discoveries, and changes. A work that deserves to be continued by researchers in the current era.
References
- MACHADO, R. P. B. (2012). O discurso parodístico: da constituição à comunicação. Signum: Estudos da Linguagem, 15(3), 247-271.
- ORLANDI, E. P. (2003). A Análise de Discurso em suas diferentes tradições intelectuais: o Brasil. Seminário de Estudos em Análise de Discurso, 1, 8-18.
- ORLANDI, E. P. (2009). Análise de discurso: princípios e procedimentos. In Análise de discurso: princípios e procedimentos. Pontes.
- PIOVEZANI, C., & SARGENTINI, V. (2011). Legados de Michel Pêcheux e paradoxos da Análise do discurso no Brasil. Legados de Michel Pêcheux: inéditos em análise do discurso. São Paulo: Contexto.
