If Discourse Analysis aims at changing behaviors, or identify ways that things could be done differently, if we don't look into the mind, spirit, and conscience of the speaker, how can we make structural and profound changes? If we teach somebody to say or do A instead of B, because B is bad, it doesn't mean we have eradicated the cause of B. I think that changing a behavior is not equivalent to changing its cause.
I see DA as a powerful unveiling principle, but with no real interest for the unveiled.
How do we know the "veiled" causes, except as they are revealed to us through language? There's no way to "get at" the mind, spirit and conscience of the speaker except through an analysis of the language they use to describe it..it's all discourse in the end.
ReplyDelete