The present volume focuses on the multifarious aspects of fuzzy boundaries in the field of discourse studies, a field that is marked by complex boundary work and a great degree of fuzziness regarding theoretical frameworks, methodologies, as well as the use of linguistic categories. This volume explores the different ways in which fuzziness operates across different approaches to discourse, and, at the same time, seeks to problematize the ontological assumptions of the so-called field of discourse studies, a field of research whose existence and niche is often taken for granted as is a common point of departure in empirically observable discourse as opposed to approaches that rather view discourses as analytical constructions that guide empirical analyses.
Discourse studies is characterized by the variety of theoretical frameworks and disciplinary fields, for example, (critical) discourse theory, pragmatics, (socio)linguistics, sociology, philosophy, literary criticism, psychology, and so on and intellectual traditions (rule-based, experience-based, poststructuralist, hermeneutic, semiotic, psychoanalytical, etc.). One can also observe the fuzzy diversity of schools associated with prominent figures such as Blommaert, Fairclough, Foucault, Goffman, Grice, Gumperz, Harris, Hymes, Labov, Laclau, Lakoff, Mouffe, Schiffrin, Schourup and Wodak.
We can also observe fuzzy boundaries in terms of research methodologies and what constitutes data and corpora in discourse studies: here, we can mention intuition-based, corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches, sociolinguistic interviews, matched-guised techniques and discourse completion tasks, and the emerging importance of triangulation and approaching the data from different plausibility contexts, that is, complexity and hybridity in terms of sampling as well as analysing data.
The volume also deals with the theoretical and empirical challenges posed by the fuzzy boundaries of lexico-grammatical categories. A (proto)typical example of a linguistic category that displays many fuzzy boundaries is the functional category of discourse markers (the subject of several chapters in Part III of the volume), with an extremely heterogeneous set of source categories (interjections, adverbials, verbs, clauses, etc.) and discourse functions (ideational, interpersonal, rhetorical, textual) as well as fuzzy boundaries with other categories such as modal particles, pragmatic force modifiers, hedges, framing devices, contextualization cues, and so on. Other fuzzy categories explored in this volume include textual connectors, verbs, modal auxiliaries and (discourse) adverbs.
The chapters in Part I of the volume discuss broader theoretical issues (the study of discourse per se in Chap. 2, boundaries within and beyond discourse studies in Chap. 3), meta-research (e.g. the study of the academic peer evaluation system in Chap. 3, the evaluation of previous, non-critical approaches to graffiti in Chap. 5) as well as critical approaches (e.g. the critical study of discursive identifications in Chap. 4 and a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach to graffiti in Chap. 5).
In Chap. 2, Juan Roch argues that Critical Discourse Studies (CDS) may benefit from a sociologically informed analysis of the fuzzy boundaries between discourse and the non-discursive. After an overview of the conceptualisation of discourse and its boundaries in a variety of intellectual traditions ranging from Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory through Foucauldian approaches to discourse and postfoundationalist assumptions, he offers a three-layered approach to the study of discourse and its boundaries: (1) the level of discursive and social practices; (2) the structural level; and (3) the agential and reflexive level. Roch concludes that a fuzzy boundary approach strengthens the analytical potential of CDS in several respects: it allows one to arbitrate among different discourses, it enables the researcher to incorporate the time dimension into CDS analytical endeavours, while it also helps clarify the role and signification of agency.
In Chap. 3, Dorte Madsen discusses fuzzy boundaries within and beyond discourse studies and focusses on research that crosses epistemological boundaries, thus highlighting the impact of discourse theory and analysis beyond the field of discourse studies. Taking peer review as its point of departure as an agent of boundary work, the chapter takes a science studies perspective to discuss three specific examples of autoethnographic encounters with peer review that involve discourse theory and/or analysis in three different fields: Science Studies, Information Studies and Discourse Studies, respectively. The decision-making and dialogue with reviewers in the respective peer review processes offer context-bound and empirically grounded conceptualizations of boundary work. Madsen concludes that the notions of “research gestalt” and “epistemic communities” provide promising vistas for further empirical research into the bounding of epistemic authority. She argues that her approach allows for increased transparency into the underlying assumptions, the diverse understandings of the purposes of discourse research itself as well as boundary-crossings (i.e. moving across knowledge formations for the purpose of achieving an enlarged understanding, cf. Repko 2012) of epistemic communities.
Chapter 4, written by Katarzyna Molek-Kozakowska, explores the fuzzy discursive identifications of Polish residents in Britain following the Brexit referendum. The author operationalizes fuzziness with respect to (1) online media technologies that allow diverse voices; (2) identity positions of non-native residents (Polish migrants as European Union [EU] citizens at a destabilizing moment), that is, positions of anomie and “in-betweenness”; (3) the discursive strategies of self-presentation mobilized in the ongoing processes of identification. The study reports on the empirical analysis of 104 articles and 10 commentary threads and argues that the theoretical conceptualization and methodological operationalization of fuzziness offers a more reliable approach to discursive identification practices that often transcend classificatory grids offered by (critical) discourse frameworks.
Chapter 5, written by Carmen Aguilera-Carnerero, approaches the fuzzy boundary between verbal and non-verbal communication through the analysis of graffiti located in Granada. The complex nature of graffiti has been studied from multiple perspectives, including sociology, urban planning, criminology and art criticism, but few studies have adopted a Critical Discourse Analytical approach, which is endorsed in the chapter. After a review of the alternative definitions, origins, development, social practices and major types of graffiti, the author provides a CDA-informed analysis of a corpus of 200 graffiti located in Granada, compiled between 2017 and 2018. She concludes that, besides the fuzzy boundary between verbal and non-verbal communication, the study of graffiti also highlights boundary work across a wide range of political, social, economic, gender-oriented, and even philosophical discourses and discourse practices.
The chapters in Part II of the volume take a closer look at the fuzzy boundaries in terms of methodology and research processes. While the chapters in Part I were focussed on wider social issues and can be situated in the broader field of (critical) discourse studies, the chapters in Part II explore methodological issues and experimental techniques pertaining to the narrower field of discourse analysis.
Fuzzy boundaries can occur even in the methodology of conversation analysis, that is, in naturally occurring verbal interaction as Zsuzsanna Németh, Katalin Nagy C. and Enikő Németh T. observe in Chap. 6 of the volume. The authors argue that corpus as a data source should be complemented with further pieces of information from other data sources and the various types of data such as, for example, intuition or experiments should be integrated in the research practice. However, it is not always possible to draw clear boundaries between these sources. Presenting an extensive description of a case study on the phenomenon of repair, Németh et al. demonstrate the complex nature of corpus analysis. The authors emphasize that the researcher’s intuition not only influences corpus analysis but is inherent in all research stages and choices. They investigate the widely acknowledged types of data collections based on Kertész and Rákosi’s (2012) plausible argumentation model of scientific theorizing which suggests a unique concept of data. According to this new conception, data can be conceived of as plausible statements about certain occurrences found in a corpus. Research results have proved that the fuzzy boundaries of various data analysis techniques can be eliminated.
Written in the theoretical framework of literary discourse analysis (a field which is ...