SA 100W Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Alan Sears, Naimans

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Sociology and Anthropology
• Course: SA 100W
• Professor: John Bogardus

Document Summary

Whenever we are exchanging online comments, composing one of the required assignments on our computer, or quietly relecting on an article or a video, we are involved in a discourse. In its simplest and broadest sense, a discourse can be understood to be the way we identify and represent (or re-present) our ideas and feelings. Discourse provides us with the means to communicate with others and with ourselves. Stuart hall, a jamaican-born sociologist, helps to deepen our understanding of the elements, purpose, practice and the limitations of discourses. He begins with a concise deinition of discourse which also hints at its problematic nature: A discourse is a group of statements which provides a language for talking about i. e. , a way of representing a particular kind of knowledge about a topic. When statements about a topic are made within a particular discourse, the discourse makes it possible to construct the topic in a certain way (1996b, p. 201).