Discourse

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

Sara Mills (Sheffield Hallam University)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Report an Error

Resources

Discourse is a term which is used in many theoretical discussions in literary studies and the social sciences, but which is unfortunately often not explicitly defined. The term is sometimes used as a gesture towards theoretical sophistication as it seems to be a term which occurs in many theoretical discussions. Since there are several definitions of the term, it is important to try to analyse which meaning of the term is being used. In both English and French there are general definitions of the term which mean “to speak about” or “to hold forth on” a topic (e.g. “He gave a discourse on the subject of Greek philosophy”). This differs markedly from the more theoretical definitions of the term: these can be divided into two main domains: of linguistics and French literary…

1921 words

Citation: Mills, Sara. "Discourse". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 March 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1261, accessed 19 March 2024.]

1261 Discourse 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.